Magestorm: The Reckoning

by Chris Fornwalt

  The door swung open to reveal good news and bad. Cassandra was still alive, her arms pinned outwards as a vampire sucked from each wrist. The third was on top of her, and inside her, having his way with such violence that it made Samantha gag.

  With a scream, she charged into the room and struck the vampire rapist with the stake and sent him flying, screaming as he fell into a corner of the room and began to shrivel.

  The vampires released Cassandra’s wrists and one punched Samantha in the face. She stumbled, and then her hair was grabbed by the other vampire.

  “Oh, is it your turn to get fucked?” he snarled

  “No, it’s yours.”

  The mystery werewolf was in the doorway, blood caked all over him. The large room was cleared of vampires, Terrance was finishing off the runners, and the tide had turned in their favor.

  Before the vampire could release his captive, his companion was already dead from claw and bite marks. The werewolf had reflexes unlike anything they had seen. The vampire used Samantha as a shield and circled around to the doorway. He released the witch and turned to run, only to come face to face with Terrance.

  With rage, the werewolf beat down the vampire while Samantha checked on Cassandra. The witch was alive, thankfully. She wrapped her friend’s wrists with pieces of cloth torn off the other vampire’s clothes.

  “Is she okay?” the stranger asked.

  “Define okay,” Cassandra struggled to speak as she opened her eyes.

  “That’ll do.”

  The werewolf stepped out and Samantha helped Cassandra get to her feet. She straightened herself, spit on the staked vampire’s corpse, and marched towards the door. Suddenly she stopped and turned to the other witch.

  “Not a word of this to the others, especially Amber.”

  Samantha nodded and they proceeded to the large room and to where the remaining vampires had been trapped by Cassandra’s spell. The vampires were clearly nervous and looking to use Veronica’s life as a bargaining chip to get away alive. The stranger stepped to the doorway, anger radiating from him.

  “Give me five minutes with them,” he barked.

  Suddenly Samantha realized who the werewolf was. It was Veronica’s ex, Jackson. She nodded and removed the spell. Jackson stepped into the room and closed the door. The sounds that followed were horrible. Smacking and cracking, screams of fear and pain, and finally silence. The door opened and Jackson walked out of the room in human form, Veronica in his arms. He handed her to Terrance and turned to Samantha.

  “I was never here.”

  With that, he walked out and left them all stunned. At least they were all alive, and so too was Veronica. At least, she was still breathing. There didn’t seem to be any real life left in her though.

  “Who was that?” Terrance broke the moments of silence following the werewolf’s departure.

  “Nobody… just, nobody. Are all vampires such sexual predators?”

  “How do you think they keep their numbers so high? It is easier to train a child to follow your causes, than to try to convert the ingrained ideals of an adult.”

  The witches left the building and retrieved clothes for Terrance, and an ambulance for Veronica. She may not survive, but at least she was free of the vampire’s clutches.

  Once the ambulance left, the witches headed back to their motel and Terrance watched for a while, just to make sure nobody else showed up at the building. He was about to leave when Tyler arrived.

  “Hey Terrance, got your message and came as fast as I could. Did I miss everything?”

  “Yeah, you missed it all. Guess you’ll have to wait a while longer for some real action. Maybe next time I’ll save you some.”

  “Actually, we have other chores to take care of. I just talked to Dhane, and he needs our help, but we’re on a tight schedule. We have to get moving.”

  “Where?”

  “Hallow Falls.”

  30

  “Dhane, where are we going?”

  Amber already knew the answer; she was just hoping Dhane wasn’t really thinking about heading into the lion’s den, just the two of them. The Grand Hotel came into view from a few blocks away and gave her the answer the mage refused to.

  “I need to retrieve something from there,” he said plainly as he scanned the area for guards.

  “Isn’t that how you got captured before, trying to retrieve the spell book?”

  “Yes, it is. But that’s not what I’m here for this time. I’m going to get us one more ally for our battle. I need you to cause a distraction while I get inside.”

  With a nod, Amber maneuvered around to the front side of the Grand Hotel before changing to wolf form and letting out a howl. As expected, the inhabitants of the Grand filed out and began searching for the werewolf. Dhane could only hope that Amber was as good as advertised, because there would be a lot of people hunting her.

  This mission was worth the risk, he was sure of it. Everything was falling into place, with Heather soon to be out of the way. Now he needed to get in and out of Elisabeth’s chambers undetected. Should be easy, right?

  When the residents were out of view, he hurried up through a back door into the first floor of the Grand. Now he just needed to find an open room beneath the witch’s room and he could merge his way up to her room.

  Pacing out the distance to find the right location, he checked a door and found it unlocked. Slowly he opened it, careful to peek in and hope it didn’t creak. It didn’t. He quickly closed the door and checked through the connecting rooms to find they were empty. One room was apparently used as the master bedroom, and ‘kinky’ was written all over it. Leather straps on the corners of the bed for restraints, and a few other miscellaneous adult toys were inside the open drawer. There was even a video camera set up to record the escapades.

