The fire-spinning over, the drums stopped again, and there was a wave of excitement that spread quickly through the crowd. The drummers started a very slow beat, and the torchbearers started their part. They walked a few steps towards the woodpile, then turned and walked back to where they started. They did this, again and again, getting closer and closer each time. Finally, and with a cry to the heavens, they rushed the woodpile and thrust their torches in between the outer logs, catching the straw and lighter material inside. The drummers went wild, and as the massive construction caught fire, the people surrounding it started to run around it in an outpouring of pure joy.
My friends and I didn’t wait, we took off and started to circle the fire with everyone else. As fireworks shot up from the fire into the sky, people stopped running and started dancing, and the biggest drum circle I had seen yet was underway.
I danced around the fire, slowing down when I got to the biggest grouping of drummers. Some people had paused to dance in front of the drums, and I rubbed up against a few of them as I passed.
I heard a cheer and saw the ring of onlookers part while eight women, dressed in white togas, carried a platform with a familiar blonde-haired Brit on it.
Trevor! I thought, giggling. He was dressed in a tie-dye toga and looked like a Greek God at a Grateful Dead concert. I rushed to catch up with them and joined several other people who were dancing slowly around the platform as it circled the fire. Trevor had a gallon of red wine that he was drinking out of, and which he would raise as he passed people with a hearty cheer.
I paused partway around and looked up at the towering fire. The woodpile itself was not only one and a half stories high, but now the flames leaped twice that into the summer sky. Waves of liquid-looking fire flowed around the structure, and the entire thing pulsed with a primal energy stronger than I had ever felt before.
I can’t believe I’m here I marveled. I can’t believe that I’m seeing this right in front of me! It’s like something out of a movie.
People danced at different speeds around the fire, and so I wound up seeing different people as I spent the next few hours surrendering to the beat. I danced sensually with Gaia for some time, and then was almost driven to distraction when the Fae sisters joined us. The four Fae surrounded me, touching me on all sides, as we slowly made our way.
You know, as long as Gaia’s there, I could do this I thought, somewhat shocking myself.
I danced with Vincent next. We must have been putting on quite a show, because I soon saw couples… and a few larger groups… go from watching us to heading out into the field or forest, lusty energy radiating in all directions.
“I think we’ve started a trend.” I said to him, grinning.
“Want to get a better look?” he asked, and I quickly said yes.
He hoisted me up on his shoulders, my legs pressed against his torso as he held on tight. He started to walk around the fire as I danced from the waist up, scanning the crowd for unusual horniness. I saw a few, including Raina, her festival friend Raven, and Evelyn walking arm and arm towards more privacy.
Good for them! I hope… I started to think, but then saw a sight that stopped me mid-thought. There, outside of the circle of people, standing mid-field near the woods.
Angelique.
I had to go to her. Vincent must have picked up on things because he set me down gently without having to be asked. He squeezed my shoulder, smiled at me, and then melted into the crowd.
I walked to the edge of the circle, and then made my way to the side she was on. I soon saw her, dressed in black, waiting for me.
“Hi.” I said as I reached her, grinning.
“Annabelle.” she said, smiling. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you, too.”
“Have you enjoyed the festival?”
“Yeah. It’s probably been the best time of my life.”
“That’s good.”
“Except for the fact that you weren’t there.” I said, my face suddenly serious. “That sucked.”
Her own smile faded. “Yes. It’s odd… “ she continued, “I’m sixteen hundred years old, and this week was one of the only times I’ve felt lonely.”
“Angelique, I’m sorry… “ I stammered, feeling bad about her feeling lonely but rebelling against it all because of my right to set barriers.
This frustrated me. “Dammit, Angelique!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands up. “It’s fucking scary, the feelings here! I mean, my life has turned upside down and inside out over these past two years.” I started to pace. “I’ve discovered an incredible man who’s been loving me for ten thousand years, and oh yes… I’m a legendary magickal figure with powerful enemies plotting in the shadows against me. Can’t forget that!”
I walked to her and cupped her cheek with my hand. “Angelique,” I said softly, “my dear Angelique. You bring out memories of a love that reaches even farther back than Vincent in my lines of incarnations. A love so powerful that you’ve spent your entire extended life searching for me every time I drew breath on this earth. A love that feels like it’s based in… destiny.”
“You’re not wrong.” Angelique said, a tear in her eye.
“Angelique,” I continued, “can’t you see how… big this is? How momentous? I was overwhelmed… I was afraid of drowning.”
“And now?" she said. At that moment, the ancient vampire queen disappeared, and I saw the nineteen-year-old girl before she was turned.
I drew close to her. “Now I’ve realized that love doesn’t drown you, it lifts you up and refreshes you. It shines a light into your soul that shows only beauty. I know now that, should I truly be facing a powerful foe, I’m going to need all of the love I can get.”
I kissed her. It was as sweet and tender as I had remembered from my past lives, and I could feel a sense of joy echoing up and down my line of incarnations that I had, once again, reclaimed the first love my soul had ever known.
