For the first time, I didn't panic. I even halted my journey as they circled around me, red glowing eyes cutting through the darkness. They ventured closer, but not within touching distance as they slowed, stopped, and lowered their faces to the ground. The song continued, but the shrieks morphed into a bass line of their muffled whines of joy. Without fear, I stepped toward the ring of shadows, knelt, and caressed the head of the nearest.
Lifting its head, ecstasy rolled from it in waves. Smiling, I stood and continued my journey.
It had been the biggest mistake of the Abernathy line to ever bring me to the mansion in the hills surrounding Ashville. I'd even been there as a child, accompanying my mother on coven business. It made the journey from Cedar Falls almost effortless as I traversed the shadow realm. With one last sigh, I stepped from the shadow of a tree just inside the gate.
My original intention had been to go with a sneak attack, appearing behind him and subduing him in a show of power, but he wouldn't have respected that. Feared, yes. Fearful enough to stand down? No. It would be much better to show him how utterly powerless he was against me.
Unfortunately, I didn't even make it across the expanse of grass separating the wall and door before being attacked by vampires. With almost shadow walker ability, they melted from the shadows and were on me before I even registered their presence. I mentally cursed myself for not looking before leaping.
However, once in my field of prescience, their movements became almost comically slow. Batting two of them aside, I turned the third to ash. It was a combination of a jab and fire spell that worked out exponentially better than I'd imagined. The first two were hesitant to attack after the display, and I couldn't blame them. I used my shadows to leave them in the dust of their fallen comrade.
The front door of the mansion fared as well as the vampire I turned to ash. It sent a strong message to the two guards inside. There were few things in the mortal realm that vampires feared more than fire. One of them kowtowed, but the other merely shook as he looked up to the landing above.
"Where is Abernathy?"
The one standing snarled when he turned back to face me. The one at his feet pointed toward the stairs without looking up from the floor. I turned and made it to the first step when Lady Abernathy stepped onto the landing with a sigh.
"Lady Dorothea," she whispered softly and bowed her head.
"Hey, June. Are we going to have a problem?" I spoke steadily, more confident than I felt, as I walked up the stairs and stopped halfway.
"Since I am not in line for succession, only bound to the clan through marriage, absolutely not."
"Even though I killed your husband?'
Darkness passed over her features for a moment before she schooled her countenance and the smile returned. She might not have agreed with the former Lord's actions and methods, but she did love him, that much was certain. "No. He challenged you and you were victorious. In fact, I should be thanking you for saving my daughter." She might have loved her husband, but she loved her daughter more. I could hear it in her voice.
"She's my pride and joy. Of course, I'd save her." I winked and continued up the stairs.
"Are you here to kill him?" She didn't sound concerned, merely curious.
"Only if he won't see reason. He tried to incinerate what is mine."
"I warned him not to."
"Are you telling me he can't be reasoned with?"
"I am. But he might be bullied. I wish you luck. Last door at the end of the hall," she answered coolly and stepped past me, heading down the way I'd come.
Husband and daughter aside, she held nothing but disdain for her brother-in-law. I chuckled and headed down the carpeted runner filling the length of the hall Stopping at the double polished oak doors, I kicked them open without so much as a knock.
The vampires had a fucking throne.
Abernathy was sitting on it, chin on his fist, sneering at me as I burst into the room.
That close to dawn, I had assumed he'd be alone. I had assumed so very, very wrong. A kiss of at least twenty vampires stepped from the shadows and rushed me en masse. Fearlessly, they swarmed me, confident in their numbers. In the space of a heartbeat, I was gripped and pushed to the ground at their feet. One of them grabbed a fistful of hair and lifted my head to face their lord as they parted before him.
"What? Did you truly think you were a match for me?" He lifted his chin from his fist and started laughing. The vampires around me joined him and stopped when he trailed off.
When he finished, I started and ended it with a single word. "Fidget."
Abernathy tilted his head and scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. I smiled as I felt the shadow slither down my sleeve and crawl over the flesh of my hand, dropping to the polished wood floor between me and the vamps.
Soundlessly, he grew and then bellowed a screech as he stood and towered over the semicircle of undead around me. They began hitting the walls around us, thudding twice as they fell to the ground wetly after.
A wave of fear washed over me as the shadow demon started tearing their flesh and limbs. I stood slowly and let the fear change me into exactly what I needed to be at that moment.
Snarling, I walked toward the mediocre throne as my fangs ripped through my gums, my nails tore through the flesh of my fingers, and a burning bloodlust boiled through my veins. For nothing but effect, I ripped the broom charm from my neck and swung the scythe. I led with the dull edge as I charged, stopping short just as the metal pressed his neck against the high back of his chair.
"Call this pointless war off."
"You're not even a vampire!"
I hissed and bared my fangs at him. His eyes bulged even more. "No. I'm more," I lisped around my overly large teeth and let the shadows rise up around him and bind him to the chair he'd been so proud of the moment before. "Are you done?"
He nodded, quickly and emphatically.
Fidget roared behind me. I turned my head and sent a mental command to him, sparing the lives of the handful of vampires cowering on the floor.
