Fated Realms: (Witchling Wars: Vampire Echelon Book 2)

by Shawn Knightley

  “Those aren’t normal rifles,” Christophe said from a few feet away.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  He tilted his head as if I should already know the answer.

  I scoffed. “Of course. They have magic infused bullets. Like the ones Richard Foster took from me when I was first captured.”

  “But there’s no way they could replicate that for more weapons,” Tobias chimed in. “Unless…”

  “Lenora,” I said. “Victor is luring Lenora. There’s no knowing how much he had her tell Tusker so he could pass it on to his scientists in Gandira.”

  The churning inside my chest went hollow. An emptiness started to consume me. An unwelcome feeling that I rarely allowed myself to fall prey to.

  If these mercenaries had weapons with magical enhancements, we might not win this battle.

  12

  The experience of seeing the armored vehicles and the tanks coming down the highway was unlike anything I had ever endured. Not because I wasn’t used to overcoming my fears or impending threats. I dealt with such things as a kruxa every day of my long life. And yet, as I watched Gandira’s mercenaries coming down I-70, ready to force themselves onto the Rockies like a plague seeking to infect every cell of a human body, I saw flashes of what once was. Every few seconds the sight before me changed. I was watching the mercenaries in their armored trucks rolling by with their guns, then in a flash, I was watching Roman soldiers marching in unison down the valley through the trees near where my tribe was hiding nearly a thousand years ago. Tobias was standing next to me, looking very different than he did now. His hair was long. He was draped in leathers and furs. And he had the sword of a Roman he killed with his bare hands ready at his side. A prize he took after his first kill. The memory came back to me in pieces, reminding me that this was nothing new. I had faced worse odds. I had fought far worse villains. And the threat of humans trying to steal our magic and covet what wasn’t there’s had to be stopped once more.

  The armed forces snapped back to my sight, forcing me into the present. I shook my head and blinked rapidly, trying to stay in the moment and not forget what I was there to do.

  My hand tightened on the staff in my hands. It was in my grip then as it was now. Only this time, I wasn’t fighting alongside humans and other witchlings. I had well-trained vampires beside me.

  Tobias raised his arm, concealed by my shadow charm and ready to give the other vampires a signal when to attack.

  I could feel the thirst inside me getting more intense. Just enough for me not to become maddened by its blood lust and yet enough to make me eager for the first droplet of blood.

  The armored vehicles stopped. Even the tanks came to a halt. The long caravan of men dressed for battle halted one by one down the highway. I watched as the tank in the front stop gripping onto the concrete of the empty highway and the top opened up.

  A tall figure stepped out. I only saw the back of his head at first. It didn’t matter. I knew who it was.

  Victor turned to look at me. He lifted his arms as if he was amused by my efforts and pitying me for being so weak.

  “Come now, kruxa,” he yelled in the air. He found me with little to no trouble at all. Even with the shadow charm concealing me. He lifted his hands up higher and I felt something rise in the air. It was the shadow charm. He erased it with elemental magic. Just as Liza had when we battled in the streets of Denver. I had little doubt that he was the one who taught her how.

  Tobias gave the signal and every vampire charged for the men in armored vehicles. The mercenaries came pouring out alongside men in military uniforms, firing their weapons at the beastly creatures that moved faster than their human eyes could see. Christophe was one of the first to reach them. He latched onto one man and disarmed him of his gun, then tore the material right off his neck and dug his fangs deep inside his skin. I saw the man’s blood sputter from his veins.

  Liza thrust her arm right through a man’s bulletproof vest and reached for his heart. It was still beating as she tore it from his chest. Another vampire ripped a helmet right off with such force that part of the mercenary’s head came with it. It was a bloodbath. And a moment of revenge for Tobias’s warriors. These men threatened the place we made our home. They invaded our territory. And they kidnapped my kind only to do ungodly things to them.

