Hi,

I've got a question for you this time and it concerns the last few chapters. In the light of recent events, is what Anna's doing right or wrong? Is there even a "right" or "wrong"? Let me know what you think.  ;-)

Lara

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Chapter 46

Something in Andy's face changed and he shook his head.

Ah, yes. Andy would go in there, were he alone. But he was hesitant because he was afraid for her life. He wanted to go in alone. Without her.

What a waste. What an inconsistency.

She turned her head back to building. She should have done this alone.

Her old life. She could carry it to the grave without regret and walk that line like a devoted soldier. Survival, no matter the cost was her coveted price. No looking back. No regrets. No fear. The axis on which the whole world spun was after all power.

She scanned the old, broken down cinema, restless. Abandoned as the Red Zone seemed, there were whole worlds of power, there for the taking. Even here Spirit was potent. All she had to do was reach out.

How could she have missed it all that time, even back then when she was still tethered down by elemental magic alone? The tips of her fingertips were aching for power. Power she hadn't used for so long.

Invisible ribbons of dark magic swirled through the streets, moved by an eerie undercurrent she couldn't even begin to fathom. If she raised her arm high up in the air she could just grab them.

She licked her lips. She wanted to use the magic. She felt she might die if she didn't.

Andy grabbed her arm, squeezing. She blinked, clawed herself out of the vision of her using the power offered. His eyes were questioning, a silent question mark.

She shook herself mentally. She would use Spirit. Soon.

She pointed to the building mutely and started walking, not waiting for his consent. She had made up her mind long ago. If talking to Fabrice would bring her one step closer to the truth, she would do it, no matter the risk.

Knowing why and how she became what she was now was her first priority. Only in understanding it, she could figure out who her remaining enemies were and learn more about their goals.

Only in understanding one's enemy, you could defeat him. Only in understanding the powers offered, could she master them. And survive.

She sensed Andy behind her before he overtook her. His jaw was set in stone, as if he was angered by her having made a decision he would have taken all along, had he come here alone. Foolish, to be distracted and tethered down by emotions.

She concentrated on the faded, crumbling steps as they approached the old entrance. They would enter the cinema from here. If the vamps left before they reached them, the chase could turn out to be tough, perhaps impossible. Even with all her power she couldn't move as fast as a vampire.

But she was betting on the vamps' cockiness, on their curiosity and sense of superiority. Five vampires against two witches – a no brainer for any vamp over a century old. It was a risk she was willing to take.

The broken doors hung at a weird angle – a crooked finger that might have invited them in. The red carpet was faded and torn in places. Mold crawled along the walls, a silent witness to the passage of time that, slowly, but surely, was eating away the building's substance.

The building was dark to the point of pitch black. All they could do was rely on second sight. Andy was right beside her, if only reluctantly. She could feel his aura like a flame emanating heat right behind her back. The center they were walking towards still held five dark auras. The vampires were motionless. As if they were waiting for them.

Good.

Their steps were like small explosions of sounds, reverberating from the walls in a deafening ricochet. The corridor-like entrance led to something else, another room, bigger. They were entering under the assumption that this group of vampires was part of Fabrice's circle, ideally that he was among them himself. Also, they assumed Fabrice would want to talk to Andy.

Almost there.

Three more steps, and they would reach the next room, where the five auras were waiting. Her fingertips twitched, itching with the need to finally release all that power. She would-

Andy grabbed her by the upper arm and pushed her back before storming into the bigger room blindly. She cursed and rushed in.

Motion on a molecular level, a small snap in the auratic set up. The approach of power, fast-fast-fast. She blinked against pitch-black dark, slipping in and out of second sight. Andy was already in the middle of the room, hands blazing with rings of flame.

The use of fire in closed-off space was dangerous. Apparently Andy didn't care.

Three vamps were coming from the front and the side, racing towards her like black arrows. She licked her lips and opened herself to the dark magic, raising that hand she'd imagined so many times. Tendrils of dark magic, within her, swimming in the air. She closed her fingers around them and breathed in, eyes fluttering shut. Sweet, dark magic raced through her veins with the soft hum of a rising undercurrent. And it felt so good. She relocated the vamps in second sight and opened her eyes.

Electric bolts exploded from her like scattered, diffused light, hitting their targets.

The three vamps crumbled to the ground. Dead. She knew without checking, could taste their death on the tip of her tongue. She exhaled slowly.

More.

There was more magic to take. Another moment like this. Another taste of that perfect, sweet sense of peace. Just one more.

