Scarlett, no longer wearing her disguise and easily identifiable by her burning red hair, jumped easily over one slumped body, ran up onto the chair then mounted the table and leapt, twisting midair as she grabbed one of the men by the shoulder and flipped him over her head, tossing him several feet away to crash into two more of his associates as if they were bowling pins.
Fiona chugged back a hearty swig of Johnnie even as she grabbed a metal tray and tossed it into another black attired man like it was a frisbee, hitting him in the neck and sending him to his knees choking.
Olivia ducked as she felt another bullet streak past her, so close it grazed her cheekbone. She felt Lois and Clark leap over her head, with snarls of defiance as their jaws crushed bodies and heads, tossing the intruders aside like limp rag dolls.
It was chaos; she could still barely see as the smoke hung heavy in the air. Her gaze scanned the carnage for her husband.
‘THEO!’ she called out desperately, coughing hard against the burning smoke. ‘THEO!’
She could feel it burning inside her, the rage, the pain, the fear for the people she loved. She stood slowly, her eyes burning in the darkness. Her dragonflies burst into flames, filling the night air like beacons as she reached for her magic. She felt the vast overwhelming power of a Guardian and released it with a scream of fury. The smoke burst outward, tattering and falling away as her magic filled the air with a kind of static electricity.
Suddenly she could see everything. The furniture was overturned, drinks spilled, glasses shattered. The once pristine tablecloths were stained with streaks of red, but she was unable to tell if it was blood or wine.
Bodies lay strewn or cowering across the floor. Olivia turned toward the burning circular gateway which was spitting sparks like an angle grinder against metal. Her eyes widened with a mixture of horror and fury as she witnessed two men dragging her husband’s limp body through the gateway and disappearing.
‘NO!’ she screamed as she ran toward them, realizing the circle was collapsing.
There were two more of the black clothed assassins ahead of her. She watched as they dived head first through the hole. The first one made it, but as the strange circle of fire snapped closed the second man hit the floor.
Olivia skidded to a halt, staring down at the smoking husk; all that was left was a pair of legs and the lower half of a torso, the rest of him was missing.
‘NO!’ an anguished scream split the air.
Olivia turned, everything seeming too slow before her eyes. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears and her heaving breaths but nothing else.
She watched as Tammy collapsed to her knees, wrapping her arms around someone lying on the ground.
Olivia’s feet were moving before her brain could fully process everything she was seeing. Then it all roared back in with painful acuity and all she could hear was Tammy’s anguished sobs.
Olivia looked down to see Mac laying on the ground, his eyes rolling in his head as he tried to focus on Tammy. Blood seeped from his nostrils and mouth, coating his teeth and bubbling from his lips with every labored breath.
The front of his shirt was saturated with blood as Roni, on her knees next to him, pressed her hands to the wound. Jake stood behind her, on the phone, calling desperately for an ambulance.
Mac’s glazed eyes fixed on Tammy and he fumbled, reaching for her. She took his hand leaning in close.
‘Mac,’ she whispered brokenly, ‘just hold on, please hold on.’
He smiled slowly.
‘I’ll wait for you,’ he wheezed as his eyes closed, and his hand let go of hers.
She turned her hand over and opened her fingers, staring at the bloodstained diamond ring lying in her palm. The noise which left her throat as she crumpled over his lifeless body was like the howl of a dying animal. It was painful to hear. Roni let go, knowing it was useless, her bloodstained hands leaving streaks of blood down her beautiful wedding dress.
Tammy pulled Mac into her arms, burying her face in his neck as she rocked him and sobbed.
‘The children,’ Olivia breathed suddenly in shock as she turned toward the house.
‘It’s okay,’ Davis grabbed her arms and stopped her. ‘Danae is with them, they’re fine. Slept through everything. No one made it past the Chimera and the dragon. I have to say Olivia, that’s some pretty lethal babysitters you’ve got.’
