A Strange Fire (Florence Vaine) (33 page)

 I take a deep breath. “This is going to sound absurd, but I’m ninety
nine per cent sure it’s my gran’s care assistant. A woman named Diana.” Her
name is so close to Deanna too, the name the witch who’d abducted all of those
werewolf teenagers had used. She
has
to be the same woman.

 Frank takes a moment to assess me. “How do you know for certain it’s
her?”

 I pull the seatbelt looser because it’s cutting into my chest. “I met
Diana after my first day at school here. I was really stressed out and
distracted and I thought I was hallucinating when she introduced herself to me
and her body flashed and became a blond teenage girl for a second. I thought I
was seeing things. But – but, j-just now I was with Caroline and she was
showing me some old pictures of Lauren,” I pause and look at him straight in
the eye. “Frank, the girl I saw Diana change to was Lauren. And it just makes
so much sense, because that time when I dreamed I was speaking to the head
witch, she kept flashing into different bodies, never taking her own form. The
same way Diana’s body flashed. They must have been the bodies of all her
victims.”

 Frank’s face hardens and I know now that he believes me. Swiftly he goes
and turns the key in the ignition, less than ten minutes later both of us run
inside the farmhouse to tell the others my discovery. Everybody’s still in the
kitchen and Sam has returned.

 “Flo knows who it is,” Frank announces the moment we walk in the door.

 At this, every head in the room turns to look at me. I sit down
carefully on a stool by the counter and tell them all what I told Frank. Sam
and John pace the room as I talk, eyeing each other at intervals.

 “So,” says Sam once I’ve finished, “this Diana woman manages to
ingratiate herself into people’s lives, her character so bland and unnoticeable
that she can steal children out from under her employer’s noses. Her cover was
similar with the werewolves, working as a cleaner in their home.”

 “I never liked her,” I say in a small voice. “But I didn’t suspect her
of anything either, I see auras like hers every day, selfish, materialistic. I
feel so dumb for not realising what she really was.”

 “That’s not your fault,” Sam tells me. “I’m sure she went out of her way
to disguise herself. Even I had a hard time tracking her down just now, she
seems to keep a magical shield around her coven when they’re on the move to
protect them from attack. I did manage to locate where they went though,” he
stops and looks at me. “You were right about the patient who tried to attack
you at the hospital. Diana has been draining life force from older residents in
the town because they’re easy targets, and she’s got several members of her
coven working as nurses and attendants at the hospital, so they take in the
extra patients without anyone else finding out.”

 “She’s using the basement of the hospital for her ritual tonight, that’s
where they’ve currently gathered. I overheard some of them mentioning that
they’d have to wait until an hour before sunrise to begin their casting. That
gives us roughly seven or eight hours to get there and save Ross. The only
difficulty is that we haven’t got the power to defeat them among ourselves, so
I’ve called in a favour with some friends of mine. They’ll be here in two or
three hours. Until then, we need to plan our strategy.”

 “Yes, well first things first,” John interrupts. “The girls will have to
go and stay at Florence’s grandmother’s house until morning. It should be safe
if the coven are currently camped out at the hospital.”

 “Hey now wait there just one minute,” says Layla, bulldozing right into
the centre of the room. “I won’t be going anywhere other than straight to that
hospital with the rest of you to get Ross. End of story.” Then she folds her
arms across her chest, a prime example of stubborn body language.

 It’s a pity that stubbornness disintegrates the moment John levels his
firm gaze on her.

 “Layla,” he says, voice hard like cold steel. “You will go and you will
not kick up a fuss. We don’t have time for it, and you know well and good that
you would be a huge liability if you came with us. The boys know how to take
care of themselves and they’re ten times stronger than you are.”

 I might have been encouraged to argue against this from a feminist
perspective, if it weren’t for the fact that all of John’s boys are demon
possessed. Silently, Layla nods and doesn’t say another word, this is obviously
the first time John has ever been firm with her. Her colours show me
embarrassment and shock. Like a child who’s just been scolded.

