by Izzy Shows
My heart was already hurting.
39
I got my wish.
The next room was a parlour or a living room, something that had a lot of couches and fancy woodwork in it. Four vampires were seated, two on one couch and two on the other so that they faced one another. They were a pair of couples, male and female on each couch, and the proximity they shared indicated that they were intimately involved.
All four had turned to look at me, the shock on their faces priceless. I must have looked quite the sight just then, with blood on my jeans and blade, I didn’t even want to think of the condition my hair was in, and throw in the smudged make up and I thought I must look like quite the freak show. Oh well, I had always been a freak show, it didn’t matter if I looked it.
“I hope I’m not interrupting the party,” I said.
“Y-you…” The female farthest from me began to speak but seemed at a loss for words. I tend to have that effect on people.
“What? I escaped. Bran and Jason already got the line, I’m sorry but you’ll have to think of something else. That I killed them? One of your thralls got that one. Take your time, though, I’m not on a limit. I can kill you whenever is convenient for you.” I smiled at them, because that was a promise I intended on keeping. I might have my qualms about killing mundanes, but these were vampires that were part of the group that threatened to kill all my friends. They weren’t being drugged or compelled to stick around, they had made their decisions to be a part of things. All because they couldn’t wait to get their next blood fix. It was a pathetic lack of self-control that had led us all to this moment in time, but I wasn’t willing to stick around and lead them to sobriety. They were going to pay for the murders on the streets, just like they were going to pay for their threats.
They launched towards me as one cohesive unit, not wasting any time with banter, which surprised me. I had been getting used to the idea of trading a few barbs back and forth, maybe convincing a person or two to leave or that what they were doing wasn’t worthwhile, but these vampires were set on one thing and one thing alone—killing me.
That shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as it was.
It was difficult to keep all four occupied, being only one person myself, but it was the only option that I had. I found myself wishing that I had Emily with me, her back pressed against mine as we battled a new kind of undead, but she had already told me that that wasn’t a possibility, even if I’d been willing to risk her presence here.
It was different from Tyburn Tree. This time it was personal.
I gasped at a blow that landed on my ribs, twisting and slamming a foot into the chest of the offending vampire, twisting again without missing a beat to punch another one in the face. Each time I snarled the word for strength, imbuing my attacks with power from my cuff and ankle tattoo, knowing that in this scenario it was the only thing standing between me and certain death. I felt the grasp of a hand at my hair—low bloody blow—and shrieked at the sharp pain that exploded along my scalp.
They yanked hard and I toppled to the ground, eyes widening as my mind flashed back to Tyburn Tree for a moment. Lying flat on your back in a group of enemies was an invitation for death, and Emily had been the only thing that had stood between and that death on that day, and I had no one watching my back today.
Thinking fast, I lifted both hands in front of me. “Convexum!” I shouted, invoking one of the shield rings. Instantly, a semi-transparent shield of light appeared above me, stretching from my head to my toes and curving so that I was entirely covered. I took a moment to just breathe, grateful for the respite from action. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this situation, but I knew that I had to do it one way or another.
And then I heard the spray of bullets and flinched instinctively. My shield hadn’t been built with bullets in mind, but rather for the physical force of bodies beating against it. I wasn’t sure that it would hold up, though it might take one or two. Piercing was a different beast from battering.
I watched as the vampires jerked away from me, focusing on something out of my line of vision, and I turned my head away from them to look in the direction they were.
Finn.
Finn was here.
Fucking Finn was here.
What the fuck was that arsehole doing here? I was going to kill him. If those bloodsuckers didn’t get him first.
I jerked my head back around to size up the vampires, terrified they were going to spring on him, but they seemed a bit dazed and confused by what had happened. I took the opportunity to drop the shield and leap up, running away from them to meet Finn.
“Your bullets won’t do any good!” I shouted at him. I reached into my bag and yanked out a stake, handing it to him.
“I know! But they make a hell of a distraction, don’t they?” He grinned at me.
I had never been so happy to see his face. I wanted to throw my arms around him, and at the same time wanted to scream at him for coming after me because dear Gods this man was going to get himself killed here, but there wasn’t time to do either of those things.
I turned back around and faced the confused vampires.
“What’s the plan?” he asked.
“Uhhh…”
“You don’t have a plan?” He glared at me and then looked back at the vampires—smart, I didn’t want one of them creeping up on him.
“I never said I was the smart one! Just kill them!” I retorted, yanking another stake out of the bag and lifting my fire wand from its holster. My blade was now on the floor where I had been lying, and I could only hope that none of the vampires would think to pick it up. High likelihood that they wouldn’t, considering how much they relied on their fangs and claws to get the job done.
The four blurred towards us, but their bodies jerked halfway through the room as Finn sprayed a round of bullets into them. I made eye contact with him, nodded, and started running forward. I trusted him not to hit me, even if it meant slowing down the rate of bullets he was firing and possibly creating an opportunity for the vampires to run again.
