by Simone Pond
I dashed to the lobby and outside to the golf cart before anyone had caught on. I was a little bummed I wouldn’t get to see Cagliostro’s face when he walked in on Cosby’s headless body in a heap on the floor.
thirty-one
I drove the golf cart straight into the rose garden and parked behind a tall trellis. Thomas and Charlotte sat close to each other under a yellow rose bush, their knees touching as they whispered flirtatiously. Soraya, who was sulking, had stationed herself farther away.
I dropped the pillow case in front of Thomas. “Here’s your head. Now get us the fuck out of the city before I cut off yours.”
Thomas inspected the contents and smiled. “Well done.”
“Time for you to hold up your end of the bargain,” I said.
“Okay. Just chill out. We’ve had a slight change of plans.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, looking at Charlotte and Soraya.
“We think it’s better if the three of us stay in the city and have Thomas go outside and bring the others in,” Soraya explained.
“It makes more sense,” Charlotte added. “And beats having to deal with security twice. Especially since we’re on their radar now.”
That did make more sense. Less risk involved. And we had a better chance of hiding out within the city, while Thomas dealt with security. But could I trust this vampire? I closed my eyes, sitting still for a moment, and searched my instincts. What were they telling me? I didn’t feel nervous or sketchy. In fact, I felt peaceful, like this plan would actually work.
“You’re right, it’s a better plan. But how will you get them past security?”
“When I go out for my spot check along the perimeter, I’ll go to where they’re waiting, give them temporary seals and drive them closer to the gate.” He said this like faking out Cagliostro and his security measures was no big deal.
“You can do all that?”
Thomas nodded confidently.
I studied him quietly, trying to sense any trickery on his part. “I guess my bigger question is, why the hell do you want to help us? You have Cosby’s head, you could easily ditch us. Aren’t vampires selfish like that?”
He looked at Charlotte. “I want to prove I’m not a bad guy.”
Charlotte’s cheeks reddened as she grinned at Thomas.
I laughed at the hilarity of his sentiment. “First of all, you’re not a guy. You’re a freaking vampire.” Then I smacked Charlotte’s shoulder. “And what are you doing, playing footsie with some stranger you just met? Can’t you see that he’s influencing you? Your feelings aren’t real.”
Thomas interjected, “I’m not influencing her in the slightest. I can’t use my powers in this city, otherwise that prick demon mage will track me down and feed me to the wolves. Or whatever other shifter he needs to feed.”
I stood there stunned, staring back and forth at the newfound couple. It was absolutely ludicrous, but you know what? So was everything. A demon mage had somehow flipped the entire dimension upside down: good was evil, and Dark was Light. Who was I to argue or judge? I was dating an angel gone rogue who turned out to be the prince of the Monarchy …
Charlotte took my hand, smiling all twinkly eyed. “I’ll be fine, Fiona. At some point you’ll need to stop trying to protect me.”
I know she was in that love-at-first-sight-nothing-else-matters frame of mind—she hadn’t had a date in a long time—but I wasn’t sold on her specific selection. “A vampire, Char? You can do better than that. He’s evil.”
“I’m actually not evil. And I don’t drain blood from humans,” Thomas defended himself.
“Enough!” Soraya yelled, giving all of us a start. “We are losing time!”
“She’s right,” I said. “You can figure out your nuptials later, for now, go out and get our people. If you come back and nobody is harmed, then we’ll see about you dating my best friend.”
Charlotte laughed. “You don’t get to make that choice.”
“I’ll protect you until the day I die, Char.” I looked at Thomas. “Now, go!”
After Thomas left, Charlotte came over and said, “I’m not a hundred percent sure about this, but do I detect a hint of jealousy?”
“What? Jealous over a vampire having the hots for you?”
She shook her head. “Jealous that someone other than you is getting my attention.”
I wasn’t sure if I was jealous or worried. The dreamy look in her eyes brought me joy, but the thought of losing her made my heart hurt.
