Disclaimer: KH owns the most of the characters and the Hollows. I just want to let you know how I would like the story to end.
Notes: I'm setting this after WWBC. I will add some characters of my own. Now here comes the tricky part: presenting the twist I lucubrated. If I suck, well, tell me kindly, please.
This is RaVy all over the place, so you've been warned.
CHAPTER 3
The trip through the line was not good for Ivy's stomach. She was having nausea when we arrived to the church. Luckily she didn't throw dinner up. I gave her another vial of my mother's potion and put her in bed. Bis stayed with her while I went out to replenish our groceries' stock. After that I began to cook food, not spells. Ivy needed to gain some weight fast. But at the same time, she had to eat enough proteins, because she was pregnant. I'm having babies, oh God, I'm having babies. And vampire babies are way much better than demon babies, the magic must knew, that's why I'm not pregnant. Ivy is.
"That smells very good." Her voice made me smile; I didn't hear when she came to the kitchen. That didn't bother me as it used to, I used to hate when she vamped out and moved as silently as a shadow. I turned to see her. She had a black silk robe very neatly tied. Her hair was longer than I remembered, I just admired her.
Her face was still pale, and the weight loss had highlighted her cheekbones. Her chin was the same. But the sleep deprivation made her eyes seemed sunken as the cheeks. However Ivy didn't look bad, I wished I could look as mysterious and ethereal on a bad day as she looked now. That was it: Ivy seemed ethereal, like a sexy ghost, if there was such a thing in the world. Not even almost 6 months of guilt and pregnancy could make her unattractive. I just contemplated her stance, her elegance, her intangible Ivyness; she had it all; she was a tragic beauty. And the heavy emotional burden that her eyes always tried to hide was still the same, maybe that was the thing about Ivy, her intense and continue struggle inside her between her humanity and her Vampiric instincts.
"What?" she asked a little awkwardly.
"You are so stunning, Ivy." I sighed still with the goofy grin in my face. "This is going to be ready in ten minutes. Do you want something to drink while it gets done?" I offered snapping out of my thoughts.
"A glass of orange juice, please." Ivy sat down in her chair. I served her request and put a cluster before the glass in front of her.
"Thanks." She had her laptop already going on. I leaned to kiss her hair, and she stiffened.
"What? Are you feeling dizzy or have any pain?" I kneeled beside her to get a closer look of her face.
"No, Rachel. It's nothing. I. Well, I am a little uncomfortable right now. You, well, I'm not used having you this close. And." Something is going on, my Ivy doesn't ramble, no; she is not like you, Rache.
"Oh, missy. You better get used to and pronto. Because I'm not going to be far from you. Don't be afraid of losing control, honey. I'm certain and clear about us. I adore you. I'm not going to run away, if you want to touch me, then you do it. And if I want to kiss you, then…" I reached for her face. Ivy went back. She was avoiding my contact. What in the Turn is possibly wrong with us now?
"Rachel, I'm really very tired, I'm up because I'm hungry too, that potion made me hungry. I'm not in the mood for… anything physical right now." Ivy said tired.
"I understand, babe. I really do. You just let me take care of you. I know you've just passed a very hard, very long hard time, and it was my entire fault. If you are tired then you should eat and then go to bed and get some rest." I took one of her hands and kissed it on the knuckles. "Ah, and I'm going to need your cookies' recipe." I remembered while I went to the stove to unnecessarily check on the pan. I shut off the gas.
"No, I'm not going to bite you. Not again, not ever!" she closed her eyes. She was suffering all over again. Ivy had a frown but her mask of stoic nothingness came to cover up the uneasy mood she was having. Maybe could be an effect of pregnancy hormones? I've never being close to anyone pregnant except for Ceri, and Ceri wasn't that much around. I glanced at her my eyebrows rising in a quizzical look.
Definitely something wrong was happening. Ivy was shutting down to me; I walked slowly to the table and stood up in front of her whilst I stared at her looking for my answer on her unreadable mask.
