“I know, I know,” the man with the greasy hair replied and twitched anxiously as if craving a hit of a drug. But as far as she could tell, his drug of choice did not come in the form of a pill or injection. What he seemed hell-bent on getting high on was bloodshed. She could feel the excited beat of his murderous heart pounding.
Arianna advanced several steps, determined to end their hellacious existence on Earth. But as she moved forward, both men stopped talking. Their heads snapped to their side, in her direction. She had not made herself visible yet. Still, they sensed her, saw her, somehow. She felt the weight of their lethal stares, felt their deadly intents penetrating her skull.
The bald one sniffed the air, the chain between his ear and nose quivering as he did. The man with the greasy hair’s tongue darted in and out like a snake, as if he tasted and smelled the air as they do. She froze and held her breath, convinced that they saw her. She waved her hand in front of her face and did not see it, yet the minute swish of air it generated caused the men to take tentative steps toward her. They exchanged glances and were likely communicating telepathically when a sound distracted them. It came from a storage closet and sounded like a basketball falling to the hardwood flooring.
They looked to one another and nodded before moving with impossible speed and grace to the closet. The bald man yanked the door toward him and opened it. The smell of marijuana filled the air, pouring from the closet in a thick, white cloud.
“Out, now!” the bald man ordered and four boys filed out, all dressed in pants so baggy their underpants showed.
“Whoa, dude,” one said to the bald man, his face a mask of terror as he stared at the monstrous snake tattoos on his head.
“Shut the fuck up,” the bald man spat and the boy took an instinctive step away from him.
“Now what the hell do we do?” the man with the greasy hair asked. “They heard everything we said, but we aren’t supposed to kill anyone until the bell rings.”
“We won’t say anything, man,” one of the boys said in a shaky voice. “I promise. Just let us go and we’ll leave the school right now. We won’t say a word to anyone.”
“Yeah, man, please. Just let us go,” another begged.
Arianna felt a sudden surge of energy seep into her system, wild, frenzied energy. She knew that both the man with the greasy hair and the bald man were vacillating, that they were on the verge of giving in to their deadly desires. She could feel it, feel their intentions. She was about to appear and attack them both when the bald man spoke.
“We will keep them here until we hear that bell,” he said determinedly.
“So we’re not killing them yet?” the man with the greasy hair asked with restless longing saturating his tone.
“No,” the bald man said and shot a look of warning his way.
“Please don’t kill us,” one of the boys begged, his voice faltering with emotion. “We won’t say anything, I swear.”
“Quiet!” the man with the greasy hair said sharply, and though he did not raise his voice, the boys jumped as if he had. Two of the boys began to cry as they quietly begged and pleaded for their freedom despite greasy hair’s stern warning.
“Shh,” he bald man shushed them tranquilly. “Just be cool,” he continued and his voice no longer sounded as it had earlier. Suddenly calm, his voice was a clear, rich, deep baritone. “Everything is cool. You’re fine. All of you are fine,” he assured them, his cadence as soothing and lulling as floating on a raft on a gently rolling river. She did not know how he’d done it and guessed it was part of his power that enabled him to charm them with his voice. And charm them he had. She could see that they’d been hypnotized into submission. His words coaxed them into relaxing visibly. The worried creases in their faces smoothed. Their rigid posture loosened.
“Mind if I have a smoke?” one asked with heavy eyes and a thick voice that sounded as if he’d just roused from sleep. He slowly slid a cigarette from his pack.
“Go ahead,” the bald man said in the same soothing tone he’d used seconds earlier.
The boy placed his cigarette between his lips unhurriedly then began patting his pants pockets. “Got a light, bro?” he asked one of his friends.
“Please, allow me,” the man with the greasy hair offered, his demeanor suddenly cool and composed.
“Cool, bro,” the boy drawled. “I think I left mine in the –,” he started but did not get the chance to finish his sentence.
The man with the long, dark, greasy hair raised his hands and flames launched from them in a white-hot arc. They lashed forward like a raging lasso and licked the boy’s entire body. His face contorted into a mask of agony in a flash as flames engulfed him. He started to whimper, a weak, defeated sound that urged a veil of crimson to befall Arianna’s eyes.