  I ran down the hill with the final charge. Only I didn’t stop to feed on any of the soldiers. I was after Victor. I was ready to end him. To stop this madness and the sickening duet he and I had engaged in for so long. The dance that almost always ended in me being defeated and left to hunt him down yet again. He fooled me into thinking he cared for the coven. I knew better now. He wanted them so he could have more for his blood sacrifice to open the link between realms.

  Victor stood there in complete stillness, not moving a single muscle. He watched me with amusement as I reached for him. A strong arm yanked me back and I went crashing into the cement.

  Electricity fired off inside my limbs and caused me to shake uncontrollably. One of the mercenaries dressed head to toe in black had locksin inside his gun. It fired at me like a lasso, latching around my torso and not letting go. He was drawing me in closer, trying to get the locksin wrapped around my arms and legs before Tobias reached him. He was too slow. Tobias ripped the man’s head right off his shoulders. I watched as his flesh tore open and his body fell to the ground.

  I scrambled to unwind the sparking locksin from around my body before anyone else saw I was down.

  Somewhere in all the chaos, my staff went flying. I searched frantically for it as Tobias grunted through flying sparks of electrical energy to get the locksin off my legs, ignoring how it burned his hands as he broke me free.

  When I finally found my staff, I saw that it wasn’t some random soldier holding it. A woman stood before me like a calm in the storm during the heat of battle. Her hair was a luscious chocolate brown. Her eyes were young and devious. And her skin nearly flawless.

  If it hadn’t been for the vision I saw of her with Tobias so many years ago I never would have recognized her,

  “Lenora?” I muttered, not quite believing my eyes. She wasn’t the middle-aged woman who helped free me from the vixra. She was younger. Enhanced. And striking.

  She stood before me in a long blue gown. One not suited for being among a bunch of brutish men and vampires. But I had seen the likes of it before. It was a gown that luxra would wear when they cast spells. Only something wasn’t right. The gowns were worn when they performed ceremonies with other luxra witchlings. And only when they needed to summon a great deal of magic.

  Blue beams of light started jutting out of my staff in her hands. Her eyes lit up from the magic coursing through her veins.

  “Lenora!” Tobias shouted her name, stepping closer to her as his hands healed from the burn of the locksin.

  I stood up behind him. “Don’t!” I told him, grabbing onto his arm and forcing him to stop. “She’s been lured!”

  Lenora raised the staff in the air as I saw the clouds above us start to get darker. Then came the horrifying silence. All the vampires behind me stopped attacking. There was nothing but the stain of human blood on the highway and the sight of Lenora starting to channel her magic. That was when I saw it. Other luxra witchlings from her coven were hiding in the armored vehicles. They had already gotten out and formed a large circle around us. They were perfectly positioned to surround us once we attacked.

  Victor watched from the height of the tank as a magical circle with bright blue light erupted from their wands and closed around us. A thick blue flare shot from one wand to the next, trapping us in their web.

  Every vampire stopped attacking. They didn’t even look normal. They weren’t crazed or thirsting for blood. They were calm, collected, and doing what they were told.

  “What did I tell you, kruxa?” Victor said to me from atop the tank as the men with lockin in their guns started to swarm me and Tobias. “I will take this life from you as
well if you tried to fight me. And you did. Although, I do believe the timing couldn’t have been better planned. Unless of course, I did plan it. Centuries ago.”

  I didn’t give myself time to think about it. I let my crowning magic out of my body and tried to let it flow to as many vampires as possible. I had to release them from Victor’s luring and gain control. I never got the chance.

  Tobias gripped my throat and held me high in the air. My legs dangled below me as I struggled to break free.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  I tried unluring him the way I did back in the caverns. Maybe it wasn’t enough.

  His grip got tighter the more I struggled. I let my magic rip through my body. So hard that it sent scorching hot ripples down my spine. And unlike the heat of the sun, this I felt deep inside my body. He didn’t let go. Nor did he get thrown back. I managed cast aside some of the mercenaries and soldiers around us but that was it. Lenora was channeling her magic right into him through my staff. I saw his eyes light up in the same blue hue as her magic, making them look like ice. His face went empty, just like the vampires. I knew his mind wasn’t his own anymore.

