Blood Vengeance [COMPLETED]

Chapter Forty-Four - Unexpected Results

Melandrose knelt and put her arms around Selene, letting her strength fill Selene's weakened form.

"Are you well, are you well?" she repeated, her voice soft and caring.

"Yes, yes," said Selene, raising her eyes to look at Melandrose, clasping at her arms and shoulders, needing reassurance that all was well, and that she was still alive.

At first she could see nothing, and worried that she was blind like the other witches, and that the light that had emanated from her pupils and stolen her sight.

But it was not so. She saw Melandrose smile, and felt her cool hands clasping her face and kissing her cheeks and lips.

"You were perfect," she muttered, her cool lips fluttering over Selene's cheek. "There is something else I must show you," she said, when Selene felt strong enough to stand.

"What is it?" asked Selene, wiping away the tears of pain that still stung her eyes with shaking fingertips.

"I want to show you the boy," said said, pulling away from Selene and clasping her hands together, "the man, who fights for you."

"Xander?"

"That is his name," she murmured. "A pure human love is so rare, and his for you is admirable. Although it has been many years since he saw you, he still holds a place for you in his heart."

"Years?"

"Time is everything and nothing here," she said. "In human years, it is perhaps three or four. He has an army. The Vampires are nearly conquered. London is on its knees, and victory is nearly his."

Selene took a moment to absorb this, finding it hard to believe. It had been less than two weeks since she had last seen him.

"How can you show me?"

"The pool of truth. It shows whatever we wish to see." Melandrose's pale eyes sparkled with the excitement that adumbrated a secret to be shared. "Come, follow me," she said, tugging on Selene's gown, and almost running ahead of her, pressing her hands in a bizarre pattern on the wall, making her fingers dance on the shimmering golden walls.

Selene watched, fascinated, as Melandrose sighed and stepped backwards, allowing a deep pool to be revealed in the floor. It began as a tiny droplet of mercurial liquid, spreading in a perfect circle over the floor, and stopping just as it reached the hems of their gowns.

Selene leant over, looking into the pool, but it was blank. It showed not even her own reflection; the surface was pure and unrippled.

"Ask it what you want." Melandrose waved her arm over the surface of the liquid.

Selene tucked her long silver hair behind her ears and stared at the blind pool.

"Show me Xander," she whispered, her body tense as she waited to see what it would show.

Frozen in anticipation, they stood and watched as an image became clear.

A man, clean-shaven, but with his distinctive dark curls haloing his head, stood amongst the rubble of a city, a stake held high in his hand. He seemed to be shouting, orating, verbally galvanising a crowd of human soldiers, who wore tattered dirty clothes, but who all had carved wooden stakes, and some even had guns slung across their shoulders.

"The city is ours," he said. "All the remains" - he raised a fisted hand over his head, pumping it against the sky - "is to take Central Control."

"He's taking Central Control?" asked Selene, her eyebrows raised in a question as she turned to look at Melandrose, who was absorbed in the image on the surface of the pool.