Day One: Chapter Three

The woods were eerily silent. There was no sound at all, not a shrieking cicada, not a buzzing fly, not even a breeze blowing through the trees. This was totally unnatural. The grass beneath her feet should've crunched, the leaves should've rustled as she brushed against them, Etta should've been able to hear herself moving, shifting her wet surroundings as she approached her target. It was as if the absence of sound was swallowing her foot steps, smothering her ears. The noiselessness felt heavy somehow, and aggressive, as if it was invading her, crushing her, as if it was covering all that she could see and snuffing out every hint of life.

Etta tried to focus on her other senses. What could she smell? Wet earth and foliage. Mud and grass. Dirt, rain water and leaves. What could she see? Parasitic vine with large, heavy leaves covered the trunk of each tree and draped over the shrubs and bushes nearby, slowly but surely killing them all. She saw gray. The darkness painted everything with a coat of gray and black. Gray and black trees, gray and black bushes with light gray flowers, a rather large gray vine with fat leaves and tiny flowers extending for as far as Etta could see in any direction. Why hadn't she noticed this vine before? Why hadn't she noticed this scent? Like roibos tea and iron, honey and deep red, thick, sticky, warm...

Crrrrrrk

Etta spun around to find the source of the sound, a soft straining noise like wood that was bending to it's limit. The thick vine had encroached on her and was growing long, dagger like barbs down the length of it.

 Her body tensed. Etta must've gotten rusty in those seven years of inactivity. She almost couldn't believe that she'd let something as simple as a frazzler charm even remotely have any effect her.

The spell tattooed into her skin glowed bright scarlet as it automatically absorbed the traces of xhole wasted in the ferri's spell.

Crack! like a whip, the vine snapped at her throat. Etta broke it with swift motion before bounding high into the trees, only for another vine to lunge at her, slicing her headwrap into two pieces of cloth. She did a quick speed spell and leaped again, as a vine ripped the branch she'd been standing on, like paper.

The spell made dodging the upcoming myriad of attacks relatively simple, but after a minute or so she was running out of xhole. She would need to find an opening and escape. NOW.

But there was none. The ferri had surrounded her from all angles. All she could do was avoid their attacks until her xhole ran out, which would be soon.

Panic began to creep into the vampires still veins as she felt herself become slower and slower. She couldn't allow herself to be killed so soon, so easily.

"Is this how you treat your visitors, Mother Flower?" she yelped, just narrowly avoiding a thorn to the eye.

The vines paused as three voices responded in unison, "There are no visitors for I, only a parasite!"

A creature like a gigantic bougainvillea burst through the trees, shaking the entire wooded area.

Only a century years ago, the ferri had been a lush bush with magenta flowers. Now she was scant, the few flowers she had were tan and her thorns were exposed and much larger than they'd been he last time Etta had encountered them.

Etta quickly muttered "n'quowehxhophweria," under her breathe as the giant bush emerged. Etta felt the frigid spells marks spreading across her lips and around her mouth and chin, and they were hungry.  Hundreds of gentle voices seemed to whisper to her, though Etta knew they were not real.

A familiar lust for power welled within her, setting her skin ablaze with a deep, penetrating chill.

Feed us the voices whispered and we'll-

"Yes, I know what you'll do for me," Etta interjected. She already knew the deal. Feed the spell, get the power. Let it sit, suffer.

Moniasili towered over her, filling the air with animosity and murderous intentions.

"I will kill she and  fertilize the children of I with the rotten body of she!"

"You look horrible Moniasili, all this bitterness has aged you terribly," said Etta to the humongous plant, smirking. The plants death was very near. In fact, she may be able to hurry it a long if she coaxed it into over exerting itself.

The ferri swung a monstrous, thorny branch, which very nearly crushed Etta, but she managed to break her limbs and fold herself in a small crevice just in time. Being crushed would've certainly killed her, and the ferri would have surely obliterated her before she had a chance to be reborn.

But the excruciating pain intensified her spell. The cold became unbearable, the desire became too strong.

Feed us-

"Shut up,"

This position was opportunistic.

Etta grabbed hold of one of Moniasili's thorns, pressed her lips to the vine, and sucked, quelling the spells hunger and receiving it's power: absorbing a good amount of the ferri's xhole, more than enough to defend herself with.

 Disgusted, Moniasili snatched the limb and violently flicked her into a tree, breaking Etta's ribs.

"She is an aphid! Parasite!" shrieked Moniasili, becoming so enraged that her three heads began to emerge from the depths of her.

