by Julie Wetzel
“I did not agree to this.”
“Shut up!” Alex screamed at him. “She deserves what she gets! Don’t you remember the pain she caused you? To us. She left for no reason.”
Vicky’s anger grew. “I left because you were a psychotic freak, Alex!” she yelled as she banged on the air again.
“Shut up and die, bitch!” he screamed at her.
“Let her in!” Tim rushed the man at the table.
Alex grabbed up a curved blade from the table and sunk it into the stomach of the already-injured man.
“Nooo!” Vicky screamed as she slammed both fists into the air. She may have left Tim for not loving her, but she still cared for him enough to not want him dead. Her right hand stopped on the hardened air, but her left hand passed through and ended the swing by her hip. Vicky’s eyes widened in surprise.
Tentatively lifting the burned palm out to test the barrier, she could feel the air stretch as she pushed against it. It felt like overly solid Jell-O. She pushed on it harder, and it gave way, letting her left hand slip into the light. Vicky pushed with her right, but it held firm against the solid air. She glared at the man watching her ex-boyfriend die. Alex hadn’t noticed that part of Vicky has slipped through the barrier.
Anger filled her as she pushed with her left hand and stepped from the shadows into the light of the circle. The air parted to let Vicky through, but it was like squeezing between two very firm pillows pressed together. It crushed the air from her as she forced her way through the gap she had created.
“Alex!” Vicky screamed as soon as she could breathe again. “You no-good son of a bitch!” She cursed as her progress to the man was stopped by the strap of the bag. Tugging on it, she tried to move forwards, but the bag itself would not pass through the barrier. “What the hell have you done?” Vicky struggled as she pulled on the strap, trying to get the bag inside the ring of light.
Alex watched his assistant curled on the floor, dying “I have used what is mine to gain what I wanted.” Turning his eyes up, he expected to see Vicky banging on the shield. He nearly fell when he saw the woman struggling against the strap, inside the light. “How?” He gasped. “Ma’awiya said only he could get past his protection.” Steadying himself, he saw that Vicky couldn’t get any farther into the circle of light.
“Why?” she screamed in her fury.
“Why?” he echoed back. “Power.” His face lost part of its humanity as he spoke.
“Power?” she screeched in disbelief. “Is that what this is all about? You burnt my friends in a quest for power?”
“Technically, the ifrit burnt them up,” Alex shrugged, “but I sent it after those whores.”
“Whores!” Vicky shrieked. “They were good people! Rebecca was pregnant.”
“They were whores who left me!” he yelled back. “Just like you. Ma’awiya gave me power for each life taken. He has promised me power beyond belief. The power to do anything, power that demands respect, and the ability to have anyone I want!”
“You don’t know what power is.” Vicky struggled to get to him. “And respect is something that’s earned!”
“I will show you power!” he boomed, stepping back up to the table and raising his hands over the assortment of magical items there. His voice picked up a chant in a choppy language.
As his voice rose, Vicky could feel the air inside the circle sizzle with energy and knew she needed to do something quickly or he was going to kill her where she stood. Slipping out of the shoulder strap of the bag, she rushed the table. She picked up a cast iron skillet filled with strange patterns carefully made in colored sand and slung the contents over her shoulder as she cocked the pan. She swung it at Alex’s head.
It met with a cracking ring that smashed him backwards into the barrier. He hovered in the air for a moment before slipping backwards into the shadows beyond it.
An ear-shattering screech filled the air as dark demons appeared around the barely conscious man.
He screamed as they pulled him away from the light and tore his flesh from his bones without killing him outright.
Vicky covered her ears and vomited at the horrible scene.
When the man’s cries stopped, Vicky finally opened her eyes up. She wiped her mouth and moved back from the puddle she had made on the floor before turning to look at the man she had once loved.
Tim curled around the wound on his stomach, breathing weakly.
She went to him to see if there was something she could do.
“I’m so sorry.” Tim reached a bloody hand up to touch Vicky’s face. “It was never meant to go this far.”