"Ivy, my love, please, please, don't start with this." I pleaded softly. "If it is the physical part you…Oh, My God!" I almost let my jaw falling because I wasn't thinking when I started to talk, but seemed that my subconscious part nailed it before it could reach the front of my mind. That's it! Ivy is feeling insecure because she is pregnant! She hasn't the figure she used to have. Stupid Vamp! Yes, the little twitch in her face lasted less than a split second, but I could see it clearly. She was being so human! My heart clenched at her adorable light blush "Is it the physical part of us that is making you so uncomfortable, Ivy?" I dragged a chair to her side and sit down.
She sighed blushing violently this time. But my big bad vamp was strong and honest. Her brown eyes locked with mine and she nodded, in defeat. She let me move her chair and mine to be in front of each other, my knees touched hers. I found her hands and held them in mine, on my lap. I formed a smile, a shy smile. "You really shouldn't, dearest, don't be. You are perfect! And I am so far from perfection as a weed from a rose! It is me, who should've been feeling awkward. I'm an ordinary girl, I'm not beautiful, and I don't have even breasts. I have to shop my brassieres in the leprechauns' stores because I don't find anything suitable for a grown-up in the usual places!" I wasn't joking but she smiled moving her head side to side. "I don't know what a flesh goddess like you can find desirable on me, but I will not second guess you, Ivy. I just know I'm the lucky one in this match. I will get you and you are the most beautiful woman I ever laid eyes on. Not only physically, Ivy, you are the strongest, the best woman I will ever know. I love you, all of you, not only the vamp. I love the woman you are, your morals, your will, your feelings, you are so intense, so beautiful inside, that not even your body can compete." I kissed again the back of her hand. "Yes, I like your body a lot, but I'm in love with the person you are. I don't care if you put on weight three hundred pounds, or if you get skinny as a skeleton. Because physical is not the most important part, it is just a part. And it will be pleasurable, no matter what, because we love each other, babe. It is the love what counts." I was no planner, I just said what my mouth let out, without thinking, and the warmth, the light in her brown eyes, warmed my heart too. I kissed her hands, both of them this time. "And, Ivy; you are a vampire, and you have needs, as I have needs. Finding a blood balance is essential for us to work as a couple; so you will bite me, and you will feed on my blood. I'm giving this to you. And I will not ask you to separate anything, if the way you are comfortable is making love with me while you drink my blood, that's fine." I assured her without any sign of doubt. I was focused in her eyes and her face.
"You hate taking brimstone, Rachel." She reminded me pulling my hands on hers towards her mouth; she kissed my knuckles gently with butterfly kisses. I shivered. I was getting her to feel better with us being together. Yeees!
"I don't like it, I grant you that much. I might find a potion to replenish my blood and strength that is legal; but in the meantime, I will use the cookies. Besides, by now, it is not only about you and me, honey; it is about our babies too. You taking my blood every 4 days or so will be the fastest way for you to recover. They need you strong and healthy. And believe it or not, I don't think I can have a sexual response to your bites as long you're pregnant." I giggled a bit.
"I was unconscious, Rache." Ivy said with a smug. Her confidence was building quickly up. "Just because one time I wasn't even awake, doesn't mean I have lost my touch." She warned me. "So, don't treat me as a joke unless you are lying and the truth is that I disgust you so much like this that you are making excuses." Her eyes were going black and her grip in my hands, stronger. Definitely after 6 months of not having to control herself as much as she used to when I was awake made Ivy to lose such control easily. Ivy frowned just a bit and her eyes with just a bit rim of brown looked for mine demanding. Before the coma that would put me to tremble, ramble, cry and beg for her to let me go because I was afraid not from her, but my reactions to her. I had hurt her feelings with my big mouth, and she never asked me for explanations, Ivy just jumped into her own conclusions due to her own insecurities about me.
"Ivy Tamwood, do you really think that poorly about me? I thought you know me better after all this time living together. Of course I meant anything I just said. There is a reason. And I think that would be much better for you to experience it than me trying to explain why I think this way. One thing is for certain dough: It is nothing about you physically that can disgust me I just spent like 5 minutes admiring you and nearly drooling about your beauty and I probably would be actually drooling by now if you hadn't talked to me. Well, we can try. Just take a sip. And you will see what I'm talking about" I offered my wrist to her, the one without any marks.
