Saffron could not control her breathing. The best she could do was try to keep from hyperventilating, but even that was difficult, yet she managed it, and that was a form of control, so the hypocrisy in her own diagnosis was duly noted.
These girls were insane.
They’d made her watch, of course. They’d made her watch from the safety of a wooden chair as they’d carried out the ritual, performing it in this little community center building they’d all rented out. They’d sat in their tight circle and chanted, chanting around the large pentagram they’d drawn out in pig’s blood, and Saffron had thought it ridiculous at first, but then some…things had happened.
Perhaps choosing the Goth girls over Beta Theta Sigma had been a poor choice.
Wenna was the official leader of the Gothic Society of North Corgan University, and she really was a bitch, but her personality was strong and defiant, and that was what had drawn Saffron to the GSNCU in the first place. Also, Wenna had not been judgmental; she had not discriminated against Saffron because of Saffron’s own poor rural background.
“Why join those spoiled little nits?” Wenna had asked. “They’re like lice. They’re little bloodsucking parasites waiting to hatch out into the world at large.
“Don’t you know? It’s university policy to have one standard token ‘merit-based’ member. You know they’re just going to push you into a corner and make you kiss their rich white asses…You’ll be licking their buttholes on command…
“Why go through that?…Join us instead. We have real power, and that power will open your eyes…Besides, we have a plan anyway. Those BTS bitches won’t be around for much longer.”
Saffron had written off that “We have real power” statement at the time, but after seeing this ritual?…Now she wasn’t so sure.
Maybe this was some kind of theater magic they had pulled, some sort of stage trick kind of thing…but maybe it wasn’t.
It was that second thought that terrified her.
First, Wenna had showed her the book. The other girls had oohed and aahed over that old book with the weathered leather cover and the pentagram etched into that cover—Saffron had been allowed to run her fingers over that pentagram—but she still had, in fact, her doubts over the authenticity of it. The book looked old, yes, but if Saffron was anything, she was rational, which made her a little different than most of the girls at this school. She’d never heard of “The Pentagony” before, so this sounded like some kind of campfire, sleepover, black-magic nonsense to her.
But that ritual…
The other girls had lit five tall black candles and had set those candles at the five points of the pig’s blood pentagram. They’d sat there and chanted as Wenna had stood nearby and read from the book, but this had been the showman, nonsense part of the ceremony…
Until it wasn’t.
The lights had flickered and gone out as Wenna had read and the girls had chanted. A stiff wind had picked up inside the building, but none of the others had seemed to care. In fact, Wenna had looked up and stared right into Saffron’s frightened blue eyes, and the look the leader of the Goths had given her?…That wicked smile…It had not been reassuring.
Of course, Saffron had been outside of the ritual, but that was just it…
She had still participated.
“What you’re going to do, pledge, is pretend to pledge for Beta Theta Sigma,” Wenna had said. “Go look to join, gain their trust, and take some small thing from each of them. There are eight of those BTS bitches, so get them to give you some small token that belonged to them.
“It sounds like that might be hard, but trust me…those bitches are so egotistical, they’ll eagerly hand over something to the ‘poor girl who was so unfortunate to be born without money.’”
Of course, Wenna and the other five girls, Carna, Sin, Hatea, Malicia, and Ebony, had also been born with money, but they didn’t seem to care about that little detail. Also, those weren’t their real names, mainly because being Goth meant changing one’s identity to something darker…Plus, Wenna would rather be called “Wenna” than “Stephanie,” which was ironic, because “Wenna” meant “Blessed or Holy” in Celtic…
Saffron knew…She’d looked it up. She was thinking about changing her own name to “Raven.” Ravens were pretty smart, so it fit.
Anyway, she’d done as commanded. Saffron had pretended to earnestly want to join Beta Theta Sigma, and the girls over there had actually given her some small things. She’d gotten a thirty-dollar comb from Haley, the president. Mary, the vice president, had gifted her with a beautiful red hair tie. Jenny, the treasurer, had given Saffron a pen. Saffron had even been handed a silver ring from Allie, the philanthropy chair. The other members, Gracie, Hope, Gabrielle, and Benji, had each given her some small token as well.
Wenna had collected those small gifts and had placed them in the center of the pentagram before the ritual had begun. It wasn’t until the Goth leader had read something from the book, something in Latin, during the ritual that the real weirdness had begun. The other girls had chanted as a blue flame had erupted in the center of the pentagram, and that unnatural flame had devoured the BTS items in question.
But it hadn’t stopped there. Wenna had read something else in Latin, and then she had dropped a lock of hair into the burning blue, a lock of curly brown hair, and that lock of curly brown hair had been none other than Saffron’s own. She had given Wenna that lock out of trust, because the Goth leader had asked for it, but now?…Now she was regretting that decision. She was regretting that decision because of what had happened directly after that.
The lock had burned up, of course, but that hadn’t been the issue. It was the blue flame erupting into a pyre that had been the issue and the shape that had taken form from that pyre that had been the issue.
A huge wolf made of blue flame twisted into reality as that flaming wolf twisted again into something even darker: a man-like wolf standing on two bent legs. It pointed one blue-flaming clawed finger at Saffron, and she had felt that finger stab right through her, right across the room, stabbing through her very soul, right down into the depths of it, and Saffron didn’t even believe in souls. She’d just thought everything rotted away to dust after death…
Now she really had her doubts, because if she was doubting that core philosophy, it was becoming a distinct possibility she was—for lack of a better term—screwed.
Nevertheless, that big blue man-wolf made of flame vanished after that, roaring out of existence in a flash of azure sparks, leaving Saffron wondering what in the hell had just happened.
And that’s where she was now, sitting in said wooden chair, in this rented-out little building, wondering if she had been slipped some hallucinogenic.
The other girls stood up from the circle they had formed, all save Wenna, who looked upon Saffron with that same wicked grin she had sported earlier.
“Let’s give a round of applause for our little Saffy,” smirked Wenna. “She’s been such a good sport during the show.”
There it was, the word “show,” though Saffron still had serious doubts any of this had been a “show.” If these girls could put on a “show” like this, they were wasting their time here in North Corgan. They should all actually be out on a stage in Vegas.
The other girls gave Saffron a sarcastic clap. It felt half-hearted, or maybe just mean-spirited, but whatever it was, they were all looking at her as if she were a new toy…possibly a dangerous one.
“W-What was all that?” asked Saffron, but it came out in a mild squeak that was thoroughly embarrassing.
Wenna stared at her with her own dark eyes, gave her that irritating smirk, and shook her head a couple of times. What that meant, only the gods knew.
“That was your initiation, Saffy,” said the leader of the Goth girls. “Now that you’re one of us, I dub thee ‘Vengeance.’”
“Vengeance?” asked Saffron. “What does that mean?”