“Oh, Tim.” She rolled him onto his back to look at the stab. It was deep with a lot of dark blood spilling out onto the floor. There was nothing Vicky could do for him, but she tried to staunch the blood flow anyway. “Why?” she asked, trying to understand how the good man she had known could do something so horrible.
“It was supposed to have been harmless fun, but Alex found the demons.” Tim’s voice gurgled a little as blood started to rise up his throat.
“Don’t talk.” She tried to hush him so he would save his energy, but Tim pushed on wanting to answer Vicky’s question.
“It started with chickens, but Alex wanted more. I didn’t know he started going after people until he called up Saaleha. Oh God, the power she gave him was awesome, but it wasn’t enough. He used her to reach and control Ma’awiya.” Tim drew another breath that gurgled deep in his throat.
“It’s all right.” Vicky cried for the man dying under her hands.
“No!” Tim tried to sit up against her hand. He grabbed Vicky with a bloody hand as he fell backwards in pain. “Saaleha is still trapped.” His words became more labored. “She needs to be freed,” he begged. “Please.”
“What?” Vicky asked, not understanding what he wanted from her.
“The ball.” Tim tried to raise his hand, but it just flopped limply on the ground next to him. “Please.” He breathed the last word several times before falling silent as he bled out. His body stilled under Vicky’s hands, and she sobbed for him.
Vicky drew in a deep breath to steady herself and looked up at the table Tim had attempted to point to. She got that there was something important he wanted her to do, but what? What was Saaleha and how was she supposed to free it? Vicky stood up and wiped the blood from her hands onto her pants. She looked over the table filled with random items for something that would give her a clue.
Everything was carefully arranged on the table. A copper bowl of water sat on the left side next to a few hawk feathers tied together with a length of leather cording. Two red candles stood on the right side next to an open space from where Vicky had grabbed the pan. In the center, there was a large crystal ball and a shallow stone dish filled with a dark liquid. A long, curved blade, wet with Tim’s blood, sat askew between the ball and the dish. Vicky looked over the setting, trying to understand it. Tim had mentioned a ball, so she looked at the crystal.
Someone had spent a long time painstakingly etching scrolling symbols into the surface of the clear sphere. Vicky reached to pick up the heavy crystal and paused when it tingled under her fingers. She looked deep into the ball and gasped when she saw a pair of golden eyes staring out at her.
“Saaleha.” Vicky breathed the name as she picked up the ball in her right hand. The eyes burned with anger as she watched them. She looked around for an answer to the riddle. Tim said Saaleha needed to be freed, but how did Vicky go about freeing something inside a crystal? She didn’t know anything about the magic that held the creature fast. An idea popped into Vicky’s head, and she walked around the table to the area not occupied by Tim’s still body.
“Be free,” Vicky said, throwing the heavy crystal to the ground as hard as she could. The crystal cracked in a burst of air and light that threw Vicky back into the solid wall of the barrier. She sat on the floor, leaning against the shield, and shook the unexpected concussion from her before looking up to see a v
ery angry woman standing over the busted crystal.
She was beautiful, with an exotic look to her olive skin and long, black hair. The cloth of her gauzy, red dress moved in the air currents created by her fiery wings.
The fear that had faded from Vicky came back in full force as the woman hurled a ball of power at Vicky. The energy slammed Vicky through the barrier and flung her into the shadows beyond. She landed in a crumpled pile as the life was torn from her body by the force of the attack.
Darien and the ifrit stood staring at each other, breathing hard. They were evenly matched in their swords skills, and both sported slashes and stabs from the other’s attacks. The ifrit swung his sword around, showing off as Darien circled him, looking for an opening to place his next attack.
“It is useless, vampire. I will have the woman.” The ifrit tried to provoke him into a poor attack.