I reached one of the vampires and lifted the stake in my hand. But being in front of the vampire as I was, Finn couldn’t hit it with a bullet without risking me, and that opened me up for an attack. A strong hand grasped my wrist, and the vampire smiled at me.
“How kind of you to bring your friend here for us,” he said.
“Fuck you, buddy,” I said, lifting my wand. “Incendium.” The fire blasted out of the wand in full force, raging across the vampire’s face. I took advantage of the moment to slam the stake home in his chest, cutting short his cries of pain. I waited for a moment to make sure that the stake had truly gained purchase in his heart and that he wasn’t playing me—it’s a real fear to have, OK. If I missed by a centimetre, he would be able to get back up and I would have already turned my back at that point.
As it was, he stayed down. I started to turn, but was thrown across the room instead. I slammed into an oil painting that hung on a wall and hit the ground, hard. I gasped for air, shaking my head to free myself from the stars that now danced in front of my eyes. Oh Gods, but that had hurt. There was nothing any tattoos could do to save me from blunt trauma, no matter how much I wished I could figure out a spell for that.
Finally, I could see again, and I felt my heart drop into my stomach—Finn had blood on one hand and was facing off with two vampires. The third was advancing on me.
Oh Gods, Oh Gods, Oh Gods, no, no, no.
This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t lose him.
I began to panic, but shoved the feelings down inside of myself so that I could concentrate on the task at hand. I sized up the situation, the three vampires happened to be standing almost in a line, and Finn was far enough away from them that I felt like I might be able to risk it.
Without standing up I shook loose the chain on my left hand. “Ventus.” I flung my hand wide and released the wind inside of it, pouring it forth to knock the thre
e vampires against the far wall.
Finn turned to gawk at me for a moment as I stood, maintaining the pulse of wind so that the vampires couldn’t stand up as he raced over to me.
“Are you OK?” He asked.
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Just don’t die.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Then whose blood is that?” I asked, jerking my head towards his arm.
“Shut up.”
I nodded grimly and finally pulled back the wind, wrapping the chain around my fingers again. “Let’s finish this.” I stowed my fire wand and pulled out the other one, the one that controlled ice.
My abilities with ice were far more powerful than fire, I could control it with precision and for some reason it responded to my emotions much more so than fire did—you’d think it’d be the reverse—but I didn’t use it as much because fire was a wider destructive force. You could take out more enemies with fire than ice, but you could destroy a singular enemy much faster with ice than fire.
I aimed. “Glacio,” I murmured, and three bolts of ice fired forth. Each one I controlled with my mind, gliding them as if I was there holding them, carrying them to their destination. They moved swiftly through the air, almost too fast to be seen, and found purchase in the gut of each vampire, impaling them and driving them back to the wall where they were stuck. I held the image of ice in my mind, refusing to let it melt.
“Still have your stake?” I glanced over at Finn. Sweat beaded on my brow from the effort it took to concentrate on the ice and speak to him at the same time.
Multitasking is hard.
“Sure do,” he said.
We crossed the distance of the living room together, his gait more casual than the march of my own. I kept up the spell with much effort so that they couldn’t escape the binding, though one of them, the middle one, had begun to impale himself further upon the shard, intent on dragging himself off. I quickened my pace, shifting directions so that I would reach him first.
“Vis!” I said, slamming the stake home in his chest. I wasted no time, whirling and staking the next vampire beside him. I heard the crunch of a third stake driving home to my left—Finn taking care of business. I felt an absurd moment of pride swelling in my heart; Finn had never been directly involved in the supernatural before, never been in a fight like this, and I still wasn’t sure that he could take care of himself. But it helped.
We stood back and watched the vampires shrivel into desiccated corpses.
“Woohoo. That’s taken care of.”
“I don’t suppose that happens to be all of it?”
“Not even close. Come on. We’ve got to keep moving forward and clear this house,” I said.
40
We made our way to the stairs, walking as quickly as we could without making too much noise. The last thing I wanted was to bring a flood of vampires down those stairs while we were going up them, that was going to be the ultimate disadvantage. This wasn’t going to be the same as the stairs I had climbed from the basement—no one had been waiting for me on the landing, ready to ambush me. I fully expected there to be people in whatever waited at the top of this staircase, but I could only hope that there wasn’t going to be anything on the staircase.
Well, I was not a lucky person.
We only made it about halfway up the stairs before the flood came. The confines were so small, so choked, that I couldn’t see how many we were up against. I heard the click of a gun cocking and whirled around to cover Finn’s body. He began to protest, but I refused to move, holding myself in place and curling around him slightly so that my back was curved towards the vampires behind us.
Bullets rammed against my back like a battering ram, driving the breath out of me and ripping a tortured scream from my lips. I felt the heat on my back and couldn’t tell if it was from the shield tattoo, from the blunt force impact, or if the shield had failed and it was just the pain that preceded death.