“That’s your new name,” said Carna. “It’s what you’ll go by from now on.”
“Oh…” replied Saffron in mild confusion. “I was thinking of going by—”
“You don’t need to think,” said Wenna. “We’ll do the thinking for you. As of now, you are our vengeance against Beta Theta Sigma and that clit-cheese chunk of smegma named Haley.”
Oooookaaaaay…
“Okay, that was a rather vivid and somewhat disgusting mental image,” said Saffron. “Why am I ‘Vengeance’? That’s what I’d really like to know.”
“We just cast a powerful curse on that group of overgrown labia,” sneered Sin. “You are going to deliver the final touch to this little package of hate, a flipping of the last switch, as it were.”
Wenna picked up something from the center of the pentagram, something that had not been there mere minutes before. She unraveled the chain of the thing, and it turned out to be a large, black, cast-iron pentagram as wide in diameter as a grapefruit.
“This is the final touch, the last button, the ending switch,” said Wenna confidently. “You’ll wear this when you walk into their sorority house across the street in a few minutes. Those vaginal smears aren’t going to snail trail their way out of this one.”
What was with the female terminology used as insults?…These girls clearly had some unresolved issues with BTS.
“Okay, aside from the gross insults, what did they do that’s made you so…so mad?” asked Saffron. “They seemed all right to me…”
The change in Wenna was instantaneous. Her confident smirk transformed into a bitter scowl in an instant.
“All right?” asked the Goth girl. “All right! That menstrual discharge, Haley, destroyed my life! She’s screwed over all of us!”
Saffron studied the expressions of sheer hate…No…No, hate was too soft a word. These girls had nothing but animosity embedded within their glaring faces.
“I…I don’t understand,” said Saffron slowly.
“Girls like her have always trampled upon girls like us,” said Ebony. “They’ve always pushed us down!”
“Stepped upon our necks!” spat Hatea.
“And made us do questionable things with our sexuality!” said Malicia.
The other girls turned and stared in confusion at Malicia.
“I mean…they humiliated us,” corrected Malicia.
Saffron stared upon these girls dressed in black, all black, with the black eyeshadow and lipstick and black…attitude…and cringed.
“I…don’t know exactly why I’m here,” said Saffron slowly. “Maybe you should just get some therapy…Don’t get me wrong, I thought the light show was both effectively creepy and cool at the same time, but maybe this…culture…isn’t right for me.
“I think…I think if you just talk to them, you’d see they’re not the demons you’ve made them out to be.”
“Light show?” snorted Wenna. “She thinks she saw a…‘light show’…girls.”
The other girls laughed as several of them shook their heads no.
“Dear, Vengeance,” said Wenna with a wicked grin, “that was no ‘light show.’”
Saffron felt her adrenaline rising. This BS was in fact all BS, but there was still a sincerity in Wenna’s tone that she could not ignore.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“We performed the ritual,” said Carna as she rolled her eyes.
“We summoned him,” said Sin.
“Who’s ‘him’?” asked Saffron.
“Garm, the Prince of Beasts,” smirked Wenna. “The Demon Lord of Ferality. The Fiend of Rage, Lust, and Hunger.”
“Th-Those titles sound impressive,” stammered Saffron.
These girls were like cashews in a popcorn bag. They were all nuts.
“Oh, they are,” smiled Wenna.
The crazy girl raised her eyebrows, her eyes widened, and the “crazy” description amped itself up to “insane.”
“The theme over there at their Halloween party is ‘princesses,’” explained Wenna. “You are going to go over there and join the party. We have a special dress made just for you.”
“You do?” asked Saffron warily.
“Malicia…” said Wenna as she snapped the fingers of her right hand. “Show her the dress.”
Malicia walked over to a large black dress bag laid out across a folding table. She picked up the bag and unzipped the front of it.
“I was wondering what that was,” said Saffron.
“You don’t need to wonder anymore,” said Wenna. “This is the princess dress we have ready for you…”
Malicia pulled forth the dress in question. She held up a beautiful dress with a low-cut neckline, puffy shoulders, lacy wrists, and a pleated skirt, but there was just one problem with it…
It was all black.
“That’s…certainly a beautiful dress,” nodded Saffron. “It looks like it’s meant for a funeral, but I like the look of it anyway.”
“Exactly,” said Wenna. “Now…you are going to march over there with Sin’s phone so that I can personally speak to these walking pubic hairs on video chat. Understand?”
“Okaaaaay…” replied Saffron.
All the Goth leader was going to do was insult the BTS girls, but okay. It wasn’t like Saffron was really feeling this whole Goth thing anyway. Beta Theta Sigma was looking better by the second.
“Garm has marked you as his harbinger of vengeance,” said Wenna. “When the time is right, the Demon Prince of Beasts will lay down a final and bloody vengeance upon our ancient foes!”
“Right,” said Saffron as she nodded in reply. “All right. So, all I have to do is wear the dress and go over there with Sin’s phone? Okay, then.”
It was best to get out of here anyway.
She stood up and nodded a couple more times.
“Not so fast,” said Wenna with a shake of her head. “There’s no bra with this dress, so you have to go top commando, got it?”
That dress was low cut, but it wasn’t like Saffron had huge breasts…
Yeah, she could do it.
“Okay,” she said.
Wenna snapped her fingers again.
“Okay, girls, let’s get her ready!” she said firmly.
Saffron undressed and put on the black princess gown. She felt a little awkward going topless in front of these strange girls, but it was only for a few seconds, and it wasn’t like they were staring directly at her…except for Malicia, but Saffron wrote that off as just curiosity.
After her new dress had been laced up in back, the girls took to applying makeup to Saffron, and the black lipstick combined with the black Egyptian eyeliner was very Halloween…It fit the theme of the dress, so at least everything was coordinated.
Wenna slung the chain of the large black pentagram over Saffron’s head so that the pentagram rested between the bare tops of Saffron’s small breasts. The dress was indeed low-cut, but it fit in such a way as to make her breasts look slightly bigger, which was, in fact, a bonus.
The pentagram was kind of heavy, though.
“This amulet is heavy,” said Saffron.
“I imagine,” said Wenna. “But that’s nothing compared to this…”
She placed a black, cast-iron crown upon Saffron’s head, a heavy thing with vertical spikes standing tall around the rim. They placed a mirror in front of Saffron, and she nodded in approval. It was definitely an appropriate Halloween getup.
“Okay, I like it,” nodded Saffron. “It looks good.”
“Good,” grinned Wenna. “Normally, we’d dye your hair black, but we don’t have time for that. We can’t keep the Lord of Hunger waiting.”
“Okay,” nodded Saffron. “Uhhh…Can I go now?”
“Here’s Sin’s phone,” said Wenna. “March over there, invite yourself in, and announce that you have a message from the GSNCU.”
“All right, then,” shrugged Saffron. “Let’s do this.”
