Rovesciamento: Overthrown

by Maya Daniels

  When I collided with his legs, we ended up rolling for a few feet until we skidded to a stop in the middle of the alley. The gravel and dust put out the fire that he set to my hair, leaving me fuming with anger. My breathing is harsh, my grunts and snarls louder than him squealing like a cut pig.

  The mage finally stops twitching, and his howls and shrieks of pain silence, so I slow down the frenetic clawing until my hands just flop limply in the pile of goo left under my knees. Warm blood drips from my chin, and my lashes are heavy with the thick liquid covering my face. To my horror, my snarling hasn’t stopped. It still bounces off the walls of the buildings around us. A blast of fire hitting somewhere behind me has me flipping around so fast that blood sprays everywhere, splattering concrete and brick.

  The standing mage has Sebastian cornered, sending fireball after fireball at him and preventing him from coming to me. He twists and turns, pivoting like a dancer while avoiding each and every one. They slam into the walls and ground around him, sending flames and sparks through the air. My breath hitches when one gets too close for comfort, grazing his arm, and charring his dirt-covered shirt. Even smudged with dust and gore, he is a sight for sore eyes. Like an avenging angel, shadows and reflections of the fires dance across the planes of his handsome face, making him look terrifying and irresistible at the same time.

  I sit listless, like an idiot, staring at him in awe until the sound of groaning metal jerks my face up. Instantaneously, my gaze locks with Andrei’s. The determined look on his face and his lips pressed in a tight white line is so unlike him my shoulders square off in reaction. Something is wrong apart from fighting these assholes, but I can’t figure out what.

  Andrei is coming down from the building fast. His large hand grips the railing of the fire escape to catapult his body a few stories down, so he repeats it again, muscles bulging under his shirt. Scrambling around, slipping twice in the pile of guts and gore, I lift myself up just in time for his boots to land soundlessly next to me.

  “One down,” I tell him because he might be blind and didn’t see me pulverizing the mage into a pulp.

  He grunts once, his fingers lifting the burnt-up ends of my hair. “You okay, bella?”

  “Oh, I’m fine,” I say little too brightly. “No more fire spitting for this one.” Flicking my fingers at the pile at my feet, I end up flicking blood and what looks to be an eyelid at Andrei.

  He lifts an eyebrow, and without taking my eyes off his face, I reach out tentatively, peeling the said eyelid off his thigh. Shaking my hand to get rid of it, I turn in a circle, looking for Marcus. I find him leaning a shoulder against the mouth of the alley, a few feet in. He is watching me acutely, his gaze still like two small burning fires in the darkness around him.

  “I think we should give Sebastian a hand.” Saying it to no one, in particular, I move to do just that.

  “Let him be.” Undisturbed by everything that’s covering me, Andrei stops me with a hand on my arm. “He needs to release some of his aggression. It’ll be good for all of us, trust me.”

  And we let Sebastian be. Standing like spectators, we watch him dance around the fires, swiping at the mage with claws and fangs every chance he gets. When I first saw him, I thought he was trying to get past the trajectory of the magic to come to me. Now I see how wrong I was. He is not trying to escape the fires; he is toying with the mage. Prolonging the fight for his own twisted needs.

  Marcus comes to stand next to us, all three of us silent as we track the fight. The alley lights up in flares, like watching a gun going off in the darkness. Twist, turn, crouch, swipe. It’s almost soothing watching him move. The mage tries a few times to send his magic at us, and I tense up, but Sebastian keeps him busy enough that he gives up pretty fast. For some reason, I glance at the squealing mage I left curled up in the pile of his own blood.

  He is gone.

  “Where the hell did he go?” Whirling around, I search the alley, but there is no sign of him.

  “He couldn’t have gotten too far.” Andrei is already on the move.

  I bolt after him, my face lifting up as I sniff the air. Following the zing through the rubble on the street, I see the mage tattering away, holding himself up on the piles of debris. Slowing down, I walk casually towards him, coiled up to jump away if he flings magic at me.

  “Going for a walk?”

