When I look up at her, Ebony has Carmela pinned to the wall. One long bony hand presses her stomach against the wall, the is slowly closing around Carmi's slender neck. Carmela is clawing feebly at Ebony, but to no avail. Hands waving uselessly in the dead air, face turning an unnatural and rather unbecoming shade of violet, it's clear as day that she's fighting a losing battle. It's only a matter of seconds before she passes out, or worse, dies.
Carmela notices that I'm looking at her, and makes eye contact with me. For the first time ever, I see her looking helpless, pleading. Her eyes have filled with tears, although I can see she's too proud to let them spill. But she can't kill a faery with her bare hands; it's all she can do not to die.
I'm not telepathic, but I can too her message. Help me, her eyes are saying.
Ebony meanwhile, has noticed the direction of Carmela's gaze. She knocks a swift blow to Carmela's face, then releases her, letting the girl drop uselessly to the ground, a blazing red mark marring her face.
"It's just you and me, Sleeping Girl," says Ebony, softly, walking slowly towards me. "Now put down the blade and why don't we chat it out. We're so alike, you and me."
I laugh harshly, although as much as I hate to admit it, something in me is intrigued by her claim.
"Pray tell how a hero like me can be like a monster as you."
"Oh darling," she chuckles. "You're not quite a hero yet. And I'm not a monster yet. Neither of us have accomplished our goals. Both powerful would be leaders, pushed back so others can lead. Did you know, all my life I've really be overlooked? Because I'm a faery, you see, and faeries can be regarded as traitors. Since there's those disgusting light fey who sided with you. There's no such thing as a light werewolf or vampire, you see.
"But I proved all those prejudiced worms wrong. I alone rose up, I alone got close to our dearie there. Sound familiar? Sleeping Girl, always protected, always shielded by society, never allowed to reach her full potential? Do you really want to do everything to help those who have oppressed you your whole life?"
For one moment, I consider what she says, then I hate myself for it. "You're wrong, Ebony," I tell her, feeling my resolve get stronger and stronger with each second. "We are nothing alike. I'm strong. You're weak. Now is my chance to prove I'm stronger than I've been given credit for, but unlike you, I'm going to take it, and I'm going to be great. You're just going to be dead."
"Why you impudent- "
She doesn't get a chance to finish her thought. As soon as I'm done talking, I launch towards her and take a leap, bringing my foot up as far as I can, close to my face. It connects with her face and I hear a satisfying crack, the resounding sound of breaking bones, feel something smash to the side. She stumbles backwards and I throw my hands out below myself to break my fall. I'm not quick enough though, and a dart of pain goes through my left shoulder as it takes the brunt for my fall.
Wincing, I roll to the side, pressing up with my arms off the ground and springing to my feel the moment they touch solid ground. I can't afford to be hurt.
My eyes dart wildly around the room as I look for Ebony. I don't anticipate the slap, the slap that comes with superhuman strength behind it. The first thing I realize, is the split second feeling of air rushing past until I feel the solid wall on my back, then the ground beneath me. My head slams painfully against the wall, and all I can think about is the pain, then I can't think about anything at all. My vision starts to fuzz around the edge, and shapes begin to lose their definitive edges.
No. I am not that weak. If I can heal others, I can heal myself too. I force myself to will the pain away, and within seconds my head clears to see the face of Ebony mere inches from myself, hands poised in the air, lips stretched in an unnatural leering grin.
On impulse, I throw my right arm out. I'm still clutching the dagger within my fingers, now white from grasping the knife so hard. It's my lifeline, and I'm sure as hell not going to lose it now.
It does the job. The gleaming iron blade slices through her face, cutting a thin line from her left eye to her lip.
The scream that she lets out is quite possibly the most horrible I've heard in all my five hundred sixteen years. The sound of screaming cats, fingernails dragging down a hard surface, and metal scraping on china, all rolled into one. Both her now quivering arms fly up to touch her face where the cut appears to be getting larger with each passing second. Her pale face begins to take on a red color from that line out. Her porcelain skin begins bubbling, foam forming around the edges.