No. She was here for a purpose.

She shook herself and moved on, slipping into second sight, and located Andy. There, up on the stage.

The light went on as if by an invisible hand, blinding her with its dark-yellow glow. Stucco work in beige running through a maze of frescos tinged in blood-red color. A silent army of plush-red seats wallowing in their half-decomposed state.

Her eyes zeroed in on what she'd seen in second sight. Andy was on the stage, facing Fabrice silently. The red-haired, Asian vampire was right beside them, watching with his arms folded in front of his chest. The faded cinema screen in the background looked like an artful frame that had captured the three in mid-air.

Taking the vamps out was out of the question. It would defeat the purpose of coming here. She needed answers first. Fabrice, perhaps even the red-haired vampire might be able to give her the information she sought.

Fabrice took a step forward, slipping into that fluid glide-flow that defied all rules of physics. Faster than she could see, he had latched his hands on Andy's arm, burying his face in Andy's neck.

Andy didn't move, didn't even try to fight off the vampire.

She tensed. Dark magic coiled and rolled deep inside her, building itself up and up. She was ready to use it, wanted to use it, but couldn't.

What was Andy doing?

The Asian vampire exploded into action, a fist ramming itself into compressed air. She held up her hand, palm facing him. The Asian vamp evaded her wall of dark magic and vanished into thin air.

No, he hadn't vanished. She knew better.

There, behind her.

The electric wall shifted and she let it engulf her. She could have taken the vampire out, but she wanted to see what information he had, if he had any, first.

He circled her, soft-footed, watching her every move with dark pools of eyes. A distraction she wasn't going to fall for. The vamp was good. Probably older than she'd assumed. He didn't feel that old or powerful, but she might have been fooled.

"Who are you and what do you want?" She threw the question at him in a low voice.

The vamp laughed, his eyes narrowing. Peeking through her cocoon of electricity, she could see him morph into stillness in the way she'd seen Alexander do.

"Curious. Very curious," he said. His voice was soft and low, yet it seemed to carry a force of its own.

Something inside her contracted, like a heart attack of a sort, and all of a sudden her head felt heavy, almost dizzy.

She shook her head, as if she could shake it off with one motion alone. She knew what the vampire was trying to do, had been at the receiving end of Alexander's stares too many times to not be able to tell.

"Quit the mind-fuck and tell me what you're doing here," she said coolly.

His eyes widened, exploding into obsidian black. "Make me."

The words were a hiss that sliced through the air and right into her wall of electricity – as was he. The vampire crashed into her walls, right into that ring of deadly Spirit, then retreated. It was just a second, but she'd felt it. She blinked and he was standing where he had been seconds before. He was still standing. Alive.

She'd assumed the magic she was using now would be deadly to any vamp, no matter which age. Perhaps it wasn't as deadly as she thought. She needed more magic.

It was there. She could see herself taking more.

"Talk to me, Fabrice, dammit!" Andy's voice pierced through her vision, shattered it.

He tore away from Fabrice with a scream, conjuring up a wall of fire. His neck was a mess of glistening blood.

She shifted her eyes back to her direct opponent. Answers first.

The Asian vampire's expression changed into a smile, just for a heartbeat.

She froze. Something wasn't right.

That smile.

For a fleeting moment she felt something. An ominous sense of foreboding that raised goose bumps on the back of her neck. Something almost like... fear.

Her skull splintered in two and she shifted sideways, losing her balance. She shook her head, righted herself. She was seeing two things. Two visions that showed her two realities. In the first, the Asian vampire was right before her, still, oh so still, watching her. In the second she was facing thin air. She turned, scanned the elongated shadows in the theatre while accessing second sight. Even that reading was ambiguous and showed her two versions.

Dammit! All the power she had at her disposal, and still, somehow that vampire had gotten into her mind.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Never, never again would she go back into that place of helplessness.

She raised a metaphorical hand, fingers grazing the currents of dark magic. This time, she didn't just take a small portion.

Never again.

She lifted her head and opened the floodgates to magic that had been incessantly whispering, urging. This time she listened to the sound of Spirit. It was there around her, in that theater. The currents of dark magic aligned and crept to her like mist drifting along the ground of the theatre. The ground vibrated as if shaken by a low bass sound. The noise amplified and culminated in a roar of stone grating against stone.

The magic uncoiled itself like a returning whisper, darting back and forth until it smashed into her. Insects crawling in her mind, hot with motion. Eyesight blacked out and darkened.

And she let go.