Defiance: The Hybrid's Tale

Cassandra Pope.

I walked up to the mirror and called out to Aveny who showed up moments later. There were a few things I had to take care of. My father would soon discover that his alchemist had died. And he would know who did it. I wasn’t afraid of his response, but I had to be prepared for the inevitable confrontation. He’d finally realize that I wasn’t on his side and never was.

“Cassy, what’s the matter?” she asked, pressing both of her hands onto the mirror’s icy surface. How I wanted to touch, hug, and kiss her.

I shook my head. It wasn’t time for daydreaming. “I need you to contact Celeste and tell her to pass on a message to Alex... It’s time.”

Her brows furrowed. “It’s time?”

I nodded while walking over to the wall next to my nightstand. “Yeah. I gave him instruction to flee to where Nathan and my sister were hiding when the time came.”

“And now’s the time.”

I nodded again, waving my hand over the wall. The fabric of space warped, and a safe appeared out of the wall. I enchanted it to conceal my most valuable belongings. But why hide this thing close to where another witch/warlock could reach it, some would say? It was undetectable. Only the person who hid it could trace or reveal its location. So, no matter how hard my father and brother searched, they never found it.

I unlocked the safe and retrieved all the valuables from the safe and stuffed them in a bag. The blood orb I had from Vance I placed in my pocket.

“Please, Aveny. Make it quick. We have barely any time before the veil falls from their eyes. While you’re warning Celeste of the impending danger, I’ll contact Vance to get the ritual from him.”

“And what if he doesn’t have it?” she asked.

Her words made me stop in my tracks. It was a possibility. But I suspected that the old fart back at the council was holding out on his end of the deal, to force me to cooperate with him in the future. Pfft! If that was going to happen. If he wanted my co-operation, he had to hand over the ritual first. I walked over to the patio door and opened it. The night’s chilly embrace warped around me.

“Good luck.” Aveny vanished from the mirror while my eyes scanned the tree line of the surrounding forest.

I stepped forward and appeared near one of the trees lining the property. I then made my way into the darkened forest.

***

After about an hour’s walk, I came across a pond filled with clear water. The moon’s light rippled along the surface. The forest was quiet, except for a few hoots from an owl that echoed out into the night. I walked up to the waterline and retrieved the blood orb I gave Vance nearly a half a year ago. After all this time, I still had nothing to show for my efforts. Over the last three months, I had to stall the wedding and take on the role of Bridezilla to throw a wrench into my father’s plans. However, he had taken matters into his own hands and got me pregnant.

I had no intention of having the child fall into my father’s clutches. Look at what he did with Nathan and Alex. One was an abomination in his eyes, and the other was an enormous disappointment. No matter how I felt about carrying Victor’s child, I wasn’t planning on aborting it. I had to face the consequences of my mishap. I rubbed my stomach. This child was going to be born free of my father and Victor’s corruptive influence.

I took the orb and started crushing it in my hand. The blood inside dropped into the water. ”Bei deinem blut befehle ich dir. Treten Sie vor.” I finished in German. The origins of the blood spell I cast.

The blood in the clear water swirled and glowed. A column of illuminated red water coalesced into the form of the councilor.

His glare stabbed at me. “What’s the meaning of this?! You can’t summon me in this manner.”

“I’m done waiting for you to get off your ass and help me, Councilor,” I scoffed. “For months you’ve been stringing me along and I’m done. I can’t stay here any longer. My father will discover my betrayal, and I don’t want to be here when it happens. So... where’s the information I asked of you?”

He grumbled and retrieved a crimson scroll from his inner robe. So the fool had it all the time... My teeth clenched down on my tongue. If I didn’t need the scroll to free Aveny from her imprisonment, I would have killed the old fool myself. Men and their arrogance... He probably thought that I would have forgotten about our deal. I reached out. The Councilor hovered the scroll over my hand and then muttered a few magical words. The scroll dropped out of the water, dry as the desert.

“There is your scroll. I hope you don’t inform your father about our dealings—”

My eyes narrowed on the councilor. “Why not?”

“There are a few things I need to do before I’m in a position to act on your information. Your father has half the Elder Council under his thumb.”

I placed the scroll in my coat’s pockets and said, “Don’t worry, Vance. He won’t have them for long. Just stay alert and don’t let my father’s spies kill you before you have time to use that information. Now that we’ve concluded our business, I have someone to save. Good night, Vance, and good luck in your endeavors.”

“And you too, Cassandra. Be careful when betraying your father. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill you.”

A smile crossed my face. “He won’t. My father still needs me if he wants to recognize it or not. He can’t manipulate the Von Drakes without my help. Not that I would give it, mind you. Good bye, Councilor.”

With that, the image of the councilor fell apart and returned to the pond. Yes! I had it. Finally! After all the blood and tears, I could finally accomplish what I set out to do from the beginning.

