Disclaimer: This Story involves all sorts of violence and homosexual activities. Just fair warning. Enjoy. And be sure to donate to keep the site running if you can at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html
Coldplay: Cause you're a sky, cause you're a sky full of stars.
"Are you ready?" Porter's voice asked.
I stretched my arms, looking on at him and David. They nodded to me and I waved my hand forward at a vase. Nothing happened and I looked at them with disappointment.
Coldplay: I'm going to give you my heart.
Eva and Finn cuddled up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. Eva passed the popcorn to Finn, who plucked a handful out and tossed it at her. This led to Eva doing the same and soon both were caught in a popcorn war.
Coldplay: And I don't care, go on and tear me apart...
Nora sauntered into Byars and took a seat beside a girl with curly black hair and grey eyes. The girl stared up at her cautiously. As she positioned her on the stool next to the girl, the girl seemed to squirm a bit.
"Micah. It's so good to see you." Nora smiled.
Coldplay: And I don't care if you do.
As I stared at the vase, I felt a stream of memories bombard me, like a train, slamming into me all at once. Without cause, the vase exploded into pieces and the pieces littered the floor. Porter and David stared at me with wonder.
"Damn." Porter said softly.
I'd practiced for days and felt prepared to take on anyone who would dare come for me. I'd finally made my up about our resident vampires. They had to go. To my calculations, in Endor Falls, it's the time of the witch.
Being of that mind, I'd thought over my options. I could completely try to cut them out until it was time for me to end them or I could stick close to them, know what they know. Neither Porter nor David was too thrilled about me being around any vampire, after Nora and Lucas.
Nora seemed to be at bay, for now, though I felt as if things were going too smooth. She seemed like the wildcard but I'd never seen her kill anyone. Lucas was another story. He seemed distant, even when he was close.
Finn was an entirely different monster.
Not only was he the more civil vampire, he'd also developed quite a relationship with Eva. They were rarely apart, even during school. The plan, as it stood, threatened to alienate me from her completely. Eva would hate me. But she'd be safe.
Charlotte found our plan insane, bordering on suicide. She seemed to be amused at me being a witch, but felt differently about vampires. She viewed them as, and I quote, `soulless'. To say that it put a wedge between her and Eva was putting it mildly.
Eva was blinded by Finn. It was apparent to everyone but her.
These thoughts brought Porter, David, Charlotte and I into an abandoned section of the library. Porter and David took on active roles in plotting the demise of the vampires. I stared over at Charlotte, who seemed to daydreaming. It was only when she spoke that I got a full concept of what she was thinking.
"So, the question would be how we separate them." Charlotte said as she leaned on a long table.
"There's a party tonight, right?" David asked.
We all exchanged puzzled glances. It was true but I wanted to hear how this had anything to do with the topic at hand.
David took our puzzled expressions as cause to go on, "What better place to divide and conquer than the party?" He asked.
"But how do we `divide' them?" Charlotte asked.
"Let's be honest, Eva is a bit gullible." We all nodded at David's comment. David continued, "Charlotte could work her magic."
"I've got magic?" She asked perkily.
"You're the most pessimistic person I know." David said with a serious face.
We all chuckled at the comment, whereas Charlotte was not amused.
"How is that magic?" Charlotte asked.
"Doubt." I said simply.
"If you can put enough doubt in her mind, I think we can get someone to do the rest." Porter explained as his eyes fell on me, "And by the sound of it, Lucas doesn't seem like the type that needs much coercing."
"What? No! I was thinking Finn." David said angrily.
I shook my head, "Finn is balanced. Lucas is not. And I think if Lucas wanted me dead, I'd be dead by now." I looked to Charlotte, "Can you handle Eva?"
"I've known her since we were born, so yeah, I got this."
"Thank God." Porter said, "Is everyone sure about this?"
"Hey, if nothing else goes right, we can enjoy John's `Midway-Mark' bonanza." David smiled.
We all sighed as we dispersed. Porter and Charlotte left quickly. As I was leaving, David pulled me back. He seemed nervous.
"You okay? With all this?" David asked. I chuckled, "What we're doing, it's for good."
"I know." I said quietly.
David frowned, "I don't like you being bait." His voice betrayed everything he'd led me to believe.
"I can't shake the feeling that this is going to be bad." I shook my head, "I'm getting stronger. I'm just—I'm not ready for any of this."
