Blood & Juniper

The girl collapses and tremors wrack her body.

Betsy is standing beside the woman she just murdered. Her posture is notably peculiar with her back to the girl, shunning her. The profile of her body outlines every curve, spine so straight it's arching back but her shoulders are slightly hunched.

She nurses her bloody hand the way a tiger cleans off it's paws. The claws drip like a blade fresh from a kill. One eye shines brightly from the obscurity of the shadows like it's hovering in a void. The heartbeat flatlines.

"I see clearly now," her voice is low and perilous after a dying tempo silence. It doesn't sound like her. That floating ring radiates past her metallic flaming hair as she spits, "To witness such a thing sickens me!"

"It's *her*," she hisses slow and menacing. It echoes, dragging off the tight walls, "She has made you *weak*."

"*Her*," she says again. The word seems to drag on forever, tailing off into something awful and skin crawling, slithering through her teeth.

This is not going anywhere good. I try to talk her down, but I'm unable to hide my own strain, barking it out instead, "Betsy, enough. This is the last time I tell you. Back off!"

She doesn't back down, refusing to hear any of it. Her head rotates like a rusty door knob until her face is fully visible. Her eyes are spirals of madness charring through both of us.

"There's no antidote for a repetitious poison," she conveys in broken soliloquy as her crazy eyes drift to Ashlen, bathing her in orchid flames, "To treat it one must… *Eradicate the source!*"

Betsy flings herself at us. A blast of wind ricochets off the enclosure. Purple and crimson zip in smear of color. I jump in front of Ashlen as a barrier only to be plowed over. She hits like a truck, smashing into my side. The bulldozing force completely knocks me off my feet.

She sends me into bricks. A weak patch of the wall gives way to my shoulder in a large crumpling dent.

"Ash!" I call out, immediately hopping to recovery.

I hear them snarling at each other and run toward that sound to break up the fight. They're rolling over the opposite wall, Betsy is slashing chaotically like a deranged inmate, backing her swiftly out from the recesses of the alley. Ash's hands are up to block the stabs at her throat.

Betsy snaps at her in the craze and Ash takes the opening to shove. Betsy's heedless and unperturbed, continuing her assault of steadily amplifying aggression.

Every second I'm not over there is a ten swings by the deranged woman. Ashlen cradles defensively like being mauled by a bear. Her arms and cheeks are being sliced up, battered to hell as she's tossed around by the barrage of unfiltered rage.

I scoop up Betsy from behind, wrapping arms around her neck and waist, forcing us backwards.

She thrashes, jabbing an elbow then smashing the back of her skull into my nose. I grunt trying to ignore the stinging crunch.

She's slippery, managing to twist around in my grip. Her arm swings wide, backhanding me like a shovel with the impact of a wrecking ball.

My neck cracks, snapping to the side and I topple onto gravelly pavement. I see a flash of white as I hit, smelling sharp salt that isn't there.

I grab blindly for her ankle with starry vision. Her feet are a blur, not even close. 'Damn her for being so nimble! I'm outmatched!' I push myself off the ground before I can see straight, dashing at her. She's going to kill Ash. I won't let that happen!

She encloses around Ashlen who's still in a disoriented haze. Ash sinks her fangs into her nearest arm, exposed talons tear up the skin in a fit. Betsy snarls as bits are flayed but doesn't let go, curling her body around her like an anaconda suffocating it's meal.

"Get off of her!" I bellow, reaching to pry her arm away. Betsy's brisk heel flicks out, connecting with precision and power. Goring, bludgeoning and dislocating in a single kick. I grit my teeth, snarling and stagger, that one really hurt.

"Sam!" Ash yells, seeing the kneecap buckle.

I stumble a second long enough to hear Betsy howl with laughter. She starts levitating back, holding Ashlen tight to take her for the ride.

Ash screams and thrashes as Betsy unleashes her power to soar. She avoids my crippled attempt to yank her back down, lifting high and flying backwards. Taking Ashlen away from me.

"No!" I growl, seeing red. I force my knee back into place, my whole right side screams and I bite into my lip drawing blood.

I sprint, forcing my leg to cooperate. Fire shoots up my t.h.i.g.h and down my calf. I won't stop, the pain is nothing to me.

I leap on top of a bin to get leverage, they're climbing the fast, nearing the roof. Ash cries out and I'm hit with a whiff of her blood.

