‘How did he even know where Georgeanna lives?’
I edged closer to the door and pushed it open ever so slightly. It was ajar, but only by a couple of inches. The inside was dark. Too dark. All the curtains were drawn and the lights were turned off as if no one was home.
I let my magic out of my left hand with my right still holding the gun at ready. I had three weapons on me. My magic, Daniel’s wand, and the gun. With the vixra magic I didn’t need the wand. But I didn’t care which I had to use first so long as I wasn’t taken by surprise. And if I was, I could open up a vixra tunnel and lunge inside to jump back fives seconds.
My magic allowed me the small amount of light that I needed to see inside. And what I saw made me jump into the door.
‘Oh my god.’
Georgeanna was hanging from a rope tied to the ceiling fan of her living room. Her legs didn’t sway or reach for solid ground. Her eyes didn’t bulge out of her head. They were closed. And for all that I could see, she was dead.
‘But that’s not possible. She’s immortal. She said the vixra won’t allow her to die.’
“Georgeanna,” I said softly, half expecting her eyes to open.
“It may be a while before she answers,” said a voice from a few feet away.
I heard the clicking of a nearby light being turned on. A man was sitting in the same rocking chair I sat in when Georgeanna first brought me to her apartment. Only this wasn’t a normal man. He was a vampire. He sat with one leg propped up, as though he had been patiently waiting for my arrival. Or at least he stayed back to admire his handy work long enough for me to show up.
“Victor?” I muttered.
I was alone with one of Tobias’s warriors. The last time that happened Isaac had kidnapped me and I was forced to face him by myself. I was stronger now. And I had vixra blood in my system. I reminded myself of that and forced my body to stand up a little straighter. A little tougher. To at least give the impression that I wasn’t completely terrified.
‘Fail. Total fail.’
“Oh please, darling,” he said in a very brisk and chilling voice. “Call me Vick. After all, you and I are about to become incredibly close.”
‘I’m not some exiled witchling anymore. I’ve hunted vampires and even killed ones that were centuries old. I can handle this.’
I raised the magic in my hand and pointed it at him. His face lit up from the golden glow in my palm. It made the veins in his face pop. He looked demonic. I could see when looking at him why humans were so afraid of vampires in the old times. Even with the pale skin, the sharp teeth, and the added bonus feature of sucking blood until someone is drained dry, when they were really old they could sometimes look almost translucent. I could see the blue of his veins and the muscles in his neck.
“What you’ve done is a crime,” I said. My voice was shaking but I refused to back down or look afraid. “Georgeanna was well-acquainted with the vixra.”
“Was?” he said in a voice that was practically teasing me. “No, no, no, darling. She still is.”
He peered up at her and I saw something move from the corner of my eyes. When I looked at Georgeanna her legs came back to life, dangling in the air with her eyes wide open. Her hands reached for the rope and desperately tried to loosen the noose around her neck.
‘Oh my god. He’s letting her die repeatedly and then watching her come back to life again.’
I didn’t hesitate this time. I threw my magic in the air at the rope hanging above her to sever the knot and free her.
A wall of flames stopped me. Victor was using the same elemental magic that Isaac had. There was a fireball weaving around his palm.
“I can’t let you do that, darling,” he taunted me. “You see, I have plans for little Georgeanna. But they weren’t quite ready yet. Not until you arrived.”
I backed away from him, keeping my gun up and my magic in my hand. “Me? You couldn’t have known I would come here.”
“Of course I could. A sweet little croxa told me.”
‘Annabel? She was meant to find him, not reveal that I was looking for him. Unless…’
I backed up into the wall leading to Georgeanna’s kitchen. She was still struggling with the rope hanging her from her ceiling fan and unable to breathe. I saw her arms drop back to her sides and life leave her eyes as the rope strangled her.
“Not to worry,” Victor told me. “She can keep doing that for hours. Loads of fun.”