  Turning to leave, he saw a picture that told him exactly whose room this was. It showed Sebastian with what was likely his parents standing in front of a house. That meant Dhane was standing in the room the werewolf shared with Rachel.

  Just freaking great.

  The sound of an opening door sent him flying for the closet, tripping over the tripod for the camera. He managed to catch it before it hit the ground and closed the door as much as he could with scattered clothing blocking the way. Peering through the crack, he saw the resident werewolf stroll into the bedroom and take off his shirt. Then Elisabeth entered.

  Holy shit!

  He fidgeted with the camera and got it off the tripod and turned it on. He proceeded to record what came next. They were images he would never be able to get out of his head. First it was Elisabeth straddling Sebastian, thrusting herself up and down on him. Next, Sebastian flipped her over and choked her while he did his business. Finally, he bent her over and pulled her hair as he pounded her from behind.

  When the moans and slapping sounds finally stopped, Dhane clutched the camera and waited for Sebastian to come to the closet to seek out new clothes. Instead he just threw his dirty ones back on and walked out, leaving the witch to recover alone. She sat up and slowly started to dress, and Dhane took the opportunity to zoom in on her face, leaving no doubt who it was.

  “Hurry up. You shouldn’t be here when Rachel comes back,” the werewolf called out.

  “Whatever.”

  Once she was dressed, she disappeared and Sebastian left a few minutes later. Dhane’s mind raced as he thought about what to do with the possession he had. Then an idea hit him and he smiled to himself.

  Now an expert on the merging spell, Dhane no longer ended up naked. Now was a further test of his skills, in taking the video recorder with him. Speaking the words and concentrating hard, he ended up in the basement, recorder still in hand.

  “Thank God,” he whispered to himself.

  From the basement, he was able to patch in the video recorder to all the feeds in the hotel. He added a nice little message at the end, just so Elisabeth would know it was him. Setting the feed on a ten minute delay, he worked his w
ay back up the hotel, through the walls, and to Elisabeth’s room.

  After he noted how ideal the miscellaneous rooms in the basement would be for an ambush, it was time to continue his current mission. He counted down until the video started, and then de-merged into the witch’s room and began his search. Sure enough, in the farthest corner of the room, away from the front door, was a small area with plaster walls to keep the contents hidden.

  A connection was made between Dhane and the monster within. Unspoken communication brought the monster through the door. Eye to eye, they made their plans without breaking the silence.

  When the mage left, he still didn’t exactly understand what the monster was. It was clear that his father had created it, through the experiments he did with vampire blood. The mind of the creature seemed very methodical, like a computer with only basic thought, no emotions. It made Dhane wonder if the thing had a soul.

  One final piece of business led him to Charles’ room. A written note with specific instructions would lead the vampire to his final confrontation. With a knife, he stuck the note to the doorframe at eye level. There was no way the prince could miss it, and now the setup for revenge was complete.

  As Dhane exited the hotel, he could hear a commotion going on inside. Undoubtedly Elisabeth and Sebastian were searching desperately for where the feed was coming from. Anyone else watching their television was undoubtedly shocked by the programming change.

  He couldn’t hide the grin from his face when Amber came into view a few blocks away. A curious look crossed her face as they headed back to the hotel.

  “I take it all went well?”

  “Even better than expected, actually. Now that everything is in place, we wait for a call from Demian.”

  “And then?”

  With a smile, he put his arm around her as they walked, the smile fading from his face. “Then the onslaught will begin.”

  A taxi took them back to the motel and Amber received further instruction from Dhane. The mage then received a message from the front desk, a message from his vampire friend, before he left in the cab. She watched until it was out of sight before entering the motel room. There, the two witches were anxiously waiting.

  “Is everything okay? Where’s Dhane?” Cassandra was concerned.

  “He went to meet with Terrance and Tyler. The three of them are taking care of the first task at hand.”

  “What task is that?” Samantha intervened.

  “Something about breaking up with Heather.”

  “What? How is he going to do that without getting caught?”

  Amber shrugged, and clearly didn’t seem concerned. “He’s not going about it alone, and I don’t think Terrance and Tyler will let anything happen to him. We’ve got to head towards the Grand now and get ready. Nichole and Xander will meet us there, and we just wait for the others then.”

  “What about the vampires? You and Xander will have to stay in human form so you don’t get detected, right?”

  The concern in Cassandra’s voice was now for her lover. Amber walked over and touched her arm, trying to put her at ease. A gentle smile as she continued did the trick and she continued with Dhane’s plans.

  “The vampires won’t be a problem. They are being lured out by Dhane’s friend, Demian. When Dhane arrives, we march on the Grand. You two will cast an enclosure spell to hold everyone inside once the rest of us have entered. He promised Sebastian to Xander and Nichole. I’ll help clear the area while he searches out Elisabeth.”

  “What happens when he finds her?”

  Samantha’s question led to dead quiet in the room. Nobody knew the answer to that. With everything that had happened, there was likely one intended result of tonight’s assault. The witch would be rendered deceased, but it was anyone’s guess if he could or would actually go through with it.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Cassandra stated out loud with a sudden focus behind her words, “tonight is the end of our hiding from the others. It’s them or us, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure it’s us, even if it means killing that bitch with my own two hands.”

