by Steve McHugh
The feeling of gathering power had stopped, and I moved away from the wall, noticing the cracked rock where my hand had been. I wondered just how much I had after the wraith had taken all six of the blood elves. Time to find out.
A blast of lightning left my hands, smashed into Baldr and lifted him off his feet, throwing him back into the room behind.
“That it?” Baldr asked, sprinting toward me.
He was moving as fast as he had the last time, but for some reason I was able to track him with greater ease. I dodged the punch and hit him square in the jaw, which forced him to step aside. The shock on his face was easy to read, but he wouldn’t leave himself open like that again.
I motioned for him to come fight me. And winked.
He kicked out, and I wrapped his leg in air, throwing him across the hallway to the wall behind us, but he absorbed the impact and came racing back, punching me in the jaw before grabbing my arm and throwing me up into the air.
I hit the ceiling high above and immediately created a sphere of lightning in my hand, making it bigger and bigger, until it was a few feet in diameter. I fell back toward Baldr, who hastily moved aside, as I detonated the magic, tearing the floor beneath me to shreds. Baldr backed into the room with Mordred. A small blast of air magic changed my trajectory and I landed on the crumbling hallway floor, only to be met with a flash of light that forced me to turn away for a second. A second was all Baldr needed.
The blow lifted me off my feet and forced me back into the hallway, over the destroyed portion and into the wall on the far side, just as I used the shadows around it to cushion the blow. Shadows exploded up from the floor all around me and streaked toward Baldr, who dodged most of them. A few grabbed hold, but he tore his arm free, his strength greater than that of the shadows. But it kept him busy as I jumped over the hole, creating a second sphere, this one of fire, before I landed.
I drove the fire sphere into Baldr’s chest. The flames and air engulfed him, wrapping all over his body. But a second later the fire was turned into steam as water tore through the maelstrom, forcing me to dive aside.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs beside us took Baldr’s attention, and he walked back into the room, putting some distance between himself and whatever was coming to join the fight. Kasey, in her werewolf beast form, ran toward me, stopping as a low growl escaped her throat. She glanced over at Mordred and me as we got back to our feet, and then turned to Baldr, opened her mouth, and sprayed ice at him. He jumped out the window.
I ran over and watched Baldr fall the hundreds of feet, losing sight of him well before he hit the bottom.
“You think he’s dead?” Kasey asked, changing back into her human form.
I shook my head.
“He’ll survive it,” Mordred said. “If nothing else, his matter magic makes him almost impossible to kill. But it’ll be a while before he’s even close to full strength again. Thanks for the save.”
Chloe ran into the room and hugged me. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, passing Kasey her leather armor to put on.
“Me too,” I told her. “Did everyone make it?”
I got my answer quickly as everyone else walked into the room. “So far we’re all here,” Diane told me. “I’d quite like to go, though. I think we may have pissed off a lot of blood elves.”
“Also, we blew some up,” Remy said. “And part of the citadel fell off and destroyed the bridge. It was so cool. The elves were all, ‘Nooooo!’ and then they got squished. But they were colossal assholes, so I don’t exactly feel bad about it. Did you do that?”
I nodded.
“We found Stel. He’s dead too.”
“Did you do that?” I asked him.
“Actually no. He ran away and got squashed by part of the falling bridge. I’ll admit, I chuckled for a good solid minute.”
“He laughed so hard, I thought he was going to have an asthma attack,” Chloe told me.
Remy shrugged. “Stel threatened Kasey, kidnapped her, and almost got us all killed rescuing her. Fuck the pancake-shaped prick. So, how’d you break the citadel?”
“Another time. I know how the tablet works.” I explained about the blood use, and why the blood elves had been unable to use it to go through to the earth realm. Before everyone asked questions at once, I dropped into my shadow realm, and retrieved the tablet. I looked around for the wraith, but it was nowhere to be found, so I left.
“I figured Baldr would have gone through to the earth realm too,” Irkalla said, as I emerged. “Surprised he didn’t.”
