Believe in yourself.
Alchemy stretched forth her hands and sent a blazing holocaust the beast's way. It merely beat its way through the flames, unharmed by the deadly heat. She might have been fire, but this thing was a walking warzone.
Violence incarnate.
Its bandaged fingers seized her throat in a steely grip.
“Die!” The monster wheezed. But it had not counted on her teammates. With a wave of Lysette's hand, the grass beneath the beast's feet grew into long snake-like vines. Those icy fingers released Alchemy as the monster was caught up by the blooming weeds. It tried to struggle, but it could not break those magical limbs.
“Gotcha, you bastard,” Lysette said.
“Hold it,” Alchemy heard the old woman shout. She turned in the direction of the voice and froze at what she saw.
The witch was holding her shotgun to the back of Elyon's head.
“Why can't you girls leave my son alone?” She whimpered, “isn't it enough that you took his father from us? Look at him! Look what you girls have done to him.”
“We didn't do anything,” Lysette snapped, “you're crazy!”
The old woman's face became as hard as stone.
“Get out of here, “ she said, “get off of my property or I swear I'll blow her head off.”
“You're bluffing,” Alchemy said, “you wanted to do that anyways. The only reason you haven't is because you're out of bullets.”
The old woman seethed. She threw the gun away and Alchemy was relieved that she had read the situation correctly. However, she had overlooked one detail.
The hunting knife that the old woman was hiding behind her back.
In a flash, it was buried in Elyon's belly. The girl screamed and ducked to the ground. She clutched her wound to keep her guts from dripping out. The old woman raised her weapon for the kill. But the path was clear now. Alchemy conjured her fire and aimed it right at the witch.
“No!” The demonic son shrieked. With a madman's strength, he tore his way out of the vines and fixed his evil gaze on Alchemy.
“Run,” Elyon cried.
“What?” Lysette asked.
“Get out of here,” her sister replied, “leave me.”
Lysette only froze. Alchemy grabbed her wrist and dragged her back into the night.
Chapter 7
Caroline Lewis loved her son. She hated herself for having to strap him down like this. But what choice was she given? When the rage overtook poor Jesse, he was beyond reason. She was the only person to whom he ever responded. Even then, she could feel her hold on him slipping.
Mrs Lewis sat next to her son's bed. With a witch-like hand, she patted his head while spoon feeding him some nice broth. All of that violence had worked up quite the appetite in her little boy. Although he fought against his bonds, the leather straps held him down tightly. Mrs Lewis turned on the TV and switched on Jesse's favourite tape. The program it contained had no plot. It was merely a montage of clips which showcased humanity's inhumanity, from splatter movie scenes to holocaust footage to atom bomb tests and even the nightly news. It repulsed her to put it on, but it was the only thing that seemed to sooth her savage offspring. Before long, Jesse calmed down, just like he always did. Mrs Lewis kissed her son's forehead and let him alone to enjoy his program. To think that the cyan-haired girl had accused him of murdering all her friends. No, that had all been Caroline. Jesse merely defended her when the going got tough. He was the shield. She was the sword. But now, Melody was dead. She had been the last of the original five magical girls. There were the others now though. Those new guardians whom Melody had recruited. Mrs Lewis had already killed one of them and captured another. But the other two managed to elude her. It didn't matter. They would all pay soon enough.
Caroline remembered the day that the police had told her that her husband was dead. It was those girls. They had been battling a monster when both Mr Lewis and Jesse got caught in the crossfire. Her husband had been killed instantly and her son was badly burned. She would never forget seeing him in the hospital. So weak. She had contemplated suicide for several days until she stumbled across the antique store. She would be damned if she could remember the name of the place. But the old wizard who ran it had promised her something very special, a book with a rather ominous title.
Necronomicon.
He had said that it could nurse her son back to health and he was right. Jesse was now stronger than he had ever been. What's more, he had also become immune to the magical girls' hexes. However, there was a trade off. Each day, Jesse became more violent, more uncontrollable. She feared that he might eventually turn on her. But for now, it served to her advantage. He could channel all of that supernatural rage towards the ones who had crippled him.
The magical girls.
She didn't know how yet, but she would track the rest down. And she would slaughter them.
Mrs Lewis headed downstairs to her late husband's torture garden. Nobody but her knew about it, not even Jesse. Mr Lewis had once delighted in capturing beautiful young maidens from town and treating them to an education in suffering. The room could have been a museum of the Spanish Inquisition, with every imaginable instrument of pain on display. To the far end hung Elyon, stripped naked and suspended by barbed hooks in her flesh.
“Why are you doing this?” She cried, “I haven't done anything to you.”
Mrs Lewis said nothing.
“Please,” Elyon pleaded, “let me go.”
“I can't,” Mrs Lewis replied, “you're the bait.”
