Hi!

Ok, so Anna's giving in to 'darker' powers. How will it affect her? Find out in this one. Will there be long-term consequences? What do you think?

Lara

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Chapter 50

I didn't shy away, embraced fissures of power – took what I needed. Magic exploded, tore through me like a cutting knife. I screamed, eyes wide open. Energy hopped from one particle to another, ignited by my will and that dark part inside of me that just didn't care. Bolts of electricity met flesh. Ramondo's human servant roared above me. The power bolt hit him right in his chest, threw him back ten feet – a pale rag doll in the wind.

Darkness claimed my eyes, weaved itself into my vision like it was part of myself. There was no fear, no anger. Not the kind that drove the heartbeat to a crescendo and made you stupid and reckless. Just calm serenity, numbing, dulling like a soft blanket veiled over my eyes. There was nothing in existence but the rush of power in my veins. Magic had never felt so good, so unrestrained and pure.

I righted myself, got on my two feet, raised my hands, and stared at the man across from me. He was standing, no longer on the ground. He was bleeding from the chest, cradling his left arm, but there was a new glint in his eyes. Eagerness. The promise of violence and death. He smiled. It was a cruel smile.

"You've just signed your death sentence."

He rushed me, a shadow dividing my vision. The world shifted around me. Darkness nestled and infested the edges of my sight in time with the coldness seeping into my system. There was nothing to be gained, nothing to be had. Nothing mattered.

A smile on my lips. Unfamiliar. Not a conscious thought. I dug my arms into that cold place inside of me.

Power flooded into me as if drawn by magnetic forces. I welcomed it, embraced it and called it my own. Fissures and tendrils of electricity cut through the night, slammed into the human head first. He stopped dead and froze, stuck in a minefield and window of electric currents.

I pressed my eyes shut, reaching for that lake again – desperate, imaginative fingers groping. No barriers. No balance. No consequences.

Darkness exploded in my vision, left me blind to the real world. I was stuck inside that power drench, that vacuum of shadow that meant nothing and everything to me. The Albino, human servant to the vampire that killed my parents, was right in front of me and I felt nothing.

No that was not true. I did feel something. Power rolled through my veins, thick and strong. I pushed forward, called the magic to me willingly. It was dark magic. I knew it. But the knowledge alone wasn't enough to make me want to stop. It felt good.

It was easy. Easier than when I tried to use other elements. I drew the power right through me, used my body as life conductor and pulled pulled pulled. Whiteness exploded in my vision in time with the Albino's roar.

It was the last time I heard his voice.

* * *

It could have been hours. I don't know how long I stood there. Long enough. Until I was sure he was dead.

It was hard to concentrate. At some point the darkness in my vision faded, but I was on a power high, too caught up in the rush to realize the consequences. Coming down from a drug will make you crash, no matter which sort. But my skin was electrified and vibrating, I was drunk on power, remembered the feel of dark magic sizzling and burning through my body. I didn't think.

For once using another element, something that didn't belong to me, felt good. For once there were no repercussion – no faintness, no sickness, no quiver in my system. I needed the power, and the power came.

I found that I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I stared at the remains of the Albino. Human servant to my parents' murderer. The earth was ruptured and scorched in a ten-foot radius. I did that. Didn't matter.

He was gone. Truly dead.

The memory of the night my parents died caused me more pain than I could ever express in words. Would the nightmares ever end?

I shook my head, felt the need to laugh. No, they wouldn't. Their murderer and the vampire that ordered my parents killed – they were still out there. I had to get my hands on information about who exactly Titus was and what he wanted. There was nothing else for me.

I needed to-

The thought of Alexander penetrated, cut through the haze of slowly dispersing dark like a splinter of ice. Was I far enough away to get off his human-servant-radar, or would he sense my presence? Would he be looking for me at all?

I forced the questions away with all I had. Thinking about Alexander was none of my business, dammit. I swallowed. I'd left his world for good. I would make sure of that. I'd go to a place where he wouldn't find me. Ever.

For the first time I consciously noticed my surroundings, blinked through needles and tree trunks. Water. A beach. Had I for once been right? Did I portal to the beach Rico and I trained on?

I moved towards the opening and the shoreline. My breathing was labored, the pain in my shoulders and the tender skin on my neck. Even walking hurt. I still wasn't sure if it was the beach Rico and I used for training. My eyes swept the ground, stopped. Moved back to the albino's remains. To the spot where I just killed a vampire's human servant.

I stared at the corpse, then at the ground; a black spot and disturbed, violated soil – things I couldn't ignore. The world stopped moving, caught up in a total collapse of time. My perception flipped, caved in, and forced a trail of hot and cold showers down my back.