"Rache, if I do that, I'm going to take you; I don't think I'm able to have any control right now." She warned me with a low growl. Her hands came to grab me by the shoulders, her eyes were still more black than brown, but I just formed a smug while an impulsive idea of my body surged through my nerves, one my mind didn't even processed. I moved fast.
"You will see, my beloved. Just a tiny bite and a little sip, there, this way you can see my face." I grabbed her by the waist and I brought her to my lap. Ivy gasped in surprise, as I sat her sideways on my lap while I was embracing her waist with my arm, and she passed an arm behind my neck automatically, for equilibrium.
"Rache! You're a bit stronger than I recalled." She smirked showing malevolence in her features. I stroked her belly tenderly and offered to her my wrist again. "You are playing with fire, little witch." A mean glare in her eyes matched the sly smile she gave me. That's what I want; my big bad vamp all predatory again. I looked at her sheepishly with every intention to tease her even more.
Ivy took my hand starting to pump pheromones, sexy pheromones at me. She scented the skin on my wrist, and she nibbled it, my breath came a bit faster, as my heartbeat, Ivy always knew how to arouse me. She never stopped studying me, with her piercing eyes every second blacker. The tingling in my scars began, but at the same time the joyful noise of one of our babies intruded into my brain. I closed my eyes and Ivy left the foreplay with an impatient growl, her icy fangs penetrated my flesh and I flinched, my body tensing in response to the pain, it hurt at the beginning. I took a little glance of her with only one eye. She returned my glance apologetic and she lapped a little in the wound, with a moan. "Your blood tastes even better than I could recall. Oh you're delicious, dear heart!" She waited until I relaxed and closed my eyes to pull my blood in, just a sip, she was very aware of the earlier occasion and she couldn't take too much blood without hurting me... Our auras began to mingle and the closeness, the warmth, the intoxicating sensations we both knew came to us again with a difference. I was focusing in the connection I shared with the twins, and she stopped pulling the second sip of blood all the sudden. "What's that?" she asked against my wrist, I was hearing the sighs, the little adorable purrs, and the giggles of our twins. When I opened my eyes I could see the all brown eyes of Ivy almost wide open in wonder then I smirked.
"That's our babies, honey! Could you hear them now?" I asked hopeful. And I identified the brightness in her eyes as joy, as I felt every time I heard the twins. The whining purr repeated and Ivy pulled in more blood, another little sip, because she understood exactly what the baby was pleading for. "Yes she is very fond to blood and she purrs just like you" I pointed out as I was stroking her belly with the hand from the arm I was embracing her. Ivy took another little sip, her eyes all wet, all pretenses for sex forgotten by now.
"One is laughing" she said still against my wrist. Jenks came inside in a hurry through the hole in the window.
"Yes, babe and she is kicking too, give me your hand." I asked. She retrieved her arm from my neck and passed it between us, she felt the kicks, and the babies' sounds doubled at that.
"But this one giggles just like you, my little witch" she muttered tenderly before another soft pull of her lips on my broken skin.
"Tink's little G string! Your auras are 1! Jenks shouted amazed "You are like soul mates!"
"Hi, Jenks. Be quiet a bit please, Ivy is hearing the babies" I smiled pacific at her. Ivy only took another sip; and she began to lick and lap the little wounds her fangs made in my skin. Looking at me so awed "See, Babe? I can't think of sex when they are playful and whispering that cute sounds" I said caressing her cheek with the hand she just released.
"Neither do I!" she nodded "But this is so strange, Rache" she laid her head on my shoulder hugging me again.
"I know but I believe this is good, Ivy. Because now for this I think you will be able to separate blood from sex. But not from love, because you love the babies and they love you. And I love you and our babies…" I trailed off seeing her lonely tear; I wiped it out with a kiss. My arms wrapped her gently, I kissed her jaw and her ear. One of my hands was stroking her thigh over the silk robe the other her side just below her breast. I wanted my Ivy to know for sure I was totally in for having a physical encounter as soon as possible with her. She was as desirable as always for me.
"And we all love you, my little witch!" she sighed "I'll make the cookies for you, dear heart." She decided after few moments of peaceful silence. "Can you hear them all the time?" she asked curious.