  31

  “Where are my usual guards?”

  Heather looked suspiciously at the three men she didn’t recognize. They stood silently, waiting, which only served to piss her off. Finally a fourth man entered the room with an air of importance. Clearly he was the leader of the group.

  “My apologies, but the others were requested for an assignment. We have been assigned as replacements for the upcoming mission.”

  “What mission?”

  “Elisabeth found out that you sent your guards to Hallow Falls, hoping to catch Dhane there. While she’s confident you can find him, she is not confident in your guards and where their loyalties lie. So now, we are going to Hallow Falls to lure Dhane out. You caught him once, you can do it again.”

  Suddenly Heather felt a trick was in play by Elisabeth. The clever witch was trying to get the vampire to admit she had captured the mage and let him escape, intentionally or otherwise. She wasn’t about to fall for it though.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If Elisabeth claims I captured Dhane, she’s mistaken.”

  “That’s irrelevant. We are going whether you captured him before or not. Else you will be evicted from the Grand Hotel and be exiled from Thauma.”

  If daggers could shoot from her eyes, they certainly would have. All things considered, it was best to play along with the head witch-bitch for now. It was clear Dhane wasn’t going to be the new great wizard, as she had hoped. Perhaps somewhere in all this chaos she would find the true heir.

  “Very well, I’ll get my jacket.”

  The car ride to Hallow Falls was quiet and uneasy. These new guards assigned to her didn’t look at her or speak to her, or each other, for the entire drive. She was beginning to wonder if the others spoke at all.

  Soon they were in the neighborhood of Marissa’s home. Heather had been here several times before, but not for a couple of years now. The last time she came to visit Marissa, the house was locked up and a groundskeeper had been put in charge, waiting for Dhane. Where the mage’s mother had gone was anyone’s guess now. Perhaps she died, or moved far away. Maybe she even moved into Thauma to watch her son, who would never have recognized her.

  The lead vampire looked to the driver and nodded, and the car stopped a couple blocks away from the house. All four guards exited the car silently and waited for Heather to do the same. Suddenly fear gripped her as she wondered if this was an infamous drive, like you would see in mob movies.

  Five go out, only four come back.

  She shuttered at the thought, but at this point didn’t have any options. Once outside, they walked through the darkness until the house was within view. There, they waited in the darkness, and Heather wanted to scream to break the silence of these four.

  “I haven’t seen you guys before. Where have you been?”

  “Shhh.”

  “Look, who knows how long it will be before Dhane shows up… if he shows up. We might as well pass the time somehow.”

  They proceeded to ignore her and she gave up. Instead, she passed the time sitting with her back against the wall of a house and glanced to her right, through a thin patch of bushes, towards Marissa’s house. At least if the vampires were going to kill her, they’d have to do it facing her.

  A taxi pulled up across the street from the house they were watching and a man got out. He was the right height and build to be Dhane, but there was no way he would just show up here the same night they came to watch for him. That is, unless Elisabeth had gotten some inside information. Considering the trouble with traitors in the old witch’s council, that was entirely possible.

  Excitement made her forget her fears of the men she was with, and she concentrated on the man hurrying across the street and up the stairs to the front door. He slid in a key and slipped inside quickly and cautiously. It had to be him.

  Heather started to get up when the lea
d vampire put his arm on her shoulder and shook his head. Then he signaled to the other three and they made their way to the house. Surrounding it, they cleared the area to ensure he was truly alone, and then peered through the windows to track the mage’s movement.

  Completing their check, each of the three gave the ‘all clear’ signal. Heather and the lead vampire approached quickly. Her heart raced to get her hands on him again, but then wondered if that’s why these new troops were here.

  Was Elisabeth worried I can’t go through with it, can’t kill Dhane? Come to think of it, am I certain I can do it?

  These questions ran through her mind as they reached the house and the other three vampires headed for the back door. Heather and the main vampire entered the front door after picking the lock and the first thing she noticed was the basement door, wide open, and a light coming from inside.

  “Maybe you should let me go first,” she whispered. “If I can talk him into surrendering, we can deliver him to Elisabeth to do with as she likes. If not, I’ll yell and try to subdue him until you and your men can take him.”

  A suspicious look came across the leader’s face, but finally he nodded and she made her way to the door. Peering down the stairs, she could hear no noises coming from below. What on earth would he be doing down there?

  Patiently she maneuvered the steps, trying to limit any creaking that would signal Dhane that he wasn’t alone. She reached the bottom and saw the open passage to Marissa’s torture room.

  From the narrow passage, she could see light beyond, but still no sounds. With a deep breath, she made her way down the passage and into the windowless torture room beyond. She had been in the room only once before, but that was after all prisoners had left.

  “Dhane,” she called quietly as she stepped into the room. A lamp was hanging in the closest corner, to her right, and angled to keep shadows scattered through the room. A sudden movement grabbed her attention and she prepared to flee.