"Vampires...werewolves...who is?" David asked.
"I didn't stop to ask you how you were doing." I said with concern.
"I'm getting strong. Just not ready yet." He smirked, "As long as I can keep my transformations at bay, I think I'll be alright."
"This is weird."
"What is?"
"See you at the party." I gently nudged his shoulder and left quickly.
The party was shaping up to be where we draw the lines of war. High school, magic and death. We were barely headed for midterms and they were the least of my worries. I felt a cold shiver take me over, as if death had just squeezed by me.
I could feel it.
-
Themed parties are overdone.
The only good themed parties are holiday parties. This also applied for location parties, especially locations that haunted my dreams. The Domus Cecidit. The House of the Fallen. I felt strangeness and charm vibrating off exterior. When I first came in contact with the house, I'd thought of it as the loud music.
It went beyond music.
The feeling was beyond the physical body. It was soul deep. It was primal.
"Normal teenagers flock towards the party." Lucas said as he joined me outside.
The way I was standing, with my arms folded over my arms, could be misconstrued as bored or anxious. Though, I doubt he knew why I was anxious. I guess not being the typical person came in handy.
At Lucas' presence, I became unsettled. I had to make sure I didn't act differently around him, to not set him off in the slightest. The last thing I needed was to be on his bad side right now.
"Those cuts look pretty bad. Isn't there some witchy thing you can do?" Lucas asked touching his nose and wiggling it slightly.
"Trick question. You know I can." I said taking my eyes off of him. I watched the people lingering outside of the party, "Were you gauging me? Trying to see how much I know?"
"Or maybe I'm trying to understand why you didn't."
"Why do you even care?" I asked.
He sighed loudly, "Because if you're going to try and use me, I want to know as much as I can." My eyes found him again, "How long did you think your little plan could stay a secret?"
"Who says it was a secret?"
"Touché." He said taking a few steps forward, "Enjoy the party." He said disappearing inside the party.
"So much for the element of surprise." I said as I moved towards the enormous, derelict house nestled deep in the woods.
The closer I got to the house, the more I felt as if there was an enormous pressure building in my chest. These were not ordinary nerves. The minutes I walked through the door, I felt something inside of me burst open.
A dam burst inside me, opening my entire body to whatever was still in this house. I'd never felt such power in all my life. I stumbled a bit as I entered and Parker rushed over and grabbed my arm.
"Hey, had too much to drink?" He asked pulling me over to a seat where David, Charlotte and a few other students were sitting.
David and Charlotte looked on with concern as I tried to come up with a way to explain my sudden clumsiness.
"Maybe a little." I chuckled. I noticed that David and Charlotte were still watching me, "What's going on?"
"Well, we've all been waiting on you," Parker picked a cup off the ground, "We've got shots!"
David took a seat beside me and leaned in, "What's going on." He asked.
"I don't know."
David's concerned look didn't go away, even after he handed me a shot. Parker counted down, spouting off about some kind of epic toast. We all downed the shots before refilling. A repeat of events brought us into conversation, one of which turned to Zachary.
"It's weird. He hasn't been to practice all week." Brody, a senior friend of Parker and David's, said. Brody moved a piece of red hair out of his face and his blue eyes glanced around, "Or, you know, school."
Celeste, a junior with short auburn hair cut in a bob, took another sip of her drink and uttered, "I can't even reach him on his phone."
"Nobody thinks that's a bad thing?" A suspiciously new African American girl with curly black hair asked.
I leaned over to David, "Who is she?"
"Micah. New girl. Celeste made friends with her." David replied.
I stared at her. She seemed different. There was something extraordinary about her. It was like I was seeing something without seeing something.
"Speak of the devil!" Parker said staring behind me.
I looked over my shoulder and my heart almost leapt out of my chest. The very dead Zachary marched through the door, his eyes carefully planted on me. He made a beeline towards us and I could feel David's eyes on me. When I looked back to him, I saw that the color had drained from his face.
Holy Balls, I thought. Out of all the conclusions I came to, the most obvious one was the scariest. Lucas hadn't disposed of the body, he'd turned Zachary.
-
"This was not part of the plan!" Porter hissed.
Lucas turning Zachary into a vampire had thrown us all for a loop. When I saw Lucas kill Zachary, it was my understanding that Zachary would remain dead. But, as it seemed with Lucas, his word seemed to have double meanings. One thing was blaringly clear: Zachary was no longer dead.
