Lone Werewolf Duology (bxb)

56. The Rapture

Volya fasted for two days, because hunger was the only sensation visceral enough to destroy hope that slithered on the bottom of his soul. It wouldn't die, no matter how tightly he squeezed its throat. If he didn't throttle this snake, it made him picture the same scene over and over.

He saw himself turning Anabelle back into a girl with a flashy spell-effect, like in a video game. She would hang herself around his neck, praising his magic talent to high Heaven and apologizing for her animosity toward him.

And he, he would be looking above her bobbing head at Liam. Liam's bright eyes would meet his and...

No.

The virtue he belatedly unearthed in himself, wisdom, popped the stupid dream. Yes, it made his skin tingle, luring him into a reverie so lovely that reality could never hold a candle to it. No, he couldn't have it.

He had to dedicate himself to doing the right thing for the right reasons.

He had to save Anabelle from the ricochet of Akrum's ancient curse for the sake of correcting a terrible mistake. Winning back love he'd lost, particularly that of a man he didn't deserve in the first place, shouldn't be on his radar.

This was the only way to succeed. With his understanding of magic coming from dreams and innate feeling, he couldn't afford to be distracted.

On the eve of the full moon, he washed himself clean, purged himself of wanton desires and came to the bonfire shortly before the moonrise.

Nobody questioned why he waited for the nightfall and demanded a huge fire in the middle of the treeless steppe, when Akrum cast his spell in the middle of the day in an empty field with nothing but his staff.

It was pretty simple. He wasn't steeped in magic from birth. The innate affinity for it weakened as it traveled down the bloodline to him. He learned in a rush, second-hand, and it would be his first time. So, he needed fire's and moon's mystic properties to boost his gift.

Heck, he needed more than that, maybe a year in a magic school or something... alas, the Walkwe didn't want him.

"Are you enjoying the spectacle?" Damir asked, straightening up from the prepared stack of wood. It caught on fire with a loud whoosh. Sparks shot up into the indigo sky.

Despite his sour mood, Volya couldn't help grinning. "Yes. I sense the flow of primal energy."

Damir squinted, trying to figure out if he was for real, and Volya—Volya!—patted the older guy reassuringly on the back.

"I'm ready," he said, stretching his hands toward the dancing flame. "I know what to do."

This was his night, no matter how it ended.

He loved the stars above, the swelling moon, the growing flame, and Liam looking at him, instead of turning away or pretending to be asleep. It was great to be righteous, but could it ever beat impressing a boy?

"I'll do right by you," he vowed softly to Liam, then put him out of his mind and focused on Anabelle.

The horse part of the centaur had impeccable lines. The girl herself was in top shape down to her tiny waist. The whole construct was beautiful as well. But beauty and functionality didn't matter: she was wrong, and she was wronged. Nature suffered an offense in this twisted joining.

Side-stepping, stomping, stretching his arms to the ground, palms down, Volya walked around the fire. When he first saw Akrum do it, he thought it was a dance, but actually he gathered the energy to himself. Volya did the same. The warmth reached him, tentatively at first, then stronger and steadier. A powerful jolt ran up his arms.

Anabelle shuffled from foot to foot, looking scared, but mesmerized by his stare. She staggered after him.

"No. Stay where you are." The fire must separate the healer and the abomination, protecting him from the aftermath. He had no clue how he knew that, but he was glad he did.

"The rest of you, join hands. Gather behind my back."

Lydia, her face flushed, her eyes burning with the reflected fires, grabbed daSilva's hand, and the hand of the person next to her—June—and then they'd all linked hands and took a few steps back.

The humans intuitively did what he needed them to do. The tiniest spark of magic must still rest in them, it just took him to bring it out. "Good."

Anabelle alone stayed opposite to him. She looked so terrified that he doubted her legs would carry her even if she tried to run. His heart went out to her.

"I am the flint. I start the fire."

Volya took in more energy, extending his palms to everything that stood longer than a human mind could imagine. Or flowed longer than all the generations combined. He took in more and more and more, until his bones screeched like wooden towers in the wind, his blood and tendons changing with the intake.

"Anabelle," he cried. Her eyes rounded.

She used to be an athlete, he reminded himself. His voice magnified to thunder-claps. "Ready, set..."

The habit overpowered her fear of him. She bit her lip, her body coiling, fists tight, but eyes still opened and set on the flames.

Volya let all the stored energy of his body burst forth, charging the fire. "Go!"

Anabelle and the fire leaped almost straight up.

Lydia yelled in denial, wanting to chase her flying daughter, but daSilva and June held her fast in their circle.

Volya couldn't hear the scream, because the booming sound of fire and blood filled his hearing.

He just saw Lydia's contorted face with the back of his head. He smelled the story of a mother's worst horror. He fed fear to the blaze. The less primal emotions went in too, hope and love, doubts and inane curiosity. The infinitesimal quark of magic they still had in them as well.

Last, but not the least, what faith they had in him. This was the crucial ingredient, though he didn't realize it until it hit him. It wasn't all Liam's, but what part of it was Liam's, went into his head. Volya's body vibrated like a string with the colossal amount of energy he was conducting.

It hurt. It filled him with joy. He burned and lived, and he blazed with the unknown form of energy. Whatever he had wrought, it couldn't have been terrible.

He tore his glance from Liam and looked up.

Against the black sky, in the flames as tall as a house, outlined in a fiery corona, a girl and a horse slowly came apart.

The seam welding their bodies unraveled, fiery strings dangling from Anabelle's waist and flaming tendrils searching the emptiness above the horse's shoulders. Then those appendages coiled, weaved, stretched. Like a swarm of snakes, they sculpted the long-lost shapes: the girl's legs and the horse's head.

"The wrong is righted," Volya said, though he couldn't hear himself speak. But the others did, for he saw awe on their faces.

The horse neighed, tossing the mane it didn't have for many years, and made another desperate leap through the air.

The next moment, its hooves impaled into the ground, then threw dirt in the air like normal hooves do. Its mane and the tail caught fire. It was too much for the beast. It rolled its maddened eyes, showing whites and took off...

Damir broke the chain of the scientists to dash after it.

Dazed and deaf, Volya watched Anabelle fall out of the sky.

He gave all the energy he gathered and his life force to convey it. He could do nothing about Anabelle.

He could do nothing more.

***

This is 'Bonfire' by Andrei Makarevich and the band 'Time Machine', calling for using up one's soul to burn bright, burn high and warm the others around you.