I just killed a human servant to a powerful vampire. And I did it with dark magic. In theory that made me a rogue witch. Rogue. The word echoed and died away in my mind like a soul-tearing screech.

We are born with a clean slate. There is no innate flaw that demarcates us as good or evil. Through the innocent eye of a child we learn, as we walk our first steps, what this world is made of. As we go along, a deeper understanding of what this world is made of penetrates. An invisible hand shuffles a deck of cards. We receive the cards we are dealt. We can't change them.

While this will shape us, our own choices are what demarcate us. Sometimes, choices are taken from us. And when they are, when what remains is the bare hand – sans trump cards and hidden aces in the hole, – you've got to show the world what you really are made of. Will you crumble and fall, or will you pick yourself up – keep moving, cause that's what we do?

So here I was. Bare-handed, naked in front of what I refused to believe was true. Rogue witches weren't born – they were made. I wasn't rogue, never made that choice of my own free will. I'd have never made that choice. Or so I once believed.

My breathing quickened, the sound of rushed blood a roar in my ears. I was shaking, a violent tremor that worked itself up from my legs, curving up my spine and settling in the tips of my fingers. Darkness all around me. Darkness inside.

The magic coming out of my hand was not elemental. It was Spirit. I used it on Ramondo's servant with every intent on killing him. Was that why it happened? Was I pushed to the brink of dark magic by his threat? Because, for a fleeting second, I wanted to kill?

I turned, averting my eyes from the scene. Shook my head, turned back. If I didn't have the guts to stare plain truth in the eye, what did that make me?

I stared for a long time.

The mind is a funny thing, particularly when put under stress. To cope, to endure it will use any means necessary to accommodate and stretch. Diversionary tactics, hallucinations, improbably explanations within the bounds of possibilities. Or ignorance. The worst of all.

I wasn't settling for ignorance. I filled my breaths with purpose, forced my mind to focus on something else apart from the thought of how using dark magic felt.

First things first. I had to settle down, breathe, find out where I was and if I could use a portal again. The way things were at this point in time, I didn't trust myself to use one and come out alive.

* * *

My way was littered with obstacles, thick roots that made me stumble and shadows that didn't let me see. The moon was obscured, covered by a band of clouds that left only a thin sickle – pale light barely bright enough to illuminate three feet in front of me. I'd been walking for at least two hours and still the air was heavy with darkness and nightly silence.

It didn't bother me. I'd been at the brink of a nervous mental breakdown twice ever since I left the Albino's remains. The shell-shock-like tremors had come and gone erratically, an off-on-switch I had no control over. Each time they came, I pushed myself harder, forced my way through the forest like a haunted animal. Anything but the repeating thought patterns, and the one question I didn't want an answer to.

Instead I focused on one particular thing – a short term goal that was more than that. In a way it was a life line. The only one I had for the time being. I had to get back to the Lumenis and make sure they were alright.

It turned out I landed right where I wanted to. It was the beach Rico and I trained on. The only problem? I had no idea where that was. Rico never told me where he brought me when we trained here.

I was too tired and too shaken to use a portal just yet. Hell, I could barely walk. Faintness had settled after the power rush ebbed and died, left my joints and limbs raw. But physical exhaustion wasn't my biggest problem. I was terrified that I couldn't use magic the way I could before. Had I gone off the deep end, cut off from elementary magic for good? Was one taste enough?

I shook my head, forcing my feet to move on. Move, walk. Just keep going.

I was not going to think about it. I needed to get a mental grid on where I was and where I needed to go, even if I had to walk. A direction, something. Since I was headed to the Lumenis, I hoped the beach wasn't too far away from the hidden village. Maybe it was only a few miles north of where I intended to go. That was what I suspected when Rico first brought me here.

The familiar salty taste began to settle on the tip of my tongue. The sea wasn't far away, a stony cliff rising to my right – steep and sharp angles of white, jagged stone. The sea was a first, sure indicator that my theory could be right and that I wasn't far from the village. Could I be further south, close to one of the trails leading to and away from the village? Maybe I was imagining things, but it felt like I'd been here before.

I don't know what alerted me. Was it some sort of rubber-band-connection that forced me to turn and look? Was it a sound, the soft snap of a twig – motion that wasn't part of forest life?

By the time I contemplated this and the implications, it was too late. The air was alive, electrified. I knew something big was coming, and it was coming for me. I had no way to guess who, didn't dare tap into the world of second sight, but...

"Stop."

I froze. My heartbeat stuttered. Alexander.

He was behind me. A second, a sharp intake of breath, and his hand was on the nape of my neck. A faint touch, cold fingers that stilled on my skin.

"Turn around." The words were bitingly soft, resonated inside my head like low thunder.