The Wolvesbane Chronicle's : Silver and Gold

Chapter 2 : Halloween Party

   Helena turned to admire her look from the side, flashing a pouty look in the full length mirror while trying to make her dawn-sky eyes smoulder. Her dress was corseted tight in the back, hugging her torso in a way that made her appear less boney and more excentuated, but the layers of taffeta and chiffon that made up the skirt swallowed up her hips and just brushed her mid thigh. It was perfect.

   "I still think it could use more blood. Would look much more wicked with some sick drippage." A female voice floated up from the direction of the closet. Helena rolled her eyes and continued posing in the reflective glass, her head pounding.

   "Well sometimes less is more, my dear Valencia." She protested half-heartedly, tugging the dress further down in an attempt to show off what little cleavage she possessed. Melancholy just seemed to be rolling off her in waves, and the worst part was how visible it was, even to herself. She had felt absolutely horrible since the first day Blaire had not returned to school, and it was just getting worse. She was emotionally drained and physically run ragged. Val is simply trying to make you smile, she chided herself sharply. Stop thinking about that damn boy. Why do you care that he wasn't in gym today? You don't even know him.

   "But you want to." The little voice in her head reminded her. Her face fell in the mirror. This silly crush was getting to her.

   "If you insist." The other girl sighed sarcastically.

   Helena watched Valencia out of the corner of her eye in the mirror as she continued to dig around through the closet. Her bedroom looked like something straight out of an Anne Rice novel. The walls were papered with a beautiful baroque lace pattern, and the high arched ceiling was painted a matte jet black. All the furniture was black wrought iron and thick glass, everthing from the frame of her four poster bed to the white upholstered chaise lounge in the corner to both of her floor to ceiling bookshelves. The mirror was edged in curlicues of a wrought iron frame, and every uncluttered space was taken up by white candles, wax having melted and rehardened in dripping designs down the glass. 

   "Where is Malcolm? He was supposed to be here like half an hour ago." She winced at the whineiness of her own voice, fighting the urge to sit down even though she was wobbly on her own two feet, and that was without the five inch heels, she reminded herself. The elder girl finally emerged from her deep closet, a leather jacket draped over her arm. She leaned her shoulder against the door frame, arms crossed, a lazy smile on her face. Most things Valencia did were sluggish and laid back, and her I don't give a fuck attitude was the main reason Helena and Malcolm had become friends with her.

   They had met two years ago, when herself and Malcolm were fifteen and sixteen, respectively. They were being rebellious teenagers, spray painting the inside of a rarely used tunnel at three in the morning. Valencia had practically unfurled from the shadows themselves, unhitching her body from where it rested against the mouth of the tunnel and moving in on them as if the minors were prey. She complimented their work instead of repremanding them, much to their disbelief, before taking a swing from a blue tinted flask and offering them both some of the contents. Both accepted and each took a sip of the burning liquid, eyes watering but neither teen willing to sooth their throat by coughing, and that must have deemed them fit in her eyes. They all sat together against the cool wall and passed the flask back and forth, admirring the graffiti and talking about anything and everything. After that, she would meet them both there in the tunnel every single night for the rest of that summer.

   In the beginning, they thought she was homeless, always dressed in grungy clothes with rips, tears, holes and frayed edges. It wasn't until much later that they found out how well off for herself she actually was. How large her home was had surprised them, and how expensively furnished it was had raised an eyebrow or two. She explained it vaguely to Helena once, simply stating that she owned an occult item supply company that had once been her fathers, before the poor man had subsequently went insane and had to be confined to a mental hospital, where he still resided to that day.