Arianna Rose: The Gathering (Part 3) (31 page)

The stoners from the closet looked as if they’d faint when she spun and faced them, her vision still awash in bloo
d red. 

“Go,” she told them.  “Get out of here.”

They hesitated only a fraction of a moment to thank her profusely then scurried out of the gym as fast as their legs would carry them. 

She watched them leave
and did not feel her power retreat in the least.  Instead, it continued to strengthen.  Both her anger and power multiplied with each second that passed.  Her entire body glowed red like a burning ember and the only sound she heard was the hum of energy coursing through her until the shrill shriek of a fire alarm screeched through her brain.  She immediately realized one of the stoners she’d released was responsible for pulling it.  His attempt at getting emergency personnel to the school might be the end of every life there as she had only killed two of the four people Agnon had sent.  Two more remained, as well as Scott, George, Chris, Kit and Meg.  The fire alarm would send students pouring into the hallways and scrambling toward exits.  With the exits chained shut, they would be fish in a barrel waiting to be shot. 

Voices filled the halls. 
Voices that laughed and chattered excitedly at first quickly turned to concerned cries as people tried to open doors.

“Hey!  What the hell?” she heard a male voice call out.

Several screams tore through the chaos and Arianna made her way to the hall.  Seeing her body and eyes glow red, more screams sounded as they pointed and gestured to her.  Some turned to run from her while others hid.  They saw themselves as trapped with her, that she was the enemy. 

Arianna felt her anger escalate further.  She was there to protect them, not harm them, yet they were carrying on as if she were a monster.
  She was about to open her lips and scold them for their irrational behavior when Agnon appeared suddenly and blocked her path.

“It is time, Arianna,” he said in a calm, mesmerizing tone.  “Our time is upon us.  You need to do what you were born to do.”

For a moment, Arianna was staggered by a sense of inexplicable, but potent awareness.  It breathed through her as simply as a sigh, but jolted her with its profoundness.  He held her with his steely gaze, penetrating the walls that guarded her, that had guarded her for her entire life.  He stared directly into the yawning pit of her being and sought to draw from it her essence.  She felt the tug, felt the pull begin to drag it forth.  His words resounded in her with a strange familiarity, and a foreign feeling began flowing through her.  For the first time, she believed he was speaking the truth, believed that she stood on the verge of fulfilling her destiny. 

With that tug propelling her, urging her on, she turned to the large group of students
that had amassed in the hallway and in her mind, saw herself setting the school ablaze, killing every last one of them.  But it did not end there.  She envisioned cities burning, countries crumpling; she saw any and every human being who crossed her path falling, dying.  Red light radiated from her and the need to act made her hands prickle and tremble.

Slowly, she lifted her wrist.  She looked all around her.  People were crying and panicking.  They would die.  All of them. 

“Arianna!” she heard Desmond shout just as he appeared before her.  The scarlet hue that veiled her vision wavered.  Light shined from him, haloing and highlighting his pale skin and golden hair, and tempered the tumultuous burning in her with its steady warmth.  “What are you doing?  This isn’t you.  This isn’t the woman I love,” his turquoise eyes pleaded with her, love flowing from them like sunlight from the sky.  He had read her mind and saw what she’d been about to do.  She was certain of it.  But he had stopped her.

In the instant that his eyes searched hers, she began to recognize the feeling inside her.  And it was far different
from what Agnon had projected.

She felt the heinousness of
Agnon and the others’ purpose, felt it entwine its barbed tentacles around her veins like a vicious parasite, trying to pump its pitiless intentions through her lifeblood.  It had almost succeeded.  Every part of her felt dark, tainted. 

Guilt and confusion began devouring her, consuming her wholly. 
As if sensing the turmoil brewing inside, Desmond reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand.  His touch, the warmth and light that it exuded, filled her and brought her back.