She raises her eyes to mine, a murderous expression on her face. And just like that, her glamour is gone.
The change seems to wipe over her body, starting from the bottom, and traveling up, exposing the vile beast she is inside. Her skin turns to ash, grey and flaky. Her perfectly coiffed hair turns morphs into a writhing mass of inky black, seemingly almost alive. Her features become warped: her nose elongates, bones start to stick out of her grey hands at awkward angles, her ears becoming little more than holes in her face, her lips a pitch black covering her grey, rotten looking fangs. Most terrifying of all are her eyes, completely black but for a tiny glowing red pupil in the center.
I'm transfixed. I've never seen an unglamourous dark fey, nor any fey as powerful es Ebony evidently is. She's truly a sight straight out of my worst nightmares.
Without warning, I'm suddenly flying through the air before thunking painfully on the hospital bed, the rounded but still sturdy corner of the bedpost stabbing at my back. A new acute pain alerts me of five new puncture marks on my collar, slowly turning red as my blood collects. Silently, I curse myself for letting myself to get distracted. It's a mistake I can't afford to make.
In an instant, before I even realize what has happened, Ebony is upon me, again. Hissing, she lunges towards my chest-- toward my heart. Pressed myself nervously against the wall where I'm trapped, I look around frantically for an escape, but to no avail. I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing myself for the pain to come.
I feel a rush of air past my cheek and realize to my delight, that she did not get me, and I am, in fact, surprisingly still alive. She looks just as confused about it as I am, and I take that moment of distraction to plunge the dagger into her right shoulder, the closest body part of Ebony to myself. Reflexively, she lashes out with her foot, just barely missing scraping my own leg with her razor sharp nails. Fortunately, the knife is still clutched in a death grip, so I pull it out and manage to not lose it.
Ebony meanwhile has fallen to the ground where she lies, wailing and writhing like some sort of wild animal. I take the opportunity to observe my surroundings, to enlighten myself on the reason that I'm not dead.
Peeping up at me is Chloe, emerald eyes wide with terror. Now that I have a moment, I notice that her hand is clamped around my left forearm. She must have pulled me to safety. She saved me, she's the reason we're all not dead.
She's going to be a fine Sleeping Girl.
I offer her a quick smile before springing off the bed and stalking towards Ebony. Writhing, screeching, she's collapsed on the ground, a foamy, pus-like red liquid emerging from the wound that I created in her back. This is the first time I've seen firsthand how harmful iron is to fey, and right now, I believe everything and more of what I've been told of its toxins.
Ebony sees me coming, and kicks out her leg, but I sidestep it gracefully. As I get closer to her, she scrambles to an upright position. Hissing something in a foreign, ancient sounding tongue, she moves her hands in a complex pattern. Her whole grey body seems to come alive at this, everything about her becoming more defined, and her hair starting to wave around and stick up as if on it's own free will. A dark cloud of dark smoke starts coming towards me at a frightening speed.
The dank cloud spreads outward, filling the room, sneaking its way into little crevices. It seems to become more and more defined, taking on a more tangible form with each passing second, similar to the dark sprites Mike and I faced a few days ago. Terrified, I wait for the dark, self destructive feelings to come.
But they don't. Opening my eyes wider, I discover that though the dark cloud has spread everywhere, and is even leaking under the door to outside, it hasn't even come close to touching me. I seem to be in a little bubble, a bubble of clean, pure air.
That's when I realize that my own hands are outstretched and flexed. I don't remember bringing them up, nor do I know why I did, but I guess I don't know my own powers. Once I've discovered that, it only take a moment to tune in to my surroundings and discover that I've focused light magic to my space, to my own little Ebony-proof bubble. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and focus on bringing it out. I open my eyes and exhale in a whooshing breath, using all my force to send light flying everywhere and expel it into the room, filling the area with twice the amount of dark Ebony had.
