by Cecy Robson
Beneath the light of the moon, Shayna’s ability to manipulate metal unleashes, elongating the hood and narrowing the car’s steel frame.
“Two,” Shayna says, kicking open the door.
“Three” never comes. Shayna’s torpedo soars at the dragon. I aim and fire, slamming the giant weapon with every bit flame I can muster before falling. The torpedo strikes the Nyte dead center, killing it and snapping its neck.
Emme’s force catches us, floating us down.
“Woo-hoo!” Shayna yells, lifting her arms. She was right, Emme was totally there for us.
I look at the sea of bodies below. Aric hands Celia off to another group of weres. The sharks are breaking through the waves and leaping onto the beach. They’re after Celia, but the weres, and the vampires led by Misha, easily destroy them.
Every witch, were, and vampire present refuses to give up. They’re fighting hard and smart, and it’s working. We’re doing it. We’re going to win.
It’s a stupid thought that doesn’t last. From the lake, another sea dragon emerges. It strikes at lightning speed, knocking over the weres guarding Celia…and swallowing her whole.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“No. Celia!” Aric roars.
As quickly as the Nyte emerges, it’s gone, and so is my sister.
Aric dives into the water. Gemini, Koda, and Bren follow, swimming against the rough tide. More disappear underwater—Misha, Hank, and Tim. Uri, too, I think.
I flop onto the sand, where Emme drops me, digging in my nails and screaming, just…screaming. I was supposed to be there. I was supposed to save her.
Shayna lands beside me, sobbing into her hands. “Ceel,” she cries. “Ceel.”
Emme collapses between us, barely able to speak. “It took Celia,” Emme stammers. “I-I-I tried to get here, but that thing…it took her.” Her whimper of agony punctures my already breaking heart.
My legs quiver as I stand and stare out to the lake. Moonlight washes along the great expanse, magnifying the already brilliant sparkles brewing from Tahoe’s magic.
Bren comes up for air, then immediately dives back down. Koda and Gemini break through the surface next. Each head that pokes up is brief, returning quickly to the water.
Aric is the only one who fails to resurface. He stays down, fighting the harsh waves wreaking havoc against the shore.
Tahoe is raging. It’s not until that familiar sense of Fate scrapes a line down my spine that I recognize the root of the lake’s fury. I edge away, swiping at my face.
My calves strike the stone steps leading back to the manor, the rough surface scratching my skin. “Johnny’s still alive,” I mumble.
Shayna and Emme don’t hear me over their hysteria. It’s okay. Let them be. Let them mourn.
I have work to do.
My injuries make maneuvering the steps hard at first. As my head clears, Sparky lights up. Our magic surges, nurturing me, giving me strength, and cocooning me in fire and light.
By the second tier, I’m racing up the demolished steps. My blistering tears make it hard to see. I blink them away. My sister is gone. This isn’t the time to cry and share my sorrow with Shayna and Emme. It’s time to avenge my family.
Magical smoke drifts into the air, a mix of colors from the fallen and those continuing to fight. There’s dark pink from the head witch of Malaysia. She’s somewhere in the woods, alive but just barely.
Blood and pain stain the peach and gold magic of the old Australian witch. Still, she stands, a force to be reckoned with.
Clouds of purple flicker into the night. The Priestess of Columbia’s magic is poisonous. Like a beast, it stalks above me and expands into a cloud, searching for its enemies and suffocating those in its path.
The orange fire that greets me at the top is conjured by a skilled pyrogenic witch from Istanbul. It challenges the fire consuming my form. I easily snuff hers out and shove the lingering magic away.
“Back off,” I bite out. “You are not my enemy, but you can be.”
The heat from her magic sweeps past me and onto her prey.
My sister is dead. That beautiful young woman who wanted to be wanted for so long is gone.
A vampire leaps from the trees, a blur of speed too fast to track with human eyes. My senses fix on him before his feet touch the ground. I slash at an angle with my right hand, severing him in two. He belongs to Uri, and he wanted me dead. He either turned on his master or on us. No matter. I step over his severed and flailing form, the white-hot fire surrounding me lighting him like a torch.