Ettas wounds healed quickly, and she was able to cast a powerful elemental spell as Moniasili raged.

"She intends to kill the mother after the children? She comes to kill I?" the ferri snarled out of two of her heads as the third spat thorns at Etta, who shielded her self with fire and wind. "She sucks the life water of I, to kill I?"

The spitting head retired and a second head took its place, releasing what looked to be a thick white fog that poured out of her thorned lips like a waterfall.

Etta sucked her teeth. Moniasili must have forgotten who Etta was if she thought she could kill her with poison spores. Etta's superior regenerative capabilities would pass the poison out of her body before it had a chance to do any real damage.

Etta had seen enough. The severely charred head suggested that she had significantly shortened the guardians dwindling life, and she knew everything she came to learn. Moniasili would surely die before her sires awoke, likely within the next 52 hours, so there was no reason to stay here any longer. Besides, she had a morsel waiting for her in her room.

She used the last of her stolen xhole to cast the speed spell and escape, leaving Moniasili quaking with rage from her roots to the very tips of her thorns.

~

The tired Etta returned home eager to get her filthy garments off, rid herself of the dirt and grime of her fight in the woods and to put herself back together. She felt a bit naked without her headwrap.

Once the Bentley was parked in the driveway and the chauffeur had let her out, she sent him home to his family and had another human, who was significantly cleaner and more attractive, take its place.

The humans were waiting for her in the foyer when she entered the large double doors, properly cleaned and wearing fresh clothing. They removed her soiled clothes and dressed her in a hooded silk robe. Afterward, they replaced her high heeled boots with slippers then stood silently disciplined as she strolled up the very wide staircase, and down the hall where she was bathed with soap made of goat's milk in water that had been treated with a blend of herbs and Epsom salt. Finally, her hair was washed with coconut milk and apple cider vinegar, then combed with grape seed and castor oil, while her feet were massaged.

Triumph twisted her face into a grin. She could already feel the burdens lifting off of her shoulders, she was so close to ridding herself of the evil that had been looming over her for so many decades. Etta couldn't remember ever feeling so light, and free.

Moniasili would die.

"Bring the female from earlier," she said cheerfully, not caring which of the humans follows this order, as long as it wasn't the one who was doing such an excellent job on her feet. An older male with deep bags left and returned with the object of her request, clean, and wearing one of Etta's silk robes, which clung to it's damp, tawny skin.

The young female that she'd caught staring at her from a behind the doors of a human learning institution. No doubt the young human had naively believed that it couldn't be detected at such a considerable height and distance, but Etta had superior vision; she could see it much clearer than it could see her. It's gaze caught Etta's attention, while it's appearance aroused Etta's curiosity. It had neon yellow curls with a royal blue bang, cut several inches too short, as if to highlight the roundness of it's forehead. It's eyebrows were shaven and hearts were drawn in their place, it's eyes were potruding, black and soft. It's features were hearty: a pleasant, wide, fluffy nose and thick cheeks, on a delicate round face. While staring, she noticed the symbol hanging from the choker around her neck, the profile of a creature with the head of a bison, the torso of a man, and the legs of a lion: the symbol of the IAS, the International Association of Sorcerers. When she called to it, it came easily, so it was not a witch, and besides that, that organization had been disbanded four decades ago, and had never had a branch in this country. They were in England, only. Or so she thought.

"Are you a sympathizer?" asked Etta, pointing to the charm at her throat.

"A sympathizer to what?" the human asked, looking genuinely confused.

Etta sighed, "Give me your choker."

It did, placing the necklace in Etta's sudsy hands reluctantly and quite gingerly.

"Is this precious to you, human?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It was my late grandmother's."

Etta scoffed. This human wasn't interesting at all, just foolish and ignorant.  She remembered clearly when this symbol waved on white flags near underground dens, signifying that they'd been "conquered."

"Do you have any idea what this symbol means?" she asked, now irritated.

"It's my connection to my grandmo-AAACK"

 Etta sprang up at lightening speed, snatched the female up by the back of it's neck and tossed it into the tub. She had half a mind to rip off it's head for trying to make such a ridiculous statement, but, if it had familial ties to the IAS, it might be useful in the near future, soon as she took care of business with her sires.

"Quiet before you ruin my appetite," she said, when the female emerged, gasping.

It climbed out of the tub with much difficulty as Etta waited patiently.

 Etta was dried, put in a bright yellow silk robe, had slippers placed on her feet and ordered the same treatment for her new house guest.