Darien took a calming breath. He had gotten use to the ifrit’s taunts and let it roll off him. “You still have to get past me,” he said, “and I won’t let you have her.” Darien stepped in with a series of swings that the ifrit blocked before countering just as fast. The two danced around again to the clang of the blades meeting. The ifrit’s blade twisted under Darien’s defenses and slashed through the black cloth covering Darien’s stomach. He jumped back just in time as the wicked tip of the sword grazed across his skin without breaking it.
“Lucky,” the ifrit purred as he reset his sword for another attack.
“Skill,” Darien corrected, his sword whistling as he twirled it around. The two circled, preparing for the next pass. Darien readied his strike but was startled when an unearthly screech shattered the air around them. Both he and the ifrit cringed as they looked out at the rest of the battlefield to see the demons pick up the cry.
The fighting instantly stopped as the nightmarish creatures melted into smoky shadows and disappeared. Even the bodies of the dead demons vanished. It took a moment for the surprised attackers to look around in the gloom and realize there was nothing left to fight.
Darien turned his attention back to the ifrit he was facing off with. The shock on the creature’s face told Darien that something major had happened, but the vampire didn’t wait to find out what it was. The ifrit stood wide open, and Darien took the opportunity to attack.
“Saaleha.” The ifrit breathed a name as Darien’s sword lunged straight for the thing’s heart. Darien let out a frustrated cry when the ifrit slipped from reality, and his blade struck thin air. He raged for a moment at losing his target once again before clenching his jaw and turning to look over the chaos around him. He could see his allies pulling themselves together.
There were several wounded being tended to, but his eyes didn’t find the one person he was looking for. Darien switched his blade to his left hand to hold the lightly bleeding wound on his left shoulder. Even though the demons had disappeared, he didn’t want to put his sword away in case there was something else waiting for him to relax. Turning, he loped towards the opening where he had last seen Zak heading. He couldn’t rest until he found the fay and the girl he was protecting.
The sounds of an explosion followed by the anguished cries of a horse put more speed into Darien’s feet as he raced to find Vicky. He burst from the wide hallway into a chamber smaller than the main room and stopped dead in his tracks as he took in the scene in front of him.
A circle of light shown down on an overturned table and the body in dark robes, but it wasn’t the corpse in the light that made Darien’s blood run cold. It was the large black horse prancing franticly next to two wolves over a limp figure with long blond hair.
The tip of Darien’s sword hit with a loud tink as his sword arm dropped to his side. He took a slow step towards the group. His mind churned in disbelief as the horse wheeled around to see where the sound came from.
Zak let out a loud whinny and closed on Darien. He grabbed the vampire in his teeth and partly dragged him and partly threw him towards Vicky’s body.
Darien pushed to make his mind work through its grief as he tried to understand what the two wolves were doing to the woman he loved. One brown wolf lay on the ground, heavily injured, tapping out a steady and fast rhythm with his paw, as another tawny wolf pounced the rhythm into Vicky’s chest with both front paws.
Zak butted Darien with his head, knocking him to the ground next to Vicky before letting out a loud, threatening cry.
Darien’s sword clattered to the ground, forgotten as he picked himself up and moved to the girl’s limp body. His mind clicked into gear as he realized the wolves were trying to do CPR on Vicky.
The tawny wolf, he now recognized as Sue, backed up to give him room. She whined loudly as he unfurled his power and touched Vicky.
Darien could feel the spark of life still in her body, but withdrew his power from her as quickly as he could. The spark was faint and growing colder. If he wasn’t careful, his power would extinguish it and replace it with something else.
Looking up at the three sets of expecting eyes, he did the only thing he dared to do. Leaning forwards, he blew two breaths into Vicky’s mouth before starting up the chest compressions that Sue had stopped. He could feel her life fading under his hands as he repeated the set two more times. If he couldn’t bring her back the old-fashioned way, he would still have time to reach in and turn her before she was gone for good.
