Heavy rain sounded from beyond the glass windows, where flames that smouldered innocently on the braided wicks of tall candlesticks happened to only be the spare light in a shadowy bedroom.
Steven kneeled before what was a carefully constructed altar of blades, trinkets and candlesticks amongst various other similar items. Silent whispered errantly flitted through the room as with closed eyes steven chanted in indescribable words under his breath to manon.
*How the hell can I ever wish for anything when everything in my life is always wrong?*
A few days eventually came and went, where a group of girls dressed in leathery/distressed black emerged from an Elantra that was neatly parked to the side of the street.
The aforementioned girls later walked to the front of what was a beautiful apartment building before them. The automatic glass doors opened for them as soon as they all stepped before it, where they went over to the receptionist's desk to check in.
The girls later stood before two double doors, where connie became the first to knock on one of them. The doorknob turned in response of the silent rap against the doors, and out came steven.
"Welcome, my sisters." he greeted, arms extended.
Huge, dramatic glass windows filled the predominantly elegant white living room, letting the sunlight pool over the pristine alabaster floor-where a large marble fireplace that sat below a large flatscreen was over on the other side of the room.
"You are one rich motherfucker!" sabrina plopped down on the white couch as she vocally luxuriated in the gorgeous edge the apartment had. "This was worth the half-hour long drive."
"Very, very rich...." darcy intoned with awe as she looked around.
"Yup." Steven later returned to the sitting room with two girls who looked slightly above his age, following him. Their attention was gathered to the girls in particular-but marinette somehow felt as if she was the odd one out as she never really remembered seeing them around before.
"Marinette, this is Penelope, or Peridot, my adopted sister from France." a petite girl with a head of curly platinum blonde hair nodded politely, "and that over there my friend, is Ella, or Spinel. She's my stepsister." A slightly taller girl with black/hot pink ombre locks tied into pigtails gave them a quick, almost cautious look as she silently looked away from them.
"Hello, its very nice to meet you." the blunette extended a hand to both girls, where peridot gladly shook it.
"Nice to meet you too." peridot sported an award-winning smile, her pristine diamond jewellery twinkling in the sunlight. Spinel however looked a bit wary of the blunette's friendly presence before she gently proceeded to do the same.
"It's alright sis-she won't bite." he silently whispered comfortingly to the shorter girl. Spinel silently nodded, as she looked away, arms politely fastened behind her back.
"Steven, are you sure you don't want to go out to lunch with the rest of us?" the blonde asked him. "I figured we'd have a lot of catching up to do now that mumma and papa are back together?"
"Certainly, petite cherie-i have a lot of business with this lot to attend to." he confirmed for her. "Very important."
"Well, we'll be back until later okay? We'll bring you back some leftovers for you. And it was really nice seeing you guys." the ray of sunshine initially prompted-and within that, she and spinel were out the door. Spinel gave one look to the group, before leaving before her adopted stepsister.
Night eventually fell as time passed by-and everyone lounged around steven's new bedroom, where sounds from the flatscreen idly played in the background, the sound of rock music and idle chatter practically cancelling out the noise. The moon's bleached glow along with the bright lights the city offered through the cut-glass windows pooled over the wall-to-wall carpet, where everyone sat around his king-sized bed.
Steven took a slowly drag from his cigarette as he lied his head against his soft pillow-before directing his glance to the chatting girls before him.
"You all want to head to the beach?" he asked.
Sabrina looked up from her slice of pizza where this piqued her interest, but marinette chose to ask him why.
"At this time of night?" came the blunette's voice, "Why now?"
Steven later stood up from his bed, slowly walking around as he proceeded to explain.
"We aren't heading out now-like sometime before dawn. We just want to give manon thanks. Small sacrifices." He stated briefly, "We've been taking and taking lately; so I think that it's time we give back."
As they walk out from the car, five black silhouettes filed out to the car park of the beach, against the colouring sky. The pre-dawn gusts errantly flap through their particular outfits as they stuck together out on the beach.
Most bought items of their own of the ritual-in steven's hand was a glass mason jar-but inside was a small snake that errantly slithered around in the glass. In connie's was only a wooden cage with a parakeet-where darcy held a monarch butterfly that flapped around in another jar, and sabrina, a baggie filled with water, where a goldfish swam around in it. Marinette however walked behind them, as it seemed to be the only one who didn't bring anything of her own.
Darcy wrapped up a task of laying stones around in the sand, where steven just recently ignited a fire right in the centre.
Everyone, with the exclusion of marinette who just watched however, obeisantly placed their own offerings inside the ring-where they later sat down on the sand.
"Manon, ruler of earth, maker of waves, bringer of fire, we present these modest sacrifices." steven spoke automatically.
A flame enveloped the wick of a black candle as everyone lit each of them with steven's lighter, where they later stood and moved in a circle.
"Winds of the west, strong and true, aid us in our magical work on this, the shortest day and the longest night. " steven chanted aloud. At that, wind immediately picked up and stirred, where it blew long locks of the girls' hair across their faces.
