THE ALPHA’S ADDICTION

Some place, an hour later:

“Your mother has been poisoned.”

The beautiful woman looking out of a gigantic window was spoken to by her friend.

“Poisoned? How is that possible?”

She asked, turning around to glance at her friend, her face ashened in worry.

“I don’t know. She had fell to the floor, after the meeting with the council some minutes ago. They are attending to her.” Her friend stated, but she shook her head.

“But who could have done this, Ketura?” She asked, clasping her hands together as she walked majestically away from the window to a stool across that station.

“Nobody knows. But they suspect your sister.” Ketura replied, walking to meet her at her newest position.

“I have to go then.” She replied, furrowing her eyebrows.

“You can’t go back, at least not yet. You know they believe you are dead. And if you do go back, then all our plans which we have spent years on orchestrating would all be in vain. It wouldn’t make sense then.” Ketura implored, placing her hand on the woman’s shoulder.

“What shall we do then? I can’t lose my mother too, to that evil wench.” She inquired.

“I don’t know.” Ketura replied, sighing tiredly.Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

“Well, there’s only one way to do that, apart from going back to the community….” She said, leaving the statement open as she stared at her friend, shrugging her shoulders the next second when she knew that the weight of the issue had dawned on her best friend.

“No, you can’t do that. It’s dangerous, and there is no guarantee that it would work from such a distance. It hadn’t worked on Malone. And you had almost died going through that process.” Ketura insisted, shaking her head in disagreement. There was no way she was letting harm befall her best friend.

“Malone was far gone. You know that. I was just far too stubborn to believe that he had left me alone in this world. I had been trying to resurrect the dead.” She said.

“I can’t let my mother die, knowing that I could do something to save her.”

“But… the elders are working out a solution for her. She will be fine.” Ketura mentioned, with pleading eyes.

The last time that her friend had done the process, it had taken her a week to recuperate.

“Ketura, you should know my evil sister by now.

You know too that I am the chosen healer for our people, even though I’ve been out of action since the past two years. I have to try. I have to save my mother. She has been so good to my children. I can’t let my evil sister take another good soul from me.” She said.

“Okay Tempest. If you say so.” Ketura surrendered sullenly, seeing that there was no changing her friend’s mind.

She just had to be at alert, if the process tries to take more than it was given.

**

Thirty minutes later:

“Tempest, come back now!!. Your life force is dissipating!” Ketura cried, whilst looking at her friend who was lying still within a round circle, marked with seven colored candles which gave out an enticing fragrance.

She concluded she was going to get into the circle if the latter didn’t reply.

**

“This is serious.” Tempest muttered, as she moved as a white hot air in her mother’s body. She had shaded her body in the way of the ancients, and had let her spirit travel to the community. The distance had been quite long, an impossible feat deserving of accolades if it was ever heard; but the desire to see her mother live had been greater than her quest for a lonesome revenge. Her sister wouldn’t see it coming.

She has really evolved into something more evil. She thought, referring to her older sister, Leonarya. The poison was something of a kind that she had never seen. Subtle, but dangerous. It was a huge harm.

I must find an antidote. She muttered even as she sighed deeply for the loud shouts of her friend, Ketura, which she was hearing in her head.

Knowing what her friend might have done, she had added an invisible barrier around the circle to prevent her from coming in and stopping the process.

She could hear her pounding on the invisible barrier to get to her.

But the movement of the poison caught her notice the next second.

It was moving closer to the heart, and she couldn’t stop it. She hadn’t really been able to do anything, since she had arrived. The strangeness of the poison had paralyzed her.

She could feel hot tears gathering in her eyes, the terrible fear threatening to overwhelm her at her own helplessness. The poison was painful, crawling through her mother’s system, paralyzing her. Cramps and sweating, muscles clenching and locking. She felt it with her and raged at her inability to get to it, to be able to help her, as was her right.

Calm down. She heard herself chant. Her mother had no one but her. The healing council had seemed to have given up hope already.

She decided to remain as calm and impassive as ever, studying the chemistry of the compound, as interested as any scientist. She was barely aware of Ketura’s shouts again.

She had gone seeking inside Zipfarah’s body, flowing through her own bloodstream to follow the path of the spreading poison.

*

Leonarya was nearly jumping up and down, as she watched her mother’s grave state in a black small mirror. If it had not been for her supposed queenly character, she would have. She smiled as she kept counting to the to the time that her mother would be termed dead. It had taken her two years to get this potion done. It had required much of her power but it was worth it now. Her all powerful mother would be dead soon, and she would be having the staff for herself soon after. The potion had no remedy. She knew that, because she hadn’t created one. And the only one she knew that could be able to stop her was long dead already.

“You don’t look so tough now, eh Mama..” She gloated.

“Not so impressive at all. Are you feeling a little sick?” She laughed softly. “I’ve heard the older the witch, the greater the sensitivity to pain.”

She poked the mirror with her finger, watching her mother with contempt, sliding downward.

“I hope so. But still remember who will be playing with the prophecy. I have plans for that little whore.”

*

Ketura’s burst of strength, fed by her rage at having been deceived by Tempest, landed her against the invisible wall. The foundation didn’t budge. Whatever her friend had constructed to bar her from intruding was stronger than she thought. She pounded until her fists bled, tears streaming down her face, as she saw a trickle of blood flow from Tempest nose.

*

Tempest felt the pain but simply put it aside during her self-examination. The poison was thick, moving slowly and painfully throughout her mother’s system. She began to break down the chemicals to analyze them so that she could come up with her own antidote to such a thing. Most of her kind could never do what she was doing. But she was a healer, knowledgeable in herbs and chemicals, poisons both man-made and natural. This was an interesting mixture, fast-acting and dangerous. Her sister had used blood she had taken from a vampire for a base. The pain had gone from a dull ache to agony in a few short minutes, enough to incapacitate all but the ancients and their most learned healers.

As soon as she had the compounds broken down, she began the healing process, breaking down each chemical to its natural and separate form and disposing of or absorbing it with white light. Only when the process was complete did she return to her outside surroundings.

She opened her eyes, even as she felt herself paralyzed.

Weakly, she waved her hand to remove the barrier, a short smile on her lips as she sensed her friend walking into the circle in anger. All she cared about now was that she had saved her mother from the evil claws of her sister. The poison had stank of her.

She wondered what would be her next tactic when she sees that her plan had failed.

She smiled again amidst Ketura’s whinings, when she envisioned the angry look that would cloat Leonarya’s face when she discovered that her plan had failed.

*

Leonarya gasped when she realized that the drug was no longer affecting her mother. She sensed it. She knew it, even as she watched her mother open her eyes and ask for water.

Impossible. She thought, taking up a short knife at the table nearby. She stabbed wildly at the mirror, cursing in anger.

“What happened? What had just happened?!!” She screamed repeatedly, pushing away everything on the table.

Why were things not going the way that she had planned.

First, her two stupid insubordinates hadn’t succeeded in getting the human, and now she hadn’t succeeded too in killing her mother.

She had one last option then. She had to call in the calvary.