Chapter Twelve
The hard-packed dirt crunched beneath my feet. In the lonely darkness of the cemetery, each twig that snapped sounded like a gun going off. Every small sound made me pause, and I rethought my decision to set foot in the graveyard filled with dead and decomposing bodies.
When I reached the exact center of the graveyard, I reached into my shirt, and came away with a purple pendant that hung from a silver chain. I lifted it from my head and it swung before my eyes, catching the subtle light from the full moon that hung high in the dark sky above me. With just one spoken word, the pendant began to glow a brilliant silver color, and it captured my attention, shoving every thought from my mind but one.
Slowly, I closed my eyes and began.
Searching deep inside myself, I found the glowing ball of power and energy inside of me, and I called out to it, begging it to come forward. The power quickly complied and it began to take over my body, controlling my every movement. I was helpless to fight it, but that didn’t matter, because I wouldn’t want to fight it. This was the price of my power, and I was more than willing to pay it.
The ground began to quake beneath my feet, and the soil around me began to shift. Fingers poked through the surface, scrabbling for a grip to pull themselves up. Slowly but surely, corpse after corpse began to rise from the ground, shambling around on unsteady feet. Dozens of recently deceased men and women fell into line, making their way to where I stood.
They fell to their knees before me, bowing their heads low to the ground. Some of them looked more useful than others, but they all looked at me with rapt attention, almost as if I was their goddess and they were made to worship me. They obediently awaited my orders. They were willing to do whatever it was that I asked of them, without question, without hesitation, and without a care in the world.
They felt no pain.
They felt no emotion.
They felt nothing.
They were my slaves and with them, I would rule the world, punishing all those that stood against me. All would perish, and I would rule the world with death, despair, and the threat of eternal servitude like the army of mindless zombies that stood behind me. None would oppose me.
Ever.
I woke screaming, and I searched the pitch black confines of my room for whatever ghoulish creature was attacking me. My sheets were soaked through with sweat, and my clothes clung immodestly to me, but I didn’t care. I was too busy trying to calm my racing heart and my pounding head. For long minutes after waking, is at in the dark, gasping for air.
When my heart had stopped racing, I lay back against the soaked bed, and thought about the nightmare that was quickly dissolving into the back of my mind. Is that what will happen to me if I get my powers under control? Is that what I’m capable of? Could I be a threat and a danger to the Council and all the other supernaturals out there?
I should tell someone about this dream…
I couldn’t though. If I did, there was a very real chance that I could end up locked away for the rest of my life, and I couldn’t do that. I’d be stuck here forever, treated like a guinea pig and feared like a freak of nature. I could only imagine the looks, the rumors, and the disgust that would be evident on people’s faces. I understood the need for me to stay here long enough to master my powers, but I didn’t want to stay longer than I had to.
I tossed and turned until morning, just thinking about the nightmare and what it could possibly mean. Lisa Valentine mentioned that witches could sometimes see the future. Is that a glimpse of my future? How can I prevent something like that from happening? I won’t let myself be a threat to everyone!
There was a knock on the door, and it opened slowly. Light flooded in from the hallway, and Tanya poked her head inside. “Hey. How are you feeling today? Are you up for some breakfast?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. Thoughts of the nightmare swirled around my head, making me feel both nervous and afraid of myself. I should have forced myself to stay away from Tanya and anyone else that has shown me kindness, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Tanya was the only person that had really been nice to me, and even though I’d only known her for not even three whole days, I couldn’t let her go.
She understood me and what I was going through, and she was helping me get used to the idea of being part of this community. She might very well be the only friend I had until I got the ok to leave the compound, and I knew I wouldn’t make it without her. She stepped into the room and frowned. “Are you alright? You look like crap.”
Moaning, I threw back the covers and swung my legs over the edge of my bed. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep. Plus, I had a…gruesome nightmare.” It was better to just be honest with her and tell her everything about it. “I raised an army of dead people and was planning on using them to take over the world. It freaked me out a little bit.”
She sighed. “Ronnie, I’m not really that surprised. You accidentally raised quite a few animals yesterday, and it freaked you out, but you didn’t do it on purpose, and you wouldn’t do something like that on purpose. Plus, you’re not a witch, you’re a necromancer. Only those that possess magic like witches, sorcerers, or fairies can see the future. It was just a nightmare; everyone gets them from time to time.”
“Really? You mean it won’t actually happen? I won’t enslave anyone and try to take over the world?”
She perched on the edge of my bed and forced me to look at her. “Ronnie, I consider myself to be an excellent judge of character. If there was even a bit of evil in you, I would have noticed it. I haven’t even known you a week and even I can tell that. The Council is made up of wise, powerful supernatural beings, and they’ll see the same thing I do. You’re not a monster, Ronnie, and you won’t become one.”
I heard what she was saying, and it didn’t make me feel any better about myself. Just thinking about it sent shivers up my spine, and I knew that it would give me nightmares for the rest of my life. It wasn’t every night that you dream about creating an army of undead salves to destroy the world and rule what little was left…
Tanya put her hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go get some breakfast. Maybe that’ll start to cheer you up. Ezra will be there. I’m sure he’ll listen to you if you feel like talking. He’s good like that.” She immediately began to blush, and I raised an eyebrow. “Um–”
“Do you like him?” I asked, surprised.