Rage flared up inside me. I summoned all the anger I possibly could. I let it cradle me, just like Tobias said. Only I wasn’t using it to calm my magic this time around. I was using it to harness all the power I possibly could.
I thrust my hand forward before Victor had time to react. It slammed right in his chest and he went flying straight through Georgeanna’s living room wall overlooking the nearby street. I heard Victor crash at the bottom with a grunt. Georgeanna’s living room wall was completely destroyed.
‘I hope Tobias saved some renovation money because I can’t help Georgeanna pay for the damages.’
Something told me she probably wouldn’t care.
I threw my magic at the hanging rope and severed it. Georgeanna came crashing down to the floor. I dropped my gun and managed to catch her before her head slammed into the floor.
“Georgeanna,” I said as I shook her body. I summoned my magic in my hand once more and sent a burst into her chest, trying to wake her up. “Georgeanna! He’s gonna be back here any moment.”
She wouldn’t stir. Any normal human being would have thought she was dead. I knew better.
I removed the noose from her bruised neck and lifted one of her eyelids. She wouldn’t recover fast enough to get out of here with me. And her apartment was too small for me to open a vixra tunnel in it. It would be like my kitchen all over again when Isaac ripped me and Emily through a tunnel to the past.
I had only one option. I didn’t like it. Actually, I hated it. But it was the only one I could think of.
I grabbed my gun and ran over to the huge hole I created in Georgeanna’s apartment. The street was empty except for the crushed car that I assumed broke Victor’s fall. He was nowhere to be found. He had already recovered and ran somewhere.
‘The son of a bitch is hiding.’
Or worse. He ran. Which meant I would have to chase him. And I couldn’t do it alone.
I reached for my cell in my pocket and rang the one number in it that I trusted. And the one number I knew would greet me with a very irritated attitude.
“Where are you?” Nathaniel said into the phone, clearly having woken up from his phone ringing to find that I wasn’t beside him anymore.
“Meet me on the corner of Lennox Street in D.C. I found Victor.”
“You went hunting by yourself?” he hissed.
I glanced back at Georgeanna lying on the floor, still seemingly dead but hopefully recovering. “Not exactly. He sort of found me.”
‘Nathaniel can’t know about Georgeanna. I have to keep him away from here.’
Chapter 9
I ran out of Georgeanna’s apartment and down to the street below with my gun tucked by my side and my magic in my hand. I tried my best to hide them both if anyone walked by but there was only so much I could do. My magic was glowing from my backside with my hand tucked behind it.
The second I reached the street below I felt the wind zipping through me. Almost like a motorcycle had rushed by with tremendous speed. Only the motorcycle was nearly silent and invisible.
Victor was messing with me.
I whipped around the empty street to see Victor. He was keeping to the shadows. That meant one thing. He wasn’t able to walk in the daylight. And with the sun getting lower and lower, I wouldn’t have the advantage of daylight for long.
‘He must have caught Georgeanna last night or in the pre-dawn hours. She must have strangled to death countless times. You ruthless son of a bitch.’
“Come out to play, little kruxa,” he taunted me. H
e was rushing from one shadow to the next, moving faster than my eyes could see.
I saw a woman jogging fifty feet away down the street.
‘No! Don’t come near here. Turn around! Go down another street, damn it!’
Too late. Victor saw exactly where my eyes went. He rushed to the woman, grabbed her, then bolted back a few feet from where I was standing in the shadow cast by Georgeanna’s apartment building.
I reached my hand up in the air to open a vixra tunnel, to get the five-second advantage that I needed to stop him from snatching the woman in his arms.
“Do it and I’ll snap her neck,” he said, holding her head locked in his arms as she started to shriek.
I stopped. Did he know what I was going to do? No. He couldn’t. Edmund didn’t give such abilities to just anyone.
“Please help me,” the woman begged.
I could see Victor’s fangs glisten as he smiled. His desire to give in to his thirst was permeating from his skin. To make the woman his first meal of the night with me as the main course.
The woman’s eyes saw the magic in my hand. I tucked it behind my back again.