“Just don’t let him turn you. We need you to remain a healer. Especially after Cagliostro’s operation gets torn down. A lot of people are going to get hurt and they’ll need healing.”
Charlotte gave me one of her famous bone-crushing hugs. “I love you, Fiona. Like a sister. But you don’t need to worry about me so much. These people in this city, they’re the ones you should be focused on. They need your help to be freed of whatever spell that demon mage has them under.”
I nodded silently, then sat down on the dirt. My eyelids were dry and my head throbbed. Rest was the only thing I could focus on at the moment. Even if it was only a thirty-minute power nap.
thirty-two
I woke up to someone yanking my arm and the sound of a motor revving.
Charlotte pulled me to my feet. “Get up! They’re coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
“Thomas and the other Protectors,” she yelled.
Something had gone wrong. In the distance, an alarm bellowed through the city like a hurricane warning. The revving engine was coming from the Jeep careening into our path, Thomas at the wheel, Saul shotgun, and Julian’s parents in the backseat. Lilith wasn’t with the group.
Thomas slammed on the brakes, ushering the Protectors out of the Jeep and calling over to Charlotte, “You gotta come now! Your sister is waiting on the outside.”
Charlotte’s puppy dog eyes were wide with terror. She looked at me, then back at the Jeep. The four Protectors ran over to Soraya and me, the six of us standing together in a line formation.
I grabbed Charlotte’s arm and shoved her toward the Jeep, screaming, “Go, Char. Go with Thomas! I’ll find you. I always do!”
Tears sprang into her eyes, but I pushed her hard enough to slam her against the Jeep. Thomas reached over and pulled her into the vehicle and they sped off. None of the guards went after Thomas and Charlotte. They had no interest in a healer and a vampire. They were after us.
“Shields up!” I shouted.
We formed a force field in front of us as the guards quickly approached, shifting from their human forms into demons, wolves, panthers and those hideous lizard creatures I couldn’t bear to look at. As the pack moved in closer, the demons began whirling fireballs at us. I guess Cagliostro no longer cared if any human residents were witness to supernatural events. Not when he was so close to getting everything he needed to complete his project.
Me.
He needed me and only me.
Jeff and Kaila moved in front of me, one of them shouting for Saul and Soraya to cover my six. They formed an outward-facing circle around me, keeping me fully protected from the onslaught of fireballs and blue orbs of electricity. I hadn’t encountered this intense caliber of demon before. The beasts were amped up on Cagliostro juice and coming at us at gamma-ray force.
Bursts of electricity splintered off the magical force field around us. The lizard shifters moved in closer, snapping their sharp teeth and clawing. One of the slippery lizards had found a chink in our Armor and swiped its claw through the force field, slicing a huge gash across Jeff’s throat. Blood gushed down his neck, but he was able to call on his sword and decapitate the lizard.
“The Logos,” I yelled over the noise.
One by one, we began shouting the ancient language: “Your Darkness has no authority. We stand with the power of the Light. The Light binds the dark. The Light binds the dark.”
The shield radiated brighter, but Jeff was losing s
trength as the blood gurgled in his throat. The surge of energy I needed to release my roar finally reached full tilt, and I opened my mouth, unleashing a deafening explosion that rippled across the rose garden. Petals rained down like snow flurries as the pack of demons, lizards, growling wolves and panthers yelped in agony.
Jeff collapsed to the ground, and Kaila held him against her chest, trying to pull him away from the pack. With the force field dismantled, one of the demons darted toward us, covering its ears as I continued to roar. Just before the beast came down on Kaila and Jeff, I dived outward and punctured him with my sword. Red and black chunks burst into the sky, mixing with the rose petals.
Weakened by the Logos and my clamor, the attackers backed away. But I wasn’t about to let the bastards off that easy. I sprang forward, full-speed, dodging and weaving between the animal shifters and remaining demons. My sword came down hard and fast, leaving nothing but supernatural residue, and of course, blobs of that detestable green slime from the lizards.
