Hurricane of Magic

by J. L. Hendricks

  I heard a wolf howl, I hoped it meant he killed a vamp and not that he was in trouble. Then several more howls joined in. Jose was near. He was bringing back-ups. How did he know?

  Why were Damien and Luke not helping us? They should have left the vamps they were fighting and come to find us. Surely they knew Alexy was with us.

  Kat grabbed my shoulder and dropped the stake. She pulled me back from Alexy and bared her neck to him.

  Alexy pushed me away from him and grabbed Kat. He pulled her tight against his body and moaned. “I can tell you and I are going to have a lot of fun.”

  Kat moaned her pleasure in a breathy voice, “Yes, take me. I’m all yours.”

  I sat there stunned for minute as she really did appear to be enjoying the vampire’s arms around her.

  Kat was too close to the vamp for me to use any of the spells I had on me. The force field would trap her in it with him. Anything else I used would hurt her, possibly even kill her.

  I watched in horror as Alexy’s fang elongated, and he slowly moved to her neck. His eyes were on me the entire time. The smile he had on his face was that of a monster. He watched me as I cringed in horror. I think my fear gave him even more enjoyment. Before biting Kat’s neck, he licked her veins.

  Kat rasped out, “Stop teasing me already. I want this, please.”

  She ran her arms down the side of the vampire, like she was caressing his body. Then she brought her hands back up. She had something in her right hand. It was too dark to make out.

  Right as Alexy went to bite Kat’s neck, she moved her hand to his back.

  I couldn’t watch Alexy bite my sister, but I also couldn’t take my eyes off of what was about to happen. His fangs sank into her neck, or they tried. Her protective charm exploded around her and forcefully threw Alexy back against the wall.

  Alexy’s eyes went wide right before he sunk to the ground.

  “OW! Crap, that hurt!” Kat pulled her hand out from behind the vampire and held it gingerly.

  “What did you just do?” I shook my head to clear out the horror bouncing around and looked closer at the blood sucker on the ground.

  “I pulled a stake out of my boots and positioned it behind his heart. When he tried to bite me, the force of my protective charm blew him against the stake hard enough to penetrate his rib cage and get his heart.” She’s a genius!

  “Wow, you really gambled with that move.” Now we needed to get his body outside so the sun would make it go poof.

  “Grab his legs, and I’ll grab him under his arms. We can carry him out the back. There’s a roll-up door just a few feet away. It should lead to a loading dock, I hope.”

  “Wait, I need to find something to force the door to the walkway to stay open.” I looked around for something heavy to hold the door fully open.

  “Ah-hah!” There were two heavy boxes not far from the door. I dragged them both closer and opened the door all the way before pushing the boxes against it.

  “Let’s go. Then we need to find Damien.” I walked back to the body and helped Kat pick it up.

  When we made our way out to the roll-up door, I heard screaming.

  “What’s going on?” Kat looked to me and scanned the area.

  “I don’t see anything. I wonder if the wolves took the fight out the front door of the shop we were in?” Would Damien bring a fight out into the open?

  Kat dropped her part of the vamp, so she could open the roll-up door.

  “I’m surprised a key isn’t needed to open this door.” Kat pulled a lever, and then she pulled a long chain down which rolled the door up.

  “We don’t need it up high, just enough to roll the body into direct sunlight. Is the sun shining on this side of the building?” I could only see shadows on the ground just past where the door opened up about two feet.

  “I’m not sure. I’ll open the door a bit more. Look underneath and let me know.” Kat pulled on the chain some more and it rolled up further.

  I dropped the vamps legs and got down on my hands and knees.

  “Ahhh!” I screamed when I saw boots running toward the gate.

  “Close it! Someone’s coming fast,” I screamed.

  “Don’t close it! It’s me, Rico.”

  “Oh! You scared me, Rico.” I put a hand over my beating chest. It was going so fast and hard I thought it might beat right out of my body.

