by Cecy Robson
“Can I eat him? He looks so tasty.”
I held up a finger. “One bite. That’s all you get.”
The man led us to the nest with a big grin on his face and his eyes swirling from Maria’s hypnosis. We had formed a plan, one I wasn’t happy with. The vamps thought it best to split us up, but I refused to leave my sisters alone. My sisters sided with the vamps, feeling we needed to attack strong from all sides in order to emerge victorious. I suspected they didn’t trust them and felt they needed to be kept in check. Regardless of the reason, we needed to act fast. My group would be the first to go in and the others would commence an assault from different sides.
Shayna especially made me anxious. She tossed the hilt of her new sword back and forth between her hands as we bustled through the dense vegetation in the back of a pickup. She wasn’t able to return Taran’s necklace to its original form. Taran told her to consider it her birthday gift for the next thirty years.
“I want to be the one to make the kill,” Shayna told us. “I want to be the one to kill the Tribemaster.”
Taran and I exchanged glances. “Son of a bitch,” Taran snapped. “Are you out of your mind?”
“You and Celia have both done it,” Shayna protested.
“Yeah, and almost died in the goddamn process!” Mini bolts of blue and white sizzled from Taran’s fingertips.
Shayna veered on Taran. “Did you get eaten alive by demons?”
Taran answered her with a scowl.
“Did you, Celia?” Shayna asked, turning back to me.
I stopped drumming my fingers against the rim of the truck bed. No. I’d been bitten and I’d been tortured, but my injuries paled compared to what those damn Tribesmen had done to Shayna. If it hadn’t been for Koda’s attempt to turn her wolf, we would have lost her. She couldn’t change, yet she’d received enough of Koda’s essence to heal her ravaged body.
I leaned forward. “What’s going on?” Her hands shook and that terrified look returned to her face, just as it had the day we’d fought the giant maggot. “Shayna?”
Shayna released a shaky breath. Then another. And another. She spoke very softly, likely so Emme couldn’t hear her in the cab of the truck. “I dream every night that I’m being devoured by demons. I wake up screaming. Koda’s freaking out.” She glanced back to where Emme was sitting up front. “I’ve asked Emme to use her healing touch to tend to my emotional wounds, but it’s not working. I think I’m losing it, Ceel.”
Blue and white sparks sizzled above Taran’s head. “Celia, tell the vamps to turn around. She shouldn’t freaking be here.”
“I’m better since the fight with the last Tribemaster,” Shayna insisted. “It’s like it helped knowing I could still fight and protect myself. I think . . .” She swallowed hard. “I think killing one of these things will be the ultimate therapy.”
I watched her closely. I knew revenge. We were the best of friends and the worst of enemies. But Shayna wasn’t asking for a chance at vengeance. She wanted to feel safe. It’s not something I could grant myself. Yet maybe I could gift it to her. “We’ll see what happens. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
My sisters and I prayed before leaving the pickup. The Catholic schoolgirls kept their distance from us. Unlike some vampires who were devout Catholics—bizarre, considering they didn’t possess a soul—these she-vamps embraced the uniform and very little else. It’s not that a Hail Mary would have killed them; it’s just that it probably made them nervous. In becoming vampires, they’d ceded the opportunity for heaven or hell. An eternity on earth was the only thereafter they’d know. If ever killed, they’d simply cease to exist. After all, you can’t move on without a soul. That’s what made Misha so powerful. He simultaneously balanced life and death.
We separated into our groups. My team and I moved silently through the area and stopped when we spotted the main entrance to the compound. A gangly man hauled a whimpering young girl to the gate. The gate opened and a vampire stepped out. I could scent his aroma of sex and chocolate from where we huddled.
“Aquí está mi hija,” the man said. “Dame el dinero que me prometiste.”
I swore as the vamp tossed him a crumpled twenty-dollar bill.
“What happened?” Edith Anne whispered.
“He just demanded money in exchange for the sale of his daughter.”
“Well, that sucks.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “You think?”
“Oh, calm down, Celia,” Liz complained. “If you’d like, I’ll eat him for you after we’re done.”
