by Cate Farren
They’d been protesting for five hours now. A few news vans had turned up, one from CNN and another from BBC World News. Reporters from print papers were taking down stories and asking questions. Rani hadn’t realized this thing was going to be so huge. She felt guilty that the only reason she’d turned up was to record some videos for her blog. She thought they’d be half a dozen protestors max.
This is big.
Thousands had turned up for the climate change protest in Washington DC. It was a little intimidating. Sure, Rani shared her friend’s views. She wanted something done. But she didn’t want to upset her parents and she sure as hell didn’t want to stand around waving banners for five hours, no matter how many likes she could get.
“Do you think she’s watching from her pedestal?” Alyssa asked. People shoved around them as more joined the protest. “She better be.”
“She’s probably Skyping with Putin or something,” Rani joked.
Alyssa laughed. “Thanks for being here. I know you don’t want to get in trouble for skipping school but this is important. Our world is important.”
Rani smiled. “I’m uncomfortable, okay? I’m tired, but it doesn’t mean I don’t regret coming with you. Let’s show our president we mean business.”
Someone pushed past her, almost knocking her over. Rani gave them an evil look before her eyes settled on another protester a few feet away. He was tall, with short brown hair and a light, styled beard. He was beautiful, like the lovechild of Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pratt. She smiled shyly at him as their eyes met. He stared back, looking through her, almost as if he didn’t really see her.
Perhaps he’s blind?
She continued watching him as the protest continued. People came and went, but the gathering was getting larger by the minute. More news vans turned up. Even a few politicians arrived to join in the fun.
“That guy over there,” Rani whispered.
“Are you serious right now?” said Alyssa. “We’re not here to pick up men.”
Rani shook her head. “No. Look. Something is wrong.”
The man’s eyes were changing color, from green to yellow. His irises were different, almost like that of a cat.
Alyssa looked worried. “What’s wrong with him?”
Rani reached for her cell phone just as the first scream rang out. Panic started to grip the thousands of protestors pressed in all around her. She looked for her friend, finding her instead ripping into the neck of another woman with her teeth.
“Alyssa...”
She turned to Rani, blood dripping from two huge fangs. Alyssa’s face was screwed up, almost demonic in appearance. She dropped the woman on the floor, ignoring the gory mess of her neck. Blood was pooling around their feet.
“Shut up,” Alyssa commanded. “I’m sick of your voice.”
Alyssa charged forward. Rani ducked to the side, pushing someone else in front. Her friend reached out to grab her arm but Rani was quicker.
What the hell is going on?
The screams were louder now. She could hear beasts roaring and bones cracking. People were screaming in agony.
Rani stopped as the hot guy she was watching turned into a slightly overlarge panther in front of her. She fell back as it swiped its paw at her before pouncing on someone else. She watched with horror as he literally ripped another man’s head off and started playing with it like it was a ball.
She ran, pushing away anyone who got in her way. When she reached one of the news vans she climbed up it and collapsed onto the roof. There was a camera man next to her. He was covered in blood and recording the whole thing.
“What the hell is going on?” Rani demanded.
He ignored her, content on his job, as she surveyed the scene before her. Wolves and wild cats stalked and ripped people apart. There was even a giant snake, with beautiful emerald scales, slithering around, taking people out. Dozens more humans were feeding off others, biting their necks, looking like they were literally drinking their blood.
Vampires?
A giant, seven-foot creature with horns and cloven hooves rampaged towards the south end of the mass of panicking people. It was tossing the protestors around like they weighed nothing, goring them with its horns and actually eating some of them.
Rani watched with horror as a seemingly normal woman created a fireball in the palm of her hands. She launched the ball into a small group as they tried to flee, incinerating them all instantly. There were others, too, using what appeared to be magic to turn people to stone or freeze them to death or turn their insides out. Some of the magic users had pointed ears like Elves from fantasy books, and some seemed to be normal humans. She even saw a woman gripping a man, looking like she was literally sucking the life out of him until there was nothing left but a decaying husk.
Rani was seeing Hell.
She pulled out her cell and started recording. She needed to document this. She needed to know it had actually happened and she wasn’t just having a mental breakdown.
“I don’t know what this is but...” She turned her camera towards a group of vampires as they fed off an overly large woman. “These are vampires, right? They’re...they’re feeding off that woman like she’s a buffet.” Rani zoomed on on the woman’s face as her cheeks began to sink in and her skin turned chalky white. “There’s no such things as vampires, but...Oh God! Oh God!” She focused her camera on a woman with white hair. She was flying in the air, just above the carnage. She had light, gossamer wings like a butterfly. “Is that a fairy? Is that an actual fairy? She...” The fairy swooped down, using her hands to pluck a young girl out of the crowd. The fairy ripped the human in two, raining blood and internal organs down. “No...no...That’s like no fairy I’ve read about. Why are they killing everything? Why are they killing all these people?” She zoomed in on a group of tall humans with pointed ears as they hacked and slashed with swords. “Those Elves, they have swords, and they’re just randomly attacking like all the others, like the witches and the vampires and the...” A wolf ran past the news van. “The werewolves? Fucking werewolves.”
