Fredozy
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Chapter 76: Julius collapse
🕑 Added 2025-09-01 12:46:44 +0000 UTCWe had found the girl.
She was rolling with the exact people the boss had described for us well, maybe except one. That thought kept running through Travis’s head as he stood across the street, staring at the apartment building in front of him. Inside, right now, was Kady. The one the boss had told them to watch. The one tangled up with a bunch of lunatics who, wait for it… were trying to summon a fucking god.
‘As if that wasn’t fucked up on every possible level. Now there are gods in the mix too?’
Travis exhaled slowly, his arms folded as he leaned against a rusted lamp post. They’d been watching Kady for over a month now. Watching and waiting. All while the boss had vanished into god-knows-where. Julius, the ever-optimistic bastard, had actually been happy about it. Thought maybe the boss was dead, thought maybe they were finally free. He had even tried to walk away once. That didn’t end well for him.
The memory still burned in Travis’s mind as Julius collapsed, writhing on the ground in sheer agony. His screams had ripped through the air and the sound was so raw it had made Travis’s fangs ache. Julius had thrashed like an animal on fire, biting down so hard he shredded his own tongue. They’d all realized then that the boss must have compelled them in ways none of them had fully understood or fucking remembered. There was no freedom, no escape and no “funny ideas.” Any attempt and you’d be rolling on the floor like Julius. Screaming yourself hoarse while begging for death.
And the worst part? The compulsion made it clear they couldn’t even want to leave anymore.
Now, as Travis observed the apartment, his ears twitched. He then focused in, letting his vampiric hearing stretch across the street and into the walls. There was the sound of celebration spilling out, clinking glasses, drunken laughter, voices thick with anticipation.
“Now we have most of what we need to perform the miracle,” Richard’s voice rang out with triumph.
Then Anya or whatever her name was chimed in, “The ritual must be exact or the goddess will not answer.”
Menolly’s voice followed, “The main ingredient for the invocation is our faith. That is what will feed the spell, what will make the impossible possible. Without it, the deity cannot pass through.”
And then Kady herself spoke with trembling voice. “ If this works, everything changes. No more waiting. No more begging scraps of power. We’ll have divinity on our side.”
Travis grimaced. Fucking lunatics. Summoning something that powerful? How twisted in the head do you have to be to even want that? He muttered under his breath, “And what if your god doesn’t like your bloody little request, huh? What then?”
He sighed. “Where the fuck are you, boss, when we actually need you?”
Almost on cue, his phone buzzed. Travis pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and groaned. Larry.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?” Larry’s voice was tight and rushed.
“I’m watching the girl,” Travis replied, eyes still fixed on the apartment.
“What’s the progress?”
Travis snorted. “Progress? They’re drowning in booze and anticipation right now.”
Larry’s tone became sharpened. “How close are they to the summoning?”
Travis rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Very close. They got the invocation last night.”
Silence stretched across the line. Then Larry muttered, “Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Travis agreed with his lips curling into a bitter grin. “Hey, wouldn’t it be better to just, you know…” He shrugged even though Larry couldn’t see him. “…kill them all?”
The line went silent. Travis chuckled dryly. “Can’t summon a god when you’re dead, am I right?”
Larry finally sighed, long and heavy. “You idiot. You realize there are a few problems with that, right? First, they’re more experienced than you in wielding magic. If you tried, they’d make you wish you could die and that’s if they don’t have a spell that actually kills you outright. Which they probably do. Second, touch the girl, and the boss would make death look like a vacation compared to what he’d do to you. And third, we can’t kill them even if we wanted to. Not with the boss’s compulsion hanging over us. Or did you forget that?”
Travis cursed under his breath. “…Shit.”
“Yeah. Now listen up the real reason I called. You need to get back here. Now.”
Something in Larry’s voice snapped Travis to attention. His voice sounded with a strange urgency.
“What’s wrong?”
“Julius collapsed.”
Travis rolled his eyes. “What, did he try to go against the compulsion again?”
“No,” Larry said sharply. “He just collapsed out of nowhere.”
There was a pause then Larry added, “This might actually be a magica attack. Or something worse. Either way, get your ass back here. Now.”
The line went dead.
Travis exhaled, long and weary, still staring at the glowing apartment windows. “What the hell…” he muttered, before blurring into motion, vamp-speeding away from the street.
—
The internal part of the warehouse had changed. It now looked more like a twisted version of a living space. There were beds lined up in one corner, a fridge buzzed quietly in the other with its shelves stocked with blood bags and some food.
But the mood inside was anything but comfortable.
Devan was pacing furiously, his boots thudding against the cracked floor as his eyes darted toward Julius, his body was sprawled motionless on the ground.
Something had happened earlier that day. And none of them had a fucking clue what it was. Julius had been bitching earlier, same as always about the boss running them ragged with errands, about how he’d disappeared on them, about how they were nothing more than slaves now. Then, mid-rant, he’d just… gone down. Collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
And now he wasn’t moving and it’s been hours.
For vampires, that was not normal. They could heal from almost anything save for fire or having their heart ripped out. They weren’t supposed to stay broken. And yet Julius lay there, pale and still.
And for the first time in a long time… panic began to set in.