Chapter 8
Deputy Glazer had always hated Lewis Manor. He especially hated it now that there was a trail of blood leading through the front door. If he were back in New York, back in the big city, he would have radioed for backup. But this wasn't New York. This wasn't the big city. This was Cutter's Grove and there was no backup to radio for. With the sheriff not answering the dispatcher, he was all that was left. The town's last line of defence.
And it now came down to him.
Of course, he had seen worse. Fetish items made of human skin. Bodies roasted on back alley spits. Children blown to bits on the streets by high calibre fire.
You can't scare me, I'm from New York, he thought with a lump in his gut. He kicked the front door open and followed the trail inside. It led through the hall and down the stairs.
To the basement.
With each step down, he couldn't help thinking that this was exactly what he'd been trying to escape from when he moved to Cutter's Grove. He wanted his children to grow up with a normal life away from all of this. But, when he turned on the basement light, he realized that there was no escape. Hiding here, right under his very nose, was all the horror from which he'd been running. The room could be described as nothing less than a torture chamber. To the far end was one of the girls from the station. She hung nude from the ceiling with blood trickling from her back. When he got closer, he saw that fish hooks were buried in her young skin, threatening to tear it off if they pulled any tighter. Deputy Glazer heard a loud thump behind him. He turned his head just in time to see a witch-like hand raise a cat-o-nine-tails, a thousand vicious barbs decorating its ends.
Lash!
Mrs Lewis slashed at his face with the deadly weapon. The barbs tore through his skin, ripping nearly half of it off of his head. Deputy Glazer gave a gurgled scream as...
Lash!
A second blow dug into his artery. His blood sprayed profusely. But Mrs Lewis still was not sated.
Lash!
Lash!
Lash!
She continued to whip him until all that remained of Deputy Glazer was a red pile of meat and bone.
Chapter 9
Lysette raced through the woods in a daze. She had no idea how close she was to town. All she knew was that the killers had her sister. She could not let them hurt her. She just couldn't.
Alchemy dragged her through thick and thin. Carver's Woods was all that separated Lewis Manor from Cutter's Gr
ove. The thick forest was like a maze. Finally, Alchemy stopped by a huge rock to catch her breath. Lysette looked back and could still see the lights of the mansion in the distance.
“I'm going back,” she said.
“Don't be an idiot,” Alchemy replied, “we don't stand a chance against that,... that,... thing.”
“They have my sister,” Lysette said, “what would you do?”
Alchemy bit her tongue and turned her gaze downward.
“If you go, you'll die,” she said. Tears formed in Lysette's eyes.
“I know.”
She turned around and raced back towards Lewis Manor. Although the forest was blinding, the lights kept getting closer and closer. But they weren't the only thing that did. Lysette stopped and listened. There it was, the distinct sound of footsteps.
“Alchemy?” She said. Her only reply was a sudden silence. Lysette held out her hand and channelled her magic.
Believe in yourself.
She stalked towards the spot where the footsteps had stopped, but found nothing there. A twig snapped behind her. She was about to spin around, but she never got the chance. A witch-like hand clamped itself over her mouth. A second one plunged a hunting knife into her groin. It pulled the blade up, slitting open her belly and spilling her intestines across the leaf-covered ground. Lysette gagged as the blade was stabbed into her throat. It sliced through her trachea and arteries, spraying blood down her her windpipe. The world spun, then turned black as Lysette drowned in her own blood.
Chapter 10
Alchemy took a few more deep breaths and waited for Lysette to return. She'd be back, she had to come back. She couldn't let Alchemy be the only one to abandon Elyon to her fate. Stupid Elyon, why did she have to tell them to run. Especially now that Noriko was dead. Now that Alchemy had Elyon all to herself.
Dear sweet Elyon. So smart. So beautiful.
So helpless.
Not for long, though. Alchemy would go get help, then she would rescue her darling Elyon, who would be so grateful. Perhaps she might even reward Alchemy with a kiss from those pillowy lips.
First, she needed to find help. But who was there? Not the police, obviously. If any of them still remained, they would be powerless against that,... that,...
That force.
Violence incarnate.
But if not them, who?
Who?
The sound of footsteps reached her ears, sending her heart into a flurry. Alchemy clutched her fist. If she had to die, let it be here and now. No more running. No more hiding. She turned around in time to see Mrs Lewis step out of the shadows, a pair of garden shears in her witch-like hands.
“Why are you doing this?” Alchemy demanded.
“You girls killed my husband,” Mrs Lewis replied, “you crippled my son.”
“I never touched them,” Alchemy shot back, “I never even knew them.”
“You girls burned them,” Mrs Lewis ranted, “you should have been more careful. See what you did to Jesse? Do you see?”
The old woman raised her shears to eye level and charged towards Alchemy. The last magical girl did not run. She did not cower. Instead, she raised her fist and conjured an inferno. The flames engulfed Mrs Lewis. The old woman's skin began to blister and split. The stench of scorched flesh filled Alchemy's nostrils as she watched her opponent turn brown, then blacken. Mrs Lewis' eyes whitened and burst in their sockets. Her skin flaked away in grey ashes, revealing charred bones underneath, until all that remained of her was a sizzling skeleton which lay face down in the mud. Alchemy sighed.
