Still in bat form, Lars glided into the old theater and landed in the dimly lit auditorium.
The moment he touched the floor, he immediately returned to his true form.
He had followed the trail of green smoke across Vrenford and then for several more miles until it finally led him to a large abandoned theater on the outskirts of London.
And yet, despite the chaos of traffic and nightlife outside the building, a dead silence reigned inside, broken only by a faint, steady creaking.
"So this is the place you chose for our showdown, huh? Quite the atmosphere."
In front of him, at the center of the stage, a creaking rocking chair swayed back and forth with a porcelain doll resting in it.
It resembled a little girl with copper-colored hair tied into two side braids, bright red lipstick, and a long white dress.
Behind the rocking chair rose a massive wall of glass display cases, stacked one on top of another all the way to the ceiling.
Inside each one was a doll.
Suddenly, the rocking chair came to a stop, and the doll slowly rose into the air, floating about six feet above the floor.
"I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to follow me all the way here," the Doll Demon said.
Its deep, ominous voice seemed to come directly from the porcelain doll. And yet, the painted lips on its face remained perfectly still.
"And I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to let me follow you."
The theater’s wooden walls began to shake as if an earthquake had struck, while the glass display cases rattled more and more violently.
"Enjoy your last few minutes as Demon Lord, you damned vampire! I’ll be the one — me and no one else — to rule this world!"
The hundreds of glass cases shattered all at once, sending a rain of shards crashing down across the stage and auditorium.
"Go, my servants! Kill the Blood Demon!"
The puppets leaped out of their cases and poured onto the stage.
They were all perfectly identical — small wooden soldiers resembling nutcrackers, dressed in old-fashioned uniforms with tall cylindrical hats and long white hair.
Some carried small rifles fitted with bayonets, while others wielded slender swords.
The ones armed with swords leaped down from the stage and charged Lars head-on in perfect formation.
The others raised their rifles and formed two rows, ready to fire.
But they didn’t have time.
Before they could pull the triggers, Lars raised one hand toward the sky. The snap of his fingers was followed by a crack of thunder.
An instant later, a bolt of lightning tore through the ceiling and struck the platoon with a deafening boom.
All that remained of the rifle-armed soldiers were smoking splinters scattered throughout the theater.
In their place, a large crater gaped open in the floor.
The smoke rising from the remains of the riflemen, however, wasn’t the usual gray. It was green, just like the smoke released by the doll Lars had destroyed in the bedroom.
And just like before, it didn’t disperse into the air. Instead, it gathered near the ceiling into a small cloud of green vapor.
The sword-wielding infantry kept marching relentlessly toward Lars.
And yet, he didn’t lift a finger to defend himself.
The rats did it for him.
Thousands of them swarmed out of the crater left by the lightning strike and from every corner of the theater.
The squealing gray tide crashed into the puppet army from every side, swallowing it whole.
The little soldiers’ defense was brief and ineffective.
For every rat they skewered, ten more were already on them, gnawing at their wooden limbs.
The same dense green smoke began rising from their remains as well, drifting toward the ceiling and feeding the gaseous mass suspended several feet above the Doll Demon’s head.
"I hope you didn’t make me come all the way out here just for this," Lars murmured, his impassive gaze fixed on the floating doll.
A dark laugh echoed all around him, as if it were coming from the walls themselves.
"You haven’t seen anything yet, Blood Demon!"
The green mist began to tremble. Several wisps of smoke broke away from the mass and converged on the doll’s body, seeping inside through its porcelain shell.
"You’ll regret not letting my puppet army kill you, I promise!"
As the green mist was absorbed, the doll’s body visibly grew larger. Within a matter of seconds, it went from just over three feet tall to twelve feet tall.
Once the entire green cloud had been absorbed, the Doll Demon dropped heavily to the floor, landing on its feet and cracking the ground beneath it.
"Your time has come, Blood Demon!"
The enormous doll lunged at Lars and brought a devastating punch down on him from above.
The blow struck him dead on but passed straight through the mist Lars had just transformed into.
The punch kept going and slammed violently into the floor.
Still in his intangible form, Lars slipped behind the massive doll.
He had just started to regain his solid form when the Doll Demon suddenly swung an arm backward, forcing him to dissolve his body once again.
"You won’t keep slipping away from me forever, Blood Demon! Sooner or later, you’ll run out of energy to turn into that damn mist. And when that happens, I’ll pound you into a pulp of flesh and bone!"
Lars reappeared a few steps away from the demon, a contemptuous smirk on his lips.
"Running from you? Give me a break. I was just confirming how weak you are."
"I’ll show you who’s weak!"
The Doll Demon pulled back its arm and readied a punch. Lars did the same.
Their fists collided with a thunderous boom.
The shockwave tore through the entire theater. The walls shook down to their foundations, and the windows shattered all at once in a single deafening burst of glass.
For a few seconds, they remained motionless, facing each other with their arms extended and their fists still pressed together.
And then...
Crack...
Crack...
Crack... crack...
Cracks spread across the doll’s hand and began creeping up its arm until they reached the shoulder.
A moment later, all that remained of the porcelain limb were fragments scattered at its feet.
The doll staggered backward as the cracks continued spreading from its arm across the rest of its body.
"N-No... impossible... impossible..."
It spun around and ran from Lars.
With one hand, it clutched its shattered shoulder, desperately trying to hold together the pieces of porcelain that kept breaking off and falling behind it.
A ruthless grin spread across Lars’s face.
He slowly raised his hand as the Demon fled desperately beneath his icy gaze.
Snap.
When the blinding flash faded, nothing remained of the Doll Demon but a rain of porcelain shards.