That night, Cordelia and Fiona were sitting at the bar in the seedy jazz club that rested in the heart of the historic French Quarter—a saxophone blared among the sound of trombones, a deep bass and clanging drums as people sat in their seats enjoying drinks or standing up dancing. As Fiona took a sip of her tonic and gin, she looked over on the dance floor area to see an extraordinarily beautiful woman with bright, platinum blonde hair and high, prominent cheekbones with her red-dressed curvy hourglass figure swaying about scandalously to the seductive jazz being played. She was dancing with a man who seemed to be taking turns with another, but the woman didn't seem to mind. Fiona noticed that she looked incredibly young—what is her secret, she thought.
"So Hank and I went to the doctor," Cordelia said, distracting her mother as she sipped from her red wine.
"Yes?"
"We can't have any children at all. I'm infertile," she said sadly with a frown.
"Well, of course, we witches are different with how we can conceive," Fiona replied with a smile written in her parted lips. "Did you try that spell I had given you?"
"It didn't work," Cordelia said. "We've tried and tried. I even went to Miss Laveau for help."
"What?!" Fiona was in shock—how could she have turned to her enemy and rival?
"She didn't help me anyways, though. She offered a fertility charm for $50,000 but then pulled it back from me. She said she would never give anything to her enemy, let alone her child," her daughter said sadly, feeling discouraged and as though all hope was lost. "I don't know what else to do. I'm getting older and I feel terrible that I can't have a child."
"Well, you'll need to keep trying, then. Don't stop," Fiona said.
"Hey, that's Mrs. Mortenson," Cordelia noticed, sipping her glass of wine as she saw the large-breasted, beautiful platinum-haired woman step up to the level of the bar and look around with three men, one of whom had joined them and was spellbound by Helen's beauty, for places to sit. They found the only empty seats to be near the Supreme and her daughter—Helen did not realize Cordelia was next to her until she spoke after taking a sip of her wine.
"Pink Lady," Helen told the bartender, pointing her finger directly as she saw the lustful look in the bartender's eyes.
"Mrs. Mortenson, fancy seeing you here," Cordelia finally said cordially. Helen's fierce hazel eyes looked to her right and she smirked to greet her—Fiona admired her this close, even though the most prominent feature was her spillage of cleavage pouring slightly over the neckline of her bright crimson dress. So young, she thought, I wonder how old she is.
"Good to see you too, Cordelia," she said in a monotone, taking out a cigarette and concentrating on the tip to light it with her power of fire.
Fiona gasped slightly at the sight, watching her first puff as she looked down and put her metal, floral-embossed cigarette holder away in her black leather purse. She looked over to the men, who sat next to her like a cult following down the way of the bar, and wondered how Helen was able to attract so many at who knew how old. She fluffed her blonde hair and her hazel-brown eyes looked at the youthful, but mature older woman.
"Cordelia," she finally said. "Bring your friend. A booth just opened up."
Helen abandoned the men she was dancing with to join the Supreme and her daughter at the booth table. By this time, Fiona was intrigued by the magnetism and sensational natural beauty and youth of this woman. She had been turned down by Marie Laveau for her secrets, Delphine was not willing to help her, but Helen; she seemed to have it all right in front of her. Her shoulder-length hair, a snowy platinum blonde, was free of grays; her eyes smoldered like freshly-made glass with their intense hazel hue; her face was free of wrinkles; her body was uber curvaceous with a generous bosom and small-waist with contrasting hips; she dressed very well, which Fiona could relate to. She saw Helen sipping from her glass, sighing softly.
"How has my daughter been at your school, Miss Goode?" the woman asked.
"She's no trouble at all," Fiona smirked wickedly. "She's a darling."
"I really must say," Cordelia interjected calmly. "She is rather…gifted."
"See? I told you so," Helen replied. "Now, I can assume you don't regret letting her be a part of your…prestigious academy, after all, hmm?"