The screeching Nytes, growls, and calls of battle deaden the vampire’s screams. I pass a tribe of African witches as I reach the final tier. They hold hands and chant, cursing a giant rat with multiple limbs to stone.
The rat falls over. I use him like a bomb when a pack of mutant pit bulls, led by a zombie on horseback, charge. Shrapnel detonates into the faction, punching holes into their chests and setting their skin aflame.
One of the African witches races to me, gasping at the flaming wreckage I leave behind. “Your sister,” she says, glancing around. “The Mate. Where is she?”
“She’s dead,” I say.
My words bring on a fresh start of tears. She covers her mouth, her eyes pooling. “No,” she says. “No.”
I have no words to comfort her or me. The thought of Celia’s smile and kindness coats me with another layer of sadness instead of gifting me with gentle strokes to my broken soul.
My earliest memory of Celia is of her carrying Emme in her arms. I was barely four. She was five.
Celia stroked Emme’s hair, speaking softly to her in our bedroom. I remember that tiny apartment so well. We had so little. Daddy worked as a clerk at a law firm. At night he attended school. I didn’t know what it all meant. Celia seemed to.
“Our Daddy is going to be a lawyer soon,” she’d tell Emme, rocking her when Emme began to fuss. “You’re going to have pretty dolls and a real bed.”
“What about us?” I asked. I smirked at Celia’s grin.
Shayna looked up, pausing on her intense chewing of a cardboard book.
Celia lifted her chin proudly. “We’re going to have a house with a big yard and our own beds.” She lowered herself between Shayna and me, using care as she adjusted Emme on her lap. “There won’t be rats to wake us at night or bullies to make fun of our clothes in the park. You’ll have pretty purple unicorn sheets and new toys that come in a box.”
I’m tackled by a bear, his snout too long to be real, and his body disproportioned. It’s another of Johnny’s creations. He knows I’m coming for him.
My flames intensify as I ramp up my heat. His fangs are near my throat but don’t quite touch me. My fire encases him, sweeping across his fur and roasting him down to the bone. He collapses on top of me. I keep still, permitting my heat to finish the job as my heart holds tight to that memory.
I had forgotten about the unicorn sheets I desperately wanted and about telling Celia how much those rats in our apartment scared me.
Daddy never became a lawyer. He never bought us that house with the big yard. Mama never had a chance to wrap brand new toys with ribbon or make my bed with those pretty sheets. They were taken from us too soon. Just like Celia.
The bear falls apart on top of me like broken pieces of coal.
“The Mate is dead!” another witch shouts.
“Kill them,” a were howls. “Kill them all!”
What’s left of the bear falls away from me as I rise. I catch sight of Braeden, lifting a massive and writhing Nyte. This creature is like a giant insect, its armor dense but no match against the brutality the old were inflicts. He beats the Nyte against the trunk of a fallen oak, killing it in a show of strength and rage.
Celia kissed Emme on the cheek as she fell asleep in her arms. She was a good mama even then, long before she dreamed of having a child of her own.
“Fuck,” I spit out, choking on billowing smoke as I step through. As much as I need to f
ocus, I sob as I break into a run.
The Catholic schoolgirls speed ahead of me and toward the burning manor. Liz swings an ax, decapitating a rogue vampire before chopping off his legs. Agnes tackles another, her librarian glasses flying off her face as she punctures her nails through his chest.
Maria holds down a vampire with gargoyle wings as Edith beats him to death with her fists. Blood sprays across her face. She does not stop, beating the pile of ash the vampire becomes.
“Celia,” she screams with her strikes. “You took our Celia.”
I want to comfort her. But I don’t have comfort to give. What courses through my veins isn’t benevolence. Benevolence wouldn’t surge my power to destroy like this.
We thought Johnny was in the house. As I stand in front of the collapsing structure, it becomes clear he was only part of it through the way he toyed with us and turned the magic against us.
My power turns me toward the right and in the direction of where he’s hiding. My feet squish against the blood-soaked grass as I run across the west lawn.