It was better to get this over with quickly. She’d just explain things to the BTS girls. Maybe they’d let her stay for the party. It had to be better than this.
“You are now ‘Vengencia, Princess of Shadows,’” said Wenna. “Vengencia…I like that.”
The Goth leader sucked in her breath and nodded twice.
“You are no longer ‘Vengeance,’” she announced. “You are ‘Vengencia, Errant Princess of Shadows and Bride of Garm!”
The rest of the girls clapped and cheered as Saffron took a small bow.
Eh, a little showmanship never hurt anyone.
“You are the Sword of Our Vengeance!” said Carna.
“The Black Light of the Void!” said Sin.
“The Eater of Torn Hearts!” said Hatea.
“The Crown of Ebon Teeth!” said Ebony.
“The Beautiful Maiden of Moon Lust!” said Malicia.
They all turned to stare at Malicia, and the young woman shrank in upon herself.
Saffron shook her head. That girl needed to confess something.
Wenna ignored all of them.
“It’s time for you to go over there and wreak our bloody vengeance,” said the leader of the Goths. “Show them no mercy!”
Saffron gave herself a mental shrug. Crazy or not, wandering between both groups on Halloween was better than staying in her dorm and watching movies on Halloween.
With that being said, she took Sin’s phone with her as she exited the community-center rental, crossed the street, and walked up to the Beta Theta Sigma chapter house’s front door. She rang the doorbell and waited, but she did not have to wait for long.
It was Benji who answered the door. The little brunette was dressed in an orange and white princess gown complete with a little plastic silver tiara.
“Oh!” cried the littlest of the sorority girls. “Oh, it’s…it’s you, Saffron. You scared me!”
“Sorry, but I—” began Saffron, but she was cut short.
Benji turned and yelled into the brightly lit room behind her.
“Hey, everybody, Saffron’s here!” she called out.
There were some rather loud and unexpected cheers from within.
“Tell her to come in!” yelled Haley, the chapter president.
Saffron shrugged and stepped inside.
The chapter house’s main living hall had been redecorated for Halloween, but unlike any typical Halloween décor, this time the trappings were all fantasy-princess based. The room was decked out in poster-board knights, dragons, fairies, and princesses, only the princesses were images of the girls from the sorority.
Saffron nodded her head in approval at the scenery, temporarily forgetting, of course, that her outfit was reminiscent of Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.
The girls of the sorority were all sitting at foldout tables laden with food and drink. It was kind of extravagant for so few people, but they were all rich girls, so it made sense.
Haley, the president, leaned her blonde head to one side and studied Saffron’s outfit.
“You look like one of those Goth lesbians from across the street,” she said.
Haley was dressed in the classic pink and white princess gown topped by a pink conical princess hat atop her head.
“I like it!” she nodded. “I would have suggested saffron as your color, but Gracie wore that, so we were running out of options anyway. Now you’re the black princess! I like it.”
“Hey, I’m the black princess!” said Gracie in mock protest.
Gracie was the black girl, one of the two minorities in the chapter, and she had clearly meant her statement as a joke, so everyone laughed.
Saffron smiled. This group of girls was a lot saner and more fun than the headcases over at the GSNCU.
“Listen, guys, I have a message,” said Saffron. “I’m supposed to give it to you.”
“Oh?” asked Haley. “A message? A message from who?”
The girls of the chapter looked up in confusion, thereby putting Saffron on the spot, but she had agreed to give them Wenna’s message, so…well…
“You look pale,” said Jenny. “Are you okay?”
Jenny was the treasurer of Beta Theta Sigma. She was the tall skinny redhead with glasses. She was dressed in a light-green and white gown along with a simple plastic silver circlet topping her head.
“I…I uhhh…” began Saffron.
Actually, now that she was supposed to give “the message,” she had no idea what that message was supposed to be.
But even that embarrassing realization was hijacked by Allie commenting upon Jenny’s “You look pale” observation.
“That’s just the makeup,” said Allie, the philanthropy chair.
“Oh,” replied Jenny.
Allie had short black hair in a pixie cut. She was dressed in a dark-salmon gown and wore a plastic green circlet on her head. The circlet looked like it was made of woven leaves.
“Well…” said Saffron nervously.
Sin’s phone rang and caused her to jump a bit.
Saffron answered the call, and there was Wenna on the screen. The volume was all the way up, so Saffron simply held up the phone in front of her.
“Hey, bitches!” said Wenna.
“Stephanie?” asked Haley in both visible and audible confusion.
“It’s Wenna, you malformed fetus!” said the Goth leader. “Wenna!”
“Ugh…” said Haley as she rolled her blue eyes. “Tell me you haven’t had dealings with her, Saffy.”
“Shut up,” said Wenna. “The girls over here wanted to tell you something.”
“And what’s that, Stephanie?” sighed Haley.
“It’s Wenna!” protested Wenna.
Carna made her vocal appearance on the phone a moment later.
“Let’s put this in terms you hemorrhoids can understand,” said the girl. “We have enacted our bloody vengeance upon thee tonight!”
“Quit the threats, Macy,” warned Mary, the vice president. “You’re lucky we haven’t reported you for harassment.”
Like Jenny, Mary was also a redhead, but her hair was in a short bob rather than in a ponytail. Her gown was a light purple with sparkling white sequins on it. She wore a matching plastic crown of silver and sequins as well, but that was neither here nor there right now.
“I’m Carna now,” said Carna. “You might be able to get under Wenna’s skin with that, but I know my true name is Carna, so you can’t bully me.”
“Bully you!” asked Mary in clear offense. “We’re not the bullies; you are!”
“Ha!” replied Carna. “You can’t lie to us. Tell her, Sin.”
Saffron winced at the sound of Sin’s voice. She really didn’t want to get caught up in these girls’ petty war.
“Weeeee got revenge on you!” said Sin in a singsong chant.
“And how is that?” asked Hope.
Hope was a little pudgy. She was the dirty blonde of the group. Her gown was all forest green with a crown of leaves on her head, but unlike Allie, Hope’s crown was woven of actual leaves, though what kind, Saffron did not know.
Anyway, Hatea jumped into the conversation next.
“Weeeee stole your pleeeedge!” chanted the Goth girl.
“What!” said Haley as she leaned forward in her seat and stared up at Saffron in open shock.
“That’s right, bitches!” came Wenna’s voice. “Saffy is now one of us! Her name is now Vengencia, Princess of Shadows!”
“Saffron, how could you!” said Haley.
The young woman genuinely looked hurt, and this made Saffron…well…That look actually hurt.
Maybe being with the Goth girls had been a serious mistake, but they were kind of fun in their own way. Couldn’t she just be a member of both groups?
“We gave her a holographic show over here,” said Ebony over the phone. “She’s had the full royal treatment. She’s one of us now!”