  I brought my arm around to crush his hold right at the elbow, trying to weaken his grip. I fell right down to the ground and didn’t manage to gather myself up before he kicked me. His leg was so strong that I rolled right into the large metal wheels of the tank. He marched over to me and kept kicking. I latched onto one of his legs and yanked him down.

  He didn’t quit. And the more I tried summoning my magic to unlure him and the others, the weaker I felt.

  ‘Is Victor draining my magic from me? Or Lenora? Why is this happening?’

  “Tobias, stop!” I shouted just before he grabbed onto my jacket by the shoulders and slammed into the side of the tank. I smacked my head against it as he held me there. I was stuck. My magic wasn’t working. It only sputtered outside my fingers and then flickered away as though it never existed.

  Victor jumped down from the side of the tank and slowly walked over to Christophe who was standing ten feet away, watching with empty eyes. He handed him a tiny piece of translucent paper with a red dot on it. It was vixra blood.

  Christophe took it from him and let it dissolve on his tongue. I could see the power the blood gave him filling his body with energy. His eyes grew hungry. Angry. Ready to lash out and give into his viciousness.

  Christophe slowly stepped closer to me. A ball of fire lit up in his hands, dancing in his palms as he readied his arm.

  ‘My God! He’s going to have Christophe burn me alive!’

  “Not quite, little kruxa,” Victor whispered in my mind.

  Lenora walked over to Victor and gave him my staff. The sight of him touching it infuriated me. My thirst erupted in the back of my throat. The wildness inside me that I only knew existed after I turned into a vampire started to break free. And I let it. I figured this was one of those times when control wasn’t a virtue.

  The fire in Christophe’s hand soared above his head and traveled between the hands of the luxra witches closing in on us. They weaved it in a beautiful yet horrifying spiral of blue luxra magic and elemental fire magic, braiding it into a long chain that flowed between them. And imprisoning us in a fire circle where we couldn’t escape. I was trapped. And Victor managed to turn Tobias against me. He was inside his head, forcing new truths and making him into a man I knew all too well. The one who stared at me coldly and forced me into a carriage so many years ago. The man who didn’t care enough to even wonder if I was alright.

  “No!” I shouted at Tobias as he placed both his hands around my throat and started to squeeze. It didn’t matter that my body didn’t need air anymore. I was growing weaker. My magic was leaving me. I couldn’t force it from my body. And most of all, I couldn’t unlure Tobias.

  ‘Don’t let him do this to you again, Tobias! Don’t let him control you!’

  Kitty screeched in the sky above me, soaring down and latching her long talons onto Tobias and gouging him in the eyes. He let out a roar and loosened one of his hands to cast her to the side.

  Victor snickered from a few feet away. “This little thing is important to you, isn’t it?” He said in my mind as he shot a ray of his crowning magic right at Kitty, paralyzing her completely.

  I nearly shouted but Tobias’s hand was back on my throat. I was losing more and more magic. A few more seconds and it would be completely drained from my body. Then as soon as I thought that was the biggest worry I could have, Victor stepped on Kitty’s neck and snapped it in two.

  I watched with horrified eyes. He knew what she was to me. He searched through my mind until he found it. And he smiled as he heard her bones breaking.

  “Lenora,” he said. “Immortality can be such a curse. Please alleviate it from this bird and make sure it doesn’t come back.”

  I struggled to stay conscious as Lenora walked up to Victor and pointed her wand at Kitty.

  Then just as I thought I might lose Kitty forever, the one person I definitely didn’t want to see did something I wasn’t expecting.

  Liza awoke from Victor’s luring and rushed at one of the mercenaries with a gun pointed at me and Tobias. She thrust her fist right through his bulletproof vest and into his back, tearing out his spinal cord before he even fell to the ground. Then she swiped his rifle with the magic-laced bullets out from under him and shot Tobias through his side.