The squeal of the shadows binding the vampire to the throne were the only warning I had. He had been bound, but with silver daggers hidden in his hands, blades turned toward him. I caught the glint of their gleaming surface as he raised them after severing the bindings. In a blink, he stood and plunged one in my chest and the other into my heart, the other through my back, its tip nearly nicking the other between my ribs.
I looked down at the grizzly wound as pain blossomed through my chest. My vision darkened as the edges faded away into nothingness.
Abernathy's laughter filled my ears as he lowered me to the ground at his feet. With an evil sneer he twisted the blade in my chest and yanked it from my chest.
I didn't scream, I didn't call out, the pain was already too intense for rational, or irrational, thought. The wounds weren't enough to kill me, but I was fighting to remain conscious. If I passed out, it was over. He could really kill me at his leisure.
Abernathy made one horrid mistake.
Without my reins, Fidget was free to flee or feast. He might have been a shadow demon, possibly just a baby, but he loved his mother. His shriek of anger blasted the laughter from my ears and Abernathy's lips as he hurtled over the bodies of the vampires between us and smacked Abernathy across the room with an elongated shadow claw. Blood sprayed over my field of vision in a crimson bow and splashed down over me in liquid fire. Three more shadowy figures joined my shadow demon as they flew across the room and ended Abernathy in screams of pain and rage.
∞ ∞ ∞
A cool cloth wiped across my brow and the smell of wet blood wafted to my nose. Blinking, I stared at a very worried looking vampire hovering over me. "Yuki?"
She pulled the cloth away and frowned at me. "If you were in better shape, I'd roll you over and kick your ass. Master," she added almost as an afterthought.
"We would, too," Dar chimed in angrily, hugging a scared looking Shea to his chest behind my vampire n
urse. They had been the shadowy figures I'd seen beside my angry looking Fidget. He chirped in my ear to let me know he agreed with all three of them.
Turning my head, I smiled at the little shadowy fluff beside me on the unfamiliar pillow. "You, too?"
Another angry chirp, but he quickly favored me with a wispy cuddle shortly thereafter.
"How is she not dead?" June asked from the doorway. I guessed we were still in Ashville.
Yuki turned and looked at her mother, eyes narrowing in distrust. "Do you really think a couple of daggers can kill a god?"
"God?" Quickly she strode across the bedroom floor and hovered over me as she stared at me. Gingerly, she held out her hand and lightly ran the tips of her fingers over my still damp skin. Power flared between us. She gasped and knelt at my bedside. The bedside, not mine, as I didn't have a fucking clue where I was.
"My old room," Yuki answered with a sad smile. "She needs blood," she said over her shoulder to Dar and Shea.
"We have some in the vault?" June answered questioningly.
"Not human," Yuki answered.
Dar stepped forward, but without hesitation, June offered her wrist. "She doesn't smell like a vampire," she said thoughtfully as my fangs grew again and pierced her flesh. I fed without gripping her, letting the blood fill me, and the holes her brother-in-law had left in me before he died. She gasped and braced herself against the bed as I fed.
"You're grounded," Yuki said to me, uncharacteristically motherly.
I let it go for a few moments while I fed. Finally feeling a little better than shit, I let go of June's wrist with a nod of thanks. "Because I didn't kill him?"
"Because you tried to do things your way without us." She motioned toward Dar and Shea.
"Where's Ellis?"
Shea frowned. "When the blade pierced your heart, he felt it. Worse than any of us."
I started to sit up, worried about him, but Yuki pressed me firmly down against the overly hard mattress. "He's alive. We were all about to shadow walk here when he collapsed. He begged us to leave him and save you."
"How did you know where I went?"
June blushed and looked away.
"You told them?"
She nodded. "I didn't doubt you would beat him, not after you destroyed Philipe, but I know what a devious, sneaky bastard Jules can be."
"He surprised me with those knives… I thought it was over and I was calling my shadow off the vampires before he killed all of them. Fucking sneak-attacks get you every time."
She nodded, looking like she had witnessed more than a few of them herself.
The sounds of explosions outside shook the walls. "What the hell is that?" Even Yuki's hand couldn't keep me from sitting up, but I stayed still as pain lanced through my chest and Dar ran to the window. He pulled the curtain, stared for a moment, and began chuckling softly.
"What is it?" I debated ignoring the pain in my chest and looking for myself.
"Your mother," he answered with a bark of raucous laughter.
"Great." I groaned and leaned back against the bed. "The pain in my chest moved to my ass."
"One of us should go down there and let her know the fight is over. Little vampires are flying through the air and landing rather abruptly."
Yuki giggled and was gone in the blink of an eye and a whoosh of air. I desperately tried to rest for a few moments and heal before my mother made an appearance. With the hole Yuki had made with her vacancy, Shea took the opportunity to fill it, gently caressing my arm as he sat beside me.
"Are you all right?" He looked down at me sheepishly.
"I'll live."
A single tear rolled down his cheek. "You had better. I do not know what I would do without you."
"What any of us would do without you," Dar added as he came back to the bedside.
"I was never in any real danger."
They both scoffed.
