Ascension (Powered)

by Zachary Stone

“Don't talk to me,” she told Lizzie. “How could you sleep with him? I knew you liked him, but I was supposed to marry him!”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “I didn’t sleep with anyone. I haven’t even been to bed.”

  “He’s right,” Meg said. “He was with me the whole time.”

  Cathy turned and looked at Lizzie who was standing by the door, watching.

  “Lizzie! Come here – now!”

  Lizzie walked slowly towards us.

  “I heard you say on the phone last night that you sneaked out and slept with him,” she said.

  “Cathy . . .” Lizzie said slowly. “I lied on the phone.”

  “What?”

  “I was trying to impress one of my friends,” she said.

  “So you didn't sleep with him?”

  “No.”

  “Lizzie, why would you say something like that?” Cathy shouted.

  Lizzie walked away without saying a word.

  “I'm so sorry,” Cathy said to me breaking down in tears.

  I was angry. I now knew that Cathy didn’t trust me.

  “I'm truly sorry,” she said.

  I walked off. Cathy started to follow me.

  “Please, I’m sorry,” she said. “Will you forgive me?”

  “I will forgive you, but I'm hurt,” I said. “You don't trust me.”

  “I do trust you,” she said.

  “Then why did you accuse me of sleeping with Lizzie?” I asked.

  “I know Lizzie,” she said.

  “You could have asked me for my side of the story,” I said.

  “Yes, I should have,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

  I turned around and looked at her. Suddenly, she embraced me. Her embrace melted my heart. For some reason, I felt that she could rip my head off and I wouldn't be mad at her.

  “I will forgive you. I love you with all my heart and I’ll never cheat on you. But please don't accuse me of something without asking first,” I said.

  She started to sob. I put my arm around her and we went back inside the house where we found Lizzie arguing with Sarah.

  “How could you do that, Lizzie?” Sarah exclaimed.

  “I'm sorry,” Lizzie said.

  “I want you to leave,” Sarah said.

  “All of you -- sit down,” I said.

  Lizzie and Sarah looked at me.

  “What you did was wrong, Lizzie, but I forgive you. But never, ever, do it again. I’ve never slept with you and will never sleep with you,” I said. “You all should know that my heart belongs to Cathy.”

  “I'm sorry for what I did,” said Lizzie.

  “We don't need to be fighting amongst ourselves. That’s what the queen wants. We need to put this behind us and focus on how we’re going to fight her.”

  I looked around the living room and saw that a few other vampires, including Ruby, were watching us.

  “Sarah, will you forgive Lizzie?” I asked.

  “If you insist,” she said.

  “Good,” I said. “If we’re to survive we all need to get along.”

  Meg interrupted me.

  “On another topic, I want to say that his training went very well. I thought it would take several days for him to come so far, but he made great progress in a single night,” she said.

  Ruby walked towards me.

  “Come with me, Eli,” she said. “Your training is just getting started.”

  I followed her to an upper room of the house. A dozen of the vampires were in a circle around a large crystal ball. The room was adorned with candles, and I could smell incense burning. Everyone seemed focus on the sphere in the center of the room.

  “We’re looking for the queen,” Ruby said.

  I sat down in the circle beside Daisy.

  “Now, look at the sphere and try to imagine the queen,” Ruby said.

  “What’s the sphere supposed to do?” I asked.

  “The sphere is made of a rare form of quartz mineral,” she said. “It enhances your ability to see places and people far away.”

  “Where did you get it?” I asked.

  “It's my mother's.” said Ruby “The sphere was given to her by a vampire empress as a gift several hundred years ago.”

  “Now start looking into the sphere. Try to imagine the queen and use your mind to search for her,” she said.

  I looked into the sphere and raised my power level. Suddenly, I felt as if I could see anyone or any place. Images of houses, businesses, and even my cat Chester filled my mind. It was a relief to see that my neighbor was continuing to care for him. He was now living in her house and seemed happy, and I wondered if I could try to communicate with him. However, I realized that my mission was to find the queen.

  In my mind I imagined the queen. I pictured her how I’d first seen her, when I was first taken to her beautiful, expensive home. She was tall and elegant in her pale blue dress. I tried to track her using the sphere, but I felt as if something was blocking me. When I tried to push, all I could see was blackness.

  Raising my power level even further, I tried to push through the blackness. Whatever was blocking me retaliated, and it sent a bolt of energy through the sphere and into my chest. I was knocked across the room and into the wall behind me.

