by Cecy Robson
“I’m all right, baby,” Koda tells her.
Shayna tackle straddles Koda. Like the rest of the group, he’s covered in blood. Shayna doesn’t care, and neither do I.
I stroke the fur of Gemini’s twin when he trots to my side. Thick gashes line his pelt, similar to the ones imbedded in Gemini’s chest. I ignore the blood seeping against my cheek when my head falls against his chest.
He’s alive. We were lucky. But not everyone was. “How many did we lose?” I ask.
“Fourteen,” he replies. “Including Misha.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Catholic schoolgirls can’t stop crying. Tim, Misha’s bodyguard, who lost a foot, won’t stop pacing.
Hank, Misha’s other bodyguard, crouches in front of where Celia sits on the floor. Out of all the vampires, he and Agnes are charged with leading the family in Misha’s absence. Agnes because of her high intelligence and Hank because of his muscle and warmonger mentality. The only one above them is Celia. Yeah, it’s nuts. Misha entrusted Celia as Mistress to the House of Aleksandr, a position she became aware of at the worst possible time in her life.
Hank shakes, blood caking his dark hair to his features. He tries to focus regardless of the noise and chaos Misha’s absence brings. “Celia, do you have anything?”
Celia shakes her head, tiny wrinkles forming along her closed eyelids. She’s worked up and just as worried as the vamps are. She hasn’t moved in a while, clutching Misha’s tuxedo jacket against her. Ileana found it and gave it to Celia, hoping his scent would help Celia locate him.
“Celia, come on,” Hank begs her. “You’re more connected to the master than anyone here, can you feel anything?”
Ileana remains naked, with the exception of the tuxedo shirt Misha gave her to wear. I don’t think she likes the idea of Celia having a stronger connection to Misha than she, and I very much don’t care.
Celia opens her eyes, her shoulders sagging as she holds tight to Misha’s Jacket. “Sorry, Hank,” she says, her voice heavy with grief. “There’s nothing. I can’t sense him anywhere in the house.”
“How would you?” Liz snaps, her worry turning quickly to anger. “The Fate has overtaken a fortress the incompetent fucking witches were too weak to hold.”
Said incompetent witches take high offense to the dig. Their amulets glow, casting spheres of light against Misha’s family. Gemini, as the liaison between the weres and witches, shakes his head tersely. He doesn’t lead the witches, but with the majority of them on foreign land and their head witches absent, they heed his request. The light from their amulets fade, sparkling just enough as a warning to the vampires.
Hank doesn’t notice, keeping his attention on Celia. “Try again, Celia,” he pleads. “It’s only been an hour.”
Aric narrows his eyes, his hold on Celia turning more shielding. “An hour too long. This is too much for her in her condition,” he warns.
“She is all we have,” Hank hisses. “Our master needs her.”
Celia squeezes Aric’s hand when he releases a warning growl. “Aric, I’m not hurt, nor am I in pain. Please, they just want Misha back.”
“No, but you’re exhausted from trying to reach him, love,” Aric tells her. “You need your strength.”
She meets Aric square in the face. “What I need is Misha alive. I can’t abandon him if there’s a chance we can help him. Not after all he’s done for me.”
Aric bows his head. Like him, hate him, or not, Misha has helped and protected Celia. He stayed true to Celia when even Aric’s own kind forbade their relationship and forced Aric to leave her. His focus wanders to me. “Do you think you can form a magical circle around Celia?”
This is a good time to remind Aric that I’m not a witch. Not in the true sense. But even though I was forced to attend witch school and assigned books I never did read, I did learn a thing or two. “I can, but those things are used to protect the one on the inside.”
Aric nods. “I know.”
Gemini leans back on his heels. “You’re thinking about surrounding Celia with the connection she shares with Misha.”
Aric kisses Celia’s shoulder. “That’s right,” he says.
I give it some thought. “You’re also keeping the magic Johnny is poisoning the house with, out,” I determine.
