Chapter : 9

A hideous evil, demonic  creature. A Varcolack. I am going to turn into a varcolack and It doesn't feel real. Instead it feels like I'm stuck in a nightmare and I am trying to wake up, but can't. I feel dizzy and nauseous and it's getting harder to breathe. I realize I am having a panic attack and squeeze my eyes shut, my head still in my hands, the room silent.

"There's a way to be sure you know" I look up to see Garcia standing by the living room doorway. "Come with me," she says to the room at large and walks to her kitchen and out the back door.

*   *   * 

Seth

We are gathered around the bonfire in Garcia's backyard . The has become cloudy leaving no light from either the moon or the stars. The only light is the eerie, orange glow of the fire Garcia is stoking, which illuminates everyone's faces.

The silence is overwhelming. Irene is frowning into the fire, clearly in deep thought. Ryan had volunteered to get my car back from the hotel. Stacy keeps making furtive glances at Ava who is standing with her arms crossed and her eyes looking distant. The night must be cold because I can see small tremors shaking her form. Or maybe she isn't shaking from the cold at all.

I want to comfort her and get rid of the curse that now plagues her. If only I had been a few minutes earlier, or even a few seconds, I could have changed everything. The memory of the Varcolack bite into Ava's shoulder just as I reached her, flashes through my mind. If I had been a second later I'm sure the monster wouldn't have stopped there. I shudder at the thought.

Garcia straightens from the now large fire and says "One of the ways you can prove you are a werewolf is by fire. When human blood burns it just sizzles and burns, when werewolf blood burns the fire reacts" she pauses and hands out a knife to Irene who is standing to her right. 

Irene takes the knife from here and makes a slit across her palm, barely flinching. I suppress another shudder. Sometimes her lack of emotion creeps me out. 

Irene holds her hand out and dark red blood drips from her palm into the fire. "Lykan blood . . ." continues Garcia as the fire instantly changes color going from orange to a brilliant cobalt, bathing our faces with its glow as a camphorous smell fills the air, ". . . burns blue".

Ava stares in awe at the fire, as if she can't believe what she is seeing. 

Irene hands Garcia her knife back. Her hand has already healed, like how it usually does for werewolves. Ava seems to notice that too because her hand subconsciously touches her shoulder. 

Garcia sanitizes the knife and sets it down on the stool next her, exchanging it for a vial of dark liquid. Slowly, the fire turns back to its natural orange flame. 

"And this is Varkolak blood" she says, uncorking the vial. Garcia tilts the vial over the fire and drips some of the blood into it. The blood looks black but when it reaches the fire light it gleams a dark red, darker than the blood that dripped from Irene's hand.

The fire turns from orange to an inky black taking away its warmth and light except for a silver glow. A sulfurous smell fills the air as the Varkolak blood sizzles and burns in the cold crackling fire. It feels as though a ghost of an ominous, evil presence hangs in the air. 

Ava shudders and again I feel the need to go over and comfort her. But I guess the thing she probably needs the most right now would be space and time to think and figure things out as much as she can. And I would give it to her. For as long as she needs.

Orange flames slowly envelop the dark ones and the sulfur-like smell fades away, leaving us with the fire's warm glow.

Garcia turns to Ava with the sanitized knife. " Your turn Ava" she says, sounding almost sympathetic. Ava takes the knife with a trembling hand but doesn't hesitate with what she has to do next. She draws the knife across her palm, just as Irene did. But when she lifts her hand, palm facing the dark sky, to the flame she hesitates, just for a moment, letting her blood pool in her palm.

I can see the fear in her eyes, the denial of what she might become or what she already is. But then the fear in her eyes is completely gone and something else replaces it, something strong and hard that makes her eyes shine with determination and will, like she decided that she's going to fight back, that she will be the one to decide what she is regardless of what color the fire burned.

Pride swells within me once I notice the courage in Ava's gaze, but it is smothered all too soon with grief as Ava tilts her hand sending her blood  spilling into the fire. Though Ava might accept what happened to her and decide to fight it,  I can't. Not when I know the reality of what would happen, the part of herself she would lose as the goodness gets sucked out of her. Not when all I can think about is how her beautiful warm brown eyes would turn cold and distant,  her soft luscious smile turn into a twisted sneer, her kind gestures turn cruel and calculating and her soul turn rotten and evil. And it hurts every inch of my being to think about losing Ava that way.

And so as Ava's blood drops into the fire I already envision silvery black flames writhing in the night to spare myself of false hope. After all it is what I am going to see; What I fear seeing. What I should see -but I don't.

The fire burns green.