She immediately spun and thrust her arms forward at Agnon.  Caught off guard, her gesture blasted him into the far wall and engulfed him in flames.  Fire lapped hungrily at his skin for several seconds before he regained his composure and extinguished himself.  He reeled, his eyes wild and the majority of his skin charred and puckered as the stink of smoldering flesh filled the air.  He was badly burn
ed and half-dead.

“You fool,” he wheezed at Desmond through blistered lips.  “You have ruined everything for us, everything we’ve waited centuries for.”

“I have ruined nothing, father,” Desmond replied levelly.  “It is my destiny to keep Arianna, the Sola, on the right path and not be poisoned by evil,
by you
.”

Agnon attempted a step toward them, tottering and swaying like a drunk.  “You know nothing,” he slurred with a mouth so badly burned his speech matched his unsteady gait.  “What will you do when he comes for her?  You know he is coming, don’t you?” Agnon continued to taunt.

“I’ll be ready for him, too,” Desmond said confidently and Arianna wondered who and what they were talking about. 

Agnon looked at her and laughed, a sinister, mirthless laugh, then disappeared into thin air. 

Arianna turned to face Desmond.  “What now?” she asked him.

“I killed two
of them,” he said, but was interrupted by the sound of tortured screams.

“Scott and George,” Arianna panicked.  “It’s them!  We have to stop them!”

Arianna and Desmond raced down the hallway and followed the sound of screams, using them as their bone-chilling guide, and stopped outside a classroom.  Scott, along with Paul, Meg, Kit and Chris, stood with their backs to the doorway and were in the process of killing several students, burning them slowly, and one limb at a time.  Desmond disappeared, teleporting, and appeared behind Paul and Meg.  In one instantaneous motion he unsheathed his daggers and plunged them into the backs of their necks.  They collapsed to the floor face-down in an expanding puddle of blood. 

Seeing the slight twitch of Chris and Kit’s wrists, Arianna raised her hands and lifted Kit and Chris off their feet.  She pulled them far from one another then sent them racing back toward each other until they collided with a thunderous
thwack
.  Both dropped and lay unmoving.  She reached out with her senses and did not detect even the faintest pulse coming from either of them. 

She turned to face Scott, keeping Desmond in her peripheral vision.  Three people, their skin blackened and singed beyond recognition, had just died at Scott’s hand.  Arianna raised her hands, unbridled power surging through her
, and was about to destroy him when a sudden force wrenched it from her.  Her body lurched forward as if her insides had shattered into a thousand agonizing pieces.  Her energy had been leached from her, bled so quickly, she felt faint.  She’d felt it before, but not when the same magnitude of power was at stake.  George was nearby.  She felt his revolting presence crawl through her core.  Unsurprisingly, his tall, lanky form stepped from the shadows near the window.  His arms were outstretched and his features, for the first time, were contorted into a strained expression.

“Kill them,” he urged Scott.  “Kill them now.  They’re too strong for me to hold them off.” Sweat stippled his pasty forehead and his arms quivered as if the strain were growing unbearable. 

Arianna looked at Desmond and saw pain etched in his glorious features.  His powers had been halted as well.  His pain spawned a whirlwind of ire so strong that despite George’s concerted effort, small surges swelled from her core and stole through her body. 

Scott laughed his trademark sick, twisted laugh.  “Oh Arianna, when will you ever learn?” he mocked.  “Look at you getting all worked up
.  Bet you’re feeling all backed up right about now.”  He laughed again then his face went calm.  “Time to die, bitch,” he said.  “I am going to be the one who kills the Sola.” He lifted his hands and aimed them at her. 

A tear slid down Arianna Rose’s cheek as she glanc
ed at Desmond.  His was light, living and breathing light, the embodiment of goodness and decency.  She closed her eyes, her final vision of him too painful to withstand, and accepted her fate.

