Smiling, Damned Villain

**THE FOLLOWING CHAPTER CONTAINS SENSATIVE MATERIAL THAT SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTURBING OR TRIGGERING. THEMES OF VIOLENCE AND SELF HARM.**

"This is quite a body count you are responsible for." Durai's evil voice had returned and reached her ear like a creeping fire.

However, this time it was different. Perhaps, rather, she was different. Instead of his demonic eyes and terrible voice holding her frozen in fright, she found that she was brought out of her fear instead. Her glazed eyes sharply focused in that instant, and her rigid limbs snapped forward towards Hemele's still bleeding body. She paid no mind to Durai or how close he was. Instead, she focused everything into reaching into herself to pull forth the power to reach Hemele, save him if she could. She had helped a mortally wounded man before. She had to try.

She dropped to her knees hard besides Hemele. The wound in his chest was deep, and the blood that was seeping out past his hand and gushed with each beat of his heart. She closed her eyes and searched for a song, light, anything she could bring as fast as possible. Her mouth and throat were so dry, but she had to try. She could feel the warmth and light start to grow in her hands.

A sharp, jerking pain wretched her back into the present. As her eyes opened she saw Hemele's body as she was being dragged away from it. Durai had walked over Hemele and grabbed Althea's hair easily in gathered bun on top of her head as he passed by. Althea grasped onto a bunch of her hair as he continued to pull; this relieved the tension as she released the pressure on her own scalp.

Durai threw her to the ground, "You're being very naughty." He turned then and placed the knife on the mantle of the room's fireplace. His aura seethed then of black, malicious intent.

When he looked back, Althea was already scrambling on her hands and knees trying to make her way back to Hemele. She didn't know how far she would make it before he moved to stop her, but she had to try. Even if there was the slightest chance that she could reach him for even a moment and do some good, it was worth the fight. It was all she could do.

As it turned out, she didn't make it far at all.

Althea felt hands upon hands upon her body pulling her from all directions. She could feel at least five distinct hands upon her, and she looked up then in shock and terror at feeling these impossible feelings. The light was falling away fast and frightened as the shadows grew in the room. Then the shades seemed to move and writhe like living beings residing within the darkness itself. From the twisting black hands outstretched and pulled at her. She could feel enormous strength behind the disembodied hands, and they cared not for the harm and damage they could do to her body that was fragile in comparison.

Thud!

Before she could assess her situation, she was being picked up from the floor. She felt her head and back thrust against the wall beside the fireplace and Durai. She looked down at her body and saw the arms from the darkness, of the darkness, pushing against her and holding her in place. A final hand reached up larger than the rest, reached back, and flew towards her. It landed on her right shoulder and pushed it back against the wall.

Althea screamed in agony feeling the pain shoot from her wound down to through her body. A hand came then and covered her mouth to silence the scream. But it was not a hand of the shadows. The hand across her mouth was Durai's. She could smell the blood still lingering on his sleeve against her mouth. She wanted to gag, but she couldn't breathe enough to do so. She had no idea a body could endure this much pain.

When Durai slowly pulled his hand away, he stroked her hair and met the vengeful burning in her eyes. Her own voice deepened then, coming from a place deep within her; a place that he had pushed her to. "Let me go," she said lowly.

Durai had never heard this from her. Althea's voice had always been melodic like a songbird. Even in defeat, even in sadness, even in pain, she always possessed a bird-like lilt. Now the sound from her throat was like the rumblings of the earth. He was admittedly impressed if slightly apprehensive. Mostly, he was excited as to what sport this would lead to.

"Little Dove, where would you fly?"

Althea shook against the hands binding her to the wall. "Let me help him," she pleaded. "Please let me try. He's dying!" Her voice returned to her regular sound then. It was as she was possessed before, and the force moving her had left her behind to fight alone. Durai hoped it would return.

Durai leaned in towards her face then. He grabbed her head with both of his hands and forced her gaze to the man on the floor and the now sizeable pool of blood so dark it was almost black. "Look at him. There's nothing you can do no. The breath has left him. You've led one more to a bloody end. One more you've failed."

Althea couldn't turn her gaze away as much as she desperately wanted to. Hemele's back was to them, curled into his wound. But there was no rise or fall to his body. There was no sign that his body continued to fight. She had never before seen a person die so violently. In fact, she had hardly witnessed death at all in her limited years. Althea started to heave at the sickening thought that she had just watched a human life being struck down, stolen away, but nothing came up. She felt so ill. Even more than that, she felt utterly defeated and alone.

"Aren't you so ashamed?" Durai asked into her ear.

Althea then felt overcome by the vilest, blackest hate she never dreamed she could possess within her. Her face started to be lit by a bright red light. It started at her core and slowly radiated to all of her extremities. She had become fire, she had become vengeance. The light from her body pushed back against the shadows holding her in place, and the forces seemed equally matched.

"You are a monster,�� Althea's voice spoke out again finding that deepness, that possessed quality. "If it's the last thing I do, I will send you back to the Hell that spat you out."

Durai's expression seemed elated then as he leaned into her closer. He inhaled deeply as if to savor the scent of her. "Sounds like fun. Shall we begin?"

At the close of his words, she felt the force of the shadows seize her once again and fling her across the room. She stretched out her arms to catch her flailing form as best as she could and braced herself for the pain of impact. To her surprise, the light from within her shot out from her arms just before impact. It seemed like flames burst forth from her and cradled her as she fell. It was far from graceful, and she still hit the floor with a painful force, but the impact was far from as bad as it would have been. The ruby flames spread across the floor as she landed, and they flared up high before disappearing altogether.

