OCTAVIUS GRIMOIRE

There he lay, fragile on the sick bed, waiting for the angel of death to take his pitiful life away. His wife sat by his side staring into the air. He broke the silence when he spoke.

"Has he come?" Hanbity asked as he struggled to speak

"No one is coming for you my love, you're not going to die," Octavius said raising his weak hands and giving him a light kiss on his palms. She stared into his eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks. To him, she had already given up on him but to her, his life was just beginning. She wouldn't and couldn't let her husband die.

Octavius was a powerful witch, the last of her kind. For the first time, she had never seen a disease that was so strong and hard to cure. She couldn't even do anything to help with the powers she had. But for every circumstance, there are always loopholes, and she was determined to find one.

She went through the grimoires of her late mother searching for something, anything and there the answer laid; the tonic that will end all deaths, the solution to her problem and the cure to her husband's illness. She couldn't believe her eyes. In it was also how to reverse the spell. While she read she came across a phrase which was written in Latin. It said;

"servare vivere est ad vitam"

"To save a life is to take a life" Octavius read aloud. Everything comes with a price. This phrase broke her heart to pieces. She looked at her infant daughter in a cradle as tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them off quickly and went to meet her dying husband.

"I've found a cure" she uttered sadly trying to control her tears.

"Why do you sound like that?" Hanbity asked confused

"It involves a sacrifice" Octavius responded ashamed. She had refused to look her husband in the eye whilst she spoke.

"Octavius look at me" Hanbity ordered frailly. She was reluctant. She whined on and on about the sacrifice but Hanbity just laid there helpless until he called out her name. She was in shock because since Hanbity's illness got severe, he had never used any pitch higher than a whisper.

"My life is gone, spare whomever's life you intend to take" Hanbity insisted, holding his wife's hands.

"When I'm gone you'll tell our daughter nice things about me," Hanbity said as he looked up to the ceiling, rubbing his wife's hands with his thumb.

"And what do you want me to tell her Han, that her father gave up on her, gave up on me, gave up on us?" Octavius retorted in tears staring into the eyes of her husband.

"Tell me Octavius, who's giving up their life for me?" Hanbity asked. Octavius was hesitant to speak. There was a brief silence.

"I can't bear the pain of losing you......but I can bear the pain of losing her"

"Octavius....."

"I'm sorry my love, but there's no turning back" Octavius replied standing up from the bed she took off. She locked the door behind her and went in search of the ingredients she needed to complete the spell.

Quite lucky she was, hours later, she had returned with the ingredients. She ground them in a bowl. Then went to her daughter's room. She looked her daughter in the eyes as she giggled and waved her tiny fingers at her mother. Octavius couldn't bring herself to kill her only child but her husband wasn't getting any healthier so she looked away and started mumbling some chants. The baby began crying. Hanbity heard the cry of his daughter and called out to Octavius, but nothing was going to stop her from killing their daughter.

Suddenly the cry stopped. Their daughter was dead. Octavius cut her dead daughter's left hand and took some blood from it mixing it in the bowl that contained what she had just ground and immediately it liquidised. She stormed off to her husband's room. He was almost lifeless. She hurriedly gave him the tonic. He drank it all and then passed out.

Hours later he had awoken with his head on the lap of his wife. She was singing to him. He was a bit weak still trying to regain consciousness. As soon as he was himself again, he hurriedly got up from Octavius' lap and stood at the other side of the bed.

"Where's our daughter?" He asked rather frank than happy.

"I had no other choice Han" Octavius retorted

"My life or our daughters should have never been an option!"

"It was to me......I could never lose you"

"Octavius!" Hanbity yelled in shock at his unremorseful wife's reply.

Octavius stood up from the bed and went to her husband. She held his face and stared into his eyes.

"Look at me Han, I love you. My love for you has no limits. I have no regrets. None." Octavius professed with zero tears in her eyes. Hanbity pulled his face out of her hands out of disgust. He walked out on her and she chased after him, calling out his name. He refused to look back. That was when she tripped over a lamp and it shattered into pieces. One of the broken glass had pierced her feet. She called out to Hanbity for help and he came rushing down.

He stared at the blood and so many thoughts ran through his head. Hanbity, Hanbity, Hanbity, Octavius called out but it was as though he wasn't physically there. It was the fourth call that jerked him back to reality. He pulled the glass out and Octavius cried out. Even though he was pissed at his wife he took her back to the house and treated the wound. Hanbity stayed in the babies room leaving Octavius all alone. He couldn't sleep. He was completely restless. He could hear noises from miles away. The beating of his heart, the sobbing of his injured wife, even the drips of water as it fell to the ground. He could hear them all. He was so dumbfounded. He felt this hunger that he has never before felt. He went to the kitchen to feed his starving stomach but it wasn't helping matters.