Aric raises his thick dark brows. I dig my nails through my hair. “This sounds great in theory, but Johnny took that theory out, stomped on it, and made it his bitch. I don’t know, Aric. Everything we’re trying to do against Johnny is only firing back on us.”
Celia isn’t convinced. She leans forward, her green irises shimmering with hope. “This is your magic, Taran. Your power,” she says. “Johnny can’t touch it the same way because it’s not connected to the covens.”
“No, but he can muffle it,” I remind her. “My magic hasn’t worked as well as it needs to.”
“It’s worked well enough, Taran,” Celia says. “We’re all still here, and so are you.”
If this was my choice alone to make, it would be a hard pass. I glance at the Catholic schoolgirls, where they sit on the floor, holding each other. Their faces are blotchy and tear-stained, and their fear palpable. The vamps are dangerous and sadistic fighters, but they aren’t masters. Another master could claim them and do what he or she wished. Already I see Ileana eyeing them up.
There are masters out there who are cruel. Edith has told me as much. They could order Misha’s family to fight to the death, and they would have to do it. Would Ileana? Who knows? She plays the queen, but her majesty once almost took out the entirety of Europe.
I look to Celia. She won’t demonstrate her fear and worry like the vamps will. She’ll bottle it up until it becomes too much. I know she’s terrified. Just as I know she loves Misha and wants me to help.
Edith crawls across the floor, extending her hand and offering me a piece of chalk. It’s pink and thick, like those children use to decorate sidewalks and driveways. I play with it in my hand, wishing I knew for sure that one day, I’ll see my little nephew color his design, in a safe, loving home that he and his parents deserve.
Celia smiles. She knows I made up my mind. “Thank you, Taran,” she says.
I shake my head. “Don’t thank me yet.” I have my reservations, lots of them. Ultimately, I do it knowing Celia will remain protected within the circle because the magic comes from me and is meant solely for her.
Misha’s vampires gather around me, staying close, but far enough away to allow me to work. The weres Emme healed gather, too, curious yet guarded. The witches keep their distance all the while observing my every move.
I force my magic into the line as I walk. There must be a specific location spell that could help me, or one of the thousands of chants the witches know by heart. Except even though I technically graduated witch school after saving the coven’s ass, I’ll never be that true witch, the one who knows how to stir a potion just so and hex her way through an evil army.
“Help Celia find Misha,” I whisper. “Let her see the way. Allow her to be the guiding light to his return.”
It’s not much. It’s just a little something.
As I reach the completion, I add one last bite of mojo. “Power,” I say, feeling my irises go white. “Give me power.”
The circle locks.
I lose my balance.
And fall into oblivion.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Something hard strikes my shoulder, forcing me out of the blackness surrounding me. My eyes water as I blink them open.
Standing over me is Johnny, shirtless and barefoot, munching on an apple. “Looks like you found me.”
I shove my right hand out and fire. The strike I mean to blast him with dwindles before it can start, sizzling down to minute sparks that cascade onto the mud-streaked ground.
Johnny slaps my hand away when I try again. My limb falls as if carrying a large weight, it can’t possibly hold. “That’s not going to do shit,” he tells me. “Yo
u’re in my realm now.”
My focus darts briefly to where Sparky rests unmoving. I move my fingers to make sure I still can. “That’s the last time you’ll ever touch me,” I say, returning to Johnny.
My voice is surprisingly calm, considering how furious I am.
“Is it?” he asks. He takes another bite of his apple, ignoring the way the tats on his arms crawl along his skin. The cobra hisses at me, baring its fangs and spitting venom. The spew of poison misses my fingers by a fraction, disintegrating the small sprigs of grass poking through the mud. “I’m not sure about that, T.”
I sit up, treating the bed of mud I fell on like a grassy knoll and ignoring the way my breath is visible in the cold. “Don’t call me T. Only my friends get to call me that.”
A boulder punches its way through the ground. Johnny tosses the apple over his shoulder and falls into a sitting position, allowing the rock to form around him like a throne. He stretches out, giving me a good look at his ripped body.