  Rico rolled under the door and stood up in a flash. He scowled when he noticed the dead vamp at our feet.

  “What happened?” Rico kicked the blood-sucker’s body.

  “Kat killed him. It was…an odd way of doing it.” I wasn’t about to tell Rico the details, not until I spoke with Kat further. She took a huge gamble with the protection spell.

  “Vampires really are stupid and gullible.” Kat smirked.

  After I took a deep breath, I said, “We need to get him into the sunlight. Looks like we are on the shadow side of the building.”

  “Don’t worry. I can run him into the light. Stay here, don’t move.” Rico pointed his finger at me.

  “Believe me, I’m not going anywhere until you return. Hurry up, I think Damien and Luke need help.” I continued to take calming breaths as Rico rolled the dead vamp under the door and followed it outside.

  “Roll the door up a bit more. I want to watch it burn.” I sat on the hard concrete floor and watched Rico pick up the body and run faster than any human should.

  When he reached the sunlight, Rico threw the blood-sucker into the light. Kat and I both watched as Alexy’s hands caught on fire, and then the rest of his body went up in ash.

  Rico waved his hand in front of his face as he turned to rush back to us.

  “I always hate when the ash gets in my nose and mouth. Remember, throw the body into the light and run away as fast as you can. The ash seems to spread quickly, and it’s a pain to get out of your sinuses.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Rico.” Kat rolled the door down and pushed the locking lever back in place once Rico was inside.

  Chapter 28

  Jenna

  “How did you get separated from Damien? Where is he?” Rico wiped the ash off his face and pulled out a handkerchief. He blew his nose, probably trying to get dead vamp ash out.

  “I really don’t know where Damien and Luke are. We all entered the back of the store together. It was an empty store, I think. No sign on the door, so we all assumed vacant. It was really dark in their stockroom. Damien and Luke disappeared, and Alexy showed up, taunting us.” I led us back to the opened door.

  “Alexy caught me when I tried to stab him with my stake. I got the right spot, but for some reason I couldn’t muster the strength needed.” When we walked through the door, I pulled out my pen light.

  There was a decent amount of light shining in from the open door, but the edges of the room were still shrouded in shadows.

  “I hate to say I told you so, but…this is exactly why you needed another day of rest. With so much magic use, your body just isn’t strong enough, yet.” Rico came up next to me and smelled the air.

  “I get it now. It’s strange, other than being tired, my muscles felt fine. Why wouldn’t I be able to tell I had lost some strength?” This magic use business made no sense whatsoever.

  “Magic use has a cost. If you are a regular magic user, then you will just lose some of your magical abilities for a short time if you overdo it. For non-magical people, it costs you your strength. Sometimes, you might even lose the ability to walk or see for a short time. So, please, do yourself a favor, and don’t overuse magic. Both of you.” Rico should have told me this yesterday. I might have listened more if he had.

  “Shh.” Rico held up his hand and slowly walked forward, further into the store.

  “How many vampires were in this coven? You killed two now, right?” Rico was sniffing the air and looking around cautiously.

  “I saw a total of five vamps at the storage facility. There should only be three left.”

  “There
are more than three vamp scents here. I’m also picking up on multiple humans. This was a larger coven than we thought.” Rico stopped so suddenly I almost walked right into his back.

  “What? Do you sense something?” Kat asked from behind me.

  “I hear fighting, but it isn’t contained in the store front. This must be what caused the scene Jose saw when I was on the phone with him earlier.” Rico opened the door from the stockroom to the vacant shop.

  “How did it move outside the shop? If this is a vacant store, there would be a fence up in front so you couldn’t even see inside.” I shopped here enough to know when they had a vacant store, they put a fence covering the store’s windows.

  “There is always a door leading inside the empty shops, so workers can come and go.” Rico looked out into the shop before motioning for us to follow him.

  Now I could hear screams coming from the mall and animal growls. Had the pack shifted?