“What do you want, Victor?” I hollered at him. “Why did you try to kill Georgeanna?”
“Kill her? She was my entertainment for the day. Like I said. I have other plans for little Georgeanna.”
I opened my palm behind my back and made a slit in the air, trying my best to open up a vixra tunnel behind me where he couldn’t see.
‘Keep talking asshole. Whatever keeps you distracted.’
“Entertainment? You find torturing people entertaining?” I yelled.
“No, I find torturing kruxa entertaining. Which will only make this more enjoyable.”
“What do you mean?”
He snickered. A deep laugh that instantly made the hairs on my arms stand up.
“I do believe I told you not to do that,” he said. Victor took the woman’s neck in his hands and snapped it. I could hear her bones crack in two. Then he tossed her aside and watched as I looked on.
I didn’t have time to hesitate. I lunged backward and let the vixra tunnel open up behind me. Then I visualized Victor’s backside. I had to come up from behind him.
The tunnel whipped me through so fast that I barely got my gun up in a ready position. But I managed it. When I came out the other end I was ready to fire the gun and paralyze him with the magic-laced bullets. And to keep him from harming the woman.
I didn’t come out the other side to see his back. He turned directly to me and dropped the woman to the ground. Then he punched me so hard in my side that I hunched over instantly. He was ready for me. He knew. Somehow he knew I was using the tunnel to time travel. And he set the trap for me.
‘He has help. Someone who knows about vixra time travel.’
I gasped and fell to my knees. My gun dropped down to the cement with a heavy clank.
Victor sideswiped me with his fist and knocked me right to the ground. I heard a loud snap like he had cracked a whip in his hands.
Something wet was covering my side. I brought my hand up to see crimson red dripping from my fingers.
‘Oh god. He didn’t punch me. That was a knife. He stabbed me.’
A sharp stinging erupted from my side and traveled up my spine. Then into my neck. Then through my arms and down my legs. I tried moving but all I could do was wince from the pain rapidly spreading throughout my entire body. The knife was laced with magic. The same magic that covered the bullets in my gun. I could feel it paralyzing me just like it did the vampires I hunted. Only this was more powerful. It quickly paralyzed me. One limb at a time.
‘Daniel made the magic for the bullets. Did he do the same for Victor’s knife?’
“Little kruxa, you made it too easy,” Victor boasted, taking a knee before me and grabbing me by the neck. He tilted my head just enough to see the woman he had locked in his arms ready to kill only seconds ago. She was lying on the ground with her eyes wide open. He killed her anyway. I didn’t save her. He snapped her neck the second after I crashed to the ground from the knife. That was the cracking sound I heard.
He let his finger trail down my arm, watching me flinch and grimace as the magic started moving all the way down to my fingertips, paralyzing everything but my eyes.
“Best we get going,” he said. “We don’t want to be late, little kruxa.”
He turned around and stuck his hand in the air right where I had come through the vixra tunnel. I saw him grunt and groan as he struggled to keep the tunnel open. He pulled down and lengthened the entry, then he took a piece of paper out from his pocket and set it on his tongue.
‘Is every vampire in town on vixra blood? Or just Tobias’s former warriors?’
He gained control over the opening and then peered back down at me. Seeing his eyes scan me from head to toe made me realize exactly why Tobias made him into one of his warriors. He was strong. He was smart. And he had enough control over his impulses to make him dangerous. Not just in the typical vampire way. A vampire with control might be more of a threat than one without it. The other vampires Nathaniel and I hunted together were often easy to track. Easy to take down. Easy to kill. Victor wouldn’t be. He was cold and calculating. And his eyes told me one single thing.
He won. I lost. And he was enjoying watching dread flood my eyes.
“You wait right there,” he said with a hint of sarcasm. As if to state the obvious. That I wasn’t able to go anywhere let alone make a run for it.
