Vivienne

Poking through the floorboards that she’d ripped up and found nothing, Vivienne placed her hands on her bare hips and took a steady breath. -I have to be missing something.-  She told herself and turned to face the expertly crafted statue of the news woman Wendy Richards.  Walking over to get a closer look, Vivienne peered closely and noticed that the statue was almost lifelike in its appearance.  Risking a touch, she placed her hand on the stone and felt it to be warm to the touch.

 -Should be as cold as the rest of the works in here.-  Vivienne thought to herself and walked around the sculpture before seeing an oddity.  Trailing a couple of her fingers over the bridge of the solid nose, Vivienne felt a small divot at the inner corner of the eye socket.  A quick tingle went down the length of Vivienne’s spine as she came to the realization of what she was studying. 

-Somehow you are a statue.  There’d be no reason to have the injuries sustained from a lobotomy on a work of art.-  Vivienne took a step back and with a brief look of bewilderment in her blue eyes, balled up her fist and punched through the shaped marble and stone, sending pieces of the stone and dust through the air.  Much like she’d picked through the wood of the floor, Vivienne looked inside the remains of the statue for any hint of the piece Casey had referenced.

-It has to be up here somewhere.-  Convinced that there were no hollow parts to the remains of the figurine, Vivienne slowly walked along the sections of the makeshift museum of art looking for clues.  Carefully pulling each item off the wall and studying the frames and the canvases within, Vivienne shook her head in frustration.

-What am I missing?  The house perhaps?-  Vivienne looked out of the open barn doors and at the broken white washed home and ruled it out immediately.

 -No.  She even kept the marionette in here.  This is the heart of her creative process.- Trailing the gray painted lines along the wall, Vivienne used her fingers to feel for possible compartments that the walls could have hidden.  After ten minutes of feeling the same grain in the wall without any evidence of a patch or offset seam, Vivienne admitted to herself that the walls were solid and held nothing of interest other than the frames attached to them.

Sensing a color difference from the corner of her eyes, Vivienne raised one of her long eyebrows and walked back to the series of comics hanging nondescript out for everyone to see.  -Why didn’t I see this before?-  Vivienne smiled and shook her head as she looked into her own eyes gleaming back at her from the cover of the first comic book.  Lightly flicking the glass that protected the thin sheets of glossy paper, Vivienne shattered the protective barrier and pulled the small book free of its confines.

Beyond the bloody visage of the title she’d noticed before of ‘Vampire Vixens’, Vivienne saw that the rest of the cover was covered in smears of black, green and teal that blended and highlighted her own sparkling blue eyes while a set of women in the background were set in various poses mostly kissing and hugging.  Opening the cover, Vivienne quickly flipped through the contents of the story and once she reached the end, set the book down. -The entire first night, almost to the letter of what she showed us on the screen.-  

Shattering the other frames, Vivienne gathered the other twenty books and quickly read the contents of them all, the cartoon images providing slices of the story at a time with bubbled conversations and fantastic magic riddled through the horror concepts that they all had.  Unlike a normal comic, the usually blank frames to separate concepts and action within the colorful story it meant to provide, these frames were outlined in strange symbols. -Hieroglyphs?-  Vivienne wondered to herself as she learned more and more about her enemy.

Half way through the stack, Vivienne came to a particular section within the kyanite cave and re-read it three times to be sure.  Visually the art depicted vampire blood on the floor revealing glyphs and the heroine gleaning a powerful spell.  Much like Casey predicted and Vivienne suspected, the heroine created an art piece and then covered herself in tattoos that matched Denise’s line by line.  Frame by frame Vivienne studied how the glyphs in the pictures glowed and the kyanite dissolved into the markings on the woman until the living body was replaced by the gray matter looking woman with black hair.  Green chat bubbles outlined with black pronounced to the world what the woman had become. Four letters in neat calligraphy that spread in an arc through the bubble spelled out ‘Lich’ while the woman below the revelation had her hands raised with green streaks of lightning pouring from her fingers, streaking across the frame itself as though the sparks would jump from the page.