  My voice from right behind him startles him. The mage swings around, but instead of running or screaming as I expected, he jumps in my face with a wicked smile. He takes me by surprise and manages to tangle his fingers in my shirt, mumbling words so fast it’s hard to hear what he is saying. Gripping it tightly with one hand, his other hand comes up, holding a piece of glass that he jams it in my face.

  A piercing scream is ripped from me when the glass connects with my eyes. It’s not glass, a delirious part of my brain decides to inform me while my body is locked, and I can't push the asshole away. He pulls his hand back, his hideous face blurry from whatever he did to me, and moves to repeat the action.

  The moonlight catches whatever he is holding, and I see a crystal as large as his hand coming at my face. Before it hits, something huge and furry sails over my shoulder taking the mage with it and ripping my shirt in the process. By the sound of the growls, I know that Mutt has found me.

  Blurry vision or not, I don’t miss the swinging of the crystal at my dog’s head. Andrei throws himself at the mage from my right, sending Mutt rolling off the asshole, but not before he yelped from the hit. A red haze blankets everything and I finally know no more.

  Sebastian

  April’s scream is like a dagger to my chest. Hurling myself at the mage, wrapping my hands around his head, I twist and pull, separating his head from his body. I’m out of the alley before both parts of him hit the ground.

  Following the scent of blood that covers April from head to toe when she is done with the idiot that thought he can best her, I stop in my tracks at the sight in front of me.

  One arm and one leg from the running mage are hanging on a pile of stacked up vehicles. Andrei and Marcus are circling April, looking for an opening to snatch the unconscious, bleeding male from her. She, on the other hand, is clutching the limp body of her dog in one arm, the head, and tail swaying with every movement she makes. With the other, she is doing her best to remove the other leg from the mage. No wonder he is unconscious.

  Approaching her cautiously, I lift both hands to my sides so that she can see I mean no harm. Snarling, she turns my way, and a gasp is all I can manage when I see her face. The skin around her eyes is burned, but that’s not what shocks me. I know she will heal before I even get her out of the open. What leaves me frozen and speechless is the bright yellow glow of her eyes is now ringed with three red circles, each smaller than the other, the last one ending next to her irises.

  “April, it’s me, Sebastian, my redemption.” Inching closer, I don’t dare lose eye contact. “Let us keep the mage alive so we can find out what he did to your eyes. If we kill him, it will take much longer. Are you hurting, heart of my heart?”

  “Ha usato un linguaggio vile pensando di accecarmi. Gli scemi patetici non sanno che non puoi maledire qualcuno che ha fatto del male a se stesso. Non possono prendere qualcosa che non hanno dato. Io guarirò, ma loro bruceranno per l’eternità.”

  “He used foul language, thinking he can blind me. The pathetic fools don’t know you cannot curse someone that has done worse to themselves. They cannot take something that they have not given. I will heal, but they will burn for eternity.” I repeat her words in my mind, chills numbing me from the otherworldly sound of her voice. And then, just like nothing has happened, her face crumbles, and she looks at the dog.

  “He hurt Mutt.” A tear rolls down her cheek.

  “Come to me, my redemption. Let me see if I can help the creature.” Approaching her slowly, I wait for her nod before touching her.

  “He is breathing. I can feel his heartbeat on my fingers. He just won’t wake up.
” She drops the half-ripped leg of the mage and cradles the dog to her chest. “He tried to save me, you know. Just like he always does.” A sob shakes her shoulders. “He will be okay, right?”

  It’s unnerving when she turns the golden, red rimmed eyes to me, but I pull her to my chest, the dog squeezed between us. She shudders, and so do I. Too close. Too many times, they have come too close to hurting her. This whole charade needs to end, and it needs to end now. But first, I have to take care of April.

  “Portalo dentro e sveglialo.”

  Marcus and Andrei follow my order, lifting the mage and picking their way through the rubble. They’ll find me when they wake him up, as I asked. Tightening my arms around the woman who holds my heart, I place her head under my chin.

