by Myers, AJ
Oh, that was it! Game over! It was go time!
I felt the switch inside me again, only this time it was more intense. It felt like I was looking through someone else’s eyes as I lifted my head and glared at the monster before me. My body hummed with demonic hunger, and it felt like I only had the barest control over it as, snarling, I yanked on the chains holding my arms over my head, enjoying the sound they made as they snapped, and then reached down and snapped the chains holding my feet as well. As Amelia watched, her eyes widening in horror, I felt my power flood through me, change me, make me more than I had ever thought I could be. I could feel it, taste it, and I didn’t even attempt to resist it.
“Let me tell you what is going to happen here, you old bitch,” I said in an eerily echoing voice, starting toward her. “I’m going to save Hamilton the trouble of burning you.”
She backed all the way up to the door, her lips quivering in fear. I stalked toward her, making sure she saw me coming. When her back hit steel she looked at it and then back at me, her terror so obvious that her eyes were starting to roll back in her head.
How many girls had waited to die as they watched her walk toward them? How many had begged and pleaded for her to let them live? And all for what? So she could live forever?
Not if I had anything to say about it.
“Please, Ember,” she whimpered, her fingernails clawing at the door behind her in search of the bolt as white-hot, iridescent, flames erupted around me. I wanted her to feel that fear, the fear she had given to so many others as she took their lives to prolong hers. “You wouldn’t hurt an old woman. You’re not a monster.”
“You’re right, I’m not,” I murmured darkly, still moving toward her. “But you are.”
I saw my reflection in her eyes as I waited for her terror to reach its zenith. It was an amazing sight. I wasn’t surrounded by fire. It wasn’t hovering around me waiting to be called on if I needed it. I had actually become a being of white-hot heat. Even my eyes glowed with it, flickering like the flames of a candle. The gossamer wings I had been given by Tyler’s blood arched up behind me, making me look like a beautiful being of light, sweet and ethereal.
Only, there wasn’t anything sweet about me. I was the end for Amelia and Hamilton and all those other people out there who had taken such pleasure in killing the supernatural beings of the world.
I was vengeance.
The generator behind me blew up with the blast of heat I released, taking the entire back wall out. The chains coiled on the floor melted like ice in an incinerator, leaving steaming silvery pools on the concrete to cover the blood of the witches who’d been tortured there. The autopsy table where who knew how many had breathed their last breath folded in on itself like it had been put in a forge to be melted down.
I watched it all burn as the fury inside me spiraled out of control, and then turned to finish what I had started. I kicked the charred remains of Amelia aside as I walked toward what remained of the doorway without even looking at them. She wasn’t worth my time anymore.
Rage. Vengeance. Hate. They had become my strength, my power. I allowed that power to consume me, reveling in it, as I walked out the door and unleashed hell.
Chapter 38: Playing With Fire
The fact that a building had exploded hadn’t gone unnoticed, apparently. Panicked people dashed back and forth across the central courtyard, but they froze as I stepped out of the flaming ruins, their jaws going slack, their eyes round. I ignored them as if they were no more important than lawn gnomes. I stopped once I was in the open air, taking a deep breath as I searched for the ones I wanted. The others would wait. I had special plans for Harvey and Luke. Then, I was going after Hamilton.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I crooned, barely recognizing my own voice as I turned toward the foul scent of rotten breath and the delicious scent of fear. “Come on, Luke. I thought you wanted to play with me.”
“Now! Now! Now!” Luke screamed, dashing out of the shadows and making a run for it.
The still air was suddenly filled with the sound of gunfire. I looked up to find that Hamilton’s people had taken up position on the rooftops. They were firing one bullet after another at me. Just as they were about to reach me, I waved my arm and watched, a cold smile on my face, as they melted into nothing, raining molten gold down like drops of blood to melt the snow around me. Ignoring the people on the rooftops for the moment, I searched for my target again.
“Stop,” I said softly, my voice sounding very cold and very dangerous even to me.