Muscles line his arms and abs tense as if ready to part and reveal more muscle. It gives me pause. Johnny the rockstar followed a strict regimen of diet and exercise. He had to look good for his fans, his manager and handlers insisted on it. But he was different then. This… I don’t know, seems overkill somehow.
He licks his lips, grinning. “Like what you see?” He laughs. “I thought we were just friends.”
I frown. I really don’t like how he looks. Something is off. “We were until you turned all evil and everything.”
He laughs again and wipes his hands on his jeans. “You think I’m evil?”
I purse my lips, pretending to give it some thought. “Well, you did join up with the shapeshifters to save your whiney and pathetic ass.” I rise, ignoring the scowl he pegs me with. “You also killed and sacrificed your fans—humans with no real way to protect themselves. People who loved you.”
“And who promised to die for me,” Johnny reminds me, hanging tight to his grin.
I rise, wiping off my hands instead of wiping the floor with him. My voice remains calm, bordering only slightly on condescending. “They only told you that because you duped them with your Tinkerbell voice, lyrics, and magic.” I shake my head. “That’s not real love, Johnny. That’s a spell. No one’s ever really loved you.”
And don’t I strike a nerve with that comment?
“Shut up,” he fires back.
Now I’m the one laughing. “Is that the best you can do?”
My laughter abruptly cuts off when my anger pokes through. “All you had to do was be real and honest and true. But you couldn’t man up. You were a little bitch from the moment I met you, scared stupid that someone would hurt poor you.”
Johnny comes to his feet. “I told you to shut up.”
“Poor widdle kid. Poor Johnny,” I continue. “He never had friends or family who loved him.”
Johnny twitches. Not like someone does when they’re nervous. But like in the movies when the frame skips too fast ahead. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. His speech is garbled, and his movements are erratic. “Fate can’t have friends. Fate simply is.”
He quivers again, just his head at first, then his hands, and once more his entire body. He points to a tree that wasn’t there before…and where Misha’s limp and naked body is bound to the trunk.
“You bash me,” Johnny says, suddenly beside him. He lifts what remains of Misha’s face with a merciless yank of his hair. “He did too. See what it cost him?”
Johnny vanishes. Poof, disappears. I scramble to my feet and run to Misha. I’m moving fast, but he’s edging farther away. When I finally reach him, I press my hand against the trunk, trying to steady myself and catch my breath. “What did he do to you, Misha?”
Misha wasn’t merely tortured; his face was skinned. I see Johnny’s reasoning, his intent to punish a too beautiful man the way he thought would most hurt. And punish he did. All that remains of Misha’s face are chunks of meat and bone.
“Oh, shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
It’s all I can say. Misha is still alive. If he wasn’t, all I’d find is a pile of ash. At least, I think I would. What does happen to a master vampire with a soul? Does he wither away, aging as he should have done all those years ago before disintegrating, his remains spreading into the wind? Or does he just die, as Johnny will when I get my hands on him.
“Shit,” I say, my tears forming fast. I wipe my cheeks, smearing mud on my face and not giving a damn. Misha is bound to the old tree with thick vines. His scalp, covered with blond hair and saturated with blood, is left intact, sticking to his mutilated flesh.
“You put up a fight. Didn’t you?”
He doesn’t reply. I guess it was too much to hope for.
I walk slowly around the tree, trying to figure out how to free him. I try striking a thinner section with lightning. Nothing happens. I try to burn it but only manage a spark.
Misha is dead. I walk around slowly. With all this madness, even a being as omniscient as Misha could meet his fate. Still, I hoped that he, and my family, would make it. His death is a bitter reminder that even the powerful eventually fall.
My bare feet sink into the mud as I return to him. My vision blurs. We were never close. At first, he fell into my “hell yes” category, as in, “hell yes, hot or not, let’s stay clear of this vampire.”
Once we started to know him, post-supernatural battle royale, it was almost cool to belong to his inner circle. His wealth, prestige, and vow of protection gave us standing in a world we were thrust into. It was leverage against the supernasties and gave them pause before messing with us.