“Wasn’t allowed to,” Mordred said. “He’s not the top of the tree. He’s close, but he’s not up there. And once we’re back in the earth realm, we’re going to have to deal with Mara, and her reason for sending us here. This isn’t over, Nate.”
“Everyone place your blood on the tablet,” I said, passing it around. Once everyone had bled on it, Kasey passed it back to me.
Blood elves began climbing the stairs, forcing Morgan and Zamek to defend the entrance to the room. Fortunately, getting from the stairs to the room had been made more difficult by the partially destroyed hallway floor, so they had to stand across the hall and fire arrow after arrow through the doorway.
“Zamek, we can’t leave you here!” I shouted, and ran over to him, forcing the tablet into his hand. “Use it. We can always send you back.”
He paused but then nodded and slammed his bloody hand onto the stone.
“Any time now!” Morgan shouted as her golems blocked the arrows that came through.
I turned at Morgan’s shout and realized her golem was in the wrong place to stop an arrow from flying past toward Chloe, who was oblivious to it all. Adam dove at Chloe, pushing her aside, and took the arrow in his chest. Chloe screamed when she saw her father hit the ground. The others in the group immediately turned to help as Kasey had turned once again into her wolf-beast form and blocked the entrance to the room with blasts of ice.
“It won’t hold forever,” she said.
I ran over to Adam, who was coughing up blood, while Mordred knelt beside him and tried to heal the wound with his light magic. The arrow had been pulled out, and I picked it up.
I remembered what Baldr had told us before we’d entered the citadel. “Spider venom. The arrow heads are coated in it.”
“The people who take the scrolls are still human,” Nabu explained as he dragged me away. “They have a higher ability to heal, but he took an arrow to the heart. He’s going to die, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. All Mordred is doing is slowing down the inevitable. Let them say their goodbyes. He won’t survive the trip.”
“My dad will not die!” Chloe snapped.
Adam raised his hand and stroked his daughter’s chin, leaving a bloody smear. “I love you, little girl. I’m so glad I got to see you again.”
“No, no, no, no,” she repeated over and over. “Please.”
Adam forced a smile. “Mordred is keeping me alive, but he can’t do it forever.”
“I can try,” Mordred said. “I’m not going to let anyone else die in this shithole. Not without a fight.”
“The venom will kill me,” Adam said. “Magic won’t stop it.”
“I’ve just found you,” Chloe said as tears fell freely.
“I’ll always be here,” Adam said, and he tapped her head. “And here.” Placing the tip of his finger against her heart. “No one can take that away.”
“I love you, Dad,” she said. “I love you. Please stay. Please.”
“Nate, you take care of my little girl.”
“She’s pretty good at taking care of herself,” I told him. “But I’ll always be around.”
Adam nodded and smiled. “She’s made her daddy proud. Now run, all of you. Get out of here. It was an honor to meet you, to know that Chloe’s friends love her. To know that she’s surrounded by good people.”
Mordred looked over at me and shook his head.
“It’s okay,” Adam said, a
nd he weakly took Chloe’s hand in his. “Your daddy loves you. He’ll never stop loving you.” And then he died.
Chloe’s howls of pain and hurt were muffled as Diane and several others surrounded her, hugging her tight, but even their presence couldn’t completely drown out the torment.
The ice at the door began to crack, and I activated the realm-gate tablet, taking us all home.
CHAPTER 38
Now. Earth realm.
I landed in a field. I wondered why Kay’s tablet was designed to take him back to this particular location. The middle of a field wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. It wasn’t muddy, thankfully, but it was a bit disorienting, and it took me a few seconds to remember what had happened just before we shot through the realm gate.
I staggered to my feet and looked around at the rest of the group.
“So this is the earth realm?” Zamek asked. “Smells funny.”