  “That darn witch,” Ruby said. “Are you alright?”

  I pulled myself up off the floor and leaned against the wall.

  “I think so,” I said. “What witch are you talking about, the queen?”

  “No, I'm talking about the queen's witch.”

  “Oh,” I stated. “I remember someone saying that her friend was a witch.”

  “Yes,” Ruby said. “And they’ve awakened her.”

  “Every time we try to push through her concealment spell she attacks us,” Daisy said.

  Suddenly another bolt of energy shot through the sphere and hit Dr. Mills. The blast slammed him against the wall as well.

  “I'm going to take that witch out,” I said.

  “You aren’t going to do it alone,” I heard a voice call out from behind me.

  It was Cathy.

  “We’re going to take her out together,” she said.

  “Let’s do it,” I said.

  Cathy and I sat next to each other beside the sphere. We held each other’s hands as we raised our power levels. I felt her hands squeeze tighter as we both transformed into our vampire forms.

  It was a moment of bliss, as if our two bubbles of power perfectly merged. An aura of white light surrounded us. The aura became even brighter, and I saw a flash. In a blink of an eye, we felt like we were both standing in the queen's house although we were aware that in reality we were still at Meg's house in the mountains.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked Cathy who was standing beside me.

  “I'm feeling wonderful,” she said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  Back at the mountain house, I could feel her squeeze my hand. We were in two places at once; both in the room looking at the sphere and in the queen's house.

  Looking around, I could see the house was mostly destroyed. In the distance, I could see police tape and investigators combing through the rubble.

  “Let’s focus on the queen,” Cathy said. “That will take us to the witch.”

  We both put an image of the queen in our minds. Still holding hands, we pushed until we felt drawn to a certain area of the city. The queen was there; we could feel her.

  Shockingly, our surroundings turned black and we heard a voice.

  “You dare to find the queen,” the voice said. “Watch out!”

  A blast of blue energy approached us, but our auras blocked it. Back in the room in the mountains, I could feel the impact of the blast, but it barely stung. We weren’t moved an inch.

  “We’re coming for you,” I called out.

  In the pitch black landscape, I took Cathy's hand.

  “Focus on the witch's voice,” I said. “Let’s follow it.”

  As we concentrated on the witch
, we felt a pull towards an abandoned warehouse by the river. Suddenly, we were standing in an almost empty room, except for the witch. She was sitting on a pillow next to a circle of crystals.

  “How did you get here?” she asked.

  “We followed you,” I answered.

  “You should not be able to do that,” she said. “Even with the sphere of sight you should not be able to project yourselves here.”

  “Too bad,” I said.

  I started to focus on the witch's face. Peering into the molecules that composed it, I accelerated their motion. Her face started to grow hot, and I could see sweat forming.

  “No you don't,” she said.

  Out of her black robe the tall witch pulled out a bag. She took the bag, poured some of the powder in her hand, and blew it towards us.

  “Feel pain,” she said.

  I started to feel a tingling in my feet as I felt the sensation of being stabbed, but my first thought wasn’t of myself, but of Cathy.

  “Ignore the pain, Cathy” I said. “Focus on me. Let your mind think of nothing but our love.”

  The pain started to grow. Soon I saw what looked like a snake slithering up my leg. It bit into me and I could feel a burning liquid flow in my veins.

  “You have to do better than that,” I told the witch.

  I heard Cathy gasp as a snake bit into her leg as well. The idea of her being in pain made me angry. My love for her made my aura grow larger, both in the real world and in the witch's hideout.

  “You’re going to burn,” I said.

  I focused harder on the witch’s face. She tried to run out the door, but with my telekinetic ability I threw her against a wall.

  “I love you, Eli,” Cathy said, in agony. I could see that the witch's powder had made us start to hallucinate. Spiders and roaches were now crawling up our bodies.

  “I love you too,” I said. “Just ignore the pain, it's not real.”

  With every bit of my concentration, I tried to set the witch's face ablaze but she fought back. Although she was human and weak physically, she had mental powers that rivaled my own.

  We were at a standoff. The witch was using all of her power to prevent me from igniting her. I tried to push harder, but the witch had superior defenses.

  “Die!” The witch screamed as she opened her mouth and a spirit emerged.

  The ghastly entity rushed towards us and started scratching us with mystical claws. Both our physical bodies and our projections started to bleed. Two red eyes started to appear in the face of the spirit. They started to glow, and their light burned our skin.

  “You will not hurt my husband!” Cathy shouted.