It was instantaneous, just like it had been when Tyler had done it to me. Luke froze mid-step, his eyes as wide with terror as Amelia’s had been. He knew death was coming for him. That was good. I really wanted him to anticipate his trip to Hell.
I didn’t bother playing with him. His fear, the aromatic stench of it, was enough. Lifting my hand like I would blow him a kiss, I blew a thin stream of the light I had become across the space between us. He screamed when it wrapped around his legs and then kept screaming until it had taken his whole body. Once he was totally incinerated, it drew back toward me, becoming one with its source again, leaving nothing behind but a pile of ash that was already being carried away by the wind.
Two down. Two to go.
It took me a second to realize the shooting had stopped. I turned around in a circle, meeting the eye of every man and woman there. Terror was thick in the air. They had encountered something they had never seen before, and they were too afraid to move, to draw my attention to them alone. They had just seen what happened when I focused on just one person. No one there wanted to be next.
“How many of my kind have you killed?” I asked softly, listening as my voice echoed and grew in the complete silence. “How many have you tortured, maimed? How many lives have you completely destroyed with your cruelty? Suffer no witch to live. That is the motto you live by, isn’t it? Tell me, why should I suffer any of you to live? What higher purpose do any of you serve?”
Silence was my only answer. Irritated by these cowards who wouldn’t even defend their oh-so-not noble cause, I turned and lobbed a fireball at the closest building and watched with a sense of satisfaction as the very stone started to melt under the heat. The people trapped on top of it started jumping off, screaming as the heat of the building seared their skin. I heard bodies hit the ground with sickening thuds, loud moans of pain. They were sweet sounds to my ears.
“I won’t ask you again,” I said, my voice cold and imperious and saturated with the rage eating at me. “Give me a reason not to burn you. Don’t, and I won’t leave a single person alive when I walk away!”
I could feel my temperature rising again. I had melted the snow all over the courtyard and dried the ground out with that heat. Even my ghosts were keeping a wary distance. I saw a few of them wince with the rise in temperature. Several were actually fleeing in the face of it.
I focused on one face in the mass of many. Kinsley was smiling at me, her arms crossed over her chest and an eager look on her face. She was making a point to keep a safe distance, but she didn’t look horrified or disappointed by my actions as some of the others did.
Then, I guessed she wouldn’t. These were the people who had killed her.
“Please, let us go!” a woman called out from one of the rooftops, her voice quaking with fear. “Please! I have a family, children!”
“Why should that matter to me?” I lobbed another ball of heat, destroying another building. More thuds. More moans. I got a little hotter. “How many witches begged for the same thing? How many did you let go home to their families?”
I threw another bolt and another, watching as the buildings disintegrated in the heat. The third blast I threw must have hit where they housed their weapons and ammunition, because it literally exploded, taking everyone who’d been stupid enough to stay on the roof with it. Bullets whizzed through the air, taking out more of the men and women scattering to escape my wrath.
And still I felt myself getting hotter.
“You can kill all of them you want, Ember,” Kinsley said, shaking her head as if I were missing something important. “It won’t change anything, though. Think of them as the appendages of some mutant monster. If you cut them off, they just grow back. But, if you cut off the head…”
“Then the monster dies,” I whispered, smiling evilly.
“Exactly,” she said, returning it with a pretty evil smile of her own.
There was only one building left, one solitary structure. I didn’t hit that one. My prime target had barricaded himself inside. I could smell his sweat and hear his pounding heartbeat as he watched me destroy his sanctuary. I wanted him to watch, to see what he had forced me to become.
“No one can force you to become anything,” a quiet, kind voice said beside me. I looked up to see the ghost of the young man who reminded me of Charles standing not too far from me, his expression sad and his eyes filled with kindness. “You know better than most how the choices you make shape who you become. You had to learn that the hard way, and I ache for how brutal that lesson was for you. Now you face another one of those tough choices, Ember. You can destroy, or you can heal. You can make the world an ugly, terrible place or you can create beauty.”