“Yeah, Wenna spared no expense to lure her over to our dark coven,” said Carna. “We had holograms and even a pentagram. Let’s see you prancy bitches match that!”
Holograms. Well, that explained the big blue flaming wolf guy. Saffron mentally smacked herself over that one. She should have known better than to get all jittery over nonsense.
Whatever the case, the chapter leader of Beta Theta Sigma was not happy, especially with Saffron, but Saffron had already started this mess, so she was just going to have to apologize after all of this nonsense was said and done.
Haley closed her blue eyes, leaned her head back, breathed in for a second, and then exhaled that breath. She lowered her head, scrunched up her lips, and then stared directly at the phone.
“If I have told you once, I have told you a thousand times, Stephanies,” said the blonde. “I did not steal Dawson. I did…not…steal him…You two were done…You broke up with him, remember? I didn’t steal him!”
“You bewitched him with your…your pussy power!” hissed Wenna. “That’s what you did! You should have kept your hands off him!”
Ooooooh…Thaaaaat’s what this was about. This was over a man. Saffron rolled her eyes as she let forth her own little sigh.
Leave it to her bad luck to be caught in an intra-collegiate war started over the male version of Helen of Troy.
“And you should have called me back, Gabrielle!” came Malicia’s accusing voice from over the phone. “You can’t just kiss me like that and leave me hanging!”
The princesses in the chapter room all turned their gazes upon Gabrielle. The young Hispanic-American woman in the brown and white dress and golden plastic circlet sank down a little in her seat as she lowered her gaze toward the plate of food in front of her.
“Not now, Malicia,” said Wenna. “I need to get to the juicy part of our revenge.”
“There’s a juicy part?” asked Malicia.
Wenna ignored her.
“You see, what my loyal Goth minions think was a holographic light show was actually the real deal,” explained the crazy young woman.
“Wait, what?” asked Saffron. “What are you talking about, Wenna?”
“Yeah, what are you talking about?” asked Hatea.
“The book I have really is a cursed book of black magic,” said Wenna. “We really did summon a demon, but more than that, we summoned a demon prince. It’s only fitting for our revenge against a pack of little bitches like Beta Theta Sigma, a rotten banana bunch of little bitch princesses waiting for their princes. Well, I have one for you, and you’re not going to like him.”
“We’re not the bitches, you…you bitch,” replied Haley. “You’re the bitch, bitch.”
“Oh, real creative, Haley,” said Wenna. “Not that it matters. You won’t be around for much longer.”
“What are you talking about, you psycho?” asked Haley.
“What are you talking about, Wenna?” asked Ebony. “We stole their pledge. That is our revenge.”
“Oh, my poor stupid coven,” said Wenna. “All of you have participated in a real ritual. All of you are servants of Garm now, but our dearest new pledge, Vengencia, is his bride. It is she who shall be enacting our real revenge upon the princess bitches tonight. It is she who will change and tear apart our enemies.”
Saffron shook her head in confusion. This Goth girl was all kinds of crazy.
“Change?” asked Saffron. “Change like how? What are you talking about, Wenna? I hate to repeat Ebony, but you’re not making any sense.”
“You’re going to change into a beast and kill them all, Vengencia,” explained Wenna. “Didn’t you see our dark master, Garm, point to you? He’s chosen you as his vessel of hunger and rage.”
“Do you actually want to join these psychos, Saffy?” asked Haley. “Stephanie has enough screws loose to start a hardware store.”
“I’m beginning to think that…that you reeeaaally need therapy, Wenna,” said Saffron. “I think you need help.”
“Oh, no, dear Vengencia,” chuckled Wenna. “If anything, I’m just jealous. You get to be the vessel and the bride of Garm. I really didn’t know if the ritual was going to work, so when it actually did, I nearly jizzed my panties. I didn’t know Garm was going to choose you, though, but as our newest member, I guess that works out.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for almost a year now, so now is the time to quit talking and to start tearing these little bitches apart. My only regret is that I won’t get to eat Haley’s face like I’ve fantasized about.”
The young and crazy leader of the Goths then said…something…in Latin, but Saffron didn’t know Latin, so what was said was a mystery.
“Wenna, I really think you need hel—” started Saffron, but she didn’t get to finish that particular statement.
The pain started up a moment later. Saffron dropped Sin’s phone as the pain struck, and the phone shut off as it struck the chapter house floor, the screen cracking at the same time.
The others must have seen the expression upon her face because they stood up from their seated positions and came to her side.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mary. “Are you okay?”
Saffron winced as she shook her head no. The pentagram/amulet she was wearing was burning, super-hot, and try as she might to remove it, she could not. It simply would not budge from her skin.
“I can’t get it off!” she finally shrieked out. “Oh, it’s burning me! It’s hot, and I can’t get it off!”
“Hold still and let me help you,” said Jenny calmly.
The tall and skinny redhead reached for the black chain of the amulet, but the moment her fingers touched it, she cried out and snapped her hand back as if she had just touched a live wire.
“Oh, my God!” said the young woman. “It really is hot!”
Saffron started to cry. She couldn’t help it. The amulet, the black metal, was truly burning her, yet there was no mark on her fair skin to show for it.
“What?” asked Mary in visible confusion.
The other redhead reached forward to remove the amulet, but she screeched out in much the same way Saffron had.
“What the fu—!” began Mary, but Haley cut her off.
“What’s going on!” cried Haley.
She rushed to Saffron’s side and touched the chain of the amulet herself. She yanked her hand back as she grimaced…It was clear Saffron was not imagining the absolute searing pain she was now experiencing.
“What is that thing!” cried Haley. “What’s going on!”
“It’s pure torture!” screeched Saffron. “Oh, it’s killing me!”
The other girls grouped around her as Saffron held up her trembling hands and screamed.
Whatever Wenna had done?…It was working.
The amulet burst into blue flame right between Saffron’s small breasts. The flame engulfed the whole piece of strange jewelry, chain and all, and every other girl in the room gasped and backed away.
Saffron continued to scream as she dropped to her knees. The amulet and chain pulled into her, disappearing into her skin and into her body, melding with her, within her, into her soul, and then…
The pain suddenly vanished.
Saffron rested upon her hands and knees as she shook her head no.
“Wh-What…What was that?” asked Allie.
The young woman was clearly rattled.
“I don’t know,” breathed out Saffron. “Wenna gave me that amulet. It came out of the big pentagram they have drawn out on the floor over there. There was nothing there at first, and then it just appeared…I think Wenna was telling the truth. She actually did cast some kind of spell or curse.”
“That’s crazy,” said Jenny. “If I hadn’t touched it myself and seen what just happened, I’d say you were full of sh—”
She did not get to finish that statement, mainly because Saffron’s scream cut her off.