The girl trembled with fear as the vampire scrutinized her. He laughed when her cries turned into choked sobs as he dragged her screaming into the camp. Her father picked up the bill from the worn path and dashed off in a mad run. “I don’t think you could catch him if you tried,” I added bitterly.
The closer we drew to the compound, the cooler the air. A horrible sense of death and wrongness shadowed the nest like a cloak fashioned from iniquity and suffering. I nodded toward the demon children in the nearby trees. There were fifteen, sleeping upside down like bats. Fangs protruded out of their reptilian mouths and their long leathery wings encased their scaled legs and arms. Taran once described them as “the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz.” I disagreed; the flying monkeys were way cuddlier.
The demons varied in size; some were only about two feet tall, others a hell of a lot bigger than my five-foot, three-inch frame. The leftover bones and skulls from their dinner had been licked clean and cluttered the ground beneath them. The bones were human. I was sure the Tribesmen had also paid about twenty dollars for them. Bastards.
“They’re sleeping off their dinner. Let’s keep this quiet.”
The Catholic schoolgirls and I worked fast. The little buggers didn’t know what hit them. Tearing into demon children released their innards, which resembled pulsating worms that slithered away until the air dried them into shriveled clumps. The hardest part about the whole thing was trying not to hurl. We almost lost it a couple of times and I really didn’t want to see the schoolgirls vomit. Unlike Misha, they didn’t eat food.
“Hold your positions and stay together. We’re moving now.” We disappeared into the shadows, embracing our predator instincts. We stalked in silence. My goal was to sweep in and obliterate the biggest threat before my sisters’ teams advanced.
I think it would have worked if Taran hadn’t lit up the vamp at the gate like a Fourth of July Roman candle.
The vamp shrieked and swatted the blue and white flames burrowing through his back and engulfing his face. He exploded in a mountain of ash, coating the wood fencing surrounding the compound. If Taran had taken the offensive without us present, there must’ve been a reason for it.
“Attack!”
We ran full out. Werebears belonging to the Tribe leapt over the high wooden walls, easily clearing the barbed-wire fencing that wound along on top. They landed with a hard pound, indenting the moist forest floor and blocking our paths to the gate. I kicked my opponent in his temple and severed his head with my claws as he spun. I grabbed the one on top of Liz and yanked him into a headlock. She leapt to her feet and broke through his chest, ripping out his heart in one pull.
The heart finished beating in her hand. “Do you want a bite?” she offered.
Was she trying to make me sick? I ripped the arms off the bear that was trying to decapitate Maria. “Er, no, thanks.”
“Are you sure? He’s a sun bear. They’re considered a delicacy in—”
Rather than listening to what vamps considered yummy morsels, I raced to find my sisters. I ran into Emme first. She’d quickly freed a bunch of villagers from a large cage using her power. They huddled against one another, too terrified to move.
“Corran, corran. Escapen de aquí.” Emme’s small stature and soft features made her appear more friend than foe. The shakin
g villagers exchanged brief panicked glances before jetting out of the cell at her urging.
Anger fueled my onslaught and Emme’s. Once the villagers cleared the gate, she flung shards of firewood stacked in a corner and impaled the Tribesmen sprinting toward us. Those whose hearts she missed were quickly beheaded by me or by Misha’s vampires.
Taran was literally rolling in the mud with another witch. They screamed, slapped, and tore each other’s hair. They may have lacked a true fighter’s grace, yet the sparks from their clashing magic collided hard enough to charge the air. It was the ultimate catfight, one Bren would have paid to see, and one I couldn’t tolerate. I grabbed the witch by her neck and flung her away from Taran. Edith finished her off, but not before tasting the merchandise.
“Come on, Edith. We don’t have time for this.”
“Celia, it’s hotter than blazes out here. I’m thirsty.”
Taran’s screaming interrupted my reprimand. “Celia!”