All of a sudden, a cry ripped through the weighted silence of the room.  Arianna’s eyes snapped open, her powers bubbling and brimming
within, restored, and her head shot to the side, toward the direction of the scream.  What she saw made her breath catch in her chest.  George had collapsed to the floor on both knees, his head swallowed by flames and Beth, the petite girl who favored black, stood behind him with fire streaming from her fingertips. 

“Beth!” Arianna called out. 

“Oh hey Arianna,” Beth said casually and smirked.  “I always hated that piece of shit,” she continued as the fire flowing from her grew and she completed the process of cremating George.

Arianna was shocked briefly, too many question rushed and swirled disconcertedly in her mind.  But no time existed for questions or confusion.  Another matter needed to be tended to.

“Well, Scott, it looks like the only bitch that’s going to die today is you,” she hissed and advanced a single step. 

The full
force of her power flooded her system on command.  Her entire body was alight, glowing and blazing with energy so strong it felt like a separate entity, like a great beast stretching and readied to strike.

Desmond nodded to her.  His was not a nod of approval for she did not need anyone’s approval.  She was the Sola a
nd she was doing that which she’d been created to do.  He nodded to her deferentially and did not dare try to step in and kill Scott himself. 

She clenched
one fist tightly and visualized the bones in Scott’s calves yielding to her force.  She squeezed tighter, channeling how she’d felt when she saw him using humans as murderous puppets for his entertainment.  A loud snap was followed by a wail of misery and she watched as Scott fell to his knees, suffering. 

She walked toward him slowly, relishing in the moments he awaited his death, savoring the look of defeat in his eyes.  He narrowed them at her and cursed
at her.  She smiled at his weak attempt to insult her.  He then flicked his wrists at her and a feeble stream trickled her way.  He cried out, a pathetic war-cry and the flames grew considerably.  She raised her index finger and the fire stopped short of her nose and split in two around her head.  She remained untouched.  His attempt had been laughable.  Arianna smiled again and her smile did not reach her eyes.  For the first time since meeting him, she saw fear flicker in Scott’s eyes.  He knew he was about to die at the hands of the Sola. 

Arianna lifted both fists to chest-height and gripped them tightly, squeezing and clenching as firmly as her muscles allowed.  A series of hair-raising cracks whipped sharply and Scott sagged forward.  His lifeless eyes stared vacantly in her direction and a sense of satisfaction overwhelmed her. 

“We need to go,
now
,” Desmond said quietly and interrupted her moment of satisfaction. 

“Yeah, that sounds like a really good idea,” Beth said.  “Where are we headed, you know, so I can set my sifting GPS,” she chuckled then looked to Desmond’s expressionless face.  “What, too soon?” she asked jokingly. 

Arianna felt like laughing, but thought it inappropriate given the circumstances.  “My place,” she said to Beth.  “The cabin is the last house on Ridge Road.”

“Got it,” Beth said.  “But don’t go getting any funny ideas about me coming over,” she arched an eyebrow mischievously before disappearing.  

Arianna shook her head and moved toward Desmond.  “Shall we?” she said and opened her arms to him.  He immediately enveloped her in his strong arms and the world around her began to fade. 

“Yes, we shall,” he replied and they were gone. 

Chapter 21

When the white
, warm rush of sifting with Desmond ended, Arianna found herself standing in her living room.  Beth arrived seconds later and stood with her trademark look of disinterested annoyance on her face.  Only Arianna no longer saw her as an annoying Goth girl who constantly accused her of being interested in her romantically.  She saw her as the girl who’d saved not only her life, but more importantly, the life of the man she loved, Desmond.  She did not know how she would ever repay her, had never been so indebted to another person in her entire life, but knew deep within her that she would someday return the favor.  Before that time came, however, a
thank-you
would have to suffice.

“
Thank you,” Arianna blurted out.  She knew there was probably a much better time and way to thank Beth, but after the experience they’d just endured, she seriously doubted flowers or a fruit basket would be appropriate.  Now was as good a time as any to express her gratitude.