She let out a heavy sigh of relief, pushing back the wave of grief for Mac, and forced herself to evaluate the situation. She glanced around at the assembled injured. Roni appeared unharmed, just heartbroken as she sat surrounded by a mountain of bloodstained tulle and satin and tried to comfort Tammy. Jake likewise seemed more or less unharmed, as did Davis. Jackson had blood streaming from a cut at his hairline but otherwise seemed none the worse for wear.
Fiona had lowered herself into a chair, her giant sunflower hat knocked at an even more precarious angle as she drank deeply from a bottle of what looked like tequila this time, before handing it to Dominic who took a drink without a word. His eyes fixed on the lifeless Chief of Police laying in a pool of his own blood.
Calypso approached slowly; blood running freely down her arm from a bullet wound at her shoulder.
‘You’re hurt,’ Dominic told her in concern.
She did not speak but her angry scowl said it all, as she dug the bullet out with her fingers, dropping it to the dance floor with disgust. Glancing down at her shoulder she watched as the blood flow stopped and the flesh sealed itself back together.
Dominic’s eye’s widened and he took another deep drink from the bottle.
‘What the hell happened?’ Roni’s brother Evan limped over, supported by their older brother Louis. His tie was knotted firmly around his thigh, presumably to stem the bleeding from a bullet wound in his leg.
‘Jake,’ Olivia whispered as reality came crashing in on her, ‘they took Theo.’
Scarlett stepped closer to her, wrapping her arm around Olivia’s shoulders in comfort.
Jake kneeled down next to the nearest body dressed in black and pulled the sleeve back to reveal a small serpent coiled ankh tattooed into the wrist.
‘Damn it,’ Jake swore, ‘the Veritas.’
‘What did you say?’ Tammy looked up, her swollen bloodshot eyes flashing dangerously.
‘They’re Veritas,’ he stood slowly.
Tammy’s face hardened as she gently laid Mac back down on the ground. She leaned down and kissed his cold lips, then slipping the diamond ring he’d given her on her finger she pushed herself up slowly and painfully from the hard ground.
‘You said they took Theo?’ she asked coolly.
Olivia nodded.
‘Tammy,’ Olivia stepped toward her.
‘This time they’re going to pay in blood,’ Tammy growled dangerously.
‘Tammy!’
But it was too late. A cloud of jet-black smoke swirled around Tammy’s body, coiling around her like a serpent and then she was gone.
‘WHAT THE FUCK?’ Roni’s brother exclaimed loudly, as his face turned white.
‘Olivia?’ Jake moved to her side, his voice low and filled with concern, ‘where did she go?’
‘I don’t know,’ Olivia stared in confusion at the spot her sister in law had disappeared from. ‘That was witch smoke; she traveled out of here using witch smoke, but I’ve never seen black before, it’s always purple.’
‘Does that really make a difference?’ Jake scowled. ‘I didn’t know she could do that in the first place.’
‘Neither did I,’ Olivia turned to Jake. ‘She’s always had visions, ever since she was a child but she’s not a full-blooded witch. How the hell did she do that? That wasn’t just beginners’ luck. It either takes someone who’s been practicing the craft for a very long time or someone incredibly powerful to transport themselves by smoke. Even I didn’t learn how to do it until after I became a Guardian.’
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Roni’s brother demanded again.
Jake reached down and helped his wife to her feet, gently checking her over for injuries and then wrapped his arms around her tightly as she began to sob quietly against his chest, transferring Mac’s blood to his shirt.
‘It’s going to be okay Roni,’ he soothed her gently.
‘Mac’s gone Jake,’ she sobbed against him.
‘I know baby,’ his eyes filled with tears as they fell on his friend and the sound of sirens in the distance filled the air.
The day dawned pale and inevitable. Olivia stood on her porch, still barefoot and wearing her bloodstained gown, wrapped in a blanket, as she watched her friend’s body zipped into a body bag and loaded into the back of the coroner’s van.