Charlotte, David, Porter and I locked ourselves in one of the upstairs bedrooms, away from the parties. As odd as it sounded, people still flocked to the upper level of the house to mess around. I felt oddly at home here, though I could see the unease in the face of others, especially David's.
I felt powerful here.
"I think we need a new plan." Charlotte joked as her eyes found me, "You okay?"
"Yeah." I muttered as all their eyes fell on me. Porter seemed too interested in making a plan to think about anything else. I nodded to them, "I'm fine. It's just...there's something here."
"Yeah, the spirits of hundreds of witches." Porter said in a matter-of-fact way. He seemed uninterested.
"Hundreds of witches?" I asked.
"Like the stories?" Charlotte asked.
"This house was home to one of the greatest covens to ever have existed. In their greatness, they became prideful and arrogant. They sought to use their powers to cast a spell of some kind. It has changed through the generations. They called in other powerful covens to aid with the spell." Porter explained. We all listened carefully. He pressed on with the story, "They attempted the spell and were unsuccessful. Magic comes at a price. The price for their spell was their lives."
"What spell could they possibly be doing?" Charlotte asked.
"I have my suspicions." Porter shrugged, "The power here is overwhelming."
"You don't seem overwhelmed." David commented.
"I just saw the biggest flaw to our plan walk through that door a while ago." Porter snapped. I could tell he was stressed. He quickly apologized.
"So, is the plan screwed?" Charlotte asked.
I shook my head, "I don't know. It didn't seem like Lucas told Finn or Eva. He sure as Hell didn't tell Nora."
"The question becomes why." Porter asks.
"Vanity? Hubris? Insanity?" Charlotte scoffed, "Call it what you want. We just have to figure something out and soon."
"Agreed." I nodded, "The plan goes ahead as planned. Everyone stay away from Zachary. Who knows what his deal is."
"And he's a new vampire. He's bound to give into the blood lust...if he already hasn't." Porter explained, "So be careful."
We all agreed and left the room. To be completely honest, I wasn't thinking too clearly. I could feel the power all around me and, as Porter said, it's overwhelming. It was purely that fact that brought me into the basement. Unknown to me, I was being followed.
When I reached the basement, I looked around. I could hear whispers but couldn't distinguish what they were saying. I got lost in the whispers, hoping that if I did, I would be able to understand what they were saying.
"Unclean. Not alive." A clear voice came to me.
I opened my eyes and looked up to the ceiling. A pentagram had been perfectly drawn above. When my gaze dropped again, I noticed Zachary standing opposite me. His eyes flashed red before returning to normal.
"I think I owe you an apology. Two actually." Zachary said with a smirk, "One for blaming you for my sister's death..."
"And the other?"
"For this." He said as he lunged at me.
I pulled my hand up, as if I were trying to move a lamp. The vampire floated above the cement floor, staring down at me. He snarled at me and I motioned away from me, causing him to fly backwards and skid into the darkness.
"Amateur." I heard as Lucas descended the stairs. He past me, looking up at the pentagram, "Everyone knows not to try to kill a witch in their natural habitat."
"So that was your idea?"
"Unlike you, I am a man of my word." Lucas said with a snide tone, "His actions, as misguided as they may be, are his own."
"I swear I was just going to give you a hickey." Zachary said as he stepped out of the shadows, "Sorry. I get ahead of myself these days. I think I'm just thinking with my fangs."
"Ah, newbies." Lucas smirked, "What are you going to do with them?"
"I've got ideas." A female voice said as she descended the stairs. The girl from the party, Micah, came into sight, "Vampires are always so entitled."
"You know about vampires?" I stared at her. I quickly shook my head, "Of course you do."
"They should know better than to attack you here." Micah said quickly.
"I haven't seen you around here before." Zachary said as he ran his hands through his hair.
"Are you seriously flirting with her?" I asked.
"Can we all settle down? Nobody's attacking anyone...yet." Lucas said with an off-putting sense of diplomacy.
The sound of sirens blared from the upstairs, causing us all to look up. I could hear people running upstairs. The police had come to break up the party and just in the nick of time. I looked over to see that Zachary and Lucas had disappeared and looked over to Micah.
"Let's go." She said pulling me up the stairs.
Author's Notes: Please feel free to E-Mail if you like the story at Femtoka2@yahoo.com to let me know you like it and how you feel about the story. Thank you for reading!