A severed head slammed into the side of the van. Rani screamed as she felt something grab her ankle and yank her off the top of the van. Her cell phone fell from her hands.
“There you are,” said Alyssa.
Rani struggled in Alyssa’s powerful grip. She cried as the world she knew crumbled around her in blood and magic.
“Are you...are you a vampire?” Rani asked.
“Alyssa is dead,” said her friend.
“Please don’t kill me,” Rani begged. “Please.”
“I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to let you live so you can tell the whole world about what you saw today.”
Rani nodded. “Okay. I will. Just please...”
Alyssa threw her against the floor and walked away. Rani immediately went to look for her cell phone. It was her duty to record it all. Besides, how many likes was she going to get for this? She was recording history in the making.
LOKI turned away from the carnage going outside as police units started firing on his shapeshifters. He sighed forlornly. It wasn't what he wanted, seeing his people killed, but it was the only way. Having the supernaturals and humans kill each other would keep what remained of his people safe until it was time for the next stage of his plan.
"Well?" Loki demanded.
The President of the United States of America had a gun pointed at his chest. The fact that she thought it would do any good amused him.
"Stop this now!" she raged. "This slaughter is pointless!"
A deafening explosion sounded in the distance.
"I need your help Madame President," Loki declared, ignoring the gun. It couldn't harm him. "These supernaturals infest your country. Look what they're doing! They want to take over. They want to kill your people. What are you doing to do about it?"
She shot him. The bullet bounced off his skin. She backed away, terrified.
"Where are my guards?" she deman
ded.
"You're the only one left alive in this crumbling museum," he stated. "You can stay that way."
She shook her head, adamant. "No. I will not turn my back on this evil. I will..."
He sighed with annoyance and surged forward. He grabbed her by the neck and threw her useless rag doll of a body against the wall. She looked up at him with in terror and humiliation and he knew his job was complete.
"This is only the beginning,” he told her. He kneeled down beside her, staring into her teary eyes. Her whole body was shaking. “Call the other world leaders.”
“You’re not warning me,” she hissed. “You’re enjoying this. You planned this.”
“I’m impressed. You’re not as stupid as you look.” He grabbed hold of her face, making sure she heard every word. “But does it matter? You know now what you have to face. I trust you’ll make the right decision.”
“Evil won’t prevail.”
He slapped her across the face so hard she was knocked out. Why did the American people vote in such a weak bodied person to lead them? It made no sense.
He stood up and wiped his hands down his top. The president sweated a lot.
A portal opened behind him and Saskia staggered through. She was dirty, her clothing torn, and she was bleeding from several areas of her body. He wasn’t concerned. She could take care of herself and their baby well enough.
“It smells in here,” said Saskia.
Loki laughed. The president had pissed herself.
“How did it go?” he asked, staring around the oval room. “Any problems?”
“It all went more or less according to plan.” Saskia grinned and sat down by the president’s desk. She sighed. “All of the vampires at Dracula’s estate are dead. Celia went full on nuclear and ended up killing Dracula too. That was exciting.”
Loki nodded. Dracula was finally gone for good. He wasn’t upset or glad about that, just numb.
“What about Gable Trent?”
“He’s still alive, but I murdered his son.” Saskia put her legs up on the desk and looked away, as if trying not to think about something unpleasant. “He was quite upset actually.”
“I suppose that will have to do; for now.”
Saskia went on to explain everything else. He wasn’t surprised that Clover had survived. A part of him was relieved, a little proud even, that she’d beaten the odds once again. It was a shame so many of his enemies were still alive, but that meant he’d have even more fun trying to destroy them.
And Gable Trent lost his son. He’s going to really hate me now.
“So what happens now?” Saskia asked. “Do we just sit back and let things unfold?”
“For the time being,” he said. “The humans will do my work for me.”
“So...we do nothing?”
“I never said that, did I? We still have a lot of work to do.”
Another explosion rattled outside. The sound of gun fire intensified. Loki felt more of his shapeshifters die every second. Every death was like a nail in his flesh. He’d mourn the loss of his children for the rest of time. They’d died for a cause and he would honor them.
“Where to next?” Saskia asked. She yawned. “I’m tired. The baby’s kicking.”
“It’s time to go travelling,” he declared. “Something wonderful is going to happen in other cities around the world in the next twenty-four hours. I want to be there to witness every one of them.”
“There are more attacks?”
He didn’t answer her. He just took her hand.
Chapter 55
Now
Clover flicked from channel to channel, horrified by what she saw. Washington DC. London. Madrid. Moscow. Tokyo. Sydney. Over the span of twenty-four hours each capital city had erupted into bloody chaos as witches, shifters and vampires attacked en masse, leaving bodies in their wake. She watched a scene taken from a mobile phone in Sydney, of a man begging what was obviously a Fey to leave his wife alone. The Fey grinned and decapitated her. Another piece of footage showed what seemed to be a polar bear shifter ripping apart a young family. Another scene showed a pack of vampires feeding on what remained of a group of people on a tourist bus that had pulled up near Big Ben. It was a coordinated, world wide attack that none of them had seen coming.
