Chapter XI. "Ritual"

The whole forest seemed to be grabbing at her, trying to stop her. The branches whipped at her arms as she crashed through, cracking harshly off the cotton gown and leaving scratches on her bare hands. The rough undergrowth scratched and tore at her feet, and she was certain that if anyone decided to follow her they would have an easy time of following the trail of blood smatters. Twice her foot caught under a root, throwing her face-down onto the dirt. The second time, she lay there, aching and covered in grass and dirt. She lifted her head slowly. There was no path, only the backway towards the pond, and here the signs she had used before were indiscernible from the vastness of the woods. The rain beat down harder, weighing the leaves above until they dipped under the pressure and wept onto the forest floor, and on her. Their tears were cold, but hers were hot, and they streamed unending from her eyes and all over her skin from the running, blinding her and soaking her to the bone. She was no woman anymore; her score of years meant nothing now. She was a helpless child.

She strained against the weight of the soaked tunic and forced herself up on bloodied feet. She thought of Shani, stripped and strung up on the tree in the garden, whipped while her own family stood by and watched. I have to keep going. I have to save her. She pressed on through the brush. How far was she from the manse? It couldn’t be that much further to the lake. She stopped for a moment, glanced behind her, then called out ahead.

“Ella,” she yelled. Then again, louder. “Ella. Ella! ELLA!” The woods were silent, the rain muffling the distant echoes of the panic back home. The animals themselves seemed to be hiding. No one, nothing stirred here but her.

She didn’t see the lake right away, but she saw the clearing by the rain that fell in thick sheets where the canopy of leaves ended. She burst out into the open. Green shreds and dirt stuck to her skin, most heavily around her legs. The lake ahead rippled under the barrage of rain, and the air smelled thick of wet grass and mud. And blood. Ella lay there, naked on the shore. Her beautiful black hair was everywhere around her head, floating in the shallows of the lake brought higher by the rain, down to her shoulders, sticking to her face. She lay perfectly straight, perfectly still, eyes closed like a corpse in a casket. Rain pelted her skin, but there were no goose bumps, and the heavy drops that landed on her chest and face elicited no reaction. Is she really dead? Leanne wondered, and then she saw them.

The Ash’abah that Xadoran had sent were here. One was on his knees, head slumped over. His arm had been frozen solid up to the shoulder, the forearm shattered into pieces that littered the ground around him, reddened water seeping into the grass as the pieces thawed. The other was lying on the ground, his body ripped wide open, a dark red canyon stretching from the navel to his lip. The whole length of the throat was torn out, a pale pink in the grass, the tongue lolling from one end.

Leanne said her name again. The eyes did not open, the body did not stir. “Ella, please.” The blood that had ran down her chin earlier was washed away, but Leanne thought she saw the shadow of a stain on the vampire’s lips.

“When they took me in the dead of night, do you know what they said?” Ella’s meek voice barely rose over the patter of the rain on the water. “They said, ‘hush child, don’t be afraid. We have a gift for you.’ They kept saying that. A gift, a gift, the glorious one has a gift he wants to share.”

Leanne blinked, unable to believe what she was hearing. “Ella, I don’t have time for this.” What does she want, my sympathy?

Ella paid no attention to her words, continuing to talk in her drifting voice. “Their minds are so twisted that they actually believe their curse to be a gift. But obviously it isn’t; gifts don’t require anything in return. Do you know what their ‘glorious one’ asks for in return for his ‘gift’?” The eyes opened, piercing yellow in the rainy dusk. The rain fell on them, but they did not blink, only stared straight up. “He wants your will. He takes pieces of you away, pieces you can never get back. When his servants rip your clothes off, those pieces rip out with them. And after they’ve used you, broken you, he fills the holes left by those pieces with his putrid essence. It stays with you forever.” A languid hand rose, mud-crusted fingers gesturing at the dead men lying in their gore. “And no matter what you try to do to lock it away, it just keeps bubbling back to the surface. It’s a part of your nature; its instincts become yours.”

Leanne breathed deep. “So I’m supposed to understand that you taking a bite out of my best friend’s neck was ‘instinct’?”

Ella gave her a look that was more questioning than defensive. “I could only ignore the taste of blood for so long.” She touched a hand to the side of her face, rubbing where she had bit her cheek. “When my hunger took over, I had enough self-control to keep my blood from mixing with hers. So, at the very least, she’s only been infected.” She sat up, looked at Leanne again. “I’ve been managing this for a while now, in case you couldn’t tell.”

Leanne shuddered, the cold seeping into her. “You knew that you were infected this whole time ... you lied to us.”

Ella rose to her feet. Her hands hung limp at her sides, fingers splayed out like claws. “I never lied to you,” she hissed. “You never asked what I was, and if you had, do you honestly think I would have told the truth? ‘Please, I need help, have mercy, I’m a vampire. Doctors and priests who could help you would sooner kill you if they knew the truth.”

Leanne struggled for a response, but could only manage to echo what was at the forefront of her mind. “Shaniera...”

“Ah, yes. Your princess. Did my bite infect her? Is that why you’ve come back here? What do you want me to do, go to the Ash’abah and explain to them that she’ll be okay, so long as she doesn’t receive blood from a vampire? They’ll kill me on the spot, and that Xadoran will whip you raw just for consorting with me.”

Leanne put the pieces together. “Ella ... I think she did get your blood.”

The flaring anger in her eyes dimmed, and suddenly recognition shone there. “Leanne ... what’s happening?”

The words came flooding out. “Shaniera was feeling weak, and we gave her a potion, but it didn’t cure her, and then she started getting worse, like she was falling in and out of a trance or something ... now they’re whipping her, trying to drive the Daedra out...”

Ella looked down at the dirt, eyes wide. “Oh, no. No, no, no, no...”

Leanne grabbed her by the shoulders. “Ella, you can reverse it, right? Please tell me you can reverse this!”

“I can’t!” She looked as if she were crying, and Leanne couldn’t tell if there were tears running down her face or raindrops. Perhaps it was both. “Leanne, I would if I could, but I can’t! Gods, I’m so sorry, I didn’t want this for you or her, please Leanne, you must believe me, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone...”

“Ella!” She held the girl close. “Focus. What do we have to do to save her?” Even as she said the words, however, she already knew the answer. Ella did her the courtesy all the same.

“We would need to complete the ritual.”