After I had picked off the last panther, I turned to go back to the others. Only Kaila and Jeff remained. And as I got closer, I realized it was only Kaila and me. Jeff was dead. Kaila sobbed into his blood-soaked robe, clinging to him like a barnacle on the side of a boat. I pried her away.
“Come on, Kaila. We have to go!” I pulled her arm but only managed to drag her down the dirt path. “They’re gonna send more attackers. Where are Saul and Soraya?”
Kaila continued weeping as I struggled to get her to her feet. She rested her weight on me, crying into my shoulder.
“I don’t know where they went. We can’t just leave my husband here. They’ll destroy his body.” She turned around to go back.
“We’ll come back for him. First we have to find Soraya and Saul, then we need to get to the other Protectors. I know where they are. Can you please work with me?”
Some of the rose petals stuck to pieces of her frizzy red hair, and she looked like a forest nymph; a very heartbroken one. I brushed away a tear from her cheek.
“We still have a chance to save your son. Don’t give up on me, Kaila.”
She inhaled deeply and let out a shaky breath, her lips still quivering, then nodded. “We must get to Julian.”
“First we need to find Soraya and Saul. Did you see which direction they ran?”
My Armor began tingling, alerting me that more trouble was on the way. I didn’t wait for Kaila to answer, I just grabbed her wrist and dashed like lightning through the rose garden to the slave encampment. We could hide out there until I figured out how to get to Saul and Soraya.
I barreled through the door of the safe house and slammed it shut behind us.
thirty-three
Sitting on the twin bed in the safe house with Kaila’s head in the lap of my skimpy leather skirt, I listened to her sob incoherently. We needed to come up with a new strategy, but my ears were ringing from the most recent bellow I had released in the rose garden and every muscle ached and throbbed. I hadn’t eaten anything in who knows how long, rendering me depleted. The magical suit of Armor could only do so much when the person wearing it wasn’t replenishing their energy supply.
I rested against the chrome wall, Kaila’s head like a dead weight on my lap, and stroked her unruly hair. She needed to cry it out. I’d been there before, so I just whispered that everything would be okay, over and over.
But I wasn’t so sure that was true. We had lost the other two Protectors, her husband was dead, and we didn’t have a plan. Things were looking pretty bad. And by that I mean totally fucked. Deep inside I’m sure I had a metacarpal-sized bone of hope, but I didn’t have the energy to excavate.
Kaila glanced up at me, red-eyed and smeary, and choked out, “What are you wearing?”
I let out a laugh, which made her chuckle through her grief. I looked ridiculous in that black leather skirt and tank, topped with an oversized suit jacket that belonged to a vampire I had slain.
“Long story,” I said, grinning.
She pulled herself up, wiping off her wet cheeks, and smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For letting me get that out. I know the risks involved with our profession, but that doesn’t make it any easier losing someone.”
I thought about my parents, who were in Glimmer City with Ezra, then I thought about Asher who was hopefully with the Monarchy. How many others would I lose? Charlotte was now gone. Julian and Rocco. It just seemed too painful getting close to anyone in our line of business. Maybe the old detective was right? Maybe it was better walking the line all alone. That way I wouldn’t have anything to worry about if something went wrong. Because something would undoubtedly go wrong.
Or maybe I would never need to worry about something going wrong ever again. After all, Cagliostro was winning the game. He was already transporting troops to Glimmer City. Perhaps he didn’t even need me or my Scroll to wipe out the Monarchy and destroy the Light and all of humanity. The man had worked hard to achieve his goal, chasing down Protectors for millennia. Overpowering, murdering, and annihilating anything that got in his path. I could always surrender to him and call it a day.
“Fiona?” Kaila’s voice interrupted my weary thoughts. “We need to come up with a plan,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out the point.”