He swept his arm out grandly and my eyes followed the gesture. The heat I was putting off was so intense that I had thawed the soil beneath the surface, creating an effect like spring. All around me were wildflowers in every color under the rainbow. Green grass tickled my bare feet before scorching under the blazing heat of my skin.
“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are right now?” he whispered as I tilted my head, listening to him. “Don’t be the other one, Ember. Don’t let your demon win. You’re good, Ember. You told Tyler you wanted to show Hamilton what a real witch looks like. Do it. Walk away.”
“No!” Kinsley hissed, appearing on my other side. “Remember what they did, Ember! Remember the burns all over Kim’s body! Remember the bruises on that old woman’s face! They’re evil, Ember! They’re never going to stop! Take them out, before they take you!”
“Don’t listen to her,” the young man said softly with a sympathetic look at Kinsley. “She’s angry and bitter. She wants revenge; not to help anyone but to ease her own suffering. You’ve encountered her kind before. Don’t let her influence you to become someone you were never meant to be. You’re better than that.”
I felt like I was listening to the angel on my right shoulder argue with the devil on my left. On the one hand, Kinsley deserved her vengeance. They had burnt her at the stake for no other reason than that she was a witch.
But the sweet guy on my right made sense. When had I decided that I should be judge, jury, and executioner? What gave me that right? And, by doing so, wasn’t I just as bad as the monsters I sought to destroy?
Good or evil. The side I picked would win the war. That was what my father had said. Did I really want to be the one who tipped the balance to the dark side?
“I don’t want to be a monster,” I whispered, giving Kinsley a pleading look. She glared at me, her expression sinister once again, then disappeared.
It’s okay now, baby, Nathan’s voice suddenly whispered in my mind. His delicious scent floated to me on the breeze and I felt something inside me shift back into its rightful place, felt some of my hate ebb.
Em, you have to tone it down. Tyler’s warm, smooth voice helped ease some of my anger. We can’t help you if we can’t get near you, beautiful.
“My precious baby.”
I whirled around in surprise to find Grams standing a safe distance away, flanked by Kim and Mrs. Val on one side and Ainsley and Erin on the other. There were tears glittering in her eyes as she looked at me, awed by the sight before her. Love started trickling through me again.
“Oh, you are so beautiful,” she said tearfully, taking a step toward me. “So very, very beautiful.”
A single shot rang out, shattering the silence that followed Grams’ whisper of awe. Just one. I saw the flash as the bullet was fired from the corner of my eye. I saw the trajectory and the intended target as it came speeding toward us.
They had almost had me. I had almost been calm. I had almost been me again.
And then Harvey had to go and take a shot at my Grams.
“No!” I roared, an unearthly sound that reverberated around me, shaking the very ground.
The light I had become got even hotter as I stepped forward to intercept the bullet before it could take away the only person who had ever truly loved me unconditionally. I had never had to worry that I wasn’t good enough or smart enough or strong enough with Grams. She had made a point to tell me every chance she got how beautiful and special I was to her. They would not take her from me. I would kill every single one of them before I let them hurt anyone else I cared about.
Like the other bullets, Harvey’s shot melted from the sheer heat rolling off of me. I turned toward him slowly, my whole body pulsing with rage again. Kinsley had been right after all. If I didn’t take them out, they would eventually kill me or someone I loved. It was better just to get it over with. If that made me a monster, then so be it.
But before I could move to attack, another figure stepped between us. A tall, slim figure with long, dark hair streaked with grey. When she turned to look at me, I saw something in her eyes I had never even thought possible. Tenderness. For me.
“It’s my turn, darling,” Ms. Cantrell said softly. “This one is mine.”
The rest of my army charged as one as she lifted her arms to the heavens and her hair began to whip around her. Suddenly, bolts of lightning were striking everywhere. Mikhail’s bunch streaked through the crowd, subduing those who surrendered and killing those who didn’t. The archangels were playing clean up, rounding up the prisoners and disposing of the dead. When the dust cleared, Hamilton’s little army was no more. It had taken less than fifteen minutes for them to go from hunters to prey.
