Blood Vengeance [COMPLETED]

Chapter Forty-One - Warped Emotion

Once more the witch sucked a soul from Selene, this time white and pure, glistening like snowflakes caught in the low light of a winter's afternoon.

Mesmerised, Selene watched as it entered her double, the same way the demon soul had entered Cecily; trickling over the lips.

The girl swallowed it, gulping it down as though it were the sweetest nectar.

Meanwhile, the witch turned to Cecily's prostrate form and kissed her too, breathing life into her cheeks, bending low over her to reach down to where she lay on the floor.

Selene turned her head, her neck aching against the restraints. She could only just see Cecily but, as she watched, the body began to unfurl and grow, the skin stretching and changing.

It was repulsive to watch, and yet fascinating, seeing Cecily's features morph into something else, disappearing from the world forever, and no one to mourn or miss her.

The flesh turned pink and looked as though it would be warm and soft to the touch, and the femininity began to disappear, replaced with a masculine hardness. Her prettiness clothed in Arthur's handsome face, stealing its way over her features.

Selene gasped on seeing Cecily's clothes vanish along with her body, and waited for them to be replenished with some larger masculine attire. But nothing happened. The witch pulled away and looked down upon her work, smiling.

"He is ready," she said.

"He's naked," murmured Selene.

"He doesn't need clothes for what he will do. I have instructed him. He will not truly live, but will act upon impulse. The girl is the same. They have no choice in what they will do." The witch moved towards Selene. "But we must vanish, so they believe they are alone."

She waved her arms in the air and hummed a melancholy tune, and as she did so Arthur seemed to wake, walking to the girl on the other side of the room, as though he had known she was there waiting for him all along, even before he opened his eyes.

Now they stood on one side of the room, while the witches, Selene and Hector stood on the other. With desperate movements the witches began to untie Selene, releasing her. And as they did so, sliding her off the table, a clarity took hold of Selene's mind, and she felt like herself once more, but changed in some intangible way; lighter, perhaps.

The table, now vacated, disappeared into the floor as though it had never been there, and with an exuberant gesture, the witch summoned a gauzy curtain of mist to fall from the ceiling, separating the two sides of the room. As soon as it hit the floor it became transparent, and had Selene not seen it fall, she never would have realised it was there at all.

Selene, her legs unstable, edged her way toward Hector, moving slowly so as not to cause alarm.

"Is this right?" she asked, watching the two doomed figures on the other side of the room.

"Nothing here is right, Selene. It's a matter of survival. Without this," he pointed to where Arthur and the girl stood, face to face, "you would be dead."

"And what of you?" she asked. "What do you have to gain from this?"

"Nothing, it would seem. I thought I had everything to gain, but now I see it was all for nothing. Everything I strained for. Everything I concealed from the government. I am pursued by Central Control for a fantasy. I ruined my life for nothing." He sighed and glanced sideways at her, a deep hurt in his eyes, running his fingers through his hair, tugging on clumps.

"Silence, please," hissed the witch. "It is important to watch, to see it is done right."

As Selene focussed her attention on the Arthur and the girl, she realised it was almost like being back at Epershand, watching Jonathan Masters and Thirty-Seven. Except this time the girl would die.