"I'm going to eat you," Etta told the human after some time. "Not your flesh, just your fluids. I'm going to drain you until I'm properly rejuvenated, then revive you with my blood."

 "OK," the human said, gazing with it's black eyes.

Etta raised a brow

 "Aren't you afraid? Don't you want to try to escape?"

"No, to your first question," it said, flatly. "And to your second question, no. I can't. Whenever I think about leaving or calling for help my body shuts down. It wont do it. I think you knew that since you're the one who did it to me."

"True, but most try anyway."

13 / 35

"I'm not like-"

"I didn't ask you a question."

Once Etta felt sufficiently pampered, she sent the other humans downstairs, escorted the yellow-haired human into her bedroom by the wrist.

Etta climbed into the bed, and allowed he human to stand at the edge, looking down at her. From this proximity, Etta could hear the movement of the fluids, flowing with the slow rhythm of her heart. The human really wasn't afraid, her pulse showed it. Etta chuckled. Perhaps this girls was interesting after all.

Etta pulled the girl's arm close to her mouth, sunk her fangs into her narrow wrists, and sucked. She expected to be greeted with a soft flow, of warm, metallic flavored blood, but instead, her throat began to feel quite warm, then hot, then suddenly, her entire throat was literally on fire!

The vampiress screeched in pain as her flesh began to incinerate. She grabbed the nearest thing and beat the flames with a pillow until they went out. The pain persisted even after the flames were beaten, and the wounds were healing slowly and painfully

"What did you do!?" she hissed at the girl.

The girl threw her hands up, "I didn't do anything I don't know whats going on."

Etta ran into the bathroom mirror to see what was happening and became filled with rage. Her flesh was growing back in the forms of the living language. This was a curse!

She shrieked, enraged, and broke the mirror without thinking. The ferri must've cursed her after she'd left. Etta frantically ran into the bedroom to examine her wound at the vanity table.

It was undoubtedly an abnegation curse, usually used to keep private documents private. Only people with certain credentials could get by it, whether that meant the trust of the owner, a certain amount of prestige or a password. Etta couldn't understand what kind of requirements the ferri could put on her throat. The will of another's body couldn't be directly affected by the living language, that would break it's moral code. How was this even possible?

Etta tore through her luggage until she found her six books filled with the sorcery notes she'd taken over the century. She snatched those out and slammed them on the desk, then flung them into piles

Potions/ Remedies, no. Origins, no. Rules of the Cursed, yes. Manipulating Xhole, no. Magical Languages and Usages, yes.

She opened Magical Languages and flipped through the taped, and stapled pages in a frenzy until she found a scrawled header: Abnegation, then skimmed.  

Public abnegation can be placed to protect a community. In this case, the requirements must be set as a universal rule applied to each individual person, instead of a rule to meet the caster's specific requirements.

She kept reading.

Abnegation curses can be placed on another body as long as they don't actively prohibit the victim from being able to live.

How on earth was stopping Etta from feeding not prohibiting her from being able to live?

She opened Rules of the Cursed Ones, and skimmed through the section Cursed of the Fifth. She found nothing.

14 / 35

"You!" she yelled, calling to her house guest, who was now curled up in the bed, completely ignoring Etta's blight. "Come write down the markings you see on my neck. Don't read them out loud! Not even a whisper!"

Etta watched the writing as she did so looking for a clue for the requirements, but there was none. The writing was just a basic abnegation, no rules were listed, which usually meant that no access was allowed unless the castor permitted it, and then it dawned on her.

"Human, let me drink from you," she demanded.

The human gave Etta her wrist but the vampires throat began to feel hot as she pressed her teeth to it. Etta recoiled, not wanting to start this slow healing process over again.

"Human, want me to drink from you,"

The human obeyed again but Etta was still unable to drink from her.

This was not good. Etta was now three times cursed, the first curse causing her to have to drink blood, the second causing her to have to drink directly from the living. Those first two curses went well together, there was barely any change in the way she lived, but now, with this last curse, she couldn't eat from a living being without its consent. But what prey would willingly give itself to its predator?

Etta hadn't eaten today either... She might lose control and kill and she still couldn't afford to bring attention to herself, the restorationalists were still at large. They'd  hunt her and she wouldn't have enough sense left in her to hide or even properly defend herself.

"Get out," said Etta, in a low voice.

The girl obeyed.

"Get out!" she repeated for the rest of her humans to hear, as she slipped back into her robe.

 "GET OUT!" she yelled, as she chased the lingering humans out of her mansion.