“No!” she said quickly, looking away from me. “I don’t, and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. Fairies and demons, even half demons, aren’t allowed to be together anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Well, a long time ago, demons used to prey almost exclusively on fairies. They would rape, torture, and feed on them.” She saw my horrified look and hurriedly continued. “That was a long time ago, and it doesn’t happen a lot anymore, but fairies are never supposed to trust a demon or their offspring. If there was something between me and Ezra–and I’m not saying there is–we could never be together.”
“There shouldn’t be stipulations on who you can and can’t love,” I said. “That’s not fair, and it’s not right. Ezra seems like a nice guy, and you seem like a really nice girl. You should be able to love whoever you want. I know if I loved someone, I would never let anyone tell me I couldn’t be with them.”
“Have you ever been in love?” Tanya asked with a smile.
“No, I haven’t,” I admitted. “I will someday though. Until then, I guess I’ll have to be content to just train and hope for the best. Of course, growing up, I never once thought I would have a fairy, a sorcerer, or a werewolf for a potential husband. I thought he’d be an accountant or an insurance broker.”
Tanya laughed and I joined in. This moment right here was the lightest my mood had been in the last couple of days and I wanted to hold onto this moment for as long as I possibly could. I knew that the rest of my life probably wouldn’t be this happy and carefree, and this might be the last time for a while that I could actually l
augh with someone.
Finn walked toward us with a blank expression on his face. “Annette sent me to find you,” he said, obviously unhappy at the thought of being a messenger. “You’re to report to her in the freezer room. By order of the Council,” he added. “You can’t refuse them.”
Tanya sighed. “I’ll take you to the freezer room.”
“Call it what it is!” I snapped. “It’s a morgue full of dead animals that they want me to resurrect.”
Tanya flinched and Finn looked away. “Alright, I’ll take you to the morgue.”
Tanya led me through the halls, which I was unfortunately beginning to recognize, and she stopped me at the morgue. The door was freezing cold and every fiber of my being wanted me to turn around and run away, screaming if I have to.
Tanya patted me sympathetically on the back. “I’ll be waiting for you in the cafeteria. It’ll probably be time for lunch before you’re done. I don’t know if you’ll be able to eat, but…” She cleared her throat. “Sorry. Good luck in there, Ronnie.”
Annie was waiting impatiently for me, and I entered the morgue slowly. She looked up at me and frowned. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”
“The Council ordered me to be here. If they hadn’t, I would never have set foot in this room again.”
“I understand. Yesterday freaked you out and I’m sure you’re in no mood to repeat the experience. I’m afraid you’ll have to, though. The Council needs me to assess your strength, so they can accurately determine how much of a threat you are. I’m afraid that no matter what happens in this room today, you won’t be able to just run away and hide. You’ll have to work through whatever may scare you, and just get this testing done.”
I took a seat on the stool across from her and folded my hands in my lap. “I’m ready for this. Bring it on.” I didn’t feel nearly as confident as I sounded, but I did just want to get it over with. The sooner we moved on from testing, the sooner I could become normal again.
“Very well.” Annie sat a dove on the table between us, and I noticed that it looked like the same one as yesterday. “Raise the dove. Do it the same way as you did before, just try not to raise the others this time as well. I want you to tighten your focus on just this one spirit. Cancel all others from your mind.”
I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. When I was calm and collected, I searched inside myself for the ball of energy that was the source of my “power”. It pulsed and grew in response to my call, and I could feel the power spreading through my entire body, from my eyes to my toes and fingertips.”
My energy wasn’t the only thing in the room though. In my mind, I could see Annie’s ball of energy–smaller and less bright than mine–and it was pulsing and sparkling just like mine did. Why is mine brighter than hers? Is it because of what my mother did?
When I opened my eyes, I began calling to the dove’s spirit. I focused on that one spirit, trying to ignore the other ones in the room, even though they were all calling out to me, begging me to release them. They clouded my senses, making it hard for me to concentrate, and I could feel my focus slipping.
“Pay attention to what you’re doing! You don’t wanna raise the entire room again, do you?”
That broke what little control I had, and I could feel the spirits explode angrily around me, swirling around the room, clamoring to be released. I tried to get them back under control, but they escaped, flooding back into the nearby waiting corpses. The dove on the table flapped its wings, before launching itself at me, shrieking and attacking me with its claws and beak.
I screamed and tried to shield myself with my hands as the dove went for my eyes. Annie leapt up and her hands closed expertly around the dove, and in just seconds, the bird went still. The pounding from the freezers stopped, and I knew that she’d released all of the trapped souls in the room.
When I was brave enough to look at her, I saw the look of fear and helplessness in her eyes. She thinks I’m dangerous, and she doesn’t know how to help me…Without being dismissed, I got up and ran from the morgue, fighting tears the whole back to my room.