  “Stay close to me. I don’t want to lose you in the chaos out front. Kat, get some spells ready. Jenna, please don’t use any. Rely on your protection charm. It won’t steal your strength to power it. The witch who created it used his own personal magic to charge it. Which is why they are so difficult to get, normally.” Rico looked back at me and Kat before moving forward into the practically empty store.

  I could see light coming in from the open door on the gate outside the shop. The store had been set up with a few couches. There were more boxes were strewn throughout the retail part of the store, and a mini fridge was set-up along the left wall.

  No one was inside the store anymore. I couldn’t tell how many people or vamps had been here, but it did feel like it could have been more than what I had seen before. There were several piles of clothes thrown up against the right wall. Had to be enough for at least a dozen people.

  In the back corner was a cage. The door was open, but I could tell people had been inside of it. Burger wrappers and other types of fast food refuse littered the floor of the metal cage. It was big enough to hold a couple of bears or five storm girls. This must be where they went after the storage place.

  “Kat, look.” I pointed to the black-barred cage and shivered thinking how horrible it must have been for those girls.

  “Son of a biscuit eater!” Rico never used swear words around us. Just one more sign of his being a gentleman.

  “What? What did you find?” I approached him and stifled a scream.

  Laying in the front, right corner of the store was a human girl. There were multiple bite marks around her neck and shoulders. Her shirt was ripped, obviously to give them more access to her neck. Blood trailed down the front of what was left of her shirt, and she had a vacant expression on her face.

  “Is she dead?” She sure looked dead.

  Rico knelt down next to her and put his fingers on her neck, checking for a pulse.

  “She’s alive, but barely. Shoot! I can’t leave her here, but we can’t take her either.” Rico stood up and kicked a hole in the wall next to the girl’s body.

  “Can Kat and I stay here with her?” I wanted to fight, but if this girl was still alive, we owed it to her.

  “No. It’s too dangerous to leave you alone. I know you can fight, but the scent of her blood will most likely bring the vamps back. I’ll call Joseph and see if he can get over here with his emergency kit.” Rico pulled out his phone and called Joseph.

  “Kat, is there anything you can do to help her? You’ve had more first-aid training then the rest of us.” I bit my lower lip, trying not to cry, as I looked down at the poor girl dying.

  “Unless you have a way for me to give her your blood, there is nothing I can do for her. Well, I could wrap her neck. It might help stop the last of her blood from dropping. At best, it could give her another hour before she died.” My sister wiped a lone tear from her cheek before turning around.

  Kat walked away from us and looked through the pile of clothes. She brought back a few t-shirts and began to tear them in strips. “Here, help me make some bandages from these shirts. Don’t wrap her neck too tightly. I don’t want to cut off blood flow, I just want to stop it from leaking out of her wounds.”

  “Okay.” I tried to tear the shirts, but I just didn’t have the strength. “Do you have any scissors? I can’t seem to tear the shirts.”

  Kat started a couple of tears on the shirt she was holding. “Here, see if you can finish the tears for me. I’ll start the next shirt.”

  Thankfully, I was able to tear the grey shirt into strips. The shirt had a logo on it for Castle Storage. This was probably one of Scott’s old t-shirts. I used what little strength I had and tore it to pieces.

  Once the shirt was torn, I took a few of the wider strips and wrapped them around the girl’s neck. Blood seeped through the material, so I wrapped another one on just a bit tighter.

  “Kat, does this look right?” I pointed to the girl’s neck.

  The blood flow was already beginning to slow down. The second strip I put around her neck only had a little bit of blood seeping through.

  “Yeah, it looks about right. Here, take these strips and fold them up to put on top of the wounds along her shoulders. Then use some of the longer strips to wrap around on top of the makeshift bandages.” Kat’s Red Cross training was coming in handy.

  As soon as Kat had turned eighteen, she had taken some advanced classes from the Red Cross. We needed to make sure someone in the family could take care of us, if we were ever injured during a hurricane and couldn’t seek assistance.

