Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 5 (12 page)

Whether it was because of
their gender or no, their wardrobes differed dramatically. Shayde
wore sleeveless cropped tops or halters and mini skirts pulled down
low to reveal her setting sun tattoo. She always wore high heels,
no matter what the weather was like. Whisper dressed a bit more
conservative but she too wore cropped tops or low cut shirts. She
also wore low rise jeans or shorts. Sometimes when the group went
out, she would take a hoodie with her. Just so she could have an
excuse to pull the hood up and look intimidating or so she told
Aradia. Thorne wore sleeveless muscle shirts and jeans in addition
to combat boots. Eventide wore loose fitting t-shirts, long leather
jackets, and pants made out of different material. His footwear
were always sneakers not necessarily the same brand but sneakers
nevertheless. There was one thing, however, about the group's
wardrobe that made it almost obvious that they were all friends.
The color of their clothing was always a deep smoldering
black.

Can't say I disagree with
such a fashion rule
, Aradia thought to
herself,
after all belonging to a clan
called NightShadow...well they can't exactly wear light blue now
can they?

This particular night
Shayde, Whisper, Thorne, and Eventide were hanging
with Aradia and Saul at a club called Despair and loud music blared
from the speakers. A small plate of shot glasses sat in the center
of the table. Aradia picked up the bottle again and tried to pour
more of it into the glasses. Of course, by now she was so drunk she
kept missing the glasses and spilling all over the
table.

"Whoa there!" Saul said
while laughing. "Take it easy princess!"

"Oh but I am not a
princess," Aradia shrilled, "I am the Witch Queen!"

Saul smirked. "Well in that
case your majesty, how about trying something a bit
harder?"

"What do you
mean?"

His smirk grew wider and
Saul reached into his pocket. He then slowly pulled out a small
packet and dangled it in the air for all to see.

Thorne gasped. "Dude! Is
that..."

"Uh huh!" Saul said with a
deep nod.

The group now looked like a
bunch of hungry children being offered free candy.

Aradia, however, was
confused. "What's that?"

They all turned to look at
her in shock.

"Dude!" Eventide remarked,
"don't you know what this is?"

He then snatched the packet
out of Saul's hand and held it inches in front of her
face.

"No," Aradia stated
sarcastically, "that is kind of why I am asking!"

Eventide laughed as he
opened the packet and the pills spilled out onto the table. "This
stuff," he explained, "is the newest thing to hit the streets. It's
called Rage."

"It's cheap, it's good, and
you can have it any way you want." Thorne then reached out and
snatched two of the pills.

"Meaning?" asked
Aradia.

"Meaning," Shayde
interrupted as she watched Eventide whip out a few dollar bills and
lie them flat on the table. "You can smoke it, snort it, and inject
it anytime and anywhere. It will make you so high you would think
you were flying."

As if to reenforce how
versatile it is, Thorne pressed his thumb down on to the pills and
started crushing them. Eventide was already rolling up a dollar
bill and sticking it up his nose. Whisper bopped Eventide on the
head almost making him snort the whole dollar down.

"Hey," Whisper snapped,
"don't you forget about me!"

Eventide grumbled and handed
over one of the pills. Thorne laughed and started singing under his
breath, Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds.

Aradia, however, was now
stiff as a board. "Are we talking about drugs here?"

"No, we are talking about
bath soaps," Whisper remarked sarcastically as she powdered the
pill with the back of a spoon. She then mixed it with water in the
spoon, and heated it with a lighter. She then pulled out a long
rubber band and wrapped it around her arm.

"I thought you were taking
the pill," Shayde said.

"I am," said Whisper as she
reached into her coat and pulled out a syringe. "It's just I like
to inject and to swallow at the same time. It makes the high
stronger and last longer."