Studying the different panels on subsequent pages, Vivienne learned all she needed to about the creature that Denise had become.  Foremost Vivienne figured out that Denise was no longer living and just as much undead as she was. -You don’t use blood, but you do use energy.-  Tracing the words on the pages, Vivienne determined that Denise’s magic worked almost like starting a fire.  Flipping through more of the vague text and pictures, Vivienne calculated that most of the time the lich needed to be clear minded, have an energy source and a spark.  Picking up a few of the books she’d read, Vivienne backtracked until she found what she was looking for.  Food.  Massive intake of calories provided the base energy needed to use the magic.  Kyanite could be used as a supplement or even to enhance the spell being used. -Source. What changed?-  Vivienne re-read after the lich proclamation and smiled.  The source shifted from eating to draining.  Pages of withered husks combined with the ever present mineral kyanite reinforced Vivienne’s suspicions. -You take their life.  The healthier the more latent energy.-

Pages upon pages of dark images bounced through Vivienne’s mind as she learned the depth of Denise’s plan to get ‘her Marion’ back.  -Pictures do speak a thousand words.-  Vivienne reflected as she deciphered the artwork.  The approach was simple, first start small.  Change and alter the mind of one, then two.  Two will turn to four and four to eight.  Provide the group what they want and give them power to effect change.  Define your enemy, show them the depravity and what they are doing. -In this case, vampires proved to be the best and most nightmarish.-  Vivienne read on.  Show them that they are chosen, they are unique and are the saviors.  Place a neat and pretty bow on it in the name of love.  Noticing that there were runic teal hearts all over the pages, Vivienne tossed the book on the pile with the others.

-Once they love you, they will follow without question.-  Vivienne commented to herself and sighed, still looking for the one thing that could tip the odds in her favor.   Pages of deception filled Vivienne’s mind as she watched the lich recruit, train then release the hatred on her vampire brethren.  The Awakened weren’t just soldiers, they were latent energy to be fed from.  They did her bidding without question and many pictures showed them worshiping Denise, kissing her toes.  Vivienne read past the rise of ‘The Darla’s’ four champions, and focused on the others.  Lines of people standing at Denise’s kitchen door, all hungry, all with the look of heaven in their eyes.  Panel after panel showed the lich corralling three into the farmhouse, and only two would emerge. 

-Extermination to the extreme.-  Spells on the pages told Vivienne that ‘The Loved One’ would simply erase or replace the people that disappeared, like they never existed. -Nothing here is telling me how..-  Stopping in mid thought, Vivienne’s mouth hung open when she watched Denise’s magic weave its way through the earth and find her bronze canister.  Drawn in impeccable detail, Vivienne witnessed the magic steal a handful of her grave soil while sacrificing a fist sized piece of kyanite as well as three of Denise’s devoted.  Frantically scanning the pages, Vivienne stopped when she saw what looked to be a man hunched over a bench working on the quartz that adorned the ferronnière.

Although shadowed, Vivienne easily made out that the jeweler was of Italian descent and there was only one person she knew that understood the potential of crystal. -Sebastian.  Brother you are supposed to be dead and underwater.-  A few pages later, Denise was tearing open a package and unwrapping the ferronnière from a little piece of paper with the initials C.D. imprinted like a watermark on the page.

-Denise is bad enough.-  Vivienne rubbed her temples and set the book of betrayal on top of the others.  Pacing across the floor for a few minutes, Vivienne pushed the fact her brethren brother was still alive and focused on Denise. -One thing at a time.-  Walking back to the pile of comics, Vivienne picked up the first couple and turned each page again looking for something to help her.  

This time Vivienne found what she was looking for.  Chiseling the portrait in her mind, Vivienne saw Denise and Marion wrapped around each other in Denise’s bedroom.  Dropping the book and letting it land with a heavy thud, Vivienne took off to the back side of the loft and found the plain white wooden door closed with the bronze door knob begging to be used.