Souls of Ashes

Chapter II

     I do not know when it happened, but I fell heavily into her, inhaling her smell that was so different from all the others wafting throughout the house. Her scent remained unchanged.

     "We must escape from here, whatever the cost."

     I just barely heard her sweet, sweet voice over the pounding of my own heart. And slowly I withdrew from her, gazed into her eyes. Then glanced back to the closed, locked door.

     "...We can't." I heard the rain still beating relentlessly down upon our house. "The land will be flooded by now, making passage into town impossible. We must wait until the morning."

     "The morning," she cried, "We could be dead by morning, the witch will surely have finished us off by then. This is impossible; if we stay here, we will surely perish."

     I glanced down. Her face was rivetted with both fear and concern. Swallowing my own I let out a slow, deep breath to exhale it from my body. My eyes closed as I considered her words, then promptly opened again.

     "...Very well." We must go through with this- for her sake.

     Grasping her hand in mine I turned to the door, not even bothering to grab the small quantity of gold that rested on the nightstand. I simply wanted to get her out of here, and now. Reaching out for the door's handle, listening for any other noise save the relentless pounding of rain and thunder, I heard none. Nevertheless my hand wavered before grasping the door, wrenching it open. I immediatly scrutionized the area before me. No one. Holding my breath against the stench of burning flesh, I quickly, quietly, led Ellisa to the door leading out side. Rain pelted, stinging, against my face as I opened it; it fell in heavy sheets just beyond. I practically had to shout for her to hear me over the crashing thunder.

     "Stay here. I will see if there is anything suspicious around."

     I saw her nod, and taking her approval, made my circle around the small house. Water ran in rivellets through depressions in the earth; I had only taken a few steps before I had stepped in a muddy puddle, and the rain had soaked me through. This was folly. Ellisa should have better sense than--

     Suddenly a loud noise made me stop in my tracks, a noise that wasn't the boom of thunder nor anything else the Mother of Nature proivided.

     Ellisa.

     Turning sharply around, I ran back to the front of the house to find my fiance in the rough hands of another man, a man who seemed as pale as a corpse.

     She was struggling vainly against him, and then he opened his mouth to reveal canine teeth that had been abnormally elongated. By what means I knew not, though it was the furthest thing from my mind as, to my horror, he bit the neck of Ellisa. She immediatly stopped her struggling, and her frightened, wide brown eyes focused on me before shutting forever.

     And when the man withdrew, I understood. Those twin puncture marks on my mother, sister, and now my dead fiance were created by this man, who at least seemed to be some sort of witch.

     I screamed, I honestly could not help it. This man, what exactly was he? He would surely kill me, but if I fled now-- no. I could not flee, could not leave the body of my dead fiance for the soaking rain, stench-ridden mud, lowly maggots. So I stayed, even stepped a few paces forwards. Rain stung my eyes.

    "Stay away from her," I snarled, the animosity in my voice surely covering up the fear and panic, "Lest you wish to be judged by God Himself."

     Even with the pelting rain, I could hear his mocking laugh plainly, and his reply even better. "Brave words, little boy. However, you should know by now that God holds no power over me."