You’ve been there. You know what the pain before death feels like. This is not it, I thought. That may not be entirely true—I hadn’t died at Tyburn Tree, but in my opinion I had come damned close. This was nothing like what it had felt like to have a hundred mouths snapping at my limbs, their claws biting into my flesh and shredding my back to the pieces that Shawn had somehow put back together.
I waited until the gun fire receded, panting and sobbing and all in all just a mess of pain. I didn’t know how to breathe any more, I couldn’t pull air into my lungs, and I was acutely aware of a burning pain in my calf. A bullet must have found purchase there, Gods be damned.
“Blair? Blair! Answer me!” I heard Finn’s voice somewhere over the roaring sound that filled my ears. “They’re coming, Blair, you have to get up!”
Right. There was no time for pain or pity parties. I shoved the pain into a chamber of my mind and locked it away.
“I’m fine,” I said, and I could hear how empty my voice sounded. I forced myself to turn around in time to slug a vampire in the nose, but not enough time to activate the force spell. The vampire jerked its head back, clearly surprised to find me awake and fighting, likely having expected that the firestorm of bullets would have put me out of commission at the least.
Good thing I’d taken care of anyone who could have told them about my spell tattoo. Hopefully that would remain a surprise for anyone that tried to use guns on me for now. “Vis!” I said as I pulled back and kicked the vampire in the chest, driving it backwards. I undid the chain around my fingers in the moment of respite that action afforded me. “Ventus!” I unleashed the wind again, feeling the fatigue in my soul as the magic drained me, pushing the vampires back and up the stairs, holding them at bay. I climbed the steps, one by one, with Finn following close behind.
I cut off the wind as soon as it felt like I could take no more, gasping for precious air though I did not have the time to waste doing it.
Should have grabbed the damn blade before we came up here, I cursed mentally. There was no time to go back for it without providing the vampires ample time to attack. Instead I yanked out the fire wand.
“Incendium!” I shouted, shooting out jets of fire at the feet of my attackers, causing them to yelp and jump about, batting at the fires to put them out before they could climb too high and consume them. I didn’t have the energy left to direct the flames as I had previously, or rather I didn’t want to waste it just yet. I knew there was a long battle ahead of me and I didn’t want to be on the losing side of it because I shot my load too early.
Just then, one of them leaped above and over the two of us, landing precariously on a step behind Finn. I swore, turning to deal with it for him, but he shoved me back around.
“Stop protecting me, damn it!”
Right. I had to focus on myself, on the fight in front of me. This was only one of the reasons why I hadn’t wanted him here, I had known that I would be too caught up trying to keep him safe because I was so Gods damned worried that they were going to take him from me.
I zeroed back in on the throng of vampires in front of me, stowing my wand and reaching into my bag to pull out two stakes. I would do what I could to take care of this situation so that Finn only had to worry about the one vampire.
I charged forward, ramming my shoulder into the first two vampires to knock them back, connecting a kick with one of their heads that brought them down. That one laid flat out on the stairs, having knocked two over behind them when it hit the ground, and I wasted no time driving the stake home in its heart. I whipped my other hand up, shouting the Latin word for strength as I brought another vampire down, throwing all my weight into the strike so that the vampire was carried down to the steps along with the first one.
I leapt back, standing up straight after they’d been dispatched, and reached into my bag to pull out two more stakes. There were three more in front of me, and I didn’t know what was going on with the one behind me.
“Lux Vis!” I combined the spells for strength and to
activate the enchantments I’d inlaid on the stakes, throwing them at the first two vampires. My aim was good and both found purchase in the hearts of the vampires, glowing red and orange and igniting the vampires in flames as soon as they reached their respective targets. I shook my arms out, bouncing on the balls of my feet for a moment as I faced the final vampire.
“You bitch,” he snarled before leaping at me, over the bodies of his dead brethren. His path curved mid-air—it would have been impressive if it wasn’t so terrifying—and he slammed me into the wall. He followed it up with a bloody head butt, crunching the bones in my nose with the force of his thick head. I gaped for a moment, eyes wide to fight the tears that sprang from the impact. Gods but that hurt. I didn’t have too much time to worry about it, though. His claws were digging into my forearms, drawing drops of blood there, and his teeth scraped against the skin of my neck. I rocked my head to the side to connect with his own just in time to stop him from biting me—I didn’t know what would happen if he succeeded, other than giving him the opportunity to drain every ounce of blood from my body, but I didn’t want to find out. I brought my knee up between his legs, gasping out the word for strength as I did so, a time-honoured attack when dealing with a man who won’t leave you the fuck alone.
He doubled over at my side and was ripped away from me a moment later. I looked up to see Finn, looking quite the mess with blood dripping from a wound to his cheek and his own share of scrapes on his neck.
“Thanks,” I panted, grabbing a stake from my bag and tossing it to him. I grabbed the vampire and slammed him against the wall. “Vis.” I said, channelling the strength this time to hold him there instead of the usual forceful push. A moment later the stake was inside of him, protruding from his chest. “Lux.” He ignited.
I looked to Finn and shook my head. “This is not going to be a fun fight.”