Spellbound by Fate

She looked at the dark house. It looked like nobody was home, but this had to be the place. The spell doesn’t lie, she thought, as the amulet in her hand glowed a dull blue. She had worked the spell many times before. It was one of the easiest and the first one she had learned. How to track a person. She paused outside the door, wondering if this was it. Was she really going to do this? If she did, there would be no turning back. No. There was no turning back the moment she became the wizard’s apprentice. She waited too long for this, and her family deserved revenge. The house looked like any ordinary house, but that’s how vampires liked to live: inconspicuously. She stalked toward the door before she lost her nerve, a black figure with a scythe in one hand. The only thing that stood out was the blonde hair that escaped the hood of her black cloak. She didn’t bother knocking on the door. She had rehearsed this moment in her head probably a hundred times since learning the arts. She had thought about staging a huge scene by knocking on the door and calling him out. But what do you say at a time like that? “Excuse me. Do you mind awfully getting out of the way so I can seek revenge on the blood-sucking scum that killed my family?” No, walking in unannounced was better. She briefly imagined herself bursting the door open for the shock value, but, no, walking in unnoticed was even better. She put her hand on the locked door and closed her eyes. Unlocking a door was even easier than a tracking spell. The knob turned in her hand. The door creaked just a little, the sound deafening in the silence. She stepped into the vestibule. It was pitch dark, but darkness wouldn’t deter her. That was as easy to fix as unlocking the door. She pulled the amulet out of her bodice and whispered to it. It instantly lit up in a dull orange color. She hung the amulet around her neck. This kind of work was going to take two hands. She was not sure if they knew she was there yet. She walked carefully down the hallway, passing a flight of stairs. She strained her ears for some kind of noise, but couldn’t hear a thing. Surely they were here. She couldn’t remember a tracking spell that had ever led her wrong before. She paused with a puzzled expression on her face. Could they have tricked her? How would they know to do that, though? Surely no one had known that she was back in town. She had been living in the woods for so long, even those who were once her closest friends probably thought she was dead. Then there it was a nearly slight creak. She knew that they were light on their feet and quick, but no sound was ridiculous. The creak was the only thing she heard before she was suddenly greeted by a shove against the wall. “Who are you and why are you here?” a male voice questioned. She could barely make him out by the light of the amulet. She had seen him before. He was one of his coven. She was definitely in the right place. She could see he was eyeing the amulet around her neck. Of course, he would be suspicious; no one besides a witch would have such a thing, and a witch wouldn’t be here for a pleasure call, especially not at this time of night. “Look in my eyes. You know why I’m here,” she said. His eyes moved from the amulet to her face. Recognition dawned. Yes. He knew who she was and why she had come. She knew the surprise on his face also meant they never even dreamed she was alive, or at least not in this country. But before he could make a sound or even move, she plunged her hand into his chest. It disappeared inside his chest as if he were made of water, and she was simply dipping a hand in for a drink, but it was not water that came out, but a still heart. It wouldn’t be beating, she knew, he was, after all, the living dead. As she squeezed, the heart turned to stone in her hand. She dropped it on the wooden floor and it shattered into a million little pieces. The shocked look on his face cemented in place as he turned to stone just like his heart and crumbled to the ground. At this point, she heard movement upstairs and knew the others had heard the encounter. The door across from her opened as two vampires rushed out and paused for a quick second to stare at the stone remains of their fallen brother. That one second was all Beatrice needed to continue her mission. She pulled the heart from one and simultaneously severed the head of the other with the scythe tied to her belt, hiding in her cloak. The head fell to the ground and an ominous thump sounded from the simultaneous dropping of the body of one and the stone heart of the other. She escaped to a sitting room off the main hall as the others, a female and another male quickly followed. A third paused to ponder what the wise move was. Not many knew how to kill them and even fewer would succeed in the endeavor. And not a single one could pull the heart out of a vampire with their bare hands. He backtracked up the stairs as he heard another ominous thump, which surely meant his comrades were not going to reappear from the sitting room on their own, at least. Peter met him in the hallway. “What is going on, Nicholas?” He rushed to him and whispered as he dragged him back to the room from whence he came. “They are dead... Someone is here, they know how to do it.” “What? Who. No one knows. No one even knows what we are.” “She does, and she is coming for all of us.” They entered the room where a tall, imposing brunette woman sat in front of a vanity mirror. She turned a critical eye on Nicholas. “Have I not told you a dozen times to never enter my chambers?” “My lady. There is a woman downstairs...” he said pleadingly. She rose with dignity from the seat and stared him down. Peter caught her before she could say more. “Isabel. Someone knows. They are here to exterminate us.” “That’s impossible,” she said, waving her hand. Nicholas gasped. The petite blonde stepped from behind the much taller Nicholas, holding a non-beating heart in her hand. She squeezed once, and it and its owner turned to stone. She dropped the heart on the floor just like the others. “Beatrice.” Peter gasped. Isabel laughed slightly. “I’m impressed. How did you manage to figure this out?” She said condescendingly. “Don’t think you will frighten me, Isabel. I’m not that scared little woman you once knew.” “Oh, I think she is in there somewhere. That shaking little girl on the floor as I drained the life from your niece.” Beatrice breathed deep. She knew this was coming. The taunts, but she wouldn’t let it anger her or deter her from her mission. “You are baiting me, Isabel, and it won’t work.” She closed the gap quickly and attempted to plunge her hand into Isabel's chest, but it wouldn’t budge. Isabell laughed. “I have friends in high places.” “No. That’s not possible.” “It is as possible as you cutting through flesh as easily as water.” Before she could respond, a searing pain seeped into her bones, and she realized she had been stabbed by none other than Peter. The instigator in all of her dealings with Isabel and the coven. Her former fiancé. She collapsed on the floor in front of Isabel and looked up at her gloating face. “Sorry your life’s work has failed so miserably,” she said. Peter looked away as if he couldn’t stand to see the girl he once professed to love many years ago bleeding to death on the cold wood floor. Through her strangled breaths, Beatrice responded with what could be considered laughter, although it seemed a little too dark and sinister to be such a thing. Isabel tilted her head, confused by the response. “This is not the end. I will come for you again.” She took one last breath and whispered, “You can bury my body, but I will never die.” Then her head hit the floor, and she breathed no more. “What did that mean?” Peter asked. “I doubt it meant anything,” said Isabel, looking down over her with a look of conceit. “However, I don’t think we will bury her body. Burning it should do the trick if her threats are real. Let her rise up in ashes, if she will.” Isabel stepped over the stone remains of Nicholas without so much as a glance. “Bring her body, Peter.” He sighed, but did as she asked. If he felt anything about carrying his ex-fiancée’s corpse down the stairs, it didn’t show on his face. “Good thing the rest of them were out tonight. She could have killed many more of us. Luckily, the ones she did take were easily dispensable,” Isabel said, glancing down the hall at the headless body and pile of stones. The couple walked out of the country house into the woods a little way. Their eyes could easily see in the darkness, and animals quickly scampered out of their reach out of fear. “This is as good as any place,” Isabel said as she easily ripped branches off the surrounding trees to prepare a fire. Peter laid the body on the pile of wood while Isabel prepared the flint and steel, and a spark lit the wood. The fire blazed up high instantly as if the body were made of flammable material. Isabel wantonly danced around the fire. Peter finally coaxed her back to the house to wait until the others returned. They didn’t stay long enough to see that Beatrice's heart would not burn, nor did the amulet that was around her neck.