"No, I just can when you are eating, o taking my blood and I'm touching you at the time. And I could dare to say that I can hear them when they sense danger for you and them, like when they woke me up. I told you this little rascal is very fond to blood, you heard her; and when she eats, this other little one gets all playful and communicative… and the other way around, when you eat food this is all yummy sounds and her twin is all giggles and kicking, she sounds very much like your sister when she is playful." I explained caressing softly her belly to point which one in every occasion. "And that reminds me, you should eat." I brushed her lips with mine lightly and I used my arms to lift her and deposit her carefully on her chair "You're a feather even pregnant, honey." I smiled to her to go to the stove. She drank the orange juice.
"Jenks is it something wrong?" she saw the little pixie in the napkin holder.
"No, I just heard Rachel offering you blood and she already had gave you more than enough for what your sister said, I came just in case things get out of your fangs, Ivy."
He gave a smug at us, as I put two plates with the cooked meat in the table. And several pieces of toast. In the middle a plate with lettuce salad.
"I will bake bread, sorry for the hurry now, I used commercial." I blushed a little ashamed.
"Yummy, I love your cooking, dear." Ivy tasted the tender meat in the sauce.
"I accept requests, babe. I was thinking about pancakes in the morning with bacon, and eggs."
"It sounds heavenly, Rachel." Ivy nodded with a smile, she was hungry. She ate the two extra filets I cooked and several toasts with it, and almost all of the salad plate.
"What about some butterscotch pie? My mom gave me her recipe before she went to California." I said.
"I thought I was allergic to the butterscotch." Ivy laughed quietly
"That was Alexia not you, but if you want some kinky stuff in the bedroom, who am I to deny anything to your sex-drive, hot stuff?" I winked an eye at her and Jenks chuckled.
"Stop it, you are making me blush! You two better not get all pornographic in front of my kids. Or Bis! You could scar them for life!" he ranted with joyful energy.
"That reminds me, Jenks. The bedroom is off limits starting right now." My vamp warned him with serious softness.
"I will make that very clear to all my children, gals. I'm happy for you. This spell might have been a rocky start. But so far apparently has limed all the edges of your relationship. Even that one: you wouldn't be able to stop yourself from draining this foolish witch dry, Ivy; but with a loving restrain for not scarring your own kids, you couldn't lose control. That's a master touch from the wild magic." He hovered over the empty plate of salad. "Good night, ladies. I will be with Mattie. It is Bis turn of watching." He waved his arm goodbye.
"If she needs anything, Jenks please tell us." I said worried for him and the pain he was trying to hide right now. Ivy hugged my shoulders with one arm; we had dinner side to side.
"Thank you, girls, but there's nothing anyone can do. Mattie doesn't complain but I think we have only days with her. She barely can move." I almost couldn't hear him. My heart clenched in pain and Ivy got paler. She didn't know either the situation was so grave by now. Jenks went out before neither of us could react. I felt like an idiot, an insensitive idiot. We were teasing each other in the course of all dinner. We changed intentional load of meaning looks. And Jenks was about to lose his wife!
"I feel like an ass." Ivy mumbled with her eyes wet. She loved Jenks as much as I and the days to come were going to be really hard for him. My tears ran through my face before I could process anything. I was so happy just a moment before. How can I be so egotistic and selfish? I knew things were painful for Jenks since before my coma. I'm such a jerk! I really wished to be able of doing anything to save Matalina and Jenks. But I wasn't more successful in that matter than in finding a way for granting Ivy to have a soul once undead. I'm such a failure! How I can get out of trouble murderers and drug lords but I can't do a thing for the people I love the most?
Ivy and I Just held each other for a while in silence. "Honey, I will clean the kitchen and then I will join you in the bed, you go to rest a bit." I asked aghast.
"I can help you, Love."
"Ivy, just this afternoon you fainted out of weakness for not eating. That is not going away with one dinner. Jenks is going to need us well. Please let me do this and go to rest. I will be there in no time, babe." I retorted earnestly.
"Fifteen minutes, Rache. If you're not in bed in fifteen I will come for you." Ivy decided.
"Give me half an hour, Ivy. I need to do the dishes and let things ready for the morning. I will not let you do a thing in here until you're better." I stated seriously. "Please humor me on this" I put a finger over her lips before she could say another word. She sighed, she was not satisfied but she nodded and went away.