"N-Not at all," Cordelia said nervously, intimidated by the woman's fiery gaze. Fiona then cut in, changing the subject to fit her intentions.
"How old are you, Mrs. Mortenson?" Helen shook her head and puffed out smoke from her cigarette before pressing the butt into the ashtray; she had a defensive look hidden in her perpetually beautiful face. Her soft, red-painted lips were parted in a haughty smirk.
"Say, weren't you raised to not ask personal questions?" she retorted, sipping from her glass. "What's it to you, anyway?"
"I only ask because, well, you look like you took a huge gulp from the fountain of youth," Fiona said, putting her cigarette out in the ashtray and taking a sip of her tonic and gin. "What's your secret?" Cordelia glared at her mother sideways before taking another sip of wine, eager to hear Helen's response.
"I don't have one," the woman replied, taking the last gulp of her cocktail.
"I'll guess your age, then," Fiona chided; Helen rolled her eyes and looked at Cordelia as if to crack a joke, pointing her finger toward the older woman.
"This'll be fun," the ageless woman replied arrogantly; her voice lowered to a whisper. "No one ever gets it right."
"Oh, but I may," Fiona said slyly, hearing her as she rested her chin in her hands, her elbows resting on the table. "Hmm…first guess. Twenty-six?"
"Really? I could do better than that!" Helen said grouchily. "I have a nineteen year old daughter."
"Alright, then. Thirty-five?" Fiona guessed.
"No, you're a little off," Helen said. "One more guess."
"Thirty-four?"
"I'm forty-six!" the woman finally said, taking a good look at Fiona. "I'll be forty-seven in October."
"Whew, you don't look it," Fiona said with a sense of cruelty in her smile. "No grays, no wrinkles. There's got to be a reason why."
"Good genes," Helen replied, raising her eyebrows while she closed her eyes briefly in thought. "I'll quote my mother and what she told me." She cleared her throat a little. "'The cold preserved my face,' she said. Of course, her country was cold. She didn't age, either."
"Well, we know now that Eleonora will age well," Cordelia said soft with a kind smile, hearing the band change their key and song on the small stage to a slower song.
"We'll see about that," the woman replied, sounding spiteful. "Look at her and look at me. I'm the one people want to see. She's a dog."
"I think you have a pretty daughter," Fiona said; she's as wretched as me, she thought. "She's still young."
"Uh, I have to use the bathroom," Cordelia cut in, looking at the two women as she stood up.
"I'm coming with you. I have to redo my lipstick, anyway."
The powder room was the first room that came before the bathroom as Cordelia opened the door. Helen made her way to the mirror, the round light bulbs that surrounded the reflective surface bouncing off her shoulder-length platinum hair. The other woman went into a stall, and Helen simply looked and admired herself. She reached her hands up and fluffed her hair before reaching into her bag for her mascara wand. Her eyelashes were already quite long and full as they naturally were, but the mascara framed her almond eyes perfectly—once Cordelia came out, she was already beginning to apply her lipstick, a bright shade of red that added to her smooth, marble-like pallor.
"I love that shade of lipstick," she smiled, approaching a focused Helen, whose eyes burned like fire in her reflection. "What's it called?"
"Ravish Me Red," the woman replied proudly.
"You know, I can never find a good shade of lipstick. I always stick with pink," Cordelia said, looking in the mirror. "Kudos to you for being…bold."
"You know what they say," Helen said, putting the cover back on her lipstick. "A true classic never goes out of style. You should try red."
Helen looked down to put her lipstick back in her purse, while Cordelia took once last glance in the mirror before looking to her right. A mysterious hooded figure dressed in black stood there, and before she could say anything, she felt something be splashed on her face violently—it was not water, not a drink, nothing of that nature; it was burning, much like freshly brewed coffee but more severe. It was like fire in a liquid form, and she let out an agonizing scream as the heat burned through her face and in her eyes.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHH!"