Saffron clutched her head as the thing inside her tried to take over. It was in her mind, in her body, and in her soul, trying to claw its way out, trying to take what was rightfully hers. It filled her from the bottom to the top with rage, lust, and hunger. She could feel all of it, all of it at once, clawing at her.
Maybe this was what testosterone felt like…
There was just one problem.
Saffron had not agreed to this, and something like this could only be given…It could not be taken.
She knew this, because the evil spirit invading her knew this. She could feel this demon prince, Garm, clawing at her will, trying to take over, but he could not complete that part of the curse.
The girls around her backed away as Saffron screamed from the internal agony. It was a spiritual agony, but it hurt worse than anything she could possibly imagine. This thing inside her was so old that “ancient” simply did not suffice, and it did not play nice.
And then it was over. The spirit calmed down or played possum or something…It was being tricky, but she knew it was there. She also knew that she was no match for it, but it had to play by the rules, though she was not sure what those rules were.
Of course, this only lasted for a few seconds.
She panted as her whole body trembled. She suspected now—she didn’t exactly know—but she suspected what it was up to, so Wenna had not been lying about this particular part of her own revenge.
“It’s looking to take over!” she cried out. “You have to get out of here! You have to run!”
“Wh-What?” asked Haley.
“What is this!” asked Gabrielle.
“Wenna made sure to target all of you!” moaned Saffron. “It wants to use me to get to you! It wants carnage! You’ve got to get out of here now before I change!”
But she was wrong. That had not been Garm’s plan.
Saffron’s blue eyes went wide as the full plan came to light.
“Oh…no…” she breathed out.
This being inside her was so old that it had existed before the dawn of time, so trying to outwit it was like trying to get a man to ask for directions.
“What’s the matter!” asked Jenny. “What’s wrong! What should we do!…Haley, we need to call 911 and get the police, an ambulance, or some…Ow…OW!”
The tall and skinny redhead held up her left hand and stared down at it in shock.
“What’s wron…Oh, fu—!” started Haley.
The young blonde held up her left hand, and Saffron looked upon it in horror…
There was a large and bloody pentagram etched into Haley’s palm, scratched in as if by some giant claw.
The other girls cried out in pain as they all stared in shock down at their left hands. All of them held the mark of the beast now, so it was no surprise when the sheer chaos hit.
“No…No, no, no, no!” cried out Saffron as she stood and witnessed the growing horror.
The loud beat of the chapter’s sound system suddenly came to life. The girls of Beta Theta Sigma were temporarily distracted from their own pain as the song “Wolf Like Me” by TV on the Radio began to play.
Saffron knew that song because her dad listened to it.
Haley’s panic was clearly visible as she asked Saffron a question, though that question was filled with the hurt of betrayal, and that feeling of being a…a betrayer…was far worse than anything Garm could do to Saffron.
“Saffron?” asked the blonde leader of BTS. “What is this?”
Saffron could only choke out a sad apology.
“I am so…so sorry…” she said.
Haley grimaced as she squeezed her own blue eyes shut. She leaned back and clutched both sides of her head as her face twisted in obvious pain.
“Oh, it’s like needles going through the backs of my eyeballs!” she cried out. “Oh, it hurts like a bitch! Oh! OH, GOD!”
Her blue eyes popped open a second later, but now they were yellow, a golden, animal yellow. The underside of her nose turned black as small bumps formed over the delicate skin down there.
But her agony was merely the first of more pain to come.
“Oh, my knees!” screeched Jenny. “Oh, my GOD, THAT HURTS!”
The skinny redhead’s knees broke and bent backwards so that both of her legs looked as if they had been kicked in. She leaned upon the table in front of her, but Saffron could hear the unfortunate girl’s bones breaking and reforming, even over the thumping music.
Allie whined as she dropped to her own knees. She opened her mouth wide as large fangs sharpened out of her original teeth, the former ivory pegs transforming into ravaging instruments of death. Her tongue snaked up and out of her mouth, but it was ridiculously long and extended, plopping across face to where it covered her left eye, licking all the way up to her forehead. Her dark eyes were rolled upwards and nearly in the whites, so Saffron knew the pain had to be excruciating.
Mary held up both hands, her lips forming a large ‘O’ as her hands lengthened at the palms and reddish fur erupted across the backs of those twisted hands.
“Ah…Ah…Ah…AH…AAAAAAAAHHHHH!” screamed the poor redhead as she finally released vocality from the pain, much like the release of steam from a pressure valve.
Saffron could hear the bones in Mary’s hands, wrists, and arms cracking.
Gabrielle dropped to her hands and knees as her spine warped. She gritted her new fangs as black fur grew in and around her cheeks and temples.
“Madre de Dios!” screeched the young woman. “I wasn’t the best Catholic, but I don’t deserve this!…I can’t help it if I like other girlrrreagggles…!”
Her voice sputtered out as her fangs fully came out and her jaw began to extend away from her face.
“No, no, no!” cried out Benji. “I’m not a dog! I’m not a dog! I wasn’t named after the movies! I was named after my Uncle Benjamin!”
The distinct shape of a long tail pushed out the back of little Benji’s dress as she dropped to her knees. Her hands lengthened at the palms as her legs broke backwards at the knees, and she raised her head as her agonized face became covered with brown fur.
Saffron turned her horrified attention upon Gracie.
“This isn’t fair!” choked out Gracie. “I just wanted a fun Halloween! This is what I get for hanging out with white girlgrrgrlllg…!”
Gracie bent over a table as her dark skin coated over with black fur. Her expression was a cast of pain, a mask of sharp fangs and an expanding nose. Her face began to elongate into a snout, and drooling saliva began to drip from her morphing lips.
“Oh, my tits are burning!” exclaimed Hope. “Oh, they’re burning up!”
The pudgy dirty blonde ripped open the front of her forest-green gown. Her large bare breasts dropped out like small hanging melons, and Saffron watched in speechless horror as those large breasts sucked themselves into Hope’s own body. Dirty-blond fur pushed out from her now flat chest, covering what had just been exposed bare skin a few seconds ago.
The screams grew louder, yet the music continued to play.
Saffron could not move. She simply looked on in helpless trembling horror as the transformations completed. It was clear now why Garm had targeted these girls, and it was also clear that the city of Corgan was now deep in the manure this Halloween night.
*****
Wenna smiled as she listened to the screaming coming from the Beta Theta Sigma chapter building. She turned and looked upon her little coven, but their faces held a lot less enthusiasm over the matter.
They were all standing on the grass outside of the rented community building, across the street from the BTS building, all standing underneath the street lights.
“Wh-What’s happening to them?” stammered Ebony.
“Their just deserts,” said Wenna happily. “It sounds like our Vengencia is playing ‘Tear Off the Body Parts.’ What a fun game that has to be. I hope she eats Haley’s face.”
“Are…Are they dying?” asked Carna.