"I will take a shower, Rachel. I don't need hot water, so you don't worry about that while do the dishes." She turned to say. I nodded.
I was putting away the clean dishes when the smell of burnt amber came to my nose. A shiver ran through my spine and I saw at the clock: almost 6 in the morning. The sun will be out very soon. I tapped the line in the back yard preparing for Al, it must be him. Ivy was still in the shower or getting into a sleep gown. She would be coming at the first sign of trouble. And she was in no condition to have a fight with anyone, much less a powerful demon. Fear for her almost froze me. I have to put a circle around Al and me; let her out of this. My fists clenched as forceful as my jaws. But then I relaxed to walk towards the table, I cleaned it with a kitchen cloth. What in the Turn is taking him this much? When I turned to walk towards the sink I saw him with his usual disguise of an English gentleman from the past century. He was adjusting his sleeves as he enjoyed doing almost every time.
"Hello, my itchy witch!" he said with a malignant glance of his goat-like eyes over the tinted glasses.
"Al" I nodded once without stopping. I washed the kitchen cloth and then I faced him, strangely, I was feeling more confident. I should be trembling. I should be scared out of crap. But somehow I felt numbed, just as I felt numbed throughout the entire episode when I was treating earlier with 2 undead vampires. Did I run out of any preservation sense? I asked myself seeing how Al took offense for being practically ignored by me.
"Well?" he asked with a frown changing his form into mine. He copied the hospital garment, the one I was wearing for 6 months.
"Well what?" I asked coming slowly closer to him. Rhombus! I mentally ordered and the circle already drawn in my linoleum floor arose, enclosing both of us. Just in time. Jenks and Jhan came into the kitchen through the hole for them in the window. Bis came inside through Rex's door and Ivy showed herself in the archway still in a black bathrobe, her hair was totally wet and dripping water to the floor.
"Rachel!" she saw at me with pain and fear in her eyes. She couldn't help me. None of them could enter the circle, except for Bis.
"Stay out of this, Bis. Please, Ivy, go back to your room. And you two go with Mattie." My voice came out flat, almost bored, like tired of all the crap my life was sometimes. My arms crossed over my chest and my head bobbed a little sideway as I faced the demon again with a bored look.
"Tink's fairy farts, Rachel! What are you doing?" the pixie shouted at me alarmed.
"I am just setting straight an old arrangement, Jenks. Please go with Mattie, she's dying, she needs you." I said calmly.
"I don't understand, Rachel Mariana Morgan." Al still was preserving my form. "I wasn't sure it was you. I just sensed when the line was used. But then I didn't recognize you. I should but somehow you have changed during that coma. I went to see you a dozen times. I tried to awake you a dozen different times with powerful curses. I tried to take your soul 2 of them." He said with my voice while he was slowly walking around me. "Your soul wasn't there, my itchy witch. I couldn't reach it. Your mind wasn't in there either, even Newt tried once. She is very pissed off about all this matter. She even tried to kill me once for losing you. Now, I will take you to her and I make sure my life is safe. I don't think she accepts any less than possess you as she has wanted since she met you. It's nothing personal, my itchy witch. I really wanted to break you myself." He said slowly closing the distance we were apart with every circle he walked around me. I didn't even follow him with my eyes, but I could sense every one of his moves.
It was so rare. My heart was beating at a steady rhythm. But it was as if my second sight had been improved and magnified. Now I just could see the entire bodies and auras of everybody, until the slightest detail. Furthermore, every nerve on my body could sense him. Every move, every gesture of Al I could feel it almost like if I had him in front of my eyes. Even the ever after's landscape around us seemed more clearly dry and somber than I used to see it. An annoying itch in my back started the moment he touched my cheek. He used the back of a hand to stroke my cheek and then he took me by the neck forcefully. My face didn't react. I saw into his slit like goat eyes, my stomach clenched with revulsion; but I didn't move, my body was acting on its own.