At last, the nightmare was over.
Chapter 11
Jesse Lewis seethed with fury as he sensed his mother's life force blink out of existence. If only she had not strapped him down like this, if only he was free, then he could have saved her. He struggled against his bonds, but it was no use. The leather straps held him down too tightly. However, he refused to be defeated. He fought and he fought until...
Snap!
One of his bonds broke. Invigorated by this small victory, he kept fighting until...
Snap!
Snap!
Snap!
All of the straps were torn out by their roots. Although he could now move about freely, he still wasn't free. The door remained locked. He pounded his fists against it, hammering against it with supernatural relentlessness. At last the hinges shattered.
Jesse was free!
He wasn't sure why he was so sensitive to the presence of magic. Perhaps it was a side effect of those healing spells that his mother had recited over him while he'd lain helpless in bed. In any case, the power to sense magic was his. Right now, he detected three presences, two of which waited in his very room. He opened the drawer on his nightstand and found them. One was the book from which his mother read her healing spells. He picked it up and wondered what the binding was made of. It didn't really feel like leather. The other was the sacrificial dagger which had been necessary for his regeneration. The power that radiated off of them was strange. Neither holy nor unholy. Something... else.
Jesse took both mystic items, but a third presence remained. It waited for him down below. In the basement.
He followed the energy to his late father's private workshop. Jesse had never been allowed inside. His heart pounded as he opened the door. There, he found a temple to the perverse. Torture tools of every kind lined the walls. But the real treasure was the magical girl named Elyon. She was naked and suspended from the ceiling by barbed hooks. Jesse had never seen a naked girl before. Something stirred in his loins at the sight of her so helpless and in pain. If he still had lips, he would have grinned. Elyon screamed at the sight of him. Even her screams aroused him. He touched her young skin and sighed. He clutched the dagger tightly as he plunged it into her eye. Goo oozed out of the socket. He stabbed her other eye and relished the sight of the creamy fluid. He stroked her cat ears and listened to her shrieks. He stuck the blade into her cheeks and carved a twisted smile, like a jack-o-lantern. She shrieked beautifully and blood dripped down her naked body, but Jesse wasn't finished yet. He stabbed the dagger into her skull and snapped it open like a jar. There her brain lay. The seat of all consciousness. He scooped it out of her skull and held it up to the light. It was so magnificent. For the first time since his accident, Jesse was hard. He threw the organ to the ground and watched it splatter. He stamped on it until all that remained was a reddish grey paste. Jesse took deep breaths to calm himself. No act was more empowering than the destruction of beauty. His bloody hand went to the book. He didn't even need to read it. Its power flowed through him. He could feel the barrier between the worlds. On the other side waited the last of the magical girls. She would soon taste all of what he had just sampled to Elyon. He reached forward and space seemed to open just for him. He could go anywhere he wanted to, anyplace in all of existence. Jesse knew where he wanted to go too. He stepped straight through reality to the opposite side of Carver's Woods. Soon his violence would be unleashed on the entire town. First, he had one last victim to slaughter.
Chapter 12
Alchemy took her time as she wandered through the forest. It was finally over. She would get to the police station. They would call in some reinforcements from the next town. Then, Lewis Manor would be raided, Elyon would be rescued and that hulking murderer would get shot to death in the process. Already she could see the lights of Cutter's Grove. Town wasn't that much farther off. Alchemy picked up her pace as her hopes soared. The lights drew closer and closer. But there was something else in the night. A shape stood between her and the town like a scarecrow. It even held a pumpkin in its hands. Something in her mind tried to tell her to turn back. But, by the time it registered, it was too late.
That was no pumpkin, it was Elyon's carved head.
A bandaged hand shot out and grabbed Alchemy by the throat. It lifted her off of the ground and she found herself staring into the eyes of an unstoppable killer.
Jesse threw Alchemy down. Her face h
urt as it landed in the dirt. She watched in terror as tentacles sprouted from the supernatural madman's groin. They wrapped themselves around her wrists and ankles, then forced her legs wide open.
“No,” Alchemy cried as she realized what was about to happen. Jesse thrust his thickest tendril deep in between her thighs and into her private garden. Alchemy screamed as she was violated. Each thrust forced another shriek out of her.
At last, Jesse released his demon seed within her and pulled out. In his right hand, he clutched the ritualistic dagger. He plunged the weapon into Alchemy's young breast and carved a hole in her ribcage. He then reached inside and removed her still beating heart. Dark clouds overtook the sky as he tossed her lifeless body aside and crushed her organ into red pulp. Her death had been a sacrifice to something greater. Something slumbering. Something which had now been awakened after countless centuries.
The last of the magical girls was dead. So began the New Age of Violence.
The End
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