She shook her head and gave me a sturdy pat on the arm. “The point is to protect the Light. Cagliostro might’ve edged us out of the way for the time being, but he will never have authority over the Light.”
Closing my eyes, I rested my head on the pillow. I believed Kaila, or at least I wanted to believe her, but the weight of exhaustion was closing in on me. I sank backwards into the cave of darkness …
A spectrum of light flashed before me, shimmering in waves of iridescent violets and blues. The vision gripped at my heart the way the previous one had done. I cried out in pain, but then a warm breeze wrapped around me, and the pleasant sound of water lapping onto a shore melodically splashed in the distance. Opening my eyes, I stood in a pool of pink water, the surface winking like diamonds. On the shore, my mother and father waved to me, smiling.
“You still have time to save them,” Ezra’s voice resonated in my head.
“Where are you?” I murmured.
“I’m right here with you.”
“I miss you, Ezra.”
A soft laugh echoed all around me.
“How can I fix this, Ez?”
“The Light is in you, and you are in it. You protect the Light by allowing it to protect you. But you must trust it, Fiona. Listen to what it tells you.”
“Are you still alive, Ezra?”
But only silence answered back, and in a burst of radiance, I shot awake.
Kaila looked down at me. “What did you see?”
“Hope. I saw hope.”
She smiled, reaching for my hand, but her fingers slipped through mine and she began to shimmer. Her eyes widened as she looked at her nearly translucent hands. She vibrated between fully present and invisible. I grabbed for her, but my hand swiped through where she had been sitting.
Kaila was gone.
I jumped off the bed and paced in small circles. What was happening? Had Cagliostro figured out how to capture us using telekinesis? I kicked the wall, creating a huge dent in the chrome. A tingle shot up through my foot, reverberating through my entire body. Then I began to vibrate from the inside out. My body shifted in and out of existence. One moment the chrome walls surrounded me, then faces were staring at me. Heat rose up through my middle and everything went dark.
thirty-four
When I opened my eyes, Soraya stood before me with Kaila and Saul at her side. She had conjured us to their location—what looked like a storage room or basement. The rancid stench of rotting fish saturated the air, causing me to gag. But I was relieved to be among the four Protectors, despite the smell.
I hugged all three of them at once.
“Soraya conj
ured us,” Kaila said.
I had forgotten about her gift of conjuring. That’s how I found Charlotte in San Francisco. Soraya had once again saved the day.
“How did you not get detected?” I asked Soraya, feeling a little guilty for getting irritated with her earlier.
“It seems our low-level gifts don’t trigger any of the alarms. I figured it out when Saul disguised us earlier. Nobody came after us.”
“Good to know,” I said.
“Yeah, so let’s go stop that son-of-a-bitch,” Saul said.
I never thought I’d be so happy to see the curmudgeon again, but elation swelled in my chest.
“Once all of us are together, Cagliostro won’t stand a chance. Not up against all seven bloodlines,” I said. “Can you conjure the rest of the Protectors the way you did Kaila and me?”
Soraya shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I’m tapped out. After I got Kaila, I almost couldn’t call you here. As you know, we must recharge when we use too much of the Armor’s power. But you’re right, once all seven bloodlines are in one place, we’ll defy every natural and supernatural law of creation.”
“Let’s hope so,” I said. “Where are we? It smells like we’re close to the warehouse.”
“We’re actually inside the warehouse,” Soraya replied.
“Excellent. So let’s go get the other Protectors and track down the Scrolls,” I said.
“The Scrolls are in The Spire,” Soraya said. “And like you keep saying, we must retrieve them first. So that’s where we’re going.”
I stepped back. “Wanna tell me how you know that?”
“Saul and I overheard two of Cagliostro’s men.”
“And?”
“While we were hiding here, a couple of his men were doing rounds. One of them bragged about how his engineer roommate was working on some crystal dome on the top floor of The Spire that uses ancient Monarchy magic to power it up. Has to be the Scrolls.”