A witch holds up her staff, leading a band of vampires. “For the Mate!” she screams. She fires a spell that turns a Nyte inside out. “For her child!”
I gulp down air, laboring to maintain my momentum and speed. These supernaturals never knew Celia. Not like us. But maybe they believed in what she had to offer and in the child who would save us all.
I let them fight for her and allow her death to fuel their savagery. I let them take every bit of her, they thought they knew, so they may triumph.
The Celia we knew, the fighter and the spirited woman, her love, graciousness, and unrelenting loyalty belongs to us; her sisters, her family, her love.
My pace slows. The thirst to kill can only do so much. I’m only human, after all.
I laugh without humor at my ridiculousness. No human can do what I’ll do to Johnny. It’ll be slow. It’ll hurt. He’ll beg for mercy, and it won’t matter.
As my steps dwindle to a stroll and my lungs rush to get their fill, I ponder how thin my lightning needs to be to skin Fate alive. Should I start at his feet and work my way up? No. It should be his face. His fans lived and died for those beautiful features.
Protocol demands Aric gets to make the kill as Celia’s mate. Except if Celia is dead, Aric is too. That wolf won’t walk this earth without her.
Next in the vengeance line comes her family. That’s me. I knew her first and loved her the longest. This kill belongs to me.
I don’t realize my senses are leading me to the stables until I reach the doors.
My chest heaves in and out as I stand in front of them, the pent-up fury roasting my insides and demanding to be let free.
I should blow the doors off this bitch and burn the whole thing down in one strike. Instead, I ingest the magic from the environment, Johnny’s magic, and part the doors with an extra dose of newfound power.
The aroma of freshly stained wood wanders through the stable. Alternating shades of red and gold pavers line the ground and lead to open and meticulously kept stalls. Beautifully oiled saddles hang on hooks near the entrance beneath rows of black riding helmets. Above, a few sets of boots rest, their polished exterior reflecting the overhead lights. Thoroughbred stallions are meant to occupy this space. It doesn’t appear they ever found their way here. Now, they never will.
It only takes a few steps to find the first painting. It comes into view as my magic breaks through the veil concealing the deceptively empty building. The image is of the fire monster that barreled its way through the chimney. It’s neat and very detailed, the colors bleeding deep into the heavyweight paper where it was conceptualized.
Dark crimson dots stain the corner and creature’s chest. Johnny must have spilled some of his lifeline when he sought to bring the Nyte to life.
The layers of the veil snap apart as I advance. There’s the painting of the leech who killed Genevieve’s cherished guards, lying close to the Tweedledum character and the Nyte with mouths that covered his skin.
Bridette lied. Fate and his newest monsters didn’t storm Genevieve’s stronghold in a magnificent show of force. Johnny simply snuck in, clutching his pre-created visions and supplies. It was easier to go unnoticed this way. As soon as he was settled, all he had to do was bleed and set his Nytes loose. That’s why there were so many. He likely spent months visualizing and designing them.
Jesus. There are enough paintings to cover most of the path. Some, I remember our allies fighting. Others I don’t remember at all. I wonder how many lives they cost, but I can’t wonder for long.
I turn the corner, noting how the details of each painting become less complex and the vulnerabilities more apparent. For all the work Johnny put in ahead of time, it wasn’t enough. We thinned the herds of his monsters, and he needed to make more quickly.
I shift slowly when I hear a sound at the opposite end. It’s then the man I’m looking for finally materializes.
The veil Johnny used to conceal himself wears thins, dimming in and out until it collapses. I stretch my fingers, the energy lighting the tips causing my knuckles to crack and my hands to tremble.
Very little distance separates us. Just enough for Johnny to run, not that he’ll make it far.
On either side of him wait two incensed and massive bulls, one a deep orange, the other fire engine red. Smoke drifts from their nostrils and flames burn in their eyes. I don’t have to guess what they can do. It’s clear enough he means for me to meet my match.
