Black Magic

3

Bones cradled me in his two arms as he ran through the forest. I could tell that all his senses were on high alert, likely so he could sense danger a mile away, and this seemed only to magnify my own weakness. I could only smell the vague foresty scents and calogne. I didn't mind the smell of Bones, but being part human again was like being smothered by pillows. I wanted badly to walk beside him instead, but I couldn't be sure that my legs wouldn't buckle beneath me.

"Are you afraid?" he asks suddenly and out of nowhere. He slows slightly as he weaves through the tall oak trees. In his voice I could hear something peculiar, or at least in his voice it was strange. It was realisation, that rasp, and fear that tremor. These two things I'd never before heard from him, and they evoked the same reaction within me; Was Bones fast enough to outrun Mencheres, or would he catch us in time?

"Yes." I say, and he didn't dispute my answer.

Another hour passed, as close as I could make it out, before Bones stopped in a clearing between the trees. He set me down on my feet, held me as I swayed, and kissed me long and hard. There was so much in that kiss, so much more than what mear words could describe, like a despair so strong as to be all-consuming. There was anguish in his eyes as he stood motionless, and it seemed as if he were waiting for something to appear out of the brush. Or he could have been waiting for someone to come from the shadows all around us, I wouldn't know.

A snap of a twig made us both jump and turn. We had both been so taught with tension that being released caused us to spring suddenly forwards. Another twig snapped, another crunch of dead leaves, a whisper from the dark. A sound that had started as a growl turned into laughter as Mencheres stepped out from the shadows. He nodded his head to Bones, as if this were a planned meeting, and met my disbelieving stare with a self-satified smerk. Gone was the Jovial demeaner that I had come to expect from this man, gone was the wisdom. All I saw now was a monster in a human skin. This was not the man I had thought I'd known.

"Mancheres." Bones hissed, stepping between us as my guard.

"Bones," he replied, his voice pleasant and, for the time, unthreatening, "How nice it is to see you. I hope you are well," His eyes flickered in my direction and then back. It seemed that he knew that we knew that he did this to me, but he saw no threat from either of us. Outside his comfortable routine, he seemed more sinister than suave, more cruel and capable than I could have ever imagined. Bones, though, seemed unpreturbed by the sudden change in the acient vampire before him. Perhaps he had expected this all along.

"Grand-sire," Bones spat, his usual reverance for the name disolving into ash, "I would like to know what the hell is happening to my wife."

I stirred where I stood, a sick shiver rushing through me as we all connected – Bones staring daggers into Mencheres, Mencheres trying to probe my mind, my thoughts squarely on the danger Bone's was putting himself in. I wanted to run and hide from his scruteny but my legs were turned to stone beneath me.

"I have nothing to do with whatever's happening to her." he said lightly and confidentaly, a warning like a subliminal message in his words.

My legs felt numb and they collapsed into themselves. My whole body seemed to crumple against the strong oak tree. I felt the meger strength leaving me as if I had been punctured by a pair of fangs and I was slowly being drained of what little power I had. Bones turned to see me slumped on the mud floor. Standing had just become impossible, my eyes were closed, and breathing was like sucking air through a straw. Everything hurt and I just wanted to go to sleep.

"Kitten'," I could hear Bones distantly, as if he were far away, but I could also feel him shaking me; my mind swum. My grip on the here-and-now was weakening, I could feel it happening as I drifted towards the fathomless darkness before me. "I don't want to lose you."

A time passed where there was nothing to be seen or heard. I lay drifting in and out of mild awareness, never quite reaching the point where I could open my eyes but able to feel Bones against me. I wanted to reassure him with words but my lips stayed firmly pressed together and my lungs ached.

Black surrounded me, drowned me, consumed me completely.