 After the details are settled, Frank drives the two of us to Gran’s
house, with Alex along for back up. He’s cracking bad jokes to try and cheer
Layla up but it doesn’t work. The worry in her aura is so condensed that it’s
actually beginning to affect me. I feel a sort of anxiety that’s strange since
it’s not my own. This happens sometimes when I’m around people whose emotions
are running high.

 It’s a little past eleven when we get there and Frank makes sure we’re
safely inside the house before leaving. He kisses me on the lips, gives me a
tight hug, and tells me they’ll get Ross back and that everything is going to
be fine. Then he jogs back across the road to the car where Alex is waiting for
him.

 Inside I call for Gran, she answers, “In here,” and I find her sitting on
her favourite armchair in the living room. The gas fire is on and she has a
wool throw covering her lap. The late news is playing on the television.

 “You’re back,” she says, sounding somewhere in between worried and
relieved. Maybe there was a bad story on the news, which would explain the
worry.

 “Yeah I am,” I reply and go to give her a brief hug around the
shoulders. “Layla’s with me, we’re just going to sit up in my room, if that’s
all right?”

 “Of course honey,” says Gran with a smile that seems forced, perhaps
she’s tired. “Tell her she can stay the night if she’d like.”

 “Thanks Gran,” I say, before quietly closing the door as I leave. In the
hallway Layla stands at the foot of the stairs, wearing an icy expression.
Clearly she’d rather be anywhere but here right now. I gesture for her to
follow me up to my room.

 “Do you want a loan of something to wear to bed?” I ask, but she only
shakes her head and drops down onto the mattress with a sigh.

 There are a few minutes of silence before I venture to make
conversation.

 “I don’t blame you for being upset. If it had been Frank they’d taken I
would have wanted to go and help too.”

 “Yeah well it wasn’t Frank they took, was it?” Layla snaps. “It was
Ross, and it just goes to show what a sick world this is because out of all the
people in that room tonight, Ross was the least the deserving of this. He’s
never hurt anyone in his entire life,
unlike
the rest of them.”

 Tears trickle down her cheeks, and I wonder what she means by that last
part. I guess the boys weren’t always so capable of controlling the urges their
demons cause them to have. I want to go to her and fix her colours, make her
feel better. But she wouldn’t want that, wouldn’t understand. So I go and sit
at my study desk and grab my copy of
The Monk
from the shelf above it,
opening it up on page one.

 Perhaps reading the familiar words might help me to forget the brick of
worry that’s sitting at the pit of my stomach. Soon enough I drift away into
the story, the only interruptions coming from Layla as she shifts in her seat
and paces the room. About an hour passes before she speaks to me again.

 “Flo, I – I feel sort of funny,” she says in a tired and distracted
voice.

 “It’s probably just all the worry,” I say, turning around to face her,
but when I do I see that she’s gone deathly pale, which stands out strikingly
on her normally tanned skin.

 She rubs the back of her head. “I’ve got a killer headache,” she
mumbles, before she collapses down onto the mattress.

 I run to her in shock, putting my hand on her forehead to find it’s gone
unsettlingly cold. Next I place my fingers on her neck to feel for a pulse, and
thankfully her heart is still beating. I let out a relieved breath, and at the
very same moment my bedroom door flies open. I look up from my position
crouched by Layla and find Gran standing there, her face contorted in some
unreadable expression.

 “Gran? Are you okay?” I ask in confusion.

 “I’m so sorry Florence,” she whispers, her voice cracked and broken.

 Then another figure steps out in front of her, and Gran stands back to
lean against the wall in the hallway. Her head hangs as colours of shame drown
her aura. I look back to the person who’s just entered my room, and a bizarre
version of Diana stands before me. No longer is she wearing the bland jeans and
blouse I normally see her in. Now she wears a long black gown with thin straps,
made of a material that looks like liquid silk, it moves and flows unlike any
substance I’ve ever encountered before.

 Her pale skin is covered in grotesque dark veins that pulse through her
body, and on her forehead lies the heretic’s cross I’d seen on the woman at the
school the other day. Her blond hair is all bunched up on the top of her head
and it fizzles with some kind of electricity.

 “G-gran?” I say, in a wobbly, disbelieving voice. My eyes take in the
sight of this macabre Diana, while my head puts two and two together and
realises that my own grandmother has sold me out to the devil.