Victor looked around everywhere to make sure no one was watching. He lifted his arms into the air and a thin layer of grey smoke engulfed the entire streets. He was veiling us with the vixra magic in his system so no one would see me lying there completely defenseless. Then he scurried away. He was back in ten seconds. Georgeanna was hanging over his backside with her arms dangling above her head along with her hair. He tossed her onto the ground beside me. I watched helplessly as he pulled out his cell phone from the pocket of his leather jacket and placed it up to his ear.
“Tell me you have them,” the voice said.
Victor gave a twisted smile as he knelt down toward me and started playing with my hair. “I have them. Should I bring them now?”
“It’s a touch early but go ahead. I will begin shortly. You’ve done well, Victor.”
I knew that voice. I had only heard it a handful of times but that didn’t make it any less distinctive.
It was Daniel.
Victor ended the call and took a moment to admire his handy work. And to admire me. He let his hand slide down my arm. I wanted to pull away in disgust. I struggled to move my arm. To get away from him. From whatever sick thing he was planning. And yet, the second I tried, I almost instantly stopped. My fingers in my right hand twitched. And my toes. I could feel them again. I moved them inside my shoes. Then my fingers again. It took effort but they moved. I started getting a feeling in my calves again. Then my arms. Then my chest. The magic from his knife burned inside my gut but it was slowly starting to dissipate.
I immediately stopped trying to move. The slightest sign might give me away. I stayed as still as I possibly could, feeling each part of my body slowly recover and starting to gain feeling again. Then a miracle happened if I ever felt one. The wound he made with the knife started closing up. I could feel the skin stitching itself back together. The burning tapered off. And my magic. I could feel it again! It was right on the tips of my fingers, ready to strike and more than prepared to get Victor as far away from me as possible.
‘The vixra magic I took. It must be healing me.’
It was Edmund’s blood. He was an older vixra. Stronger. His magic was more potent. And I took a wild guess that whatever magic Victor was using wasn’t nearly as strong. Strong, no doubt. But nowhere near as powerful as Edmund’s blood.
I watched as Victor put his arm back into the opening of the vixra tunnel and pulled it open with his bare hand as if he was trying to tear open a window screen.
> ‘Not exactly skilled at opening the tunnels, are you?’
I used the opportunity of him being turned away to try moving my legs. My arm. My head. Everything. And to my shock, I could. To my even greater shock, my magic was whirling around in my hands.
And Victor’s back was turned away from me.
Before he had the chance to turn around, I threw my hands up in an L shape and let my magic rip through my palms in a streak of gold light. It had never looked like this before. Like a flash of lightning barreling from my hand and striking Victor right in the back with tremendous force.
His arms lurched out as his limbs went into shock. I heard him holler at the top of his lungs. He struggled to turn around and summon his elemental magic from his hands, wanting nothing more than to throw a fireball at me. I wouldn’t give him that opportunity.
My legs swooped out from under me and I smashed into the pavement flat on my back. There was a rope of flames wrapped around my ankles and steadily pulling me toward the vixra tunnel. Toward Victor! He somehow managed to summon enough of his vixra magic to slither toward me and grab me by the leg with his magic.
I moved my left hand downward, trying to sever his magic fire rope from my leg. It sliced through it in time to stop me from going through the tunnel but not fast enough to stay a safe distance from Victor.
He grabbed onto my jacket and pulled me up in the air.
I latched my hands around his head and let my magic out, hoping it might hurt him enough for him to drop me.
No such luck.
He flung me right through the vixra tunnel. I went flying into the unknown with my arms and legs flailing everywhere. Like I had been thrown straight into a washing machine running at full speed. Everything around me was blurred in a haze of red. I shut my eyes from the tunnel’s blinding light. Wherever he was taking me, I wasn’t interested in going. I reached my arm up in the air, fighting back the rush of wind swirling around me. Then I let my magic rip through the air, carving out a hole in the tunnel.
“Oh no, you don’t!” I heard him holler. He latched onto my arm, trying to pull me away from the hole I created.
Witchling Wars Page 58