Darien finished a series of chest compressions before moving back to give her more breaths. He readied himself to pull her over to his world, but stopped when she started coughing halfway through the second breath. The brown wolf on the floor whined at him, and Darien sat up as Vicky drew in a ragged breath on her own. He lifted her up in his arms and held her for a moment before opening himself up and letting his energy flow into her. Now that he had rekindled the flame of life in her, he could work to heal her without worry.
Sue found Vicky’s lost cloak and pulled it over to Darien. She pawed him lightly to get his attention.
Darien looked up at the tawny wolf and smiled weakly. “Thank you,” he said as Sue helped him to pull the slightly damp material over Vicky. “She’ll be okay now.” Finding a more comfortable position to sit in, he turned his mind to Vicky. He still had a little bit more work to do on her before she was healed completely. “Go find Rupert and let him know where we are. I think Karl is going to need some help out of here.”
Karl whined softly in agreement as he licked the ferocious bite on his hip, and Sue snorted before loping off into the darkness to find the pack alpha.
Zak laid down behind Darien so he could lean back as he supported Vicky in his lap.
“Thank you.” The vampire rested against his friend’s side.
Zak nickered softly in response.
Placing a light kiss on Vicky’s lips, Darien rested his head back against Zak and tried not to pass out. He was still not back to full strength after his close brush with death over the weekend. Between the fight with the ifrit and healing Vicky, he was spent.
“Thanks for coming,” Darien said to Dakine as they stood in his kitchen. He looked down into the last of his dinner and swirled the blood around in his cup. “I don’t know what to do with her.” Looking up, he hoped the elf lord would be able to help him with his problem.
Dakine watched the downcast expression on the vampire’s face. “I take it she hasn’t gotten any better.”
Darien shook his head before draining the rest of the liquid from his cup. It had been three very long days since the battle with the demons. Darien was glad they had taken the Hunt with them into the fight. Hellhounds were fiercely loyal to their masters, and it was largely due to their strength that they had come out as well as they had.
The demons were only weak shadow demons, but they had been called in great numbers. There were numerous injuries, but there were only five casualties. Two wolves and three vampires had lost their lives in the endeavor, but it was the lasting effects of the battle on Vicky that had him concerned.
The first th
ing she had done when she woke up in his arms was burst in to tears and thrash wildly, trying to get away from him. It had taken a command from him to make her sleep before she stopped flailing in his arms.
Darien rinsed the cup out and placed it in the sink. “If anything, she has gotten worse.” He turned back to face the fay. “She hasn’t eaten anything, she will not speak, she screams hysterically if we turn out the lights, and she’ll only sleep if I force her to. And then, her rest is fitful at best before she wakes up screaming.”
“Last night, I had to pull her from the bathroom after she had taken a nailbrush and scrubbed her skin raw. I think she was trying to scrub the blood from her hands. I healed the wounds, but now she won’t let anyone touch her, not even Zak in his dog form.” He rubbed his temples before crossing his arms over his chest.
Zak whined at Dakine from where he sat as a Shih Tzu on the floor.
“Elliot and his people have stayed to help, but we are at our wits’ end. I’m afraid her mind has snapped beyond my ability to fix.”
Dakine made a worried noise deep in his throat. “If she is that far gone, just erasing her memories may not be enough to fix the damage.” he said, worried. “And there is always the risk that her personality will suffer.”
Darien nodded. “I know, but we have to do something for her.” He turned to lead Dakine back to his room where Vicky was. “Even if she loses her memories completely, it would be better than what she’s become. And you’re much better at it than I am.”
“True,” Dakine said as he followed Darien and Zak from the kitchen. “We want her to have some mind left when we’re done.”
Darien didn’t even glare at the elf lord for the dig. He knew too well how true his words were. “Did you ever find the ifrit?” Darien asked as he climbed up the steps.
Dakine growled his aggravation. “It slipped dimensions,” he said, angry their quarry had gotten away. “From the look of the altar at the factory, someone was forcing the creature into the killings. With them gone, I doubt he’ll come back for Vicky.” These were the same thoughts he’d given Darien before they had left the abandoned building.