But, for some reason, I kept getting hotter.
The sound of raised voices coming through the thick steel door behind me caused me to turn around quickly, waiting for Hamilton to come barging out, guns blazing. When the door flew open, though, it was Blaire who walked out. Behind her, the cabana boy clones carried Hamilton, screaming and writhing to get free, between them.
Blaire stopped when she saw me standing there, her eyes going all dreamy for a second, and then her lips poked out in a jealous pout. It must have been hard for her, being the second prettiest girl at the party. I was sure it wasn’t something she was used to.
The sight of my burning body had a quite different effect on Hamilton. He looked like he was about to have a stroke and his eyes were bugging out with fear. And then, making my night, he actually pissed himself. One of the young men holding him wrinkled his nose as the smell of urine hit him, then made the cutest disgusted face. When he turned to look at Blaire, the expression on his face asked, “Can I kill him now?”
“What do you want us to do with him, Ember?” Blaire asked in disgust, turning back to me when Hamilton started to tremble in terror. “It’s your show, girl. But please be quick about it. This one stinks.”
I looked around the group waiting for my answer until my eyes fell on Ainsley, glaring at her brother. She dragged her eyes away from him only long enough to give me a quick, stiff nod and jerk her head toward the stakes still planted in the ground.
“He’s given us the means of his destruction,” I said, turning back to Blaire. “Boys, tie him up.”
Hamilton’s face went bone white, his eyes rolling crazily from side to side, like he could find a way to escape if he just looked in enough different directions at once. But there was no escape. Not for him.
The cabana boys made quick work of the job and then backed up and walked over to stand behind their queen. Ainsley was the first to walk forward, a piece of gasoline-soaked wood in her hands. She hefted it in her hands, like she was testing the weight of it. I wondered, t
hough, if what she was really weighing was the guilt she would have to bear when the night was over. Apparently, she decided it was a weight she could live with, because she laid it at the base of the stake and then stood up, looking him dead in the eye. For a long moment, they just looked at each other. It made me sad to see that, even tied to a stake and about to burn, he still glared down at her with hatred in his eyes.
“For Kinsley,” she said softly as she turned away. She walked back to her place in the group and Zan immediately wrapped his arms around her.
A young girl, maybe fifteen years old, stepped forward next, placing the wood in her hands next to Ainsley’s. “For my mother.”
A tall, pale man with shaggy blonde hair stepped up next. “For Alexis.”
For each person who stepped forward with a piece of wood, a loved one was remembered. For each one, justice was finally theirs. When there were no more, every head turned toward me where I stood alone, too hot now to even be near. They had built the pyres; all I had to do was strike the match, so to speak.
“For all of those who died at your hands,” I said softly, walking forward slowly as the rest of my army of friends and family backed away. “For all those whose screams didn’t haunt you. For all those whose lives you destroyed by taking away someone special to them. We, a jury of their peers, find you guilty. Do you have anything to say before you die, Trey?”
“If you burn me, you will only be proving us right,” Hamilton hissed, hate dripping from his every word. “You’re abominations, all of you. Others will come. All of you will die, mark my words.”
“Perhaps,” I said, nodding. “Is that it?”
“This isn’t over witch,” he spat, laughing manically. “This isn’t over by a long shot.”
“Yes, it is,” I said, turning away. I heard the whoosh of the gasoline as it caught from my heat and kept walking.
I walked away from all of it, from the anger and the hate and the lust for vengeance, as the silent crowd watched Trey Hamilton burn. I hadn’t gone far when I started to get dizzy. A few more steps and my body became heavy, like it was encased in concrete. The fire was sapping my energy and had been for a while. I tried to put it out, but instead I felt my temperature rise again. Too drained to go any further, I sank to my knees and put my hands over my face. I was just so tired.