 I look at her as she stands back from my doorway, she won’t meet my eyes
though.

 “A-are you one of them Gran?” I demand, my voice gaining strength.
Outrage building up.

 Diana laughs, and the sound resonates around the room, making me feel
like my organs are being crushed into a pulp. It penetrates my soul.

 “Oh, little frightened lamb,” she coos. “The old bat may be blind, but
you’re the one who never saw a thing.”

 I’m just about to scream at her, demand that she undo whatever it is
she’s done to Layla, when her hungry eyes bore into me, no longer a colour at
all but now a shade of absolute darkness.

 And I cease to exist.

A sobering drop of cold water slaps hard onto the top of my head and I
wake up. I’m stretched out flat on a horribly chilly concrete floor, and all I
can see is the grey ceiling above me. I try to sit up but I can’t, and that
isn’t because I’m tied down or restrained in any way. I’ve never felt weaker in
my entire life. My body feels like it’s just lost half its blood supply. Dizzy.

 The thoughts in my head contain huge gaps, and concepts slur when I try
to form them. With great effort I try to lift my hand to eye level so that I
can examine my aura and figure out what’s wrong with me. I fail four times
before I manage to lift it, but I can barely make out the colours. My aura is faded
and hardly showing at all. Or maybe I just can’t see it anymore, because I feel
like I’m dying.

 I fumble through my memories to figure out how I got here. Okay.
Caroline’s bedroom. Frank’s kitchen. My room in Gran’s – Diana. Oh God, and
Gran. Her betrayal hurts so much more than the physical pain I’m in right now.
It’s still hard to believe that she’s known about Diana all along, has been
helping her even. Her colours were always so genuine. How had I not seen
something in her aura to reveal her true motives? Had she known about my
special ability in advance of me coming to live with her, and used it as a
bargaining tool by way of gaining membership into the coven?

 These thoughts feel like a cold and clinical punch in the ribs. I still
have my hand raised in front of my eyes. I lift the other and use it to pinch
the faded weakness out of my aura and replace it with a surge of strength. At
first nothing happens, but then I feel a sudden gush of energy burst through my
veins. I almost feel like myself again.

 Footsteps sound on the concrete floor and a woman comes into my field of
vision. She’s wearing one of the hooded grey robes, the uniform of the coven I
suppose you could call it. When I see her horrible, vindictive, greedy aura I
know that I haven’t lost my ability like I’d feared a moment ago. Diana must
have used her magic to drain me, to steal a fraction of me away. Had she done
it while I’d been unconscious? The coward.

 My hands get shaky as I lower them back to the floor. Then the woman
standing over me pulls down her hood and I recognise her as the attendant who’d
been on duty at the hospital when I’d been volunteering. The one who was mean
to the old man who’d gotten agitated when playing chess with another patient.

 She grins down at me before saying, “I hope you aren’t getting up to
mischief,” and her voice grates on me, the sound of it makes me feel like I’m
swallowing tiny shards of glass.

 I do my best not to spit in her face, mostly because I’m lying flat out
on the floor and it would probably just go up and then land straight back down
on my own face. I also try to look as weak as possible so that she doesn’t
catch on to the fact that I’ve just given myself a nice little power surge.

 “That will be all, Sister,” says another female voice. This one even
worse than the attendant’s. Diana.

 I can’t see her, but the space has suddenly become even colder. I listen
as the attendant/witch walks out of the room, leaving me alone with Diana. I
can sense that she’s moving, but I can’t actually hear her footsteps. My mind
conjures the messed up image of her gliding from place to place like a ghost.
The click of a button is the only sound I hear before music begins to play.

 The song is familiar but I can’t place it until after the singing starts
up.
Immortality
by Celine Dion and The Bee Gees. I wonder why on earth
she’s playing music at a time like this. Perhaps it’s all a part of her warm up
for a good old run of the mill ritualistic murder. The sick part is, I can hear
her singing along as she does whatever it is she’s doing. I bet she likes this
song because of the title. Perhaps living forever is her end goal. What a
psychopath.