  “The dog will be fine. After what you just told me, I think I’d rather have him around you non-stop. It was foolish to keep the two of you apart.” Kissing the top of her head, I pull away. “Is something wrong with your sight, or it just needs to heal?”

  With a deep sigh, she turns around and starts making her way towards the hotel. I follow next to her, my hand in constant contact at the small of her back. I feel like something will happen if I don’t have a hold on her. It’s ridiculous, but the protectiveness is surging through me and rocking me on my heels.

  “Everything is still blurry, but it’s getting better.” Lifting her face, she looks at the sickle-shaped moon. “He used that crystal to try and take my eyes. It burns like a bitch.”

  My feet slow down at her comment. She takes two more steps before looking at me over her shoulder. Paying closer attention to the burnt skin around her eyes, I can see the muscle and tissue knitting together but it’s a lot slower than average for a vampire.

  “That is the same crystal they used to make the thrones?” My fingers hover above the injured skin. “The same one we used for the medallion of the humans?”

  “Of course, I haven’t seen another type.” She cocks her head. “Actually, that’s a lie. The crystal coffin that they had you in was different. It had power, but it wasn’t exactly the same, now that I think of it.”

  “I have held the crystal; I even touched their thrones the night you were reborn.” Wincing at the reminder, I wait for a snappy comment, but it doesn’t come. “It doesn’t burn.”

  “The mage was chanting,” she says dryly, calling me an idiot without the words. “I very much doubt the crystal itself can burn, or they wouldn’t be keeping their assess on it for centuries.”

  “The Council towers are abandoned. I’ll send guardians to collect every piece they find, and I’m going to destroy it.” Jaw clenching, I steer her towards the hotel again.

  Snorting, she glances at me before looking in front of her. “Why on earth would you be destroying a beautiful crystal? Men. Always swinging their fists first, asking questions later.”

  The slight accent in her voice reminds me that April is still not in full control of herself. The fact that she is calm and conversing lulls me into a false sense of averted danger. I better remember that.

  “What would you have me do, my redemption?” Making sure she hears the reverence in my voice, I straighten my shoulders.

  She may not be herself right now, but I better remember it’s my Matron that I awakened. She deserves my loyalty and respect, although I do act like a fool most of the time around her. She stays quiet, and I can feel her thinking while her fingers stroke the fur of her dog. Keeping my hand on her back, we reach the hotel, passing through the opening.

  The two guardians almost run away when they see her. April just nods regally at them, still lost in thought and leaving them gaping at her open mouth. Everyone stops at whatever they were doing, their eyes following in our wake. I don’t know if it’s because they can feel her power pulsing from her like I do, or it’s the unusual glow in her eyes when she looks at them. Whatever it is, I can feel the shift happening in front of my eyes. They were all scared of her. They steered clear, unsure of what she would do or how she would act, so avoidance was the best action. Now the same reverence I feel is reflected in most of their faces, some even bowing deeply when she walks past.

  “Terrò i troni,” addressing me first, she says it loudly enough in English for everyone to hear. “I will keep the crystal thrones and sit there while my murderers grovel at my feet.”

  With a small smile, she disappears through the double doors of the rooms we are using, leaving me and everyone else stunned.

  April

  ‘They are petrified of me.’ The voice in my head chirps, but I continue walking, ignoring the stares.

  Keeping my eyes on a still-unconscious Mutt, I search for an empty space away from everyone so I can sit down and take care of my protector. The poor dog has gone to hell and back from the day I found him. I’m still not myself, or maybe I am, but I can’t tell the difference anymore apart from that one instance when Mutt got hurt. That, and when I pulverized the mage. But the asshole deserved it, so I’m not feeling too bad about that.

  Even if I were human, I would’ve done the same—tried to do the same in any case—after he lit me on fire. I’m not vain enough to worry about my hair or my looks, but it did freak me out that I might burn to ash when I saw the flames dancing up the strands.

  “Come on, buddy. Open those brown eyes.” Petting Mutt gently after I curl him up on top of my crossed legs, I murmur to him.