The sound had barely escaped his lips when, incensed, greasy hair’s fire blazed brighter and within a split-second, the boy was completely consumed by fire until his flesh melted and fell from him, his body reduced to a pile of bones.
Seeing their friend incinerated, the remaining three boys, the ones who had been in the closet, stared in shock, their mouths wide with terror.
“You scumbags!” Arianna screamed and burst forth from the hallway, her form no longer invisible.
She felt a familiar sensation hiss and crackle just beneath her skin. It quickly raced, gaining momentum until it throbbed through her veins with more force than her lifeblood. Fury overtook her body and her vision was shrouded in crimson. Kill them. The words passed through her with tremors that shook her, vibrating and echoing to her core.
They both turned and looked at her and she saw it, saw the tick on both their faces. They saw her eyes glowing.
Heat began to consume her, sweeping like brushfire and searing everything in its wake. The inferno storming inside her raged as it had the night she killed Kane, towering and soaring to the point where she felt her skin would not be able to contain the immense swell of pure energy.
The man with the long, greasy hair snarled at her and raised his hands. But before he could release his fiery attack, she shot both arms out to either side of her body and watched as both of the man’s arms ripped from their sockets as easily as they would have had he been made of straw. Of course, he was not made of straw, and gore gushed from where his arms had been seconds ago. His limbs fell to the hardwood floor with a sickly thud shortly before the rest of his body did. Blood pooled around him, smearing as he writhed and howled, producing the most bloodcurdling cry she’d ever heard. But instead of being revolted by the sound, a trill of excitement tiptoed through her.
With the metallic stench of blood hanging in the air like mist, overwhelming her, fueling her, she spun and faced the bald man. Fear flashed fleetingly in his narrow eyes as he trained them on her. For a moment he held her with his gaze and she saw straight down to the depths of his blackened soul. A small sneer tugged one corner of his mouth and she felt the storm inside her intensify dangerously, growing to a great tempest of rage.
She swept a hand to one side, a small gesture, and was shocked and amazed when the bald man’s body rocketed past her and smashed into a concrete wall of the gym. His skull slammed against it hard then ricocheted forward, flopping reflexively. She knew his skull had been fractured, had heard the loud pop, but he lived. She could still hear the beat of his heart. Lying on his side, he attempted to raise his hands and use his powers. A thin arc of fire dribbled weakly from his fingertips and Arianna balled both of her hands into tight fists, envisioning every bone in his body splintering. As she did, he wailed in agony and his hands drooped. The crunch and snap of his bones breaking filled her head and echoed as if being amplified mechanically. He slumped, unmoving, no longer a threat to the students of Hallowed Hills High School.
The stoners from the closet looked as if they’d faint when she spun and faced them, her vision still awash in blood red.
“Go,” she told them. “Get out of here.”
They hesitated only a f
raction of a moment to thank her profusely then scurried out of the gym as fast as their legs would carry them.
She watched them leave and did not feel her power retreat in the least. Instead, it continued to strengthen. Both her anger and power multiplied with each second that passed. Her entire body glowed red like a burning ember and the only sound she heard was the hum of energy coursing through her until the shrill shriek of a fire alarm screeched through her brain. She immediately realized one of the stoners she’d released was responsible for pulling it. His attempt at getting emergency personnel to the school might be the end of every life there as she had only killed two of the four people Agnon had sent. Two more remained, as well as Scott, George, Chris, Kit and Meg. The fire alarm would send students pouring into the hallways and scrambling toward exits. With the exits chained shut, they would be fish in a barrel waiting to be shot.
Voices filled the halls. Voices that laughed and chattered excitedly at first quickly turned to concerned cries as people tried to open doors.
“Hey! What the hell?” she heard a male voice call out.
Several screams tore through the chaos and Arianna made her way to the hall. Seeing her body and eyes glow red, more screams sounded as they pointed and gestured to her. Some turned to run from her while others hid. They saw themselves as trapped with her, that she was the enemy.