When we fell for our weres and fell hard, Misha became our frenemy, a master vampire we could never fully trust…except for one Wird sister.
A small cry finds its way to my throat. “Jesus, Misha. What am I going to tell Celia?”
His head bops up and down when he lifts it. I jolt, beating back a scream. “You can tell her I’ll always love her.”
“You’re alive.” A few curses follow before I finally move, my hands grip the vine, yanking hard to see if something will give.
“Look to my feet,” he gasps. “The vines…they’re tied below.”
What I mistook for a knot in the tree is a knot of vines covered with mud. I glance over my shoulder. I’m in a canyon of sorts, it’s a chilly and damp environment scattering goose bumps across my skin. In the distance, fallen trees line the horizon, abandoned like Johnny’s past self.
I pause as a thought occurs to me. This whole place is a lot like Johnny’s past.
Johnny was once this colorful being, very much like the drawings and creatures inked on his skin. He was worshiped by thousands, this attractive young man who held the underground rock world by the balls. Except then we came along, and it was gone.
Instead of reckoning with the hurt he endured and that he caused, and remembering the great moments as something beautiful, he abandoned it as it never was.
This canyon isn’t really a canyon. It is Johnny’s past.
“Taran,” Misha gasps. “What are you doing?”
I pretend to tug on the rope. “Nothing,” I say. “Just trying to figure out how I’m going to get you out of here. There’s no door, you know?”
He laughs. “You may start by freeing me.”
I pretend to tug again, easing out of his reach.
“What are you doing?” he asks again.
For someone I found in his condition, he doesn’t sound as weak as he should. “This isn’t working,” I say. I find a piece of wood and back away. “I should try something else.”
My magic isn’t working, but I’m counting on Sparky’s strength to remain intact. I’m going to need it soon. From where I stand, Misha is no longer working as hard to keep his head up. Nope. He has plenty of energy for that and more than enough to kill. Which is exactly what he’s trying to do to me.
“Taran,” he calls, drawing my name out like a song. “Don’t y
ou want to help your old pal?”
I back away, gripping my weapon tight. “My old pal doesn’t use words like ‘pal,’” I remind him. “He also doesn’t cry like a little peon and allow needle dicks like Johnny Fate to tie him to a tree.”
He laughs, his shoulders shaking as the vines at the base of the trunk begin to unravel. “You’re not as stupid as I thought.”
“You mean as Johnny thought,” I correct. I motion around. “All this is Johnny. His thoughts, his bitterness—those Nytes? They’re not just part of him. They are him.”
Oh, and fake Misha doesn’t appreciate me calling Johnny out one bit. “You freak—”
“For once in your pathetic life, be original, Johnny. Call me something I haven’t heard.” I scream at the sky as if he’s somehow up there. “Stop being the loser you always were and the weakling everyone laughed at. Show some balls despite your small, mangy dick—”
I barely duck out of the way of a swinging vine. I’ll never run as fast as Celia or even Shayna. That doesn’t mean I don’t haul ass across this stupid canyon.
Sharp rocks stick up through the mud, and broken bits of tree litter the ground. I don’t feel them as I trample through the terrain, and I barely sense the cold mud smearing my soles. Whatever magic Johnny fed into this place to make it what it is, is weakening. What remains is going straight into his version of Misha with the sole intent of making me suffer.
My breath is no longer visible, another sign there’s nothing much to this place anymore. Johnny is losing power fast. It would be a great time for my family and friends to find that stupid Fate and kill him.
Son of a bitch. My lungs burn as I race up an incline. It would also be a fine time to sign up for a gym membership and get my ass into shape.
The sound of pained grunts fills my ears. Misha is gaining ground fast. He may not possess the same power or strength the real Misha does, that doesn’t mean I can kill him on my own. Johnny’s magic continues to suppress and screw with mine. This version of Misha may have more than enough to take me out.
I reach the top of the incline. If I were Celia, I’d charge down this hill gracefully without slowing. But I’m me, so I cautiously maneuver down. My care costs me. I’m not a third of the way down when Misha tackles me, and we’re sent tumbling.