  My mind keeps going back to what happened in the last twenty-four hours. They almost killed me with their tainted blood. Then they attack with no provocation at all, bringing my new home down and nearly killing me and those I care about in the process. And that wasn’t enough, no. Three of them stayed behind, cocooning some chance to do God knows what if we didn’t go searching for them.

  Don’t forget they almost killed Sebastian, as well. That same voice reminds me. And they hurt Mutt.

  That right there boils my blood. If there is anyone innocent in all this clusterfuck, it’s my dog. His front legs twitch as if he heard me, and I cuddle his head to my chest. I will get them all for this buddy. They will pay. I promise, I swear to him over and over, rocking gently.

  “Can I help in any way, April?” My head snaps up when Sara speaks, and she takes a step back, widening her eyes.

  Right, my face is still healing, and I look like I’ve bathed in blood. Whoopty do. If it bothers her, she should stay the hell away from me.

  “You’ve helped plenty already, traitor. We don’t need you or your lies.” I add a glare just to spook her more. To my dismay, it doesn’t work.

  “April…” Inching closer, she drops on her knees not far from me, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “Please hear me out. Eddie was dying, my only chance of saving my little brother was to help then, and in return, they would turn Eddie into one of them. Better a vampire than dead.”

  A lump the size of a fist lodges in my throat, and I turn my face away so she doesn’t see how her words affect me. What she says is heart wrenching and no matter how much I hate that she lied to me, would I have done anything differently? The boy is nothing to me, but I still jumped into this whole mess just so I could find food and medicine to help him get better.

  His gaunt cheeks and pale, sweaty skin pop in my head to taunt me. Mutt whimpers softly, bringing me back from that disaster of memories. When I look down, I see his intelligent brown eyes staring up at me without fear. Even with half my face melted off, Mutt watches me with devotion in his gaze. My chest feels like it’ll burst, pressure expanding my ribcage to painful levels.

  “Hey…” I choke out, clear my throat, then try again.” Hey buddy, you are okay.” The tail thumps once limply. “You saved me again, you little shit. I told you not to follow me.”

  “He was attached to you from day one,” Sara says softly.

  “Yeah, unlike others at the time.” Sarcasm is weeping in my words.

  “I said I was sorry. I told you why I did it. I honestly don’t know what else to do so you forgive me.” Her voice shakes when s
he speaks. “I don’t want you to hate me, April.”

  I look at her sharply when she speaks her last words. Everything she said, every time she spoke, honesty was loud and clear. That last part sent a stench in the air like a punch to my face.

  “Why do you care what I think, Sara? You’ve only known me for what? Two, three weeks? Why does it matter if I like you or not?”

  “I like you.” Lie! the voice in my head screams, almost making me jump. She keeps talking. “We got along so well the time that we spent together. I don’t have many friends. I don’t want to lose the friendship we had.” More lies.

  Cocking my head, I keep watching her mutely. She fidgets under my scrutiny, twisting her fingers in her lap. Mutt gets more animated, wiggling slightly in my arms, and I pull him closer. What on earth is going on here? She already set me up for Sebastian to track my every move. I have no doubt they would’ve snatched me even if that jerk didn’t find me in the dumpster. So, what does she have to gain now? I’m finally one of the monsters, so she gets nothing by lying when asking for friendship. I’m either stupid, or I’m blind to some schemes.

  And as always, fate decides to clear things up for little ol’ me. It’s like watching an accident happen. You feel your heart beating in your throat, and your stomach is flip flopping wildly, but you just can’t look away. Barely blinking, you stare as the crash happens, wincing at the sound. I did that once before I returned to LA. It was horrible. It’s the exact same feeling now.

  “He is awake, my redemption.” Sebastian’s deep voice sends tingles in my lower belly, as usual.

  But I’m not looking at him. My eyes are glued to Sara’s face, and I watch, like in slow motion, when she tilts her face up. Her entire being changes. She straightens her shoulders, her lips part slightly, and a look enters her eyes like she has seen God himself walk up to us to give us the biggest blessing of our lives.