Adrenaline pulsates like ice in my veins. I rush across the row of dumpsters until I'm at the end. I don't stop my unremitting run, slanted across the wall. They won't get away.

Higher, more momentum. I'm crouched on all fours, muscles straining along all limbs, claws digging into the grout and grainy bricks as I fight gravity with speed. It gives beneath my fingertips and toes like the splitting earth of the great deserts.

I lunge, reaching for a fire escape, swinging myself over the rail. Pushing, ducking and hoping over anything in my way. Sprint, sprint, jump.

I clear the gap to the next staircase, scrambling up and around the side. When I'm at the peak of height and velocity I take the plunge.

Both feet push off the rail with every ounce of agonizing might as my left leg protests, snapping my soles into the side like a steel rubber band.

The metal supports quake and m.o.a.n as they rock. I'm airborne, launching myself at them, if I miss it's going to be a long way down.

There's a collective gasp as we collide in the air. Betsy cringes as my claws latch onto her, hooking into flesh and muscle. We smash into the opposite wall and scr.a.p.e down. Betsy drops Ashlen between us, switching targets. We're jerked upward as she regains levitation.

She slashes at my neck and face trying to push me off. She only nicks my cheek but my neck burns as she tears a chunk.

I dig deeper into her shoulders, feeling the bones crack. She hisses, swiveling in the air and slices through my jacket below my shoulder, shedding the skin. She raises her knees to double kick but she doesn't have the same force or support she did while on the ground.

I b.a.r.e fangs, rearing back an inch and striking at her throat. She anchors onto my scalp, long nails dig into the back of my head, ripping through hair and flesh.

"Sah-," she croaks.

I taste fear. Helplessness. She yanking and beating at me in desperate panic.

'More.'

I bite down harder. The terror wells around my gums and the high of more adrenaline shoots like potent injection straight to the bloodstream.

I curl a fist into her long hair, rocked with brutality.

I tear out the throat.

I glare into that face, snarling like a mad dog, witnessing my own wrath personified.

Eyes round and full, her mouth gaping with shock, the neck a ragged pit of gore like a second mouth. We're free falling and I growl through bared bloodied teeth, enraged and insane.

'MORE!'

I yank her head backwards, roaring incomprehensibly. Pulling, tearing, HARDER!

Her claws are sinking into my neck and jawline like warm butter. Her mouth is stretched in disbelief, contorting that face into a silent scream. We crash on blunt cement.

I lose my grip on her. I hear the sprinkling of graveled dust, bones giving and wood splittering paired with a distinct; '*Thwamp, thwamp, shkik!*' Someone is shrieking like a train whistle… Or is that my ears ringing?

I cough and sputter, collapsed against her c.h.e.s.t as the ringing draws out into woolen silence. Everything hurts, bones aching from the rough landing, but she got the worst of it breaking our fall.

With a groan, I push myself from her, leaning to spit. I straddle her mutilated neck with each arm, staring down.

This is where her face should be… but I'm looking at a growing puddle of black. I pant over her decapitated body.

She's headless.

Blood wells around my palms, it's cold and thick.

I glance up. Sure enough her head bounced away, it's concealed by her hair like an unraveling ball of tangley copper yarn. The hands sticking into me, still managing to clutch into my skin fall away limp, dead. Truly dead.

My breath is caught in my lungs as my gaze falls to the negative space between my hands. It's only a metallic pond of dark blood, and bright green rings staring back.

Betsy knew the darkest parts of me. And now she's gone.

I desecrated her.

My head is tingling from a faint buzzing, a ringing like the old TV color bars sycned with a sine wave.

I'm sick down to my depths. Did this actually happen, is this real? My mind seems to separate from my body, drifting further apart like an outer body experience. I feel numb and a flood of emotion all at once.

I'm disgusted but also… *rapturous*. There is a very real side of me that's basking in the kill, laughing, rolling gleefully as a dog in a stench. None of this is processed outwardly. I just find myself staring, staring but not seeing.

Where did I go so wrong? It's a redundant thought at this point, but I never wanted to become this, *be this*. Guess we don't alway get what we want.

Despite my predisposition to violence, if I were a good person... I wouldn't feel this way about blatant murder. Especially when it comes to someone I once cared about.

But it does. I can deny it to everyone else, but lying to myself is pointless. In a twisted sense, it feels *good*.