"What, Rachel? No fight? No screams? No wiseass retorts? No begs? Tsnt, tsnt. I'm a bit disappointed on you, my itchy witch." He approached and kissed me on the lips. With my own form! What a pervert! What else can you expect from a demon? I asked myself hearing very far away the claims and yells from my friends. But I still didn't move and he pinned me against the counter. I felt a little release in the itch from my back, when it got scrubbed against the edge rather roughly. "This is not funny, itchy witch!" he complained. And then I laughed, grabbing his wrists with my hands and taking ground firmly with my feet a little apart to hold him and maintain equilibrium at the same time.
"It's going to be, Al." I let out a furious charge of energy from the line through my right hand, right into his left arm calling it to come into my left hand all the way through him and myself. The howl of pain tearing the demon's throat apart was very enjoyable, as well the arch his spine formed trying to run away. But the circuit was closed. There was no possible getaway. Not for him, not for me. I was still connected to the line and the power was filling me as never before. I sensed when he tried to kick me and I kicked him first over the knees making him fall to the floor. His weight dragged me and I fell with him, on top of him. I was unwilling to let him go.
Then something strange happened again: my sight turned green and my back felt like if it was on fire. I straddled the demon with my form by the hips, without letting go of his wrists. I almost got repelled by the new arch the demon made with his entire body as I incremented the energy current through him. But my own knees hit him in the stomach as I fell over him again. That hurt him too. "Now, my little lemon demon, I know for a fact the whimper you are when you get a little roughed off." I stopped the current before he could dismay. He was panting. "I have still 20 minutes before dawn. Oh, Al. What I can do to you in 20 minutes?" I asked with a devilish smirk "Decisions, decisions. I can get your guts out and filled them with salt." I said with a very poisoned voice.
Whoa! Where in the Turn came that from?
"Two can play the same game, Rachel!" he changed his form to be the gentleman again and I rolled off of him before he could drain my power as he pretended.
How do I know what he's planning?" I got into my feet and jumped away before a hit of ever after energy passed where I was it dissolved into my circle. A draft at my back made me move and I sent a kick up with all my strength. Al made himself solid just in the place and my boot hit him right in the crotch. He cried in outrage and I could see him protecting his package with the hands before went gassy again. Jenks chuckled swearing on Disney's balls.
I raised my arm and an energy ball of ley line energy stopped at my extended palm. I saw the jaw of Al fell in disbelief. The ball shrunk as I absorbed it inside my body through my palm.
"What did you to your eyes?" he asked unease for the first time. The annoying fire in my back was very uncomfortable. I panted. I was sweating like if I was in a freaking sauna room. The fire burnt sensation was propagating to my neck, my head and it was covering already most of my back.
"Don't you like it?" my voice came as a low growl, like from a Were with laryngitis. The draft at my back came another time and I moved; this time I sent an arm totally extended while I was turning, then when I was about to complete the turn on my feet, my knuckles hit his jaw and Al fell on a knee. He went into his gaseous state again. I rolled on the floor beside the counter and grabbed my dented spell pot. It crashed against Al's face when he become solid yet again and this time he fell flat on his ass to the floor. I used the pot as a shield to catch a nasty green potion he threw at me in the air. I threw it towards the place I felt the new draft on my right. Al howled again as the potion bathed his head and face. This was so strange, I wasn't even thinking, my body was reacting to the information it was receiving from my improved senses. And this time I didn't give him a chance. I put my hands both sides of his head, about 2 inches from his skin and I sent another current of raw energy directly through his brain. All his body tensed, his hair was in real green flames and the potion was creating more green flames as it was dripping on his back too. Al couldn't get away, and now, he couldn't move either because the current was shutting down his ability to control his body; same as an electrical shock. "You know, Al. I'm tired of being a toy puppet for demons." My voice remained the same growl but my words were very clear. "You haven't honored our arrangement. You must exchange the summon name with me and remove one of my marks, now. Or I will fry your brains." I lowered the current, not enough to let him move fast or with any liberty, but for talking to me.
"Ok, Ok, I will." He stuttered.
"Now, Al!" my growl came even lower and more menacing. "I'm not feeling anything, Al." I used a little more energy. He cried in pain.
"Stop it. I'm trying!" he was panting almost as badly as I was. And he was sweating almost as much as me. "Done!" he shouted again when I got tired to wait and leveled up the energy passing through him. A burst of heat and pain in my foot made me tapped the floor with my boot. Like if it wasn't already too much stand up to the burning sensation in my back, my head and my neck. The pain made me squint. And my panting got worse. "It looks like you're about to collapse, my itchy witch." He formed a painful smug.