The howl of pain from Chloe caught my attention, and I spun to find her no longer looking like the Chloe I knew. She knelt over the body of her father, her face contorted, full of rage, and no longer human in color. It was a dark red and orange, with ridges protruding around the eyes and cheeks. Her eyes appeared more like those of a wolf than a human; she was a predator, and one with a power we were unaware of.
“She’s let the demon out!” Nabu shouted as he ran toward her.
Chloe raised her hand in his direction and a blast of bright-yellow power exploded from it, smashing into Nabu and throwing him back over the field.
“Kinetic energy,” the demon that used to be Chloe growled. “I absorb it. Redirect it. Fun, yes?”
“How do we stop her without killing her?” I asked.
“Chloe!” Kasey shouted. “It’s me: come on, you know me. Please don’t do this.”
Demon-Chloe roared something and charged her best friend, but Diane got between them, taking the demon off its feet and planting her face-first on the ground.
“Get off her!” Kasey screamed. “Just let her be, please! She won’t hurt me.”
“She’s been taken over by a demon,” I told her. “Chloe needs to take control back, or this could turn very bad, very quickly. And that demon doesn’t care about you or any of us.”
Kasey stared at me. “Please let me try.”
Demon-Chloe continued to struggle in Diane’s iron grip, but I nodded to her, and she released the younger woman, stepping back a few paces.
“Chloe,” Kasey said, edging closer. “Please. It’s me. It’s all of us. We’re your friends.”
“Friends?” Demon-Chloe spat. “Friends couldn’t save him. Didn’t do anything to try.”
“That’s not true, and you know it’s not,” Kasey said, her voice always soft. “We did everything we could to save him. It’s no one here’s fault. It’s the elves’ fault. It’s the fault of the people who sent us there.”
“Mara,” the Demon-Chloe said, and she sprinted away so fast few of us could keep up with her.
We followed Demon-Chloe out of the field and over a small bridge until we reached a house nearby. The Demon-Chloe screamed for her mum to leave the house, but as the rest of us reached her, Asag was the only thing to leave the building.
“Thought you’d all be dead!” he shouted while several of the little mini versions of him stood around, ready to fight.
I didn’t stop running when I saw him. I poured power into a sphere on my hand and sprinted past the Demon-Chloe. Asag recognized me and began to laugh.
“Sure, you go first!” he roared.
Just before I drove the sphere into him, I changed its shape, making it drill-like, then slammed it into Asag’s chest with every bit of force I could manage.
The magic literally tore him in half, from the top of his shoulder down across his chest and through the top of his hip. There was no blood, just a silver tar-like substance, as the smaller versions of him collapsed into piles of rock.
Mordred walked over to the corpse of Asag and with a blade of blood magic, cut the monster’s head off. It took him a few hacks to get through the rock, but when he did, he kicked the head aside. “Just wanted to make sure,” he said.
I turned and stepped in front of Demon-Chloe. “See? We’re all on the same side.”
“Kill my mother,” the demon said.
“Not yet,” I told her. “Come on, Chloe: fight this. I know you want—”
A window shattered at the rear of the property.
“Make sure she doesn’t kill anyone,” I said as I charged around the side of the building, catching a glimpse of Jerry as he escaped the sun, and ran into the dark woods behind the house. I moved the shadows around in front of where he was running, and he tripped headfirst into a tree. More shadows wrapped around him, holding him in place.
“You’re not even a master vampire,” I said as I got closer. “You’re nothing: a waste of breath. Where’s your girlfriend?”
“Basement of the house,” he said. “She’s alive.”
“Why’d you do this: join Kay? Was it really because I didn’t stop you when I promised I would? Is that what this is all about?”
“I found that I enjoyed hurting people, hunting people. Humans are ever so easy to kill. I found Kay by accident. He introduced me to Asag, and the rest is history.”
“Kay is dead. Asag is in several pieces. Who else?”
“Her name is Siris.”
To hear her name spoken, to have it confirmed that she was involved, made me wonder what her plans were. And how many more had to die before she achieved them. “What does she want?”