"It was his plan all along," Trent whispered angrily. "While we were trapped in his dimension he...”
She switched the TV off. It was pure carnage on every channel. The shapeshifters posing as supernatural beings must have killed thousands of people in less than an hour. Even they were dead now, shot dead by the police or the army.
She clutched his hand. He was shaking in rage and grief.
“The world has changed forever,” he said. “But a part of me doesn’t give a fuck. That witch took my Darin.”
“We’ll get Loki,” she said. “I promise.”
“I want to stay positive, but...”
Darin...Dracula...Robert...Stephanie...Daniel...
Over a thousand vampires were gone. Loki had managed to wipe out half the world’s vampires in one fell swoop.
They'd lost.
Loki had won.
There was no hope left.
“We can beat him,” a voice said from behind them.
Clover looked up into Jared’s face and smiled. “You’re back.”
“Death is nothing to me,” said Jared. “Not any more.”
Clover cried and ran to him. She hugged him tight, never wanting to let go. He might be able to come back from death, but it had still felt like a blow to see him killed like that. Did he feel pain when he died, or had he died so many times now it just didn’t bother him?
“Loki has won,” Trent stated. “Killing him now changes nothing. He’s just revealed the existence of supernaturals to the world. We’re going to be turned into pariahs and terrorists and hunted down. None of us are safe. None of us.”
Jared shook his head. “You’re wrong. This can be fixed. We can put things right. I did it once and I can do it again.”
Trent stared at him with contempt as he said, “Not everything can be fixed with a trip through time. You said yourself that altering time has serious consequences.”
“Are any of them worse this reality we’re living in now?”
Clover couldn’t bear to hear them arguing. She stormed away, wanting to be on her own and process all this. Her world had changed. She had changed.
JARED COULD FEEL CLOVER slipping away from him as she walked away. He knew he was different now. How could he not be? He’d spent thousands of years without her, living life, dying over and over again. It had all been so simple when they’d reunited. They’ve talked and made love and acted like nothing had happened. Maybe love wasn’t enough in the end. Maybe they were both so changed by their experiences that they could never get back the raw passion and emotions they once shared.
“Give her some time,” said Trent. “She loves you.”
“I’m not sure that’s enough,” he admitted sadly. “Not any more.”
He sat down on the couch as the news continued on the television. Their world was over now.
“The president was attacked in the oval office,” the White House press secretary, Vicky Chan, was explaining to the media on the TV. “She’s currently being treated in hospital for a head injury. She’s expected to fully recover, but she’ll probably have a seriously bad migraine after.” When no one laughed she went on. “Yes, any questions?”
“Are we really expected to believe that creatures such as this exist?” a reporter asked.
Vicky Chan crossed her arms and stared at the reporter with derision. “You’ve seen the videos. I think it’s fair to say that supernatural creatures do exist.”
“Why did they attack like that?”
“Did I see a dragon in Tokyo?”
“Do they want to kill all humans?”
Jared despaired as the reporters asked question after question, flustering the press secretary. All of the questions were negat
ive ones. Not one person thought to suggest talking to the supernaturals.
“I don’t know what to say,” Vicky Chan admitted. “I’m as in the dark as you are.”
The crows of reporters hushed as the president walked onto the stage. Her head was wrapped in bandages and she looked like she hadn’t slept in a week. Somebody had really done a number on her.
The president said, “I don’t know why they attacked, but I do know one thing; these creatures, these monsters that have lived among us peacefully for so long, have declared war on us. I shall make it my personal mission to see that they are all hunted down and killed. I will make America safe again.”
Jared switched the TV off. All the other world leaders were probably saying the same thing, maybe except for India. Their government knew of the existence of the supernatural and had been quietly purging their country of them for decades.
Loki has started his war, and it’s nothing like what I witnessed in the future. By coming back in time to stop him I changed his plans somehow. Was this the serious consequences thing the witches told me about, or is there something else?
It didn’t matter really. Loki had to be stopped and there was only one way.
“We’ll think of something,” said Trent. “There has to be something we can do that doesn’t involve time travel and the murder of a million souls.”
It was the only chance they had to stop the world plunging into war. He had find a group of witches powerful enough to send him back in time so he could stop Loki. He would not allow himself and everyone he cared about to be hunted down like dogs. If anyone, even Gable Trent, got in his way, they would pay the price.
TRENT LEFT JARED TO seethe and plan. It may be the only way now, but there had to be something else. If all anyone had to do to alter something bad that had happened was to travel back in time, then every witch would be doing it.
But what if it’s the only way?
He checked in on Celia. She was sitting by Sutton’s bedside, eyes on the piles of ash, waiting for her to start coming back to life. So far nothing had happened, though Gable could detect some sort of magic at work.