Shayde grabbed the remaining
pills left on the table and popped them in to her mouth. She had
grabbed a beer on a nearby table and swigged it down. After Whisper
injected, Shayde wobbled over to her with the beer in her hand.
Soon the look of euphoria came over Whisper's expression and it was
some difficulty that she was able to find her own pill and pop it
into her mouth. Wrapping her arm around Whisper's neck and letting
her lean her head against her shoulders, Shayde raised the beer to
Whisper's lips. Whisper wasn't even surprised, she just tipped her
head and gulped down the pill. Thorne had already wrapped the
crushed pills into a wad of paper and pulled out a lighter. White
smoke then began to curl from his nose and mouth. Eventide eagerly
looked at his own selection of crushed pills and smiled. The rolled
up bill still in his nose, he bent down and inhaled.

Saul was sitting in between
Eventide and Aradia. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed how
awkward Aradia looked. "Don't worry Aradia," he assured her as he
pulled out another packet, "I haven't forgotten about
you."

"Oh no really that's
not..."

"Aw c'mon," Saul whined as
he opened the packet. He took out one pill and grabbed a full shot
glass. His hands full, he sauntered behind Aradia, and pressed
against her. Drunk as she may have been, Aradia knew exactly what
Saul was asking her to do. Although she appeared to have severed
ties to her family, she was still the D.A.'s daughter so if she was
caught with drugs the consequences would be cataclysmic. However,
the way the others looked so elated and euphoric made Aradia
curious.

Saul pressed his lips to her
ear and whispered, "all you have to do is take one. Since we are
technically dead, we need to take more to get high. Since you are
alive though all you need is a little boost."

He then overturned the
plastic bag and let the pills spill out on to the table. Aradia
then took one glance at the shot glass. In a moment of instant
bravado, she grabbed one of the pills and popped it into her mouth.
She then grabbed the shot glass and gulped it down.

Aradia's reaction to the
drugs was instant. She felt higher than a kit soaring into the air,
but she also felt another reaction. She felt like she was she
falling into a deep meditative state. Her eyes began to drift close
and her body began to sway back and forth on the stool. Saul
smirked as he saw her fall. He then scooped her up and made his way
to the door.

When they got back to the
loft, he laid her down on one of the couches. Staring down at her,
he realized how easy it would be to have his way with her. He could
do what he wanted to her and she wouldn't even remember. Judging by
the way her body was lying so limply, she was probably losing all
the sense in her body. He could touch her anyway he wanted, and she
wouldn't even remember that. He proved his theory by reaching out
and running his finger down her cheek. She didn't even twitch. She
lay there as if she were in a coma. Saul was encouraged as his eyes
dropped to the buttons on her blouse. He slowly undid one and not
even that stirred Aradia from her slumber. He was so tempted to
lower his lips and claim hers. It was hard, but he used great
restraint to pull his lust back. It taken half a year to get Aradia
to trust him; he wasn't going to blow it now.

Aradia was indeed lying
limply and her eyes were shut but her powers were not impaired.
Quite the contrary, the drug made her powers so enhanced that she
felt as if she could sense things all over the world. She could
sense things like emotion, violence, and more. The sensation was
similar to her visions were she could project herself into the past
except there was no haziness. Everything was clear as she felt
herself floating across the globe.

She felt no pain nor any
emotional anguish not even when she saw vampires ganging up on a
group of school children and eating them alive in a dark alley in
Paris. She felt nothing as she saw a pack of werewolves ripping a
shape-shifter apart just because he had trespassed into one of
their territories. She saw several fae glamorizing hikers in
Canada, luring them off cliffs, and laughing as they plunged to
their deaths. She felt no repulsion at the leaders of these hidden
races who seemed to be bribing the human authorities to stay quiet.
Leaders who didn't seem to care that they were killing innocent
people and getting away with it. She felt no revulsion when she saw
a shape-shifter Paramount brutally execute another shape-shifter in
front of his wife and daughters. She felt nothing as she saw all
the injustice being done in the hidden world and how the people
just seemed to accept it.