Johnny’s bare feet twist along the pavers, rubbing his deep callouses against the stones. Light blue jeans, splattered in paint, cover the lower half of his body. They’re not the expensive kind with holes strategically placed by a designer who believes he’s the next big thing. Those wardrobe pieces and indication of wealth are a thing of the past. These jeans are like the ones Johnny had no choice to wear growing up, tattered and too big for his gangly frame.
He stands in front of a large canvas, his hands moving fast as he paints a winged stallion covered with armor. This must be his grand escape plan. Except, like I mentioned, he won’t get far.
I was right about the muscles he flexed back in the realm. They were as phony as he is. Like a heroin addict, Johnny has survived by feeding on the only drug he craves, power. An empty wine jug lies on the floor beside him, the bits of clotting blood that remain barely skimming the base. Shifter blood, I presume. Too bad even that won’t help him now.
I glide forward, not bothering to be quiet. Skin clings to Johnny’s bones. That beautiful silky hair women beat each other to run their hands through lies in a greasy mess against his scalp. He no longer knows food or drink. He only knows his mission.
“Shit,” he says. He bends when his palette runs out of gray paint, quickly mixing drops of white and black paint from the small bottles lining a table.
“It’s hard to get the right color, you know?” He laughs. “Maybe you don’t know. I think you once told me even stick figures don’t come natural to you,” he tells me.
The orange bull scratches at the floor, singeing lines into the pavers. I stroke a strand of hair that falls against my cheek. “You have a good memory,” I reply. “Remember that time I called you an asshole?” He stiffens. “That was a hell of an understatement, don’t you think?”
He sticks his brush in his mouth and pulls up his jeans when they sag past his hips.
“I didn’t want to kill Celia,” he says. He lifts the brush and dilutes the blue color with some water from a Styrofoam cup. “Just like you don’t want to kill me.”
“No…” I disagree. “I do very much want to kill you.”
I motion around, sort of surprised at myself for not immediately acting on my rather truthful declaration. “Look at all this, Johnny. Look how you took a beautiful gift and fucked it up. Is your life worth all the lives you’ve cost?”
He glances over his shoulder and narrows his gaze. The hair on top of his head is almost black now, what remains of the blond
hangs past his ears. The back has done a shit job growing out. It hangs in tiers, as if belonging on someone else.
“My life is all I have,” he says. “It’s all I ever had.”
“Cry me a river,” I tell him.
Hurt and insult war in his features, matching the chaos outside. Johnny stayed in the confines of this place, listening to ever cry, whimper, and tormented scream. He heard death, and he fed it into his art. Still, he makes this moment all about him. There are narcissists, and then there’s Johnny Fate.
He jerks to the side when something strikes the stable to his left. The tension tightening his frail shoulders lessens only when his bulls don’t react to the threat.
Johnny wipes his right eye with the back of his hand and resumes our conversation, annoyed by the interruption of another insignificant death. “I got sloppy with my work,” he says. He sniffs. “You saw the ones on your way in, right? They were nice.”
“You mean the ones who tore so many apart?” I shake my head. “I wouldn’t call them nice. More like abominations, just like their maker.”
The red bull spits on the floor like a llama, the lava it spews burning a hole through several pavers.
“Shut up,” I tell it. I don’t demonstrate fear. There’s none left to show.
It takes a second or two for Johnny to breathe again. “You’re not going to kill me.”
“Yeah, I am,” I correct. “And your latest creations won’t stop me. It’s over, Johnny.”
His eyes widen when his bulls rock back on their hind legs and prepare to attack. It’s not because of anything I say and do. They recognize me as a threat.
Snarls erupt as Gemini’s twin takes point to my right. His fur is soaking wet. He doesn’t bother shaking it out, his gaze keen ahead.
Gemini flanks my opposite side. Water drips from his hair, down his face, streaking lines down his chest.
“Celia’s alive,” he says.
Johnny doesn’t move. Except for the choked sob that slices my throat, neither do I. “How?”
“The lake is protecting her. It ripped the Nyte apart and carried her to safety. Aric is with her. Nothing can harm her.”