The Blood Witch

9: Wraiths aren't all Bad

~ Cressida Sinclair, wraith ~

Wraiths are not looked upon with friendly eyes. Most of them are considered evil, violent creatures with an insatiable thirst for flesh and blood. But that isn't true at all. No, it is more like a stereotype than anything else. Really harmful of one, too.

Cressida Sinclair knows who she is. She knows what she is. And she is damn proud of it.

But as she takes a knee before the two gods that own her very soul, she thinks only of her powerful desire to rip them both apart. She knows she's not powerful enough to do it, but she wants to. Oh, she wants to.

Beside her is Verona, a witch with blazing, bloody red eyes. The witch is silent, her head bowed. Her blonde and red hair hangs as a sheet on either side of her face, hiding her many scars from sight. She wears her silver, black, and purple armor, which is speckled with blood.

Cressida hates Verona, who always mocks her and makes her feel like she is less than her. Verona is one of those better-than-you kinds of people. And that is something that Cressida despises.

"So," says Tildia, Goddess of the Hunt, as she surveys the two women bowed before her. The Goddess clasps her pale hands in front of herself, her hazel and green eyes shining with power. Her long and wild brown hair is piled atop her head, kept up by pins that resemble arrows. "You have brought us two people who we can use for our.... well. Our projects. But you failed to bring me the ones we requested. Can you tell me why?"

Verona speaks. "We ran into some resistance that we had not fully anticipated. We were outnumbered and outgunned. We needed to retreat, but instead, we grabbed the two we found and then fell back."

Qhira, Goddess of Blood, sneers at them. "You did not do as we told you. You failed your mission. Why are you trying to defend this? This is a total failure of a mission. We do have two people, and for that, we have Cressida to thank. Not you, Verona."

Great. That'll make her hate me more....

Tildia nods solemnly.  "We did get someone to use, though. Right, Qhira?"

Qhira sighs. "Fine, you're right." She waves a hand at Cressida then.  "You may go. But Verona, you stay."

Cressida nods and leaves. She walks down the plush, carpeted hallway of the mansion that their particular group is based in. The Guild is made for blood, for experiments, for death. And the gods of this accursed place are the leaders of it.

They rule all of them.

All of the people like Cressida, that is. They were essentially recruited against their will, so maybe drafted? Anyways, Cressida found herself among the worst of the worst, in a place where everyone is evil and killers. But Cressida? The only reason she is here is because of her need to give aid to her mother, who is sick.

She slips out of the back door, walking down the alley and leaving the part of downtown where the people are truly dark and twisted. Once she reaches uptown, she finds herself in the Stacks. The Stacks are her home, the apartments all stacked atop each other, and she climbs the stairs up to her own home.

Her mother is sitting in the kitchen, sipping her herbal tea spiked with her meds. The older wraith is dying. It is something that Cressida knows and dreads. She smiles at her mother, and she smiles back.

"Oh, my love, where have you been?"

"Just working," says Cressida, casually.  "Have you been taking all your meds?"

"Indeed," she replies, coughing into her handkerchief. Cressida smells the blood that she coughs up. She leans forward, studying her mother's weathered face. Mailey Sinclair is dying. She can sense it. It is coming, much faster than she'd thought it would.

"Mother?"

Mailey looks at her, blue and silver eyes sparkling as she starts to cry.  "I love you, my dear, sweet wraith girl."

Cressida smiles. "I love you, too, my momma. More than you could ever know."

Her mother cups Cressida's face in her hands. "Be brave, my love. You are extraordinary, and no matter what happens next, I will always love you. You are my love. My life. And now, my dear, it is time for me to go to the Afterworlds."

Cressida watches then, breathless, as her mother fades into nothing, a small smile on her face and tears in her eyes as she leaves Cressida behind.