These images were still
haunting her even when she awoke two days later. She felt so groggy
that it was a struggle just to open her eyes but her stomach was
grumbling so she continued in her efforts to wake up. She slowly
stumbled and made her way to the fridge. She snatched the first
thing that she saw, orange juice, and began to chug it
down.

"Ewww," came a voice from
behind her, "right from the carton?"

Saul then wrapped his arms
around her from behind. He didn't hesitate when giving her a kiss
on the side of her cheek.

Aradia wiped her mouth with
the back of her hand. "Don't judge me," she snapped, "the effects
of the drugs..." she trailed away.

"What?" Saul
inquired.

Aradia considered telling
him what she saw, but thought better of it. She chugged more of the
orange juice down.

Saul stayed silent for a few
moments before he leaned in and whispered in her ear, "do you have
any idea how beautiful you look when you are asleep?"

Aradia stopped and lowered
the orange juice from her lips slowly.

"You look as exquisite as a
pagan goddess whom people used to make human sacrifices for," Saul
went on, "you always do. Whenever you walk in to a club people stop
and stare at you. Not just because of the way you smell, but
because of the way you are. You are so beautiful, so strong, and so
full of life."

"It's not surprising that I
would be noticed for that," Aradia remarked sarcastically, "seeing
as all the clubs we go to are full of vampires."

"What's wrong with that?"
asked Saul.

Aradia just shrugged. She
didn't really mind it, but what bothered her was the way the
vampires stared at her as if they were wondering what flavor she
would taste. At least among other hiddens, she didn't have to worry
about them always being tempted to eat her. What really bothered
her though was how arrogant the vampires were. They threw their
weight around wherever they went, and weren't above picking fights
with other races. They made fun of other hiddens by calling them
mutts, posers, and so on.

Aradia knew what was it like
to be judged harshly and cruelly. When she had been dating Dax, she
hadn't understood why people seemed to hate the vampires so much.
Now she was beginning to understand why and she wasn't happy about
it.

The buck stood still in the
thickness of the woods, bending his head down to nibble at the
grass. Considering how skittish these creatures usually were, it
was surprising that he couldn't sense the pair of eyes staring at
him. It wasn't just one pair though, in the bushes nearby a few
other eyes stared at the buck hungrily. Suddenly, the buck raised
his head and looked around quickly. It was as if he was finally
sensing something was wrong. He then took off but by that time it
was far too late. Four wolves dashed out of the bushes and ran
after it; one black, one gray, one sandy brown, and one snowy
white. The white wolf took the lead as they began to close in on
the buck but the buck surprised them by taking a sharp leap to the
left. The white wolf didn't even pause, however, he just nodded to
the sandy brown who immediately followed the buck. The white wolf
ran then nodded to the gray and the black who went the opposite
way. The white wolf then ran straight ahead. The buck kept bounding
fast and forward until it finally saw a road. As if it were a
finish line, the buck raced toward the road. It was like the buck
believed that if he crossed that road he would be safe from the
wolves. However, the moment it was a few feet away from reaching
the road the sandy brown wolf appeared out of nowhere. He leaped
from the left as regular as any wolf, and tackled the buck. Unlike
a regular wolf though, the sandy brown seemed to wrap his arms
around the buck as he took it down to the ground. The buck and the
wolf wrestled on the ground until they reached a hill. The wolf
took one final bite to the buck's throat and pulled him over. It
was as if the wolf could sense the advantage of plunging off a hill
would give him. When they reached the bottom, the buck's back hit a
rock while the wolf seemed to somersault off him. He then landed on
all fours a few feet away. The other wolves appeared while the
white one stood above them on the hill. Another jerk of it's head
made it seem as if the white wolf was giving the others permission
to take it down. The buck tried to defend itself with its antlers
and was able to spear the sandy brown and gray. The black wolf then
stood on its hind legs and leapt. Jumping onto the buck's back the
black wolf wrapped its arms around the buck's neck. Narrowly
avoiding the buck's antlers, the wolf gripped the buck's neck and
twisted it hard. The buck struggled, only for a few seconds, until
it finally lay still and moved no more.