Arianna felt her anger escalate further. She was there to protect them, not harm them, yet they were carrying on as if she were a monster. She was about to open her lips and scold them for their irrational behavior when Agnon appeared suddenly and blocked her path.
“It is time, Arianna,” he said in a calm, mesmerizing tone. “Our time is upon us. You need to do what you were born to do.”
For a moment, Arianna was staggered by a sense of inexplicable, but potent awareness. It breathed through her as simply as a sigh, but jolted her with its profoundness. He held her with his steely gaze, penetrating the walls that guarded her, that had guarded her for her entire life. He stared directly into the yawning pit of her being and sought to draw from it her essence. She felt the tug, felt the pull begin to drag it forth. His words resounded in her with a strange familiarity, and a foreign feeling began flowing through her. For the first time, she believed he was speaking the truth, believed that she stood on the verge of fulfilling her destiny.
With that tug propelling her, urging her on, she turned to the large group of students that had amassed in the hallway and in her mind, saw herself setting the school ablaze, killing every last one of them. But it did not end there. She envisioned cities burning, countries crumpling; she saw any and every human being who crossed her path falling, dying. Red light radiated from her and the need to act made her hands prickle and tremble.
Slowly, she lifted her wrist. She looked all around her. People were crying and panicking. They would die. All of them.
“Arianna!” she heard Desmond shout just as he appeared before her. The scarlet hue that veiled her vision wavered. Light shined from him, haloing and highlighting his pale skin and golden hair, and tempered the tumultuous burning in her with its steady warmth. “What are you doing? This isn’t you. This isn’t the woman I love,” his turquoise eyes pleaded with her, love flowing from them like sunlight from the sky. He had read her mind and saw what she’d been about to do. She was certain of it. But he had stopped her.
In the instant that his eyes searched hers, she began to recognize the feeling inside her. And it was far different from what Agnon had projected.
She felt the heinousness of Agnon and the others’ purpose, felt it entwine its barbed tentacles around her veins like a vicious parasite, trying to pump its pitiless intentions through her lifeblood. It had almost succeeded. Every part of her felt dark, tainted.
Guilt and confusion began devouring her, consuming her wholly. As if sensing the turmoil brewing inside, Desmond reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. His touch, the warmth and light that it exuded, filled her and brought her back.
She immediately spun and thrust her arms forward at Agnon. Caught off guard, her gesture blasted him into the far wall and engulfed him in flames. Fire lapped hungrily at his skin for several seconds before he regained his composure and extinguished himself. He reeled, his eyes wild and the majority of his skin charred and puckered as the stink of smoldering flesh filled the air. He was badly burned and half-dead.
“You fool,” he wheezed at Desmond through blistered lips. “You have ruined everything for us, everything we’ve waited centuries for.”
“I have ruined nothing, father,” Desmond replied levelly. “It is my destiny to keep Arianna, the Sola, on the right path and not be poisoned by evil, by you.”
Agnon attempted a step toward them, tottering and swaying like a drunk. “You know nothing,” he slurred with a mouth so badly burned his speech matched his unsteady gait. “What will you do when he comes for her? You know he is coming, don’t you?” Agnon continued to taunt.
“I’ll be ready for him, too,” Desmond said confidently and Arianna wondered who and what they were talking about.
Agnon looked at her and laughed, a sinister, mirthless laugh, then disappeared into thin air.
Arianna turned to face Desmond. “What now?” she asked him.
“I killed two of them,” he said, but was interrupted by the sound of tortured screams.
“Scott and George,” Arianna panicked. “It’s them! We have to stop them!”
Arianna and Desmond raced down the hallway and followed the sound of screams, using them as their bone-chilling guide, and stopped outside a classroom. Scott, along with Paul, Meg, Kit and Chris, stood with their backs to the doorway and were in the process of killing several students, burning them slowly, and one limb at a time. Desmond disappeared, teleporting, and appeared behind Paul and Meg. In one instantaneous motion he unsheathed his daggers and plunged them into the backs of their necks. They collapsed to the floor face-down in an expanding puddle of blood.