Our kisses turned from tender to passionate very quickly. I traced every contour of her body through her dress, remembering it as I went. Our tongues were hot as they met, and I soon wanted more of her.
“Let’s go,” I said breathlessly, “to the woods. I need you.”
“As you wish.” she smiled, and in a second we had moved across the field to tall grass beyond.
I pulled her dress off, and she stripped me in turn, our mouths kissing and teasing along the way. A full moon high above cast silver light that blended with the distant bonfire, and it made Angelique’s alabaster skin look like it was burning with silver fire.
I laid back against the grass as Angelique kissed her way down my stomach. “Love me.” I said, and she answered me in the most wonderful way possible.
Chapter Eighteen
From the Diaries of Angelique Dupre
12/24/1589
Roanoke Colony
The deed is done. Sarah is dead, and I am alone.
It all started to fall apart when her enchantments started failing. She’s powerful, yes, but it takes a decade or more for a Sorceress to truly master her powers… if Petronia tells the truth, which I know she does.
She had, at her high point, almost a hundred English and Native peoples under her spell. Then some of them started to wake up out of her influence, and while she quickly re-enchanted them, it started lasting for shorter and shorter durations. She eventually lost her ability to dominate their minds and took to killing them when they wouldn't submit.
One of the men she had dominated was a violent, angry man in life. Sarah took to torturing him, making him do things with other men that he found “un-natural”. She had taken the man’s teenage son as her ‘pet’, making him wear a dog collar and sit at her feet when he wasn’t satisfying her desires. When this man snapped, he took a terrible revenge.
The scene was horrifying. Everyone was dead. Men, women, children… all had been stabbed with the knife that the women used to skin and dress deer. To keep them from fighting over her
, Sarah had commanded her thralls not to fight. This left them defenseless, and all who hadn’t fled were slaughtered. The violent man hung himself from the beams of his old home, surrounded by the bodies of his children.
I found Sarah there, staring at her slaughtered ‘subjects’. She was simmering with rage.
“They did this… “ she seethed, “THEY did this!”
“Who?” I asked, trying to keep my voice soothing.
“That bitch of a wife of his!” she said. “She took his youngest and took off. If she had stayed, she could have stopped this!”
“The man killed his own children.” I had answered. “She couldn’t have stopped him.”
“Liar!” she shouted, pointing at me. “They’re to blame, and now they must PAY!”
I watched as she gathered up her power. It was raw, undiluted rage, a muddy mix of browns and blacks that crackled with blue-light energy.
“They're too far away." I said over the crackle and hum of the energy. "Send that into the sky, and it'll lose energy and fade away long before it reaches its target. Just stand down… we can make a shelter for ourselves until they send a ship back with supplies for the colony. We can get back home that way."
“No!” she raged. “No, I was building something here! For me! They lost faith… they ran away! Now. They. Pay!”
“Are you going to fly after them?” I knew that she could, actually, but I also knew that she could never do so long enough to catch up to the colonial and Native survivors who had fled.
An almost evil grin spread across her face. “No.” she said. “I’ll send it through the earth!”
This was a mistake, and she knew it! I told her that she couldn’t… that the earth energies would feed and sustain her blasting curse, killing everything between her and her prey. I told her that she could, accidentally, kill every human on the continent!
“Those native savages were just as disloyal as the English!” she said, jaw clenched. “Maybe I SHOULD start over… maybe I should clear the way for good Christian folk to take this land without mixing with the heathens!”
She started gathering more and more energy until her ball of rage filled the room. It howled like a tornado around us, and I felt like I was in a hurricane.
“What if it doesn't stop here?" I yelled over the cacophony. "What if you kill everyone on earth?" I didn't think she could, but out of control, magick was VERY unpredictable.
“Then I will use my powers to create NEW life!” she had ranted. “If the Christian God failed with his pathetic creation, then maybe I should be the new God!”
I held up the Midnight Fae crystal. “Please Sarah, don’t do this. Don’t make me do this.”
“What, your little rock is going to stop ME?" she said, laughing cruelly. "I don't know if this will kill vampires too, so just in case… " she said, raising her hands to drive the spell into the ground, "… goodbye."
“Goodbye." was the last thing I said to her and activated the crystal.
Holding the it, I was protected from the shock-wave that rippled out from its crystalline form. Sarah's face turned to horror, and then melted away. Her body turned to dust, and fell on the ground.
The wave continued spreading, dissolving bodies, buildings, and fizzling out a few miles in every direction. Only the trees, one of which bore the abandoned note “Croatoan”, remained.
I am done. I have failed Petronia. I think I will find a Fae gate and spend some time with my friends there. I need to sleep.
* * *
I spent the next week in Angelique’s arms. After the festival was over, we took some time in the Wood Fae realm. It had been a very long time since our souls had touched like this, and we wanted to savor every moment.
“Hmm., how many times should we take turns before we go back to the real world?” I asked, curled up, naked, by her side in bed.