More than twenty cages lined the wall. In one of them, a poor village girl had just given birth to a demon child. The thing had busted through her stomach and splattered her organs against the metal bars. I’d witnessed this too many times, but it didn’t make the moment any less horrifying. The newborn jumped through the cage toward Taran. I snatched him out of the air with my claws. His leathery wings slapped against my knuckles and his incensed screeches pained my sensitive ears. The warm slick blood slathering his reptilian body made him hard to hold. He bit into my wrist and licked my skin eagerly. I slammed him into the muddy ground and stomped on him. Bones snapped beneath my sneaker and yet the little bugger still wouldn’t die. Worst of all, he spoke in a dark psycho voice, “Celia Wird.”
I immediately cracked his head off like a Kewpie doll, not wanting to hear him say my name again. Maria approached me as his insides scurried away to dry beneath a rusted wheelbarrow filled with bones. “Hmm, you must have left quite an impression in hell if dey know you already.”
Perhaps she’d meant it as a compliment. I’d never been popular in high school, but knowing I was up for homecoming queen in Hades did nothing to lift my self-esteem.
More demons charged us. I turned my fear and trepidation inward and morphed them into anger and hate. My claws dug into chests to stab hearts, and punctured through eyes and into brains. If I let my human side think through my actions, I’d hurl from the brutality. So I called forth my beast to guide my hands. She could hunt, she could maim, she could protect, and she could push me forward. Her eyes replaced mine as I stalked through the mounds of slithering innards, ignoring the reeking scent of old blood, rotting flesh, and the mingling of defecation and sweat. Taran didn’t have a tigress to strengthen her and the gore became too much. She collapsed on her hands and knees, puking.
My tigress compelled me to the cages, to those we couldn’t allow to escape. The naked women inside cackled hysterically or drooped on their sides, staring expressionless ahead. All of them were pregnant. Some twitched with prebirth seizures.
My tigress drove me to kill them, knowing what slithered beneath their protruding bellies. My human side couldn’t, and wrestled to find a more merciful solution. I yanked Taran to her feet. Black strands of her hair stuck to her pale, sweat-soaked face.
“Taran, you have to draw up some magic-born sunlight.” Her lids peeled back and she wrenched herself loose from my grasp.
“Hell. No! It’s a pure light. It’ll kill the vamps and demons, but it will also toast these women like bread!”
I gave her a hard stare. “I know, Taran.”
“Goddamn it, Celia—I’m not killing innocents!”
“Taran, they’re only vessels for the creatures. They’re suffering. The only way to help them is to free their souls.” She seemed torn. “Do it, Taran.” More women fell to the filthy floor, seizing, their bellies vibrating from the demon children restless to get out. “Do it now!”
Emme stumbled to my side, her face the color of chalk. She wiped the perspiration from her eyes. “Wh-what about Misha’s family?”
“I’ll take care of them. Taran, go. Emme, you protect her.” The air charged and cracked around us as Taran drew from the magic surrounding the forest. I tore the head off a weremonkey trying to stumble to his feet and tossed it loudly against a steel drum used for fire. “SPF fifty!” I screamed.
At the sound of my oh so clever secret code words, Misha’s vamps abandoned their targets and scrambled for cover. Their adversaries paused. One lifted his fist in the air and screamed in victory. Boy, was he in for a letdown.
A sapphire and twirling white mist permeated into the cages and put the women to sleep just as Taran levitated in the air. Her irises blanched to clear and scorching heat built around her small figure. I shielded my eyes against the giant explosion of light that cut through the air like the snap of a whip.
I blinked my eyes to clear the spots as the torrent of light faded. What remained of the women, opposing vamps, and demon children were mere ashes. I caught Taran as she fell. She would no longer be able to fight. The magic she had performed had drained her completely. I cradled her in my arms. “Look, Taran,” I said as I held her up. “You did it.”
From the cages, glittering wisps of light bounded up to the sky. I prayed Saint Peter was welcoming the battered and tortured souls into heaven. Taran smiled and tears brimmed in her eyes briefly before she wiped them away and swore under her breath. I helped her to her feet and released her when Emme grasped her arm.
Misha’s vampires trailed the remaining weres, which were busting through the wooden fencing in an effort to escape. I thought to give chase and force a Tribesman to reveal the whereabouts of his master. It seemed I didn’t need to. A horrible roaring erupted from a large structure composed of a tin roof and cinder-block walls.
