As she left Noah's room and headed for Liam's, she took care to not let her eyes miss a single thing. She could never allow herself to make the same mistakes that other people had made. She had made a mistake that had cost her and she could never again repeat it.
She drifted through the large building, noting the patrolling guards with their rifles in her hands, the white sterility of the structure and furniture, the clinical coldness of everything around her. It had changed over the last century, become what it was today. The changes had happened after Noah lost his wife.
She walked through the closed door and watched intently as Liam paced up and down. Victoria was with him and the worried look in the other woman's eyes made her smile. It was not a pleasant smile. If Victoria had been able to see it, she would have been deathly afraid.
"Noah is powerful, Vicky. I won't be able to stop him alone but the others are either too afraid to go up against him or don't really realize what he wants to do."
"I am with you, Liam. We just need to plan this right. We have to find a way otherwise he will destroy the balance of nature." As Victoria walked up to her husband, her red hair and green eyes seemed muted by the dim light in the room. She was not a particularly tall woman but she walked with certainty and conviction that made people pay attention to her.
As she watched the couple from across the room, the anger in her heart grew. Where there had once been nothing but love for at least one of two people who now embraced each other, a deep bitterness now covered it like toxic mold would a mushroom in a radiation filled glasshouse.
"I don't know what else to try," Liam muttered as he nuzzled his nose into his wife's neck. "I have slowed down his progress as much as I could over the years but he has always found a way around everything. Now that the serum is ready, he won't stop. The other things he has done will be child's play compared to what he has planned. I can't-"
As he broke off, his wife hugged him tighter and held onto him like a scared child playing grown up.
Watching them from in front of the door, she smiled, gleeful. She loved the aura of fear that was radiating off of the couple. It strengthened her.
Victoria took a deep breath and pulled away from Liam. She tugged at his hand so they could go and sit on the bed.
"Ever since Natasha died, Noah has never been the same. It has been decades and he still acts so differently, so strangely," Liam mumbled. "He seemed to have died with her and then when he came out of his grief..." Liam shook his head.
The figure in the corner of the room took note of the look of pain and loss on Victoria's face and she frowned. For a moment, a sliver of emotion sparked within her chest before she killed it, snuffed it out like a lone candle in a pitch black hall.
"Natasha didn't deserve how she died but she had it coming," Victoria said before she took a deep, shuddering breath. "She shouldn't have had that affair with the werewolf. Noah never knew. He still thinks it was a rogue. A random attack."
"Do you think it would make a difference if we told him?" Victoria asked.
Liam thought about it for a moment. Then, he shook his head. "I have wondered about it for so long. If he knew now, however, it would enrage him. It would only make things worse."
Victoria nodded. She agreed with him?
This infuriated her no end. With a loud cry she summoned up her powers and forged a fireball, throwing it at the couple on the bed. She snarled as it smashed against a force field and fizzled out. The couple were not harmed at all. They should have been incinerated. Burnt to a crisp.
Victoria jumped to her feet suddenly and stood in front of Liam. Her eyes looked around the room frantically as Liam stood up behind her.
"What is it?" Liam asked.
Victoria looked around until her gaze landed in the corner where she stood. She should not be able to see her but she stood still anyway. There was no way Victoria would be able to notice that she was there, hidden in the shadows.
"Something is here," Victoria stated in a low voice. "In that corner."
"I don't see anything," Liam said but he knew to trust her. She had never gotten such things wrong.
The three beings in the room were all silent, unmoving for a few more seconds. Then, Victoria raised her hand and shouted, "Manifesto."
A bright light hit her where she stood alone in the corner and she screeched. Her own red hair flowed upwards as the power of Victoria's magic revealed her for just a second. But it was enough to show the pair standing by the bed who and what she was. She heard them gasp as she channeled her own power and quickly projected back to Noah's room.
Gasping, she fell to her knees and stayed in that position for long minutes. She felt weak, drained, and she hated it. That was why she needed this war. She needed to use the energy that it would generate to regain herself.
To come back.
To be mortal again.
To find what she had lost.
"Natasha?" Noah said sleepily from the bed. "Are you okay, baby?"
"I'm fine, honey. Go back to sleep," she said.
On shaky legs she stood up and walked over to her mirror. She slowly looked up and into the image that stared back at her. Her red hair was matted and hung limply down her shoulders. The rotting bones of her body were visible despite the beautiful red dress she wore. Her paper thin, sunken cheeks revealed the bones of her teeth beneath them.
The green eyes that had once been so full of life now looked back at her like decayed olives. She took a deep breath and muttered a spell under her breath.
She turned away from the mirror and walked slowly towards the bed as the change happened. By the time she climbed in next to her husband, her body had taken on the appearance it used to have before she died.
Noah pulled her to him and she grinned.
Things were coming together nicely.
*
"What the hell?" Liam said, shaken. He and Victoria still stood next to each other, by the side of the bed. "What was that?" He turned to look at his wife and his eyes widened as he saw her pale face. They had seen a lot of things since they had become a part of the Dark Druids but that was something super freaky.
"That was Natasha," Victoria said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I saw that, but how?" Liam asked. "She wasn't corporeal."
"She came back," Victoria said as her eyes remained locked in the corner where the spectre had been. "She died but somehow came back." Victoria looked ready to pass out. Her eyes widened as realisation hit her. "It wasn't Noah. All this time, it was her. She has been around and she has been influencing him. She wants to come back and she put all this into motion."
Victoria sank back onto the bed and turned tortured eyes to her husband who was staring back at her.
"She tried to kill us, Liam."
"What do you mean?" Liam asked, sitting down next to her.
"I have a protection spell around us, you know that. She attacked us. I picked up the energy and that's what alerted me that something was amiss. She did something to us. Which means she knows that we have been sabotaging Noah. We need to go. Tonight."
"Where do we go, Vicky? No place is safe at the moment. You know that."
After a moment, Victoria spoke. "There is one place. We need to find Aida. She will help us. She and Faleya will guide on a way forward."
"Are you sure?" Liam asked, uncertainty filling his voice.
"There is no one else. She and Faleya will help us. They were never the bad guys and we have known that for decades. But we have to go now," Victoria said as she started looking through her things. She turned to look at Liam and the worry on her face was undeniable. "If my twin sister can come back from the dead, I'm not sure I want to hang around to find out what else she can do."
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18 December 2020
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