Wenna turned toward her and grinned.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“This…This isn’t right,” said Hatea in visible horror. “This isn’t right, Wenna!”
“And?” asked Wenna. “What are you going to do about it? Are you going to go over there and get ripped into itty-bitty pieces, or are you going to call the police so they can get ripped into itty-bitty pieces?”
“You…You killed them…” said Ebony in audible shock. “You’re a murderer!”
“I didn’t kill them,” said Wenna firmly. “Vengencia is killing them. That’s not murder, Ebony. That’s called justice.”
“This is…This is way worse than anything you’ve ever done before, Wenna,” said Sin. “This is…I can’t be a part of this.”
“You killed them?” asked Malicia. “Even Gabrielle?…Even Gabrielle, Wenna?”
The young woman began to cry. It was truly a pathetic thing to watch.
“Stop pining over her, you tuna licker,” said Wenna with a roll of her eyes. “It’s not like there isn’t other nasty snatch out there you can eat.”
Malicia let out a short, choked whine and then ran back into the community-center building.
“That was cruel, Wenna,” said Sin. “You’re cruel.”
Wenna shook her head in disbelief. That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true at all.
“What?” she asked in notable offense. “What!…Weeee have real magic now! Our enemies are crushed, and we can now carve out a new kingdom with this power!…And all you have to say is ‘I’m cruel’?…No, no, it’s cruel to keep Malicia from denying what she really is. I simply told her the truth. She needs to toughen up anyway, grow some thicker skin. The world is cruel, Sin. The world is cruel, not me.”
“Stop,” ordered Ebony. “It’s quiet over there.”
“What?” asked Wenna.
“She said shut up!” hissed Hatea. “They’ve stopped screaming!”
A loud, unearthly, metallic howl broke the silence a second later.
“Everybody back inside!” ordered Wenna. “Now!”
They all hustled back inside, but there was one thing Wenna had forgotten to do, and apparently, so had everyone else.
“Did anyone lock the door?” she asked.
The blank stares from her coven answered that question.
“Idiots!” hissed Wenna.
She jogged to the door in order to lock it, but the door swung wide open before she could get there.
Standing in front of her, a look of fury on the new pledge’s pretty face, was Vengencia. The girl looked murderous, yet she was not a beast, nor did she have a speck of blood on her.
“You!” accused Vengencia with a vicious tone.
Wenna backed away from her. As angry as Vengencia happened to be, it was clear something was wrong, because she was most certainly not a savage beast.
“Wha…What the…?” asked Wenna in pure stunned shock. “Why aren’t you…? No!…I know the ritual worked! I know it did!”
“You summoned a demon, you stupid bitch,” scowled Vengencia. “Of course, it worked! Worse yet, you summoned a demon prince, and now that prince is inside me.”
“What?” asked Wenna. “What? I don’t…What?”
“I’m the queen of this pack now,” said Vengencia with a cold frown. “Your ‘Princess of Shadows’ isn’t a princess anymore.”
She walked all the way up to Wenna, and Wenna cried out as she was backhanded across her right cheek. She fell to her butt on the community-center building tiles, and she held her injured cheek a moment later.
She was scared now, because that blow had actually hurt. Vengencia was at least as strong as a man. In fact, Wenna knew her cheek was already bruising.
She looked up and could see a cold blue fire burning in Vengencia’s eyes.
“Let me show you what your spell actually did,” said the now rebellious new pledge.
Wenna shook as the monstrous wolves padded in through the open door. These things were huge, easily bigger than any regular wolf, and worse yet, they looked particularly feral and vicious. The golden eyes were especially disturbing.
These monsters padded in on silent paws, and Wenna could count them immediately…
There were eight of them.
The other girls shrieked and cowered at the back of the room, but Wenna knew that wasn’t going to do them any good. The monster wolves were between them and the door.
This was…This was the end.
Wenna nearly lost control of her bowels, but she kept that in check. It was clear in a flashfire of understanding what had happened to the Beta Theta Sigma bitches, very clear…They had been turned into real bitches, and somehow and in some way, Vengencia was controlling them. Even worse, there was very little in the way of possible escape from this situation, so the only thing left to do was…beg.
“D-Don’t kill me!” pleaded Wenna. “D-Don’t! I-I’m the victim here! I’m the victim!”
“Stealing a boyfriend doesn’t justify mass murder,” scowled Vengencia. “Not to mention that you’d already broken up with him…Plus, you tried to use me to do your dirty work. Now I’m cursed by a demon prince, and so are the BTS girls. They’ve done nothing to deserve that…Do you understand!”
Wenna reflexively nodded her head. She was in deep now, and she knew it.
“It’s time for some punishment,” said Vengencia.
She raised her right hand and made a motion with it, and four of the monstrous wolves charged forward, one with blonde fur, one with black fur, and two with red fur.
“No!” cried out Wenna in absolute terror. “NOOOOO!”
Wenna screamed as the fangs sank into her: right leg, left leg, left arm, right arm. The four wolves savaged and ravaged, and then the blood came in four fountains as her limbs were torn from her body.
Hot urine filled her underwear as the pain overwhelmed her and the darkness of death crept in from all sides. She opened her mouth to scream one last time, but a heat picked up inside her as she burst into blue flames.
She screamed and screamed as her limbless body burned away, the agony unbearable, and then…
There was no fire. She still had her arms and legs. She had a large wet stain in her black pants between her legs, but other than that, she was physically fine.
“That is what will happen to you if I give the command,” warned Vengencia. “Garm wants me to slaughter you, slaughter all of you…You’ll go straight to Hell, and from there, he’ll devour you forever, over and over and over again. Is that what you want?”
Wenna shook her head no. She was crying now, sobbing, though her brain could barely register that.
“The other girls saw your death too,” said Vengencia. “You all had the same vision…And don’t feel bad about pissing your pants like a little baby. Hatea also pissed her pants, and she wasn’t even on the receiving end of that little nightmare.
“For what you’ve done to me and these girls…you will be punished in turn.”
“W-Wait!” cried out Malicia. “E-Even me! What did I do!”
Vengencia turned her flashing blue eyes upon Malicia as the other Goths looked at her as well.
“You participated in the ritual, Malicia,” sighed Vengencia. “I can resist Garm, but there are some things I have no control over. You’re going to receive punishment whether you like it or not.”
“Oh…Okay,” said Malicia with a sad expression. “I’m just glad Gabrielle is still alive.”
Vengencia held her forehead in her right hand, muttered something, and shook her head. She lowered her hand and looked Wenna straight in the eyes.
“You’re the actual bitch here, Wenna,” she said unhappily. “It’s time you became on the outside what you are on the inside.”
“Wh-What?” wept Wenna.
She was already on the floor sobbing. She had begged for her life like a little bitch, and she had even pissed her pants in front of everyone. What did this woman want from her! Hadn’t she been humiliated enough?