"Oh my god!" Helen exclaimed upon hearing her cries, looking to see that Cordelia's face was mostly red and severely burned. She did not look in horror, but saw to hooded figure seem to float by her and she held out her hand, concentrating enough to set the person's black robe on fire. The flames seemed to burst on the figure, and the person began to scream as the heat seethed and charred its way through the fabric to consume their flesh.
"Asshole! You'll pay!" Helen spat, hissing like a king cobra with venom dripping from knife-sharp fangs as she telekinetically made the perpetrator collapse to his knees as she made the flames consume him rapidly enough to turn him to ash before the two women.
Cordelia was still frantic, covering her severely burned face as she felt her way blindly around for the door of the powder room. Helen rushed over and helped the woman to her feet, gasping at the grotesque injury to her face as she helped her out of the powder-bathroom combo and called out for help.
"FIONA! FIONA!" Helen shouted.
"HELP! THIS HURTS!" Cordelia screamed, crying intensely with extreme pain.
"Cordelia?!" Fiona asked, turning her attention toward them and running away from the booth. The younger woman seemed to collapse to her feet, and Helen knelt down to meet her at her level. Fiona, however, took a moment to let what happened sink in before leaning down to hold her daughter's face in her hands, crying out in distress as tears streamed down her face.
"Call an ambulance!" she shouted, her eyes getting bloodshot. "Please! Someone! Call an ambulance!"
"I don't know what I would've done if you weren't there with us tonight."
It was close to midnight when Cordelia was finally wheeled out of the emergency room and put into an actual room; they were both fatigued out of their minds, and Helen's feet hurt from the heels that matched her crimson red, formfitting dress. Fiona, still in shock and distressed about the incident, looked down at her daughter's face; there were layers of pus and adipocerous tissue that was struggling to form a brand new layer of skin to heal itself. The substance that had been violently splashed in her face, revealed to be sulphuric acid, had unfortunately delayed the healing process and, the doctors thought, made her blind. Helen pulled up a chair and sat next to Fiona, who looked down at a sleeping Cordelia, at peace with her pain.
"It came out of nowhere," Helen said, her hazel eyes looking down in horror.
"What was it? Who did it?" she asked frantically.
"I don't know who. I didn't get a good—"
"Who did it?!" Fiona asked loudly. "They will pay!"
"I DIDN'T SEE THEIR FACE!" Helen barked furiously, looking at the woman with clenched fists down at her sides—Fiona was terrified of her sudden burst of anger. The platinum-haired woman walked away, her red heels slowly clicking against the tile floor of the hospital room as she made her way to the large window with a nighttime view. She turned to make eye contact and continued; "the person wore all black. Their face was hidden. It happened in the women's room, but I don't know if the person was a man or woman. My guess would be a woman…"
"Where did they go afterwards? Back into a stall to hide?" Fiona asked, her usual sly, calculating tone making itself apparent through her distress.
"No. I guess you could say the heat began to rise. They're nothing but a pile of soot now," Helen said trivially, a harsh whisper to her voice. Fiona looked at her straight in the eye, wondering what she meant; within moments, it all made sense.
"You…you made them pay?" she asked with shock and surprise. "But…but you don't even know me or my daughter very well."
"I did what I had to do," Helen said, walking back toward the chair she was sitting in; she then proceeded to break the rules and light a cigarette in the hospital room—it was forbidden, but she couldn't care less. She looked back at Fiona with angry fire in her eyes. "Besides, the fucker had it coming."
The Supreme began to realize the potential Helen held—she definitely came across as powerful, but when she remembered her lighting her cigarette by way of pyrokinesis, she gasped, looking at the woman in red keeping she and her daughter company in the hospital. She had only just met this woman, but felt a connection with her on a deep level, albeit not profound. Apart from this, Helen was ageless at forty-six—something Fiona could never be.
"Helen, is it?" she asked.
"Yeah, call me Helen. I feel old when people call me by my last name," the woman replied, taking a puff of her cigarette.