He passed by his and his wife's room and he sighted her wounded leg. He was intrigued by that sight. He went over there and untied the cloth he used in tying her leg. There was still little blood clot left on her feet so he grabbed her legs and licked them off. He felt wonderful, fulfilled, but it wasn't satiable. So he left the house for a bar where they were a lot of drunk people. A young lady by the counter asked him what he would like to have. He held up her hand caressing it wonderfully well. She looked at him and suggested they go to the back of the bar. Hanbity left the bar and did as he was told and waited for the lady. As soon as she came out, Hanbity quickly grabbed her by the neck. He forcefully leaned her against the walls of the bar and brought out his fangs. The lady screams and immediately, he sinks his teeth right into her neck. He sucked her dry leaving her for dead. Still, he wasn't satisfied. He went back into the bar, stood on top of the counter, carried a shot glass and banged it on the floor. The noise attracted everybody. They looked up at him and saw blood on his mouth area. They became shocked mad afraid, though some who were completely drunk just laughed at the man.

"I don't know what's wrong with me, I don't know what I am. But I am very very very hungry and just a number of you will suffice" Hanbity said with a sinister smile then he jumped off the counter and began penetrating his fangs into their necks. Not all were lucky enough to escape Hanbity's speed. He sunk in his teeth into the necks of many. Some he left for dead while some he killed with his hands. When he was done he left the bar staggering back home. Octavius was up early. She noticed him come in with blood on his hands and face.

"And where are you coming from?" She asked quite concerned. Meanwhile, he just looked past her and walked away. Octavius was worried about her and her husband's relationship but more about why Hanbity came back looking like a serial killer. She knew her husband wasn't capable of killing a soul so could it be that he was fighting off a robber?

The next morning came. She had gone to the market to get some more foodstuff for the house when she overheard two women gossiping about what had happened in a bar from across the streets. One of the mentioned that there were many lives lost in the bar and that it was only one unarmed man that caused such havoc. Immediately she rushed home going to confront her husband.

"It was you wasn't it?" Octavius asked

"You're in no place to judge me after you just took the life of our only daughter" Hanbity retorted as he dressed up.

"I did it to save you, to save us!" Octavius cried out

"For God's sake it's enough, there is no us Octavius!" Hanbity yelled adjusting his clothes.

"Just like those people in the bar. There is no them because of you! What are you, Han?" Octavius asked concerned. She walked closer to him and grabbed his face with her smallish hands. She looked him in the eyes with tears in her eyes and asked;

"Who are you, my love?"

Already angry, he grabbed Octavius' hands and threw them away from his face. He grabbed her by the neck and forcefully leaned her to the wall. As he was about to sink his teeth into her neck, she brought him down to his knees with a spell she began mumbling. As she chanted the spell more and more blood began coming out of his eyes, nose and mouth.

"So is this what you want! To lose me after you just got me!" Hanbity asked as he struggled to talk with the blood coming out of his mouth.

" This is not the Hanbity that I love" Octavius retorted. She quickly went to the baby's room to get her mother's grimoire so she could reverse the spell. Before she could start the spell, Hanbity overcame her magic that held him down and went after Octavius. He pushed her to the ground and got hold of her mother's grimoire. She got up from the floor and started the spell. This action weakened them both. But Hanbity was strong. He tried overcoming her powers as he held the grimoire close to his chest. He found the strength to get up on his feet. As Octavius kept on chanting he got closer to her, but she wouldn't give in. As he got closer and closer, the grimoire left his hands and up in the air it went. It was separated into four parts. Hanbity watched what was going on in the air. One part of the grimoire suddenly disappeared as did the rest consecutively. Hanbity quickly realized that she wasn't performing the spell to fix him. So he quickly shoved his hands into the heart of his wife. The whole spell stopped as the last part of the grimoire stood still in the air. She looked at her husband's hands in her heart with tears in her eyes then looked at him.

"Sit quaerere incipere"

Octavius said which meant "let the search begin". As soon as she uttered those words the last part of the grimoire disappeared and her heart was out. She fell to the ground dead with her eyes opened.

Months later people knew of the name Hanbity. The monster with no compassion. And thanks to his wife Octavius, they knew about her grimoire and the spell which could make Hanbity mortal again. Hanbity could no longer live in his marital home knowing that people could come for him if they had found the grimoire, so he set out to join the hunt. Years passed and no one had found even a part of the grimoire. But Hanbity still lived in fear far away from civilization. With him was the heart of his dead wife, the body of his dead daughter and some of his wife's ancestral grimoires. Soon Hanbity became a myth. His name wore off on the sands of time, never to be spoken of, seen or heard before.