“Good evening, sister.” A stomach-churning voice pierced my ears. I shot around to face my brother standing amongst a group of five with an award-winning grin on his sickening face. “It seems your luck has finally run out. Tsk, tsk, tsk... When father finds out you’ve been conspiring with the enemy, he’ll kill you for what you’ve done. How could you betray us?”

My laughter scared a group of birds out of their nesting trees. “From the time you and our pathetic father turned against our sister.”

Ethan’s eyes flashed red. “I’m going to enjoy watching our father kill you. Well, not yet anyway. You still have a part to play before your time’s up. Now come with us. I don’t want to hurt Victor’s child.”

“Oh, you’re deluded if you think I’m coming with you.”

Before the five could react, my fingers cut the air as if I wielded a knife. The throats of my brother’s companions split open. Blood gushed out and littered the floor of the forest. They flailed about and fell to the ground, gurgling out curses as they took their last breaths. My brother tried to retaliate, but he was always terrible at magic. A lightning bolt hit his chest before he could cast his spell. He crashed into a tree with a thud. With another snap of my finger, tree roots wrapped around the fool’s body.

I sauntered up to him, sidestepping the bodies as I moved along. “So sorry, Ethan. But I have better things to do than playing with you right now.”

I stepped forward, teleporting into the safety of my bedroom, but not for long. I directed my hand toward the bedroom door and activated a sealing ward I had enchanted onto the door years earlier. It wouldn’t hold against my father, but just long enough for me to free Aveny from her mirror.

I rushed into the walk-in closet and retrieved an emergency alchemist bag. I rushed up to the table and swiped off the vase filled with flowers. It crashed to the floor, sending glass shards in every direction. After placing the bag on the table, I took out the scroll and opened it. Examining the ritual, I began retrieving the ingredients I needed, which was nasty by the way. How witches could have thought up such a depraved ritual baffled me.

A loud siren made me flinch, dropping a sack filled with bone marrow onto the ground. Fuck! My father must have found Ethan already. He placed the mansion on high alert. I quickened my pace, throwing bone marrow, elder ash, and a small vial of my father’s blood into a mortar.

“Cassandra!” Aveny cried out. I yelped out, nearly spilling the contents of the mortar out onto the carpet.

“Geez, Avy! Don’t scare me like that.”

Aveny’s eyes found the door and said, “You have to get out of here. Your father is on the move and he’s pissed.”

“You think!” I replied sarcastically, taking a paintbrush and dipping it into the vile concoction.

Aveny’s eyes followed the scroll as it levitated next to me. She read from the scroll. “Is that—”

“Yes! It’s the ritual that will finally free you.” I then wrote magical symbols at the edges of the mirror while Aveny continued studying the ritual.

“Where did you find your father’s blood?”

My lips twitched into a smirk. “One night, when my father got drunk and bashed his head against the bar’s counter, I used the opportunity to take some of his blood.”

“How long do you think you have?” Aveny asked the question I had been mulling over for the last hour. It was only a matter of time before they found us, and I had to hurry.

“I’m doing this as quickly as I can.” I drew back from the mirror as I finished painting the last set of magical glyphs. “There... Let’s begin.”

A loud bang rang out at the end of the hallway. No! Not now. I turned around and started chanting the spell in haste. ”Du warst in blut gebunden, jetzt befreie ich dich durch sein blut. Lass deinen halt los—"

Before I could finish the chant, the door blasted off its hinges. I fell back into the mirror where Aveny cried out. The bloody scripture on the mirror seeped into the mirror, priming the spell, but I wasn’t able to finish it.

Damn! If only I had another minute.

“I’m so disappointed in you, my daughter,” said my father in a noxious tone of voice. His gray eyes sliced into me. He stepped on the broken door and made his way to me while his men walked into the room.

He snatched the scroll from me and read from it. “My, my, my... you were a busy bee, weren’t you? You conspired with Vance to get your sticky fingers on this ritual.” The scroll in his hands burned up in flames, along with my hopes. I had failed. I would have shed tears, but I would not show any weakness that they could exploit. “You’ve made me rather proud of your ingenuity and ability to fool me, but in the end, you still failed. Aveny’s not going anywhere, and neither are you. I’ll get that child out of you and then you will die with your wretched sister and her half-breed mutts.”

My father walked to the door and whispered to the nearest guard to him. The guard rushed out and then reentered moments later with Celeste, of all people. It took everything in me not to react to her presence; it would have spelled her doom. Celeste trembled where she stood. Did my father find out about her?

“Girl!” my father snapped at Celeste.

She raised her head and squeaked out, “M-Master?”

“I want you to clean up this mess and lock the door. Nobody will ever enter this room again.” His head turned to me, but he looked past me. “You will stay here forever in this room, Aveny.” He raised his hand. The mirror cracked at the edges of the mirror. “Nobody will ever see or talk to you again. Let’s see how long you can last until the silence drives you to madness.” My father’s eyes shifted to me. “Take my daughter to the dungeons and keep her there until I can deal with her. Now move.”

He strutted out of the room, leaving me with my failure.