Wenna tensed up as new pain struck her. She lifted up her left hand and saw the bloody pentagram etched into her skin, and now she knew exactly what was coming.
“No!” she begged. “No, wait! Not this! Not this!”
She cried out as her bones began to twist and warp. The other Goth girls shrieked and screamed and cried out as well, though Wenna did hear one last thing that made her shake her head in frustration…
“Oh, now I get to be with Gabrielle!” groaned Malicia. “I was wondering how this relationship was going to work ou—grglllggrrrr….”
Wenna stared up in helpless, agonizing horror at Vengencia as the young woman slipped out of her gown and removed her black crown. She removed all articles of clothing and then dropped to all fours.
The young woman’s back cracked and snapped as her spine lengthened, a grimacing look of sheer pain on her pretty face.
“Oh, you can really feel it in the spine,” moaned Vengencia. “Oh, that is a serious burning sensation in my chest!…Oh, that really frickin’ hurts!…No wonder everyone was screaming…”
Wenna felt like needles were penetrating the backs of her eyeballs. She screamed again as she shut her eyes, but by the time she opened them, the whole world had turned red.
*****
Saffron awoke to the gentle touch of dawn’s light. She sat up as the morning chill hit her, but strangely enough, she didn’t feel as cold as she should have. For one thing, she was buck naked, and for another, her face and bare chest were covered, covered, with blood and gore, dried blood and chunks of…who knew what.
It was quiet out here in the woods, wherever this was, but after a bit of concentrating, she knew exactly where they were, though how she knew she could only chalk up to some kind of instinctive knowledge granted to her through Garm.
They were all north of Corgan, up in the forested area of the state, but what that deciduous forest’s name was, she had no idea. The trees around her had shed most of their leaves, though the autumn colors were particularly beautiful this time of year.
She had instinctively thought “they” instead of “she” because of one very important detail…all fourteen other girls were here with her, all in the same state of nudity, blood, and gore, though they were all just now rustling and sitting up as she had just done.
Last night’s memories had been…fuzzy…Oh, boy…
Nearby, very nearby, was Haley and Wenna. The two girls were a mere foot away from her, one on each side, and in fact, the whole group had slept close together in what looked like a circle.
Saffron picked herself up and shook her head a couple of times. One quick look around, however, revealed the bloody and mostly skeletal remains of four deer, one buck and three does…
Well, that answered the question of their state of mess.
“What’s going on!” came Benji’s voice, that voice in a state of audible panic.
“Where are we!” came Ebony’s voice in a state of similar panic.
Everyone stood up and started a free-for-all of questions and hysteria that was honestly deafening to Saffron’s new sensitive hearing.
Saffron put two fingers in her mouth and whistled once, and the other girls immediately silenced their temporary fear and anxiety.
“Everybody, calm down!” she yelled out. “We’ll figure this out, but we all need to remain calm!”
She turned and eyed both Haley and Wenna. The two looked confused at first, then they looked upon each other, and then the glowering began.
“This is all your fault!” hissed Haley. “If you hadn’t cast that spell, we wouldn’t even be out in the ass end of nowhere!…Not to mention that you tried to kill me…kill all of us.”
“My fault!” hissed back Wenna. “You’re the one who stole my boyfriend! You ruined my life! You ruined my future! None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you!”
“Hey!” warned Saffron as she pointed first at Wenna and then at Haley. “No fighting!…I mean it.”
Both leaders of their respective orders crossed their arms over their bare, gore-covered breasts and frowned so deeply that Saffron honestly thought that their lips were going to fall off.
“Dating your ex-boyfriend is not grounds for mass murder, Wenna!” warned Saffron. “It’s also not grounds for summoning a demon! You know what is grounds for summoning a demon?…Nothing! That’s what!”
The young woman being yelled at simply stared down at her dirty bare feet and legs.
“We’d only been broken up for a week,” said Wenna quietly.
A record player scratched to a halt in Saffron’s mind. She turned her glare upon Haley and shook her head once.
“You went after her ex after a week?” she asked in her best accusatory tone.
“They were broken up!” said Haley. “They weren’t together anymore!”
“I…” began Saffron.
She lowered her gaze, raised her right hand to her forehead, shook her head once, lowered her right hand, and stared up at Haley.
“That is a really…really dick move, Haley,” frowned Saffron. “It doesn’t justify what Wenna tried to do, but I can understand now why she’s so upset…
“You should wait a few months before asking out someone like that. Breakups happen all the time side-by-side with make-ups. It’s how relationships work around here.”
Haley screwed up her lips, leaned her head to the left, and stared off into the distance.
“Hang on a second,” said Saffron.
She turned and addressed the milling group of girls around them.
“We have to get ready to march out of here, everyone!” she said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “We can’t have somebody walking in on fifteen college girls who look like this! All of us are in our early twenties, all of us as naked as mole rats, all of us are covered in blood and gore with enough raw venison in our stomachs to make a butcher faint!
“We’ve got to get moving soon, but I have an issue that has to be addressed, so talk and socialize amongst yourselves! Try to ignore the fact that we’re all naked and gross.”
She turned her attention back upon her two “problem children.”
“Who died and made you the grand poobah?” sneered Wenna.
“Yeah,” frowned Haley. “You can’t just judge me like that, Saffy. You turned traitor on us anyway.”
Oh, this was rich. This was really, really rich…
Okay, time to crack the whip.
“First of all, I actually wanted to be a member of both groups, not just Wenna’s,” said Saffron. “It was never in the bylaws that I couldn’t be, and I’d already decided to be in Beta Theta Sigma, so no, I didn’t betray anybody.”
She was a little angry, but that was okay. She needed to get her point across.
Of course, her attention was diverted to a conversation going on off to her left.
“Did anybody else feel inappropriately horny last night?” asked Mary. “When we were running through the streets and out into the woods, I got so worked up I wanted to hump a tree.”
“I know!” said Carna. “That was really effed up! I haven’t been that horny since I saw Ryan Gosling without his shirt.”
“Oh, I love him,” said Hatea. “But being horny wasn’t as bad as being so angry. I just felt…I felt like tearing apart the first person I came across.”
“Yeah…” nodded Benji. “I kept marking trees…”
The other girls stared down at the smallest member of both groups.
“What?” asked Benji. “Didn’t anybody else do that?”
The other girls shook their heads no.
“Well, I don’t know about you,” said Gracie, “but I was starving last night. Sinking my teeth…uhhh…fangs into that deer over there was like…the best dish I’ve ever had in my entire life.”
“I know, right?” asked Hope.
“Yeah…Yeah, it was like I was all three together,” said Allie. “I was hungry, horny, and mad as hell for no reason. It was like I wanted to find a man, jump him, knock him down, ride him like a rodeo bull, tear him apart into little chunks, and then eat him.”