"Serpent of old, ruler of deep, guardian of the bitter sea, show us your glory. We pray of thee, we pray of thee, we invoke thee."
Marinette didn't realised it at first, but when she later gained sense of what was going on behind steven's intention, she absolutely shocked by what he was really trying to do-and immediately chose to speak out against it.
"Steven, this isn't thanks," she countered, "You're...you're all trying to invoke him."
"If we told you, we're sure that you wouldn't have come." came darcy's voice as she glanced back at the shocked blunette before her.
Behind them, the morning sun nears the horizon. Shaking her head, the parisian girl immediately stood up and later walked away from her coven, much to steven's chagrin.
"Hey," he snapped at her from afar, "Get back in the ring!"
Dozens of fish jumped above the surface of the water, where the goldfish sabrina bought along violently flailed on its body.
"We want to do this, marinette." connie spoke out to her. "We want this."
"We want to have this. I really have no idea what is it that you're so afraid of." darcy asked the blunette, which managed to stop her.
"I'm not afraid." she countered.
Steven however extended his hand to the blunette, where she looked at him.
"Please, marinette." he said.
Shaking her head marinette slowly chose to come forward, making her way back into the ring as she took his hand.
Far out to the sea, from the considerably darkening sky, a bolt of lightning charges from a cloud and to the ocean-coinciding with a slow, delayed rumble sounding from afar.
"Show us your glory..." steven requests silently-his grasp tightening. Trough the thrashing wind, the parakeet rapidly beats against the wooden cage, desperately trying to force its head through the slats.
"Manon, we invoke thee!!!" Steven shouted. His eyes roll back in his head as he fell to the sand, much to marinette's rising horror.
"Manon...! FILL me!"
Without warning the mason jars that held the snake and butterfly later shattered-where the snake slithers off to the sand safely, but the butterfly however was tossed away through the violent gust. The wooded cage snaps apart, allowing the parakeet to free itself to the sky. The water-filled bag burst open with a small explosion of room-temperature water, the goldfish lolling on the sand through it.
Steven's body thrashed violently, the ground actually shaking below them, akin to an earthquake. Marinette's aghast bluebell eyes jumped over to her environs; to a trouncing steven as he screamed to the sky, to the ocean, to the snake sidewinding away through the sand.
"FILL ME!!!!!" he screeched out.
The sky lit up as a huge bolt of lightning rapidly descends on the circle.
"AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"
"STEVEN!!!!!!!!!" connie screeched.
The sun sat in the centre of the sapphire sky glowing down two girls laid out on the sand.
Groggily, darcy and sabrina stirred from their sleep-where marinette and one connie with a lowered head sat beside them. Tears dried to the Indian girl's cheeks as they made clean tracks down her discoloured face from earlier.
"Jesus..." sabrina muttered with exhaustion as she gathered herself, "What happened last night?"
"...were they here or what?" darcy asked tiredly.
The goldfish from earlier still pathetically flapped on the sand-only fort marinette to finally chose to be its key to salvation as she knelt to gently pick it up. She carried it protectively in her hands as she walks to the shore, freeing it in the waters, where it later swam away from her.
Realisation slowly seemed to have caught her as she realised how the calm the rowing ocean was; there was not a single cloud marring the blue sky.
Arid at least a dozen yards in the distance stood steven-as he actually stood on the surface of the water. Sabrina, connie and darcy walk beside her, watching with a silent, transfixed edge as steven walks all the way to the shore.
Steven later met with his coven in one piece. A detached gleam ran through his eyes, making it known through his facial expression as he eerily stared at them.
"Did you feel them?" he silently asked. He was met with nothing but silence as the girls just stared back at him-particularly marinette with her widened eyes, mainly unsure of what to think of his unsettling behaviour.
"They blessed me-he ran through my veins. I still feel them."
The wails of an ambulance sounded from afar on the beach, cutting his words short-and over on that less vacant area, it appears to be some kind of commotion. A news van, along with a flashing coast guard jeep was amongst a crowd of many onlookers.
Everyone proceeded to gather their bearings as they left the area to investigate, with steven slowly following after them as soon as they left.
A great white shark seemed to have beached itself far onto shore as it lied motionless in the sand, blood seeping from its eyes and slightly opened mouth. A loud, stream of wicked laughs sounded from steven as he revelled in the dismaying sight.
"Beautiful....fucking beautiful." he whispered through his ragged laughs. "Look..."
All along the coast was a storm of more beached sharks-preferably at least around fifteen of their kind swarming the area with their bloodied corpses.
Marinette was the only one with a dep pang of profound, silent horror mounting in her as she backed away-but sabrina, darcy, and more surprisingly connie seemed to be ones to share blank looks at what they saw before them.
"Manon..." steven said, as he stealthily approached one of the sharks, "Manon is great....he loves us....all of us. This is how we know, ladies..."
Marinette felt absolutely sick to her stomach-completely nauseous as she couldn't bare the sight for a second. But steven however just kept progressively taunting her with his unnerving demeanour as he laughed, his dark eyes glazed over with nothing but demented bliss.
"Thank you, manon!" he kneels down to kiss the sand.
"Manon is great!"