The dark cloud disappears almost instantly. The light wipes it out, making the room bright again, and allowing me to better see Ebony, who is now standing up and glaring me down with a murderous expression. She's murmuring something. I look around, frantically, to see what she might throw at me next, gathering all the light energy in the room, pulling all the spare bits that I just expelled back in, when I feel something heavy hit on my head, and before I know it, I'm in a heap on the ground, surrounded by... plaster?
The ceiling has broken, and rained down upon us all, sprinkling us with plaster, wood, cement, and whatever other stuff rich hospital people use to make their walls. The ceiling is durable, strong, and not meant to be broken, in a hospital more than everywhere, and certainly more so than it might have been five hundred years ago. Thus, being hit becomes quite painful. My right leg is pinned under an especially large piece of, well, room. Ebony is laughing, and advancing on me, eyes blazing menacingly. The bubbling flesh by her iron cuts morph dangerously, making her seem even crazier than she is.
"I don't care what sort of fate or destiny you think you have, you're still weak," she says. "Five hundred years asleep and you can't even defeat me, a mere faery."
I shake my head fiercely, shuddering under the weight, and trying with all my strength to push myself up, but to no avail. My head is still spinning from the impact of being hit, and when I try to push myself up off the ground, sharp bits dig into the flesh of my palms, making it even more difficult than it already is.
Ebony, sees my struggle, and it only makes her smile larger. I look around the room frantically for any help, but nothing. Carmela is still passed out, Chloe is quivering in a corner of her bed, and Mike is still splayed at an unnatural angle. I do a double take when I look at him and see that he has gone from small bleeding to lying a pool of his own blood.
Ebony's gaze follows my own, and she sneers at me. "Nobody will help you now. Because at the end of the day, you're all weak. You're all weak, but mostly just you, a little girl who wanted to be something greater, but failed. I told you I could have taken you in, and it's really a pity you didn't obliged, for how strong could we be now? Nevertheless, it is time for you to die. Time for you to die a weak little girl who couldn't save the ones relying on her."
Her words have hit home, but not in the way she intended. I am strong. Seeing Mike like that, I know I have to stop this. She made a mistake in breaking the ceiling. Sunlight is now streaming into the room, sunlight and warmth. Light. And I'm so much stronger for that.
I gather all the light in the room to myself. If ever there was a moment to be strong, it's now. "You made a mistake," I inform her calmly.
Then, before I can think about it for a second longer, I take all my strength and that much more to shoot all the light energy that I've gathered from the inside out. With more strength than I knew I had, I shoot all the light energy that I had inside myself out. The plaster goes flying off of me with the rays of light that I can practically see shooting outwards. With it, I let out a scream of anger, and feel myself becoming stronger, stronger, light.
Ebony lets out a shriek, and flies backwards from my force, head slamming against the metal corner of the counter, hands clawing feebly around for something tangible, but coming up with nothing despite all that is around her. I suppose the impact impaired her more than it normally would, so it must have some iron in it, and I'm using that to my advantage.
I don't have time for dramatics. Full of renewed strength, I force myself to my feet and spring over to her. It takes me less than I second to reach the monster, and when I'm there, I don't hesitate to plunge the blade straight into her heart, then pull it out again, and plunge it in again. Again and again, this is the dance that I do. Once I'm satisfied with that, I move on to stab her eye, then rake the blade down her face. It's like Carmela said; Ebony looks to monstrous now without her glamour that I, who would like to think have human morals, have no problem with this ruthless game.
My vision starts to blur as I think of everything bad that she has done, all the pain and misery that she has caused Chloe. I'm not the Girl, not a girl, not a person, just something ready to kill. Over and over again, I don't know what I'm doing, only know that I have to get rid of this thing in front of me.
That is, until I feel a strong hand on my shoulder.
"Kiki," says Mike, his familiar voice bringing me back to my senses. "You can stop now. You did it. You killed her."
Feeling more tired than ever before, I let the bloodied knife drop from my hand and sag back on Mike.