“Yeah…Yeah, that’s what I felt,” said Sin. “I don’t know why we didn’t do it, though…I remember following Saffron out here, and then we hunted down those deer, but I don’t know why we didn’t, like, eat anyone.”
“It’s because I didn’t let you!” replied Saffron.
She turned her attention back upon Haley and Wenna.
“Now I am going to make this plain and simple,” she said firmly. “Both of you are going to get along from now on. You have to, because we are all cursed by Garm, and that really puts a damper on trying to live peacefully in society at large.
“So let me spell it out…Why are you going to play nice? Because I freakin’ said so, and I am both the Bride of Garm and the Queen of the Pack, and you have to do what I say.
“Do you understand?…Say, “Yes, my queen,” if you do.”
“Yes, my queen,” said both Haley and Wenna at the same time.
Both of them stared at each other with a look of both confusion and slight fear on their gore-stained faces.
“I’m the one with the power now, Wenna,” said Saffron. “So we are going to get back to the BTS chapter house, clean up in the shower there, and somehow find some clothes.”
“I can get us clothes delivered,” said Haley. “I can at least do that.”
“You, Wenna, are going to go get that book you used to curse us and bring it to me,” ordered Saffron. “That book is dangerous…No, scratch that…That book is catastrophic, but we can’t lose it, and we can’t destroy it. We have to find a way to break this curse, and that book may be the only way to do that.”
Wenna frowned, rolled her eyes, and then she sighed.
“I…I don’t…Yeah, you’re right,” she said unhappily. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life cursed like this. I don’t want to change into a wild animal…I’ll be greeting the other girls by sniffing their buttholes.”
“Did we do that?” asked Haley. “Last night is kind of fuzzy…I hope I didn’t do that…Ugh, nevermind…Saffy’s right…We need to get out of here…I really need a shower.”
“Ditto,” said Wenna.
Their discussion was hijacked yet again as Saffron caught wind of another conversation, this one off to her right.
“Thank you for sharing that buck’s head with me last night,” said Malicia.
The girl sounded unusually happy, but there was no mystery as to why.
“I remember you giving me that eyeball, even though you wanted it for yourself,” said Malicia.
“I…I remember you saying you were happy that I was alive,” replied Gabrielle. “I just…I felt like I needed to show you that…that I appreciated that.”
Saffron raised her open left hand up to her face and shook her head a couple of times.
“Seriously?” she asked. “They have to do this now? Now! Now while we’re all stranded buck naked out in the woods looking like this!”
“It’s okay,” said Haley softly. “We’ve known about Gabrielle for a while now, though she’s tried to keep it close to her chest. I mean, except for Stephanie, I thought everybody in the GSNCU was a lesbian. I guess it was just Terra.”
“My name is Wenna!” scowled Wenna. “And her name is Malicia! Show some respect, you walking clit! Address her by her true name!”
“I am, you psycho!” scowled Haley in return. “I can’t help it if you’re off your medication, Stephanie!”
They growled at each other. They literally growled at each other like wild dogs, sounds that honestly should not have come forth from young twenty-something-year-old college girls’ throats.
“Enough, you two!” barked Saffron. “Keep it up, and I’ll have you sniffing each other’s butts!…That seems to be the only fear that gets through to both of you.”
Both girls “hmphed!” and stared off into opposite directions, heads held high, eyes narrowed, lower lips out, their animosity towards each other simply radiating off of them like a thermonuclear reaction.
“I don’t think you understand how deep in the manure we are right now,” said Saffron. “The first thing we need to do is get back to the chapter house and clean up. Thankfully, I know the way back.
“But we need to start looking at the bigger picture. We have a full moon coming at the end of the month…It’s on the 24th! Do you understand what that means? We need to pull together some resources so that we can all be locked up…together…to…gether…so that no one in Corgan gets eaten.
“These are our immediate tasks. Understand?”
“Yes, my queen,” said both girls at the same time.
“Why does that keep happening?” asked Haley. “I don’t want to call you ‘queen.’ If anything, I should be the queen.”
“No, I should be the queen,” frowned Wenna.
“No, I am the queen,” said Saffron. “That’s why it keeps happening, because neither of you two is now married to a demon prince, who…by the way…has made his vacation home outside of Hell inside my soul!
“So, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and yes, you two little bitches now have to do everything I say because of Garm’s curse!…Capiche!”
“Yes, my queen,” said both girls dryly.
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” frowned Wenna.
“I don’t think you understand…at all…how serious this is, Wenna!” exclaimed Saffron. “Because we’re now werewolves, we don’t age at the same rate as everyone else. Aging is now really, reeaally slowed down for us, so I think it’s going to be a problem when you turn one hundred and still look like you’re thirty-five!”
Wenna gave her a look of pure confusion.
“I didn’t know that,” she said quietly. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’m possessed by Garm, you stupid bitch!” growled Saffron.
This time she did growl.
Boy, that whole “bitch” thing was a little literal now.
“I can sometimes sense things Garm knows,” frowned Saffron. “It doesn’t matter, because now all fifteen of us have to work together to figure this thing out. If the curse can’t be lifted, then we’ll have to set up things later on so that people don’t find out what we are…Am I getting through to you, Wenna?”
“Yes, my queen,” frowned Wenna.
“Haley?” asked Saffron.
“Yes, my queen,” said Haley in an unhappy tone.
“Okay, because I’m now your queen, I’m not just going to order you to ‘get along’ and think everything is all right,” explained Saffron. “We have to have a solution for this rivalry between you two, and I have the answer.”
“Rivalry!” huffed out Wenna. “She stole my boyfriend!”
“You tried to murder me!” huffed out Haley in equal huffiness.
“Silence!” ordered Saffron.
Her two problem children immediately clammed up.
Saffron motioned toward the other girls as an example. They were all milling around and engaging socially, all of them, the two groups combined, and nobody seemed to have a problem with that.
“Look at them!” said Saffron. “They’re actually getting along!…And that’s in spite of the whole nudity and gore in the woods thing…
“God, it’s like we stepped out of that painting of all the naked witches dancing around a bonfire…
“My point is, we are going to get along, but you two need a solution, so I’m giving you one, and you’d better be happy with it.”
“And what’s that?” pouted Wenna.
“We’re going to go find this Dawson guy,” explained Saffron. “We’re going to find this Dawson guy, bite him, spread the curse to him, thereby making him one of us, and then you two can share him…share him. He’ll have to do whatever I say anyway.”
The two rival leaders turned and stared at one another, their eyes locked in some strange form of understanding, and then they both nodded “yes” in return.
“Yeah, okay,” nodded Haley. “I can do that.”
“Yeah, that’s fair,” agreed Wenna.
The Mark of the Princess Copyright © 2026 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
Note: The image for this story was generated via artificial intelligence courtesy of OpenAI.