"Seriously. I knew you would be here in an instant if I needed you." I winked. "Look at you. You both ran out of the house in the middle of winter without even putting on a shirt." I rawred and ran my finger down Shea's chest, watching in rapt fascination as his tattoos lit wherever our skin touched.
"Well, your safety outweighs our modesty," Shea answered with a smile as June backed away, not wanting to be a part of our tender moment.
"I'll make some tea for your mother, but I fear I must depart for the day shortly thereafter. Yuki can show you around your home when you feel up to it." She bowed her head.
"Your home. I'll continue living in Cedar Falls, thank you very much."
"You do not intend to…"
"I never intended to. That's what I was trying to tell your brother-in-law. I am where I'm needed."
"Well, that is a discussion for another time."
"Yes. Best to keep my mother caffeinated." I rolled my eyes and earned a smile from June.
"You remind me so much of her."
"And here I thought we were friends," I said half-jokingly. And half-indignantly.
June laughed. "In the area of formidableness, you, your mother, and your grandmother are all cut from the same cloth." She bowed and backed out of the room.
Just as Yuki returned with a very angry looking banshee in tow, with red-hair and answered to the name Mother. Crying, the banshee ran across the room and fell to the floor beside me. "Are you okay?"
"Yes?"
"Oh, thank the goddess." She bowed her head and pressed her forehead against my arm, sobbing silently.
"What are you doing here?"
She lifted her head and stared at me incredulously with red-rimmed eyes. "You were hurt! Of course, I would come."
"I mean, how did you know?"
She gulped and stared at me. "Your father…"
I smiled. "You saw him, too?"
She nodded, seeming almost frail. "Daughter…"
"Yes, Mother?"
"I am sorry. Truly sorry."
"For?" The list was so long, I didn't know where she was starting.
"Treating your human…with such disdain."
"Marge?" Again, the list was too long, and I needed clarification.
"Yes. Midge."
"It's not me you need to apologize to," I said sternly.
"I know, and I will."
"Why do you hate her so much? She's the sweetest woman in the world?"
Mother shifted in embarrassment. "That is just one of the reasons."
"Huh?"
Mother sighed. "I'm jealous."
"Of her?"
She nodded.
"Why?"
Taking a deep breath, she thought about her answer for a moment before speaking. "Because of how much you adore her. You treat her more like a mother than you have ever treated me."
I nearly slapped her upside the head. "Because you never let me!" Enough was enough. I sat back up and stared down at my mother, fighting the urge to throttle her about the head, neck, and ears. "You and Nana both treat affection like some sort of disease! If you weren't belittling me, you were teaching me how to be a bigger, badder witch!"
"Sweetie, belittling is how we show affection."
"So, you love Marge?" I cocked an eyebrow in disbelief.
She swallowed. Hard. And nodded. The answer I was least expecting.
"What?"
"How could I not? You move across the country, start a new life, and from the moment you rolled into that dinky, dingey little town, she made sure you were fed and loved! I owe her a great debt."
I blinked. Looked up at Dar, over at Shea, and back down at my mother, waiting for the punchline. "Seriously?"
"Yes?"
"Well, okay then. Apparently, I've slipped into the Twilight Zone." I pushed myself back against the headboard and sat up straighter, pulling Shea into the space between my legs and hugging him like a teddy bear. I needed an anchor.
My mother blinked as the tattoos on him flared into life, tilting her head and gasping. "What is that?"
"I am tattooed," he said si
mply and held out his arm.
She reached out and touched his arm, but they were lifeless beneath his fingers. She started tapping them.
"They only light with your daughter's touch," he said by way of explanation.
"He's my nightlight," I said with a chuckle.
"That is the most…unusual thing I've ever seen. What language is it?" She looked at Shea instead of me. I barely spoke English, sometimes.
"I do not know."
"Doesn't matter," I answered and hugged him a little tighter, causing them to flare just a little brighter.
"Daughter?"
"Yes?"
"Pour a little power into them…" She stared at the arm in her hand.
"What?"
She finally looked up, huffing in frustration. "Pour. Magic. Into. Them," she answered slowly, for us slow kids in the back.
I shrugged and smiled, letting my love, warmth, and magic flow into the embrace.
The room flared a brilliant blue, and I had to blink a few times to let my overly light-sensitive eyes catch up. The script on his arms, shoulders, and chest was scrolling like a computer monitor, rearranging themselves and blending together until the brush strokes began to form constellations and swirls.
"What the hell is it?" I pushed him forward, keeping my hands on him to keep the magic flowing as some sort of map finally coalesced over every visible ounce of flesh above his waist.
"It would appear as if you have found your map," my mother answered in a voice that wasn't her own.
Chapter 22
"Can you keep this between you and me?"
Candace looked up at me, almost fearfully. Her bottom lip was trembling and she looked like she was on the verge of hyperventilating. "They'll be there, won't they?"
"Those angel thingies?"
She nodded.
"Probably, but you don't have to be there, just get me there. As soon as we're in Tartarus, I want you and Shea to get somewhere safe."
Candace blinked. "You would go alone?"
Seventh Seal: A Reverse Harem Tale (Lovin' the Coven Book 7) Page 20