“She’s going to kill Brutus. We were meant to get certain people out of the way before we started. You’ve been gone a week now. The attack has already begun.”
I increased the pressure of the shadows. “When did it start?”
“A few hours ago. An explosive in Brutus’s building. They took Brutus. He’s going to be used in some sort of ceremony. I don’t know all the details. I was just here to make sure Mara was kept safe. She knows how to make those tablets.”
“You shouldn’t have killed Francis, shouldn’t have tried to kill me. Certainly shouldn’t have done any of this.”
“Francis was no friend of yours. He lied to you. He knew who you were. Brutus did, too.”
I nodded, remembering the video on the mini SD card. “I know. He told me. And you know what? I’m not angry with him. Not with Brutus, either. I’m going to save my anger for people who really deserve it.”
Jerry’s expression was one of utter shock. “But he betrayed you!”
“And he’s dead. And you betrayed me, and you’re still alive. Guess which one of those I’m going to rectify?”
Jerry spat at me. “I turned some humans into vampires. They’re going to be waiting for you and your friends, Nate.”
“I’m so sick and tired of you lower-level pieces-of-crap vampires thinking you can just create an army. You can’t. The only ones of you with any real power are the masters and lords, and frankly none of them would just randomly start creating vampires. It shows how pathetic you are. You might as well not even be the same species as them.”
“They’re going to kill you anyway. It only takes one.”
“Goodbye, Jerry,” I said and forced him down into the shadow realm. The wraith could use him as food to power my magic. At least that way he’d finally have a use.
I walked back to the house and discovered the door had been torn off and tossed aside. Mara was outside in the garden, flat on her face with Diane kneeling on her back. Chloe was sitting on the ground crying, while Kasey held on to her. They’d managed to get Chloe back to her non-demon self, and I hoped she stayed that way.
Remy left the house with several tablets and dumped them on the ground. “I called Olivia and Tommy too,” he said. “They won’t be long.”
“Jerry confirmed it. Brutus is in trouble,” I told Diane, explaining what Jerry had told me.
Remy dashed back into the building and returned with a l
aptop. He used the Internet to find a news channel, which had a breaking story about an explosion at Brutus’s building.
“I need to go,” Diane said.
“I’m going too,” Nabu and Irkalla said in unison.
Remy threw them a pair of car keys. “I think it’s the least she can do.”
Mara cursed something as Diane got off her, but before she could spit out more of the grass, Chloe was up and punched her in the jaw, knocking her mother to the ground.
“You murdered him!” Chloe screamed. “You nearly murdered me, my friends, people I love. And for what? Power? You murdered my dad!”
“I thought he’d died long ago,” Mara said with no hint of emotion as she got back to her feet.
Chloe didn’t have time to hit her again, because Irkalla did it for her, although without using anywhere near enough power as she could have. Mara slumped back to the ground, rubbing the side of her face.
“We’ll go,” Diane said. “Be careful. We didn’t see anyone else, but that doesn’t mean they’re not here.”
“We’ll be up in London as soon as Avalon turns up here. I don’t want to leave Mara alone with anyone here. I don’t think they’d be held responsible for their actions.”
“I am alone,” Mara said, rubbing her jaw. “And you have turned into the daughter I never wanted to have. More like your father than a witch.”
Remy removed his sword and held it against Mara’s neck. “Speak again without being asked to, and I will kill you.”
Mara glared at him, but said nothing.
We dragged Mara into the house and tied her hands with some zip ties before I went down to the basement and freed Jerry’s girlfriend, Laurel.
“He’s dead,” I told her after removing the silver manacles around her wrists and ankles.
“Good,” she said. “He was . . . not the man I fell for.”
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “Me too.”
She let me help her back upstairs and sat on the sofa. She wasn’t injured, at least not physically, and it appeared that Jerry had only drugged her and kept her here until she’d decided he was in the right. She’d been there a few weeks, surviving on the rats that Jerry or Asag had given her for food. I was really glad Jerry was dead.