  “Joseph’s on his way. We need to get moving. If there are as many vamps as I smell, Damien and Luke are going to need help. Kat, are you ready with some spells?” Rico put his phone back in his pocket and headed to the front door of the store.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about leaving this girl here all alone. She was dying. Kat and I did what we could for her, but I still felt awful leaving her here to die alone. All I could do, at this point, was hope and pray Joseph made it here in time.

  “I’m ready as I’ll ever be.” Kat clutched the messenger bag around her shoulders.

  I reached into my bag to grab another stake since I lost one fighting with Alexy.

  Rico nodded at me, and I nodded back. Even though I was still angry with him for how he treated me, I was very grateful he still had my back.

  “How many storm girls are left?” Rico swayed his head from side to side, checking before we all walked out of the wooden gate in front of the glass door to the store.

  “There should still be four more girls to save, if they haven’t drained any of them dry yet.” I shuddered recalling what it felt like to have so much blood viciously removed from my neck without my permission.

  There were phantom pains running down my neck and shoulders as I tried very hard to get the image out of my mind. Less than a year ago, I was left in a warehouse to die as my attacker faced off against Rico, when he came to save me.

  Joseph gave me a blood transfusion, which saved my life, after Rico and his pack tore the vamp to shreds. Seeing the poor girl lying on the ground made the experience fresh in my mind. It took a long time to get over the nightmares.

  I hoped they wouldn’t be returning.

  Rico did a double-take when he looked at me. “Jenna, are you alright? You look terrified. Are you ready for this?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Looking at the girl just brings back some scary memories. That’s all.” I tried to give him a smile, but it came out lopsided.

  “I can take you outside in the sunlight, if you want to wait this out?” At least Rico wasn’t insisting I sit it out this time.

  “No, I can do it. Give me a second to get my head straight.” After I took a deep breath, Rico gave me a hug.

  “Thank you for asking instead of telling me to go outside.” I whispered in Rico’s ear.

  He whispered back, “You’re welcome. I’m trying, Jenna. Really, I am.”

  “I know, and I appreciate it.”

  “Alright yo
u two, you can discuss this when we get those girls back and kill the vamps. Let’s get a move on, there’s not much daylight left. They’re stuck here in the mall until the sun sets, then they will be gone, with the girls. Again.” Kat was right. We needed to focus on the task at hand.

  “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s kick some demon butt!” This is what we have trained for. I knew I could do it.

  “Follow me and stay close. Ignore the humans, unless you think they might be acolytes.” Rico took point, and we followed him.

  Kat and I scanned the area around us. Most of the stores had closed up. I could only see a few “Open” signs up.

  “Rico, could they be inside any of the stores? Should we check each one?” I saw one store with a few people looking out into the mall. The sign said: “Closed.” No one looked to be vampires. They all looked like frightened humans who couldn’t look away from the scene of a gruesome accident.

  “No, I want to find my guys before we do anything else. My guess is they are in the thick of things.” Rico’s head swiveled to the right. Just down the way was another wing of the mall off to the right side.

  “I hear fighting down that way.” Rico pointed to the right side-wing of the mall.

  There was a large department store at the end. The walkway had multiple carts of small wares and trinkets. Then there were the shops which lined each side. There weren’t any vacant stores down there the last time I was here.

  Rico picked up his pace, and we tried to keep up. He was fast. Kat and I had to jog to keep up with his fast walk.

  When we finished this, I needed to take up jogging.

  After we turned down the lane, I saw what Rico heard. It was utter chaos.

  Kat and I stopped to survey the situation.

  “I see seven vamps and maybe three acolytes. What do you see, Kat?”

  “I think there are four acolytes. Look at the one in the corner with the humans. He looks like he herded them there.” She pointed to a group standing off to the left of the department store entrance. They were all stuck in a corner with one human standing guard.

  “Is he keeping them there? Why? They’re going to lose to the wolves. From the looks of it, they are already losing.” I saw two vamp bodies on the ground. Both had their heads ripped off.