I was still tapping the foot on the floor trying to find release from the sensation. Suddenly my foot got like glued to the floor. I couldn't move it anymore. It was like if a magnet was under the floor and the bones of my foot and leg were iron made, my entire leg got paralyzed. Then a violent flux of energy came through those bones and the flesh covering them. All my body arched as the unstoppable charge creep my leg up quickly; with an agonizing heat. I thought I would melt. I was expecting for the smell of burnt flesh, but it didn't come. Al moved with me, he was trapped by the current of energy I was using on him.
Even when I believed the burning sensation on my back, neck and scalp was at its top; the heat coming up my leg showed me how wrong I was. Al pushed me with both hands on my chest, but my leg was still attached to the floor; and he got repelled from me. It was him who fell on the floor flat on his ass for the second time in the night. He trembled, like if when he touched me he got struck by some of the energy I was receiving.
He didn't do it to me; this was passing on its own. This energy was not ley line. It was even rawer, I realized with fear in the conscious part of my brain.
"What have you done, Rachel Mariana Morgan?" he shouted alarmed his glasses had fallen off his face. Al was scared. Scared of what was happening to me. That much I understood clearly. He was paralyzed too. He didn't move a bit from the place he fell on. And he was panting almost as bad as me. I was sweating even worst than before. I felt like if I was in one of those sacrificial rituals from the Inquisition times, when witches were burned alive tied to the stakes. Only the fire was inside me looking for a way out of my body. I screamed in agony when the fire reached up my arms and then it stopped crashing against the demon mark on my wrist.
My body bent forward and then backwards, my head almost touched the floor in every occasion and the pain in my bones and muscles multiplied. My fist at first clenched by itself and after that my fingers twisted and curled on themselves very painfully. The fire was trying to reject my hand off of my body. It felt like it was about to happen and then a little sensation of relief came to my senses. It was like a leaking: the heat energy passed through the mark; and I heard the yelling of Al, like if someone was burning him as well as me. I saw him contorting his body on the floor. Just like I would if my leg wasn't all stiffened and magnetized on the floor keeping me standing.
Drop by drop the heated energy passed to my hand, reclaiming the totality of my body. My fingers extended again on their own. Then it was like a dam collapsing, the containment the demon mark had done finished at once.
Al howled like if someone was killing him. My wrist literally burst in flames, just in the mark AI gave me. The energy blaze came out my body and it extended in a split second to my entire forearm, and to my hand. I let out another agonic shriek. The pain was unbearable. The demon mark was charred from inside out. It was cast away from my body, against the will of the demon that possessed it. And at the same time the blazes of the energy claimed my entire body. A virtual chain was torn apart and now the blazes extended to my back, my neck, my scalp, and the burning started all over, more overwhelming and hotter than before. Now even my mind and my will were claimed by the strange energy. I almost couldn't breathe at all, my panting was shallow and the air didn't go into my lungs. My heart was about to explode.
This time my shriek had nothing of human, my throat exploded in flames inside as I tried to protest. I lost it, all of me. The infamous power was consuming all my being. My heart almost stopped the beating. And I was about to give myself in. Let it melt me completely. I was about to collapse, my heart refusing to beat; burnt, consumed. My body was failing down, I felt my knees so weakened that couldn't bare my weight. They began to give in slowly. But then I saw her. I heard her.
Ivy was on her knees. Her black eyes locked on me, in terror and pain. She knew I was dying "You promised!" she only whispered she was devastated, but the words hit me as a Mack truck. I have too much to live for. I just couldn't quit. Ivy was pregnant with my children! My heart jumped at that thought. Damn it, I hadn't yet slept even once with her! My body tensed and regained a standing position before my knees touched the floor. I'm not going to roll over and die! I want to see my daughters born and grow up! I want to save Ivy's soul! I want to be with her the rest of my life! I'm going to live! For them! My will and temper arose, insufflating my heart with a frantic beat that engulfed the fire within my body. I have to master the freaking fire; own it. I just realized. Not rejecting it, not bending at it, embracing it; possessing it! that's the way!