“Liz, Maria, get over here!” They scrambled to my side as if jolted by live wire.
Liz glanced nervously toward the building. “What, Celia?”
“Take Taran and Emme back to that hotel we spotted on our way into the village. If we’re not back within the hour, get on the plane and back to Tahoe.”
“No,” Maria protested. “De master says we are to stay by your side and keep you safe.”
“Misha is safe at home getting it on with his harem of hussies. I’m in charge, and I’m ordering you to keep my sisters safe!”
“I don’t want to leave you, Celia,” Emme said.
“Emme, Taran is vulnerable and I need you to protect her. Maria and Liz will see to your safety.” I growled at my good Catholics. “Won’t you, girls?”
Glass shattered and Hank flew past us like an irate, battered missile. Blood spurted from a deep gash on his head and onto his face. It sealed from one blink to the next. His shirt was missing and his shorts appeared to have been used as a tissue by something with a nasty cold. He leapt to his feet with a hiss and bolted back into the building. That was all the convincing Maria and Liz needed. They hauled my sisters into their arms and disappeared into the darkening forest. Night was quickly approaching. My tigress eyes could help me see in the darkness. Emme and Taran didn’t have that advantage. I needed them to be safe. And I needed to find Shayna. I chased after Hank and into the chaos that awaited.
The best way to describe what I saw was a bar brawl. Lynyrd Skynyrd even blasted from an old boom box in the corner. Fists and chairs flew harder than at last call at a biker bar. I ducked as a bottle of Victoria beer flew over my head and smashed into the crumbling cinder block wall.
Misha’s vampires held their own against the remaining Tribesmen. Agnes and Edith stumbled to my side, half naked, but that was nothing new. “Let’s finish this,” I told them.
They launched into the foray, shrieking like a band of angry streetwalkers in serious need of penicillin. Since blood already coated my skin, I had no problem attracting attention. A flock of skinny, winged newborns flew toward me, their tongu
e slithering like leeches through their fangs. As a sick joke, some idiot had tied baby bonnets on them. I decapitated two and crushed a third just as a witch set her sights on Tim. He hollered when a dark cloud of green swallowed him whole. I seized a demon child leaping toward the ceiling, snapped off his head, and nailed the witch in her face with it. She released Tim from her spell and veered toward me. “Celia,” she said, blood oozing from her nose.
Witches were funny. Not in a ha-ha kind of way, more like insanely twisted. They lacked in strength and speed, but compensated with spell work and personality. She spat at me from a distance. “Puta sucia. Te mato, puta—te mato!”
I didn’t like being threatened, or insulted. “You’re the dirty bitch!” I growled. Hoo-rah! Take that.
She’d started it, but she didn’t seem to appreciate the name-calling. Her magic assembled in a nauseating bouquet of molding herbs and rotting leaves. With every step, she barraged me with fireballs swirling with green and black smoke. But she was too slow and no match for my speed. I swiped demon children from the air and pitched them into her fireballs, using them to shield me from her flames. They exploded like mini fireworks stuffed with guts. Well, shit, didn’t that make her mad?
“Hija de la gran chingada!”
I didn’t catch what that meant. But I knew it wasn’t a good sign when her eyes rolled behind her head and disappeared into her skull. A giant swamp-colored ball rolled out of her mouth and spun toward me. It wasn’t anything I thought I could or should fight. Nor did I want it anywhere near me. I lifted what remained of a large table and fanned it back at her. I wasn’t sure it had worked since I was batting the table like the dickens, but I snuck a peek at the sound of her screeches.
Bile rose to my throat. She wasn’t a cute girl to start with, but even the most beautiful of starlets could not have pulled off her new look. Snakes spun free from her eye sockets—and every other orifice in her body—like pulled Slinkies. The serpents coiled around her limbs and torso, feasting on her flesh as they twirled and squeezed. My stomach roiled with disgust and terror. Her fate was meant for me. I needed to find Shayna, and we needed to finish this mission—now.