“We can return on Monday after the festival, my love.” she replied. “You know that time doesn’t exist here.”
“I know, and I will make love to you until we’re both satisfied.” I said, running my hand across her waist to tease her. “But you know that I also love Vincent, and Gaia. My connections with them may be… different than ours, but I love them just as sure as I love you.”
“I love Vincent with the fire of a thousand suns.” she said, looking into my eyes. “How can I be upset if you love him too? And Vincent isn’t the only one who has known Gaia’s touch.” She settled back on the bed and drew me into her embrace. “Just know… “ she continued, “… that I’m willing to share you with whoever wins your heart in everyday life, but I’m not willing to share you with another when we lay in bed together. Vincent may enjoy mixing his relationships in all kinds of numbers, but when I have you to myself, I want you to myself.”
“That is one hundred percent fair and acceptable.” I said, running my hand over her chest. I brushed against her nipple, and I felt her sharp intake of breath. “Oh, you like that, do you?” I said with a grin. I moved my head to suck her other nipple into my mouth, and I felt her body come alive beneath me.
* * *
Angelique and I stood in front of the dwelling that had been loaned to us, waiting for Rini to come and open a portal to our realm. She had agreed to open it so that we could return on the Monday after the festival, the same day that our friends had.
I looked at Angelique and smiled. “Everyone’s going to be wondering about your hair.” I said.
Before she had been turned into a vampire, Angelique had been born with bright red hair. The vampire who turned her… the same one who had turned Vincent… had a unique side-effect to being turned by him, however: it made your hair turn pitch-black. No bleach would fade it, and no dyes would take… Angelique had tried.
However, ever since she had made love to me, her hair had started showing deep, vivid purple streaks. We noticed when the sun came up Sunday morning. We left for the Fae realm before anyone could see us, sending word to our friends to go ahead and pack up and that we’d see them back home on Monday.
“The black in my hair matches the darkness in the soul of Christoph, the vampire who sired me.” she said. “I have lain with the Sorceress, fountain of the energy called life. I’m not surprised that the darkness faded.”
“Yeah, but it’s purple instead of red.” I pointed out.
Angelique laughed. “The young lady with the red hair died a very, very long time ago. I think purple fits me.” She brushed at her long hair. “I should get some clothes to match it.”
We laughed, and Rini walked up to us. “Annabelle, Angelique… so good to see you!” she said, smiling broadly.
“Hello, old friend.” Angelique said. “We’re grateful that you’re doing us this favor.”
“For friends? It is nothing.” Rini replied with a bow. “Here, my friends… and don’t be strangers!”
She opened a portal, and we could see the back patio of the mansion on the other side. A quick hug from each of us to Rini, and we stepped through. The portal closed behind us.
Something’s wrong. I felt it as soon as we stepped over the Fae gate threshold onto the patio. Angelique must have felt it, too, because I felt her lift me and speed the both of us inside.
We settled in the parlor, where Jack was just finishing up wheeling in a big-screen TV on a wheeled cart. He connected it to power as everyone else settled into seats.
It was really the first time we had all been in the same place for some time. The three Fae sisters, their human glamours dropped, sat in a cluster in the back. Katsu sat next to her sister Hatsu, a third seat obviously for Jack next to her on her other side. Raina and Tiffany sat on a two-seater sofa, while the Hawkins siblings sat on another one next to them. Gaia and Vincent were on yet another sofa, this one with room in between them for me. I sat, and Angelique stood behind me, her hand on my shoulder.
“This happened Saturday.” Jack said, his voice grim. He pointed a remote at the TV and it sprung to life. He pulled up a local news program and h
it play.
A serious looking news-woman appeared on the screen. "A grizzly discovery in Summit county as the remains of three children have been discovered near the Clinton National Forest." she said. "Details are sketchy as we await identification of the remains and the notification of next of kin. The children are said to be pre-teen in age, and may have been attacked by wild animals. Authorities are recommending that parents not allow their children to explore any forests until a definite cause of death can be determined. Anyone with information about this horrendous crime is encouraged to call the Summit County Sheriff's office."
Jack pointed the remote at the TV and the video was replaced with a map of the property. Three red dots sat just outside of our property line along the back.
Not far from the lake.
“I hacked the county coroner’s records.” Jack continued. “It seems that the victims were… bitten in half.”
A wave of shock and disgust rolled through the room. Jack raised his voice to continue.
“County officials are saying that the bite marks happened after death,” he said, “from scavengers, but the teeth marks are too big. The closest thing that my sources can come up with is that it looks like a great white shark.”
“Have they identified the victims yet?” Tiffany asked.
“Yes.” Jack replied. He hit a few buttons on the remote and a face flashed on the screen. “This is Anthony Darrow, nine years old. His parents reported him missing on Thursday, but nobody had seen… “
His voice trailed off and grew distant in my head. The face looking back at me from the screen, a smiling school picture, from the looks of it, triggered a series of memories.
The Witch: Book Two of The Sorceress Saga Page 39