  Our auras surged again, and the spirit fled away through a wall.

  I refocused on the witch and once again tried to burn her to a crisp. Just as steam started to form on her old, haggardly face, she started to chant. As she began to cast the spell, a wind started blowing in the room. Darkness started to form around her.

  “I've existed since before the queen was born,” the witch said. “I have the powers of hell behind me. You cannot win.”

  “Yes we can,” I heard a voice say from behind me.

  It was Sarah. She’d sat down with Cathy and me in the room with the sphere. Her hands were wrapped around our own.

  In an instant, she appeared next to us.in the witch’s hideout.

  “Focus,” she said. “Take that witch out!”

  She stepped towards Cathy and me, and our three auras combined.

  We all looked at the witch as her skin started to char.

  “You’ll pay for this!” the witch yelled.

  I pushed harder. I summoned every ounce of power I could and focused it on the witch.

  Immediately, a ball of fire formed around her. A moment later, she started to scream, and a pile of ash fell to the floor.

  The insects and snakes that had been crawling over us disappeared and the pain was gone. We had killed the witch.

  “Hurry,” Cathy said. “Let’s focus on the queen.”

  The three of focused on our memories of the queen. We were all drawn to a large house on the outskirts of Savannah. Under the huge house, we saw a bunker. The queen was inside.

  Suddenly, we were back in the room with the sphere.

  “I found my mother,” Sarah said.

  Chapter 12

  “We saw it all through the sphere,” Ruby said. “You three were phenomenal.”

  “Do you think we should attack the queen through the sphere?” Cathy asked Ruby.

  “No, it wouldn't work,” she said. “The witch was very weak physically, and that’s why you were able to defeat her. The queen is both strong mystically and physically and would be almost impossible to kill through the sphere.”

  “Then how are we going to take her out?” I asked.

  “We’re going to fight her in person,” Ruby said.

  “When are we going to attack?” I asked.

  “When the time is right,” she said.

  Cathy leaned against me. She looked very tired.

  “I'm taking Cathy here to the kitchen to get her something to eat,” I said. “Does anyone else want to join me?”

  A large crowd of people followed me. I’d hoped to cook for a few of us, not all of us.

  When we reached the kitchen Meg was already cooking. I led Cathy to a chair and walked up to Meg.

  “Let me help,” I said.

  “No, I'm going to take care of this,” she said. “You take care of my granddaughter.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I walked back to Cathy. She looked like she was falling asleep.

  “I feel weak,” she said.

  “Hang on,” I said. “Meg is cooking up something as we speak.”

  “Just hold me,” she said.

  I wrapped my arms around her, and she proceeded to fall asleep.

  “Do you think she’s alright?” I asked Ruby.

  “I think she’s just exhausted. She’s not part griffin like you,” she said.

  As I held her, I noticed she felt cold.

  “Something's not right,” I said.

  “Let me take a look at her,” Dr. Mills said.

  He came over and took her pulse, then pulled a thermometer out of a case and took her temperature. Oddly, he placed his hand on her forehead, shut his eyes, and went silent.

  “What's wrong with her?” I asked.

  “I think she’s going into a hibernation cycle,” he said. “We have to get food into her, fast.”

  I lifted her up into my arms, took her into the living room, and laid her on a sofa.

  “What's a hibernation cycle?” I asked.

  “A few times a year we vampires sleep for days at a time,” Ruby said. “Usually, we get signs that warn us that a cycle is coming. However, sometimes a hibernation period can be induced by extreme stress.”

  Meg came up to us with a warm bowl of broth and a funnel. She proceeded to place the funnel in Cathy's mouth.

  “This is crazy,” I said. “You can't just pour food in someone's throat with a funnel.”

  “You can if that person's a vampire,” Ruby said.

  Meg began to gradually pour the bowl of warm broth through the funnel. I could see that Cathy was swallowing it.

  “She feels ice cold,” I said as felt her forehead.

  I ran up upstairs, found some blankets, and hurriedly brought them back down. I placed the blankets all around her.

  “Is there anything else we can do for her?” I asked.

  “No, she just needs to rest,” Ruby said.

  I pulled up a small, wooden chair and sat beside Cathy.

  “Just rest my darling,” I told her.

  “Let her be,” Meg said. “She needs to be left alone.”

  I walked out of the room and went outside. It was bright outside and the sun was shining. A few puffy, white clouds were in the sky. Walking towards a rocking chair on the wrap-around porch, I heard a voice behind me.