It was hard to tell then which face held the most surprise, his or hers. Althea pushed back her reaction, though, and picked herself up to her feet. She brought back her right foot slightly behind her and angled her body in a defensive posture against the attack from him she knew was coming. She noticed her hands still held the red light that danced about her skin like smoke. Half of her mind focused then on her defense. The other half, however, retraced her practiced path to try again to pull from within him the things he resisted. If she could touch him again, replicate what she had done before, and if she could hold onto those images he found so painful a little longer this time, she might have him beat.

The prospect of this fight terrified her. At least Galen was safe.

In the split second that her mind lost focus to think on Galen, she felt the air leave her lungs completely as he closed the distance between them with unnatural speed and strike her directly and forcefully in the abdomen. She bent forth at the impact and looked up into his eyes made of ominously bright green light.

She pushed past the pain with every agonizing ounce of effort she could muster. The ache lingered long after impact, but she had to focus and make the sensation inconsequential. She closed her eyes and traced the steps she had practiced in her mind as she had meditated all day. When she opened them again, her own eyes were overtaken and glowed in blinding white light.

The scene was a battle of Titans then. They ceased to be two earthly bodies and became the very forces of light and dark, good and evil.

Althea seized her moment and reached out a hand forcefully against Durai's chest and braced herself for the overflow of images she sought to pull from him and hoped would bring him down. The light that exploded from their bodily contact flashed so brightly that details of the room were swallowed in it.

However, this time, something was wrong; she could tell right away. There were no images of a boy, no menacing man, and no sight of a mother at all. This was nothing like before. It was darkness like a hidden room filled with consuming nothing. She felt herself lost in it, and she looked around desperately for any sign, any direction she could take against this.

Her hair now around her shoulders blew back with a sudden rush of wind, or something like wind, as lights and colors flew past her, around her, even into her. It was as if her own body had been rushed to a scene within Durai. In pulling from within him, she took herself along.

The sight of the room was all too familiar. She recognized the furnishings, the tapestries, and the little nuances that she knew intimately as Baldrik's room. She was confused as she had recounted all she had done when she placed her hand on Durai. She was sure that she performed just as she had before to pull forth from him the sights of his past. What could he possibly be holding within this room?

Oh no.

Her head suddenly pounded with immense, all-consuming pain. She had felt panic and horror before, but never like this. What she felt now was not the petrified, out-of-body numbness where sight became blurred and sound shrank away. This was apprehension and dread like she had never known before. "Oh, God, no!" she begged into the images of the room. She covered her mouth with both of her hands to try to keep her body from hyperventilating in her desperate wish to be anywhere else in the entirety of time.

As if compelled by a force of the Magic that brought them there, she was turned to see the sight she had prayed every day for a year she would never have to know.

She saw Baldrik in his bed reclined back amongst many pillows. His arms were splayed out on either side of his body with vast pools of thick, horribly red blood beneath them. She looked into Baldrik's eyes still opened and facing her now. His life, his spark, had left them. He was a shell, hollow and empty. Eyes that once danced with laughter, joy, and passion even in pain were now glazed back in a mockery of the life that had possessed them once. Everything that had made him special, everything she had ever loved about him, was gone. In its place, there was this sight right out of Hell.

She began to go to him, but could not move. She felt herself die inside at the sight of what he had done to himself. "Baldrik," she whimpered out between her fingers. "My brother…" But there was no response, no motion at all. He never failed before to light up at the sound of her voice. Now there was nothing. She lingered on the expression on his face. It was of sorrow and remorse. It was as if, just perhaps, he had decided too late to change his mind. Or maybe he was thinking in regret of what he would be leaving behind.

She thought to herself, did he think of her at the end? Did he cry out for her? Was he sad to leave her at all? Did he care at all that he was leaving her behind?

She lost sight of the scene as the tears overtook her sight entirely. She had seen his face in her memories, and now that fond remembrance of light and joy was burned away, replaced with the sight of his empty stare.

Thud!

She was on the floor in Durai's room pulled out of the worst place she could imagine back into the worst position possible. This time she was the one repelled back by the images she pulled forth, and Durai who was unphased. He stood above her as she choked on her sobs caught between the incomprehensible sorrow and horror at the scene she just witnessed to knowing she had to get up and fight back. She pushed back on her hands and feet, but she slipped and faltered as if her muscles had been drained from the pressure of her adrenal response to what she had been forced to see.

As she tried to crawl backwards and away from Durai, he slowly stalked above her with his hands held behind his back. His eyes had stopped glowing and resumed their menacing stare into hers. His smile curved upwards with a sickening delight at towering once again over his helpless victim.

She gave one final push off her right arm, and the pain from her burn shot through her and deadened her whole body to give up. With that, Durai lowered himself on top of her. His legs straddled her abdomen as he put a hand on either side of her body. His long, fair hair showered around his head and around her own as he bent down to her. "I held onto that image, saved it in detail, just so I could show it to you one day, somehow. Now you see what you could have stopped. Now you see what he did because you ran away. You left him with no hope."

She felt his body press against hers harder. Every squirm she made to escape from beneath him only excited him further, and she could feel it as tears continued to roll down her face.

"What shall we do with you so you don't lead more men to their deaths?"