Seeing the slight twitch of Chris and Kit’s wrists, Arianna raised her hands and lifted Kit and Chris off their feet. She pulled them far from one another then sent them racing back toward each other until they collided with a thunderous thwack. Both dropped and lay unmoving. She reached out with her senses and did not detect even the faintest pulse coming from either of them.
She turned to face Scott, keeping Desmond in her peripheral vision. Three people, their skin blackened and singed beyond recognition, had just died at Scott’s hand. Arianna raised her hands, unbridled power surging through her, and was about to destroy him when a sudden force wrenched it from her. Her body lurched forward as if her insides had shattered into a thousand agonizing pieces. Her energy had been leached from her, bled so quickly, she felt faint. She’d felt it before, but not when the same magnitude of power was at stake. George was nearby. She felt his revolting presence crawl through her core. Unsurprisingly, his tall, lanky form stepped from the shadows near the window. His arms were outstretched and his features, for the first time, were contorted into a strained expression.
“Kill them,” he urged Scott. “Kill them now. They’re too strong for me to hold them off.” Sweat stippled his pasty forehead and his arms quivered as if the strain were growing unbearable.
Arianna looked at Desmond and saw pain etched in his glorious features. His powers had been halted as well. His pain spawned a whirlwind of ire so strong that despite George’s concerted effort, small surges swelled from her core and stole through her body.
Scott laughed his trademark sick, twisted laugh. “Oh Arianna, when will you ever learn?” he mocked. “Look at you getting all worked up. Bet you’re feeling all backed up right about now.” He laughed again then his face went calm. “Time to die, bitch,” he said. “I am going to be the one who kills the Sola.” He lifted his hands and aimed them at her.
A tear slid down Arianna Rose’s cheek as she glanced at Desmond. His was light, living and breathing light, the embodiment of goodness a
nd decency. She closed her eyes, her final vision of him too painful to withstand, and accepted her fate.
All of a sudden, a cry ripped through the weighted silence of the room. Arianna’s eyes snapped open, her powers bubbling and brimming within, restored, and her head shot to the side, toward the direction of the scream. What she saw made her breath catch in her chest. George had collapsed to the floor on both knees, his head swallowed by flames and Beth, the petite girl who favored black, stood behind him with fire streaming from her fingertips.
“Beth!” Arianna called out.
“Oh hey Arianna,” Beth said casually and smirked. “I always hated that piece of shit,” she continued as the fire flowing from her grew and she completed the process of cremating George.
Arianna was shocked briefly, too many question rushed and swirled disconcertedly in her mind. But no time existed for questions or confusion. Another matter needed to be tended to.
“Well, Scott, it looks like the only bitch that’s going to die today is you,” she hissed and advanced a single step.
The full force of her power flooded her system on command. Her entire body was alight, glowing and blazing with energy so strong it felt like a separate entity, like a great beast stretching and readied to strike.
Desmond nodded to her. His was not a nod of approval for she did not need anyone’s approval. She was the Sola and she was doing that which she’d been created to do. He nodded to her deferentially and did not dare try to step in and kill Scott himself.
She clenched one fist tightly and visualized the bones in Scott’s calves yielding to her force. She squeezed tighter, channeling how she’d felt when she saw him using humans as murderous puppets for his entertainment. A loud snap was followed by a wail of misery and she watched as Scott fell to his knees, suffering.
She walked toward him slowly, relishing in the moments he awaited his death, savoring the look of defeat in his eyes. He narrowed them at her and cursed at her. She smiled at his weak attempt to insult her. He then flicked his wrists at her and a feeble stream trickled her way. He cried out, a pathetic war-cry and the flames grew considerably. She raised her index finger and the fire stopped short of her nose and split in two around her head. She remained untouched. His attempt had been laughable. Arianna smiled again and her smile did not reach her eyes. For the first time since meeting him, she saw fear flicker in Scott’s eyes. He knew he was about to die at the hands of the Sola.
Arianna Rose: The Gathering (Part 3) Page 22