  I watched as the blue magic inside the bullet went straight through him and poisoned his blood. Tobias’s veins started turning blue through his pale skin as it slowly paralyzed him. And in doing so, his hands started to loosen.

  Liza moved faster than I could react. Before I knew it she had her hand deep inside Tobias’s leather jacket and was digging out what remained of the vixra blood in his pocket.

  I fell to the ground with a grunt and groan. Tobias’s strength was sucking something right out of me. My life force. Whatever it was that kept vampires alive.

  ‘Victor. Victor was channeling me through Tobias to drain my magic. And my life.’

  Liza pointed the rifle right at Victor. His face didn’t falter or even flinch.

  “Lenora, teach this vampire a lesson in humility, would you?”

  Lenora pointed her wand right at Liza. But Liza was ready for her. She raised a hand from the rifle and shot a tidal wave of water right at Lenora’s chest, sending her several feet back and putting out some of the fire circle trapping us. The luxra struggled to keep it up as their magic tried to maintain the snare.

  Now Victor was irritated.

  I gathered myself up to my hands and knees in time to see him channel the crowning magic in his hands.

  “Now Lenora,” he shouted. “Do it now.”

  Lenora got up on her knees and let her arms out to the side as if she was praising the sky above her. Her eyes were still blank. She was under his spell. His luring. And I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what she was going to do.

  I struggled over to Tobias. He was still completely paralyzed. And all I could do was stare at him until the sensation of fire started to engulf my entire body.

  The ground lit up in blue flames, lighting up all the vampires of the coven. They stood there helplessly in a lured state, unable to fight off the fire or retreat.

  ‘He’s going to kill us all.’

  “Sorry, kruxa,” he spoke in my mind. “But I’m going to need back what I gave you so long ago. I’m sure you’ll understand given its caused you so much hardship.”

  I don’t even know how to explain what happened next. Or how to express how it felt to have my chest torn open with magic. All I knew was that I never wished so much for death as I did at that moment.

  I fell onto my back, arching into the air as his crowning magic lifted both Tobias and me several feet away. The flames burned the coven along with the mercenaries and members of Lenora’s luxra coven several feet beneath us. Victor had more than enough blood magic to open the link if he killed us all.

 
; Victor rose in the air along with us, levitating his body with his scarlet red magic. It spiraled out of his palms and shot straight through Tobias and me. Only Tobias was paralyzed. He couldn’t scream. I only stopped screaming when I realized it was only making the pain worse.

  Something came out of my chest and floated above me. It looked like a golden light. A sphere of swirling magic that spun around in a radiant glow.

  A similar ball of light left Tobias’s chest. I watched helplessly as Liza screamed beneath us. The flames were burning her alive. Torching her legs, her torso, then up to her shoulders. She reached inside her pocket and shoved vixra blood into her mouth. Far too much if you ask me.

  ‘The sly bitch must have been hoarding it all along.’

  Vampires could only handle so much. But I guess she thought desperate times called for desperate measures.

  I watched as she thrashed about trying to get the flames to die down. Then once the vixra blood started to reach her system, she let out enough elemental water magic to cause a flash flood.

  It soared through the circle like a tsunami. One that was a gift from the heavens.

  The water rose within the fire circle until it reached Victor in the air. He smashed it back down, forcing it out of the circle and drenching everyone beneath us. Soon they were trapped in the pool of water. But they were alive.

  The vampires stopped screaming and lay on the ground as the water started splashing out of the circle until nothing was left but puddles on the ground. Their bodies healed within seconds from the wretched flames. The mercenaries weren’t so lucky. If they weren’t dead, they were dying. Unlike the coven, they didn’t have immortality to protect them from the fire.

  Lenora was drenched in her long gown, along with the other luxra witchlings. I watched as she struggled to move. She was the only witchling below us that stirred. Horror washed over me as I realized she likely just lost her luxra coven.

  ‘Is she dying? Did Liza drown her?’