She slowly wiped away the tears spilling from her eyes and continued to watch. The last of the injured guests had been loaded into waiting ambulances and transferred to the hospital, including Roni’s mother, who was largely unharmed but screaming hysterically about a sea monster in the lake and giant cats. Thank god the paramedics had sedated the woman; she couldn’t take her voice grating on her nerves for another second and in her current mood Olivia wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have sealed the woman’s mouth shut permanently. Although Roni probably would’ve thanked her for that.
Of her friends, most of them had escaped with minor cuts and scrapes. Some of the other guests hadn’t been so lucky. Two of the bar staff hired for the evening had been killed as well as one of the waitresses, another had a serious gunshot wound. One of the guests had a heart attack and another a serious asthma attack due to the smoke cannisters used.
‘Here,’ Scarlett stepped in beside her and handed her a mug of black coffee. ‘You haven’t slept yet; you could use the caffeine.’
‘Thanks,’ Olivia took the mug and sipped, grimacing slightly. She didn’t care at all for the hot, bitter drink but Scarlett was right, she needed the caffeine.
‘Your friend Jackson and his wife Shelley have taken over the kitchen. They’re looking after the children and feeding everyone. You’re probably going to have no food left by the time they’ve finished.’
‘That’s the least of my problems right now.’
They stood in silence side by side watching as the police crawled all over the crime scene. More of the Veritas bodies were being zipped into body bags, a couple of them being fished out of the lake missing chunks and displaying strange looking teeth marks.
Even from this distance she could see the cops were puzzled. Despite most of them growing up in Mercy with all of its strange quirks, she could tell this was a step too far even for them. Jake was talking to them, gesturing with his hands, while Roni stood, still in her stained dress, her eyes filled with sadness. No doubt they were trying to come up with a plausible explanation for all the dead bodies, the problem was, there were too many witnesses.
They were in deep shit.
Mac was dead, Theo had been abducted. Tammy was AWOL, there were several dead bodies, huge animal paw prints all over the crime scene and a lot of hysterical witnesses.
Just how the hell were they going to explain this one?
Olivia sighed and rubbed her pounding forehead. Scarlett said nothing, she simply placed her hand on Olivia’s shoulder.
‘I never planned for this,’ Olivia murmured.
‘How could you have?’ Scarlett replied.
‘No, I mean, I was prepared for all kinds of supernatural attacks and scenarios,’ she frowned shaking her head. ‘I’ve even spent the last few days amping up the wards against angels and Sentinels, so you’d be safe. I didn’t think for one moment we’d be attacked by psychotic humans. They just started shooting; these were innocent people for God’s sake. If they wanted to come after me and Theo, fine, we expect that. We know we’re targets, and we try to be as careful as possible especially when it comes to the safety of our children, but why here? Why now? It was a wedding for fuck’s sake, what did they hope to accomplish?’
‘A statement,’ Scarlett answered quietly as she continued to stare at the scene down by the lake. ‘I’d say their main objective was to take your husband, but they could’ve done that anytime and with a lot lower body count. Just in the time I’ve spent here with you, he’s been out into town a dozen times by himself. They didn’t need to take him here. In fact, it was a lot harder for them to do because they had to find a way to cross your wards.’
‘Exactly,’ Olivia scowled, ‘how the hell did they do that? I still haven’t figured it out?’
‘I don’t know,’ Scarlett shook her head, ‘but I think they were sending a message, making a statement. That they can get to you anytime and no matter how safe you think you are; you aren’t.’
‘I hate the fucking Veritas,’ Olivia’s eyes burned with anger, ‘they killed my friend and took my husband.’
‘We’ll get him back.’
‘We?’ Olivia turned to look at Scarlett.
Scarlett pulled in a breath as she scanned the ruins of Roni and Jake’s wedding.
‘I’ll help you; you and Theo took me in when I had no one. You took care of me and found someone to heal me. I won’t forget that. Helping you get him back is the right thing to do. Besides,’ her eyes unconsciously tracked back over to the body bags piling up, ‘this can’t be allowed. I’ve tolerated the Veritas over the last few centuries, I stayed out of their way and they stayed out of mine, but what they did here last night will not go unanswered. They killed innocents to make a statement, to put all the power in their hands and I’m not prepared to let that stand. It’s time someone put the Veritas in their place.’
