The House in the Woods

Chapter 12

Astera licked her lips as she rose from the lifeless body of the pitiful human. She looked down at him in disdain, but she was secretly glad he'd been foolish enough to shoot at her - Apollo insisted she didn't drink on his property, and her veins had been burning for days.

She glanced around absent -mindedly at the forest. It seemed that someone had controlled the flames back at the house, but smoke still swirled around the trees like the gossamer strands of an intricate spiderweb. Astera wondered where Tether had taken the girl too.

Still standing by the body, her lip curled at the thought of her. If Astera had ever laid eyes on a human so dangerous, she couldn't recall it. With her huge, innocent looking eyes and alabaster skin, the girl looked like a vampire herself. If it weren't for the delicate pulse throbbing under her china skin, Astera might have mistaken her for one.

She turned now, wondering what she should do now. Look for Tether and his silly cargo? Go back to the house and help Apollo with the damage control? Part of her, the dark part, wanted to go around and suck the blood out of all the bodies while they were still fresh. However another part, the part her mother raised and fostered, felt ill at the thought.

As a familiar wave of sorrow and bitterness washed over her, another sensation grabbed her attention. Astera turned sharply toward it; it was the smell of fresh blood. And not just any blood - Lilah's blood.

Astera cursed as she ran. Tether was supposed to get her away, how was she supposed to survive that amount of blood loss? For that matter, how was the girl supposed to survive bleeding around her?

She found her in the space of fifteen seconds, and all she could do was stare. The girl was hanging limply from the limbs of a tree, her skin alarmingly pale and the skin around her shuttered eyes the colour of a bruise. She was bound and gagged, and blood coloured her shift like a painting, and dripped grotesquely down the silent trunk of the tree. It was clear to Astera what Tether had done here, but that wasn't why she stared at the absurdity of the situation.

Astera's whole body was on fire. She was aching to pluck Lilah out of that tree and drain her dry, but at the same time she felt the same panic she had felt all those centuries ago, watching her father kill her mother. This person was important and valuable in her weakness, and Astera knew her death would wreck Apollo like their mother's death should've all those years ago.

In one graceful movement, Astera gently pulled the girl down and was running back to Apollo's house in the woods.

---

He was reaching out to me.

I'd never felt so much terror in my life, looking at him now. He'd gotten worst in all that time since that dreaded last day I laid eyes on him; his skin was lumpy and green in decay, and his forever opened eyes were swollen and yellow as they stared unashamedly at me. Even his hair was different; the vivid red was now a dull rusty colour, and dry like a thicket if weeds.

His voice hadn't changed though. It echoed through the trees and whistled like the wind, but it was him alright; the monster was my father.

"I can still save you." He told me gently. "I've got a fool proof plan, darling!"

The familiar phrase repulsed me, and I tried to get away from him, but my feet had grown roots and I was stuck. I had turned into a tree, but Greg Winters was moving alarmingly closer to me without ever seeming to move his legs.

"Why won't you just stay dead?" I sobbed.

My dad ignored me, his mouth opening to reveal blackened teeth. "Don't you want the pain to end, darling?"