Chapter 44: Warm Words

Duponte walked forward leaving fiery steps behind her.

A curtain of black and red lightning crackled around her skin, and her smile was both wicked and wide, as if all of Silvana’s efforts were nothing more but mere entertainment. Silvana, though, could barely move; she tried to bring herself from her knee to no avail, and with one eye shut and the other squinted, she hazily watched as Duponte smacked away Bruce and Amelia, sending the two barreling into the forest.

As much as she wanted to retaliate, Silvana was depleted of energy, and sealing the spirits away had drained her of any remaining magic.

Duponte clutched Silvana’s face with a single hand, and Silvana felt a burning that was completely unique and unlike anything she ever experienced. The pain was not like when she burned her hands ripping the bindings off of Bruce’s arms when he was in her father’s basement, but the burning caused by Duponte’s touch was raw, unnerving, and rattled her from head to toe. Duponte glared at Silvana with eyes black as charcoals, and the nasty smile on Duponte’s face grew even wider.

“You’ve become this powerful because of me,” Duponte whispered, her voice chilling in one ear and warm in the other.

“You will let her go!” Solaris shouted, speeding towards them.

Silvana winced and writhed as steam rose from her cheek and Duponte gripped her face tighter, squeezing Silvana’s features together embarrassingly, and making it almost impossible to watch, from the corner of her eye, as Duponte raised her free hand and formed it dramatically into a fist.

Solaris, the falling snow, the leaves on the trees, all of it went completely still.

“Do you see now, child, how you have taken your powers from me?” Duponte questioned, loosening her grasp on Silvana’s chin and tracing a finger down the side of the young witch’s cheek.

Panting and feeling more tired after Duponte’s burning touch, Silvana responded, “The only thing I see is a monster on a power trip.”

“Oh, Silvana. I’m the next step in evolution. We’re the next step.”

“I’m nothing like you,” Silvana spat, checking a hand to her cheek. There were no burn marks or bleeding. All the pain passed from Duponte was internal, and no doubt an infliction from her demonic hands.

“You’re the blood of my blood, Silvana,” Duponte said calmly, tilting her head and tugging Silvana’s head back by the hair.

She inspected Silvana and added, “Yes, you look just like your mother.”

Silvana felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach.

“Don’t mention her,” Silvana said through gritted teeth.

“Why’s that, dearest? It’s not like you two ever spoke. Isn’t that right? She passed so you could enter this world, so you could grace our species with the ultimate power.”

Silvana, enraged, was about to clash back with whatever vitriolic words she could muster, but was interrupted by Duponte who continued addressing her.

“It’s not like anybody has ever shown you the proper appreciation for what you are, Silvana.”

Duponte’s words had changed in temperament, and what was once distant and chilling sounded only loving and considerate.

Duponte nudged her head in the direction of Solaris who stood, mid-step, frozen in place. Not even so much as his eyes moved to set upon the two women and watch their conversation transpire.

“Not even your father, the man who sat idly by as your mother was sacrificed, shows you the kindness that you deserve.”

And for as much as Silvana knew that Duponte was speaking with the charm that could only be possessed by a manipulative wretch, there was truth to what Duponte was saying, and it made it all the more painful for Silvana to hear.

Letting go of the knot of Silvana’s strawberry-blonde hair nestled in her fingers, Duponte took the same hand and pushed Silvana’s hair over her shoulder.

“You are my kin,” Duponte said, the smile on her face suddenly feeling inviting. “You are of my kind and you are beautiful, and you are so very strong.”

Silvana’s lip trembled. It was as if Duponte was reaching deep into the recesses of Silvana’s mind, searching for the very words that she had always wanted her father to say to her, then repeating them with a manipulative yet charming demeanor.

“With one more final step, my dear, we could control everything,” Duponte said, her eyes growing big, and the charcoal color to them getting darker.

“Join with me, and you can have whatever it is that you set your eyes upon.”

Silvana felt her hatred and disappointment and resentment begin to fade. Was this some sort of spell? Was this magic? She knew that Duponte was right; Silvana had power that others dreamt of. She was better than them, stronger than them. Maybe she should side with those who value and appreciate her.

And then she thought of Bruce. Of Amelia. She pictured the three of them lodging in the cabin, Amelia spread out on the tiny futon in her large wool blankets, and Bruce starfishing across the bed, taking up so much of the mattress Silvana had to use his chest as a pillow. Somehow, when she closed her eyes, Silvana saw Angus in the mix, being there for Amelia in the same way that Bruce had been there for Silvana.

“What do you say to joining me and having the ultimate power, my child?” Duponte asked, her smile giving off a dark glow.

“I say that love is more important to me than power,” Silvana said determinedly. A jolt of energy coursed through her, allowing her to stand. “And I know that it’s certainly stronger.”

Standing tall, Silvana’s hands clenched into fists.

And then a voice so twisted and wretched made her flinch.

“Just like women, to yap and yap and yap!” a voice echoed, and the person it belonged to sounded neither human or creature, but nonetheless was familiar.

“Kurt?” Silvana whispered to herself with a raised brow.

A werewolf, or rather, what remained of a werewolf, marched its way out from the trees. Kurt was in his silverclaw form, though one half of his werewolf body was far larger than the other, and both were demented and pulsed with crimson glowing energy through the welts and festering cracks in his skin. Orange ooze flowed out from the pulsating veins on his one massive arm, and he belted out a roar that knocked down trees as he hobbled over, past the frozen Angus and Solaris. Kurt’s mouth was filled with jagged teeth the size of Silvana’s legs, but it looked as though his teeth were rotting with the same orange ooze emitting from his cracked skin.

In several spots, there were teeth missing entirely.

“Witch or werewolf, whatever you are,” Kurt said, his arrogance ringing through the bizarre and unnatural voice he had taken in his transformation, “you will bow to your new alpha.”