Olivia nodded in agreement.
‘They’ve just declared war.’
‘Yes, they have,’ Scarlett murmured.
‘Well if it’s a war they want,’ Olivia’s eyes burned furiously, ‘a war is what they’ll get.’
22
The hood was ripped off her face and Corinne blinked against the sudden bright light, then shivered against the cool air. She realized she was in some sort of industrial space and wondered how the hell she’d gotten there. She’d gone to sleep as usual in her new apartment and woken with her hands and feet bound, and a hood over her face, or rather a pillow case she realized looking at the discarded piece of material on the rough ground.
She shivered again; she was wearing only a thin nightgown and the flesh and tiny hairs on her arms were raised. There was a huge hole in the roof, where part of it had given way, leaving her sitting in a circle of early morning light. High windows were blackened out with some sort of paint, leaving streams of daylight showing through, casting slashes of shadow across the floor and a deep darkness beyond the confines of the circle of light she was sitting in.
She wriggled, testing her restraints, but the thick plastic strips were pulled tight enough to almost cut off her circulation, binding her to a cold metal chair, the pattern of the seat biting into the backs of her exposed thighs.
She froze as she heard a shuffling in the shadows.
‘Who’s there?’ she shouted angrily, with the kind of entitled attitude of someone who was used to getting what they wanted. ‘Show yourself,’ she ordered.
A familiar face appeared at the edge of the circle of light. Corinne stared for a moment and then started laughing.
‘You?’ she continued to laugh, ‘is this some sort of joke?’
Tammy stared at her silently for a moment before limping further into the light. In one hand she carried a dark looking rectangular object. It was only when she dropped it to the ground with a loud crash and it rattled with the sound of loose metal objects, that Corinne realized it was a rusted old toolbox.
‘Taken up a new profession?’ she smirked.
Tammy stepped further into the light and Corinne’s eyes dipped to the blood stains saturating her cream-colored dress. She didn’t say anything Tammy noted. Her eyes scanned the sheer amount of blood on her and flickered back to her face, showing no sign of curiosity. That could only mean, just as Tammy suspected, that Corinne knew exactly w
hat had happened the night before.
‘I have a few questions for you,’ Tammy reached down and slowly flicked open the latch holding the tool box closed, her voice coldly devoid of emotion.
‘And you’re going to what?’ Corinne scoffed as her eyes glittered with amusement, ‘torture me? Don’t make me laugh. You expect me to believe that the sweet, beloved, prim and proper Mayor Tammy Burnett has what it takes to get her hands dirty.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse the crude tools,’ Tammy continued as if she hadn’t heard Corinne’s condescending response, ‘I’m afraid I was unprepared so I’m having to use what’s available.’
Corinne’s eyes narrowed as she watched Tammy’s almost mechanical movements. She didn’t sound like herself.
‘You won’t,’ Corinne stared at Tammy, ‘I’d bet money on it. You don’t have what it takes. You’re soft, weak; you’ve spent the last two years doing nothing but whining about what that demon did to you.’
Tammy looked up and her eyes flickered for barely a second.
Ah, so there is someone home after all, Corinne thought as she witnessed the first hint of emotion. If Tammy thought she could stay detached and emotionless long enough to torture a confession out of her, she was sadly fucking mistaken.
‘That’s right,’ Corinne’s mouth twisted into a sneer, ‘we’ve been watching and listening this whole time and the only thing I’ve been able to conclude is that you truly are pathetic. A stronger woman would have gotten over it, used it to fuel her but not you. You folded like a bad hand of poker. No wonder your precious Mac left you and moved back into a motel. Even living in a cockroach-infested shithole was better than listening to you whine and feel sorry for yourself.’
Tammy remained quiet, staring down at her hands as she held the tool box open. The only sign that she was listening was the tightening of her knuckles when Corinne mentioned Mac.
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