"Ironic," Fiona chuckled, shaking her head. "Well, anyways. I want to thank you. If you hadn't been there, Cordelia would have been…" She sighed contemplatively, thinking of what to say, "in aworse position than she is in now."
"It's nothing, really," the woman replied, taking a drag of her cigarette as she fluffed her hair. "I was born with these abilities, and I use them every day to my advantage. If someone messes with me, they're playing with fire. Not a very smart move. I've seen it."
"Well, I am the Supreme of our…institution," Fiona said, taking a cigarette from her own bag and lighting it, taking her first drag slowly. "I'm capable of the same things."
"I am a wretched human being," the Supreme said, looking at the platinum-haired woman. "As for you, wretched is an understatement. You're ruthless…cruel…wicked…bold…magnetic…" She paused. "You're just like me, but warmed three times over."
"That makes two of us," Helen said with a sly smirk, her eyes burning—she seemed proud of her traits. "Yet one thing remains certain. You have no idea, and never will."
"Speaking of us, I want to propose something. I never offer something like this to anyone, but you seem to fit the bill perfectly," Fiona said. Helen opened her ears, fully listening to whatever the Supreme had to say.
"Name it," the woman replied, looking down with her arched eyebrows slightly raised in a relaxed manner.
"Be our replacement headmistress," Fiona said. "You will be paid well and it will last until Cordelia is back on her feet."
"But she's blind," Helen said, looking at Cordelia's sleeping, marred face. "Wouldn't that oust the fact that I'm only a replacement?"
"That has been my daughter's job for so long. I often think she's confused," Fiona said demeaningly. "She's weak. I'll admit, I've been a bad mother to her, but I've also tried being better to her." She leaned in toward Helen, looking into her eyes. "You seem to be in the same boat, and I'm not surprised. You call your daughter a 'dog' like she's the ugliest being on two legs. I gotta hand it to you for having guts, but that's just…"
"Well, she isn't as…ravishing as me," the platinum-haired woman said as the Supreme trailed off in thought. "Men have done everything for me. In Eleonora's short life, they've done nothing for her. In a way, it is also her fault she can't function like a normal woman; women love dates, being showered with diamonds, being given the world." The woman chuckled and continued. "As for men, they're feeble, stupid, relentless…makes me sick, but I love a good fuck."
"That don't surprise me, you know. You're a woman dressed in red, constantly on fire with the face of an angel. What else could a man ask for?" Fiona asked.
"Nothing more," Helen cackled; the Supreme joined in, looking at the platinum-haired beauty as her laugh faded—she was deeply curious to know more about Helen.
"Tell me," Fiona began. "Have you always been this evil? Was there ever a point in your life where you actually gave a shit?"
Helen thought for a moment, her face going blank as she ran her tongue gently over her bright red lips. She took a drag of her cigarette, looking down and blowing the smoke out as she thought deeply—her past was one for the history books had it been so important, but was it really worth sharing? Did Fiona have ulterior motives that involved blackmail?
"You don't want to hear it," Helen replied meanly. "Ah, I get it. You want to use it against me someday. Tell you what," she held her palm up and a ball of fire formed in her hand, "that isn't going to happen."
"The door is closed. Cordelia is not waking up. It's only you and me. No cameras...no journalists," Fiona said sarcastically. "If I wanted to use it against you, I would have by now without you even telling me a stitch of your past." Helen put out the fire in her hand with her mind and looked at her—she seemed a bit too curious. She stood up from her chair and made her way toward the door, her cigarette between two fingers.
"I'm not saying anything. I don't know why you care," Helen said, turning to look at the Supreme dressed in black. "So, lady. When is my first day?"
"Tomorrow."
A/N:
OOH! A little suspense! I hope you guys like the story. Please leave feedback in the Reviewsection, or Followand Favorite.
If you caught the "Ravish Me Red" reference, good for you! It turns out that Revlon actually sells a shade of red lipstick called Ravish Me Red! Phew, the things we find out.
Thank you all and happy reading! :D