The Volatile Amazon

by Sandy James

  Helen laughed again, the sound making Sarita see red. “My dear, Sarita. We meet again. After chasing you for so long, you’re here, in my grasp. And so easily. After targeting the stronger Amazons, I never imagined to destroy you all through the weakest of this generation’s warriors.”

  “Show yourself, you bitch!” Sarita screamed.

  Gina put her hand on Sarita’s shoulder. “Easy. Don’t rise to her bait.”

  Sarita shrugged away Gina’s touch, seething with rage over Helen’s insult. Seior had taken the reins, but she didn’t care. The magicks flowing through her heart and her mind made her strong, and right now, strength was exactly what she needed.

  It was time for Sarita to show Helen her strength. “I mean it, Helen! Show yourself! Then you’ll see who’s the weakest Amazon!”

  The stench grew as revenants poured from the trees, their sing-song moans filling the air.

  “Helen, you chicken shit! Come out and fight me instead of sending your stupid minions!”

  The only sound was the groaning of the approaching zombies who lumbered onto the beach in a steady stream.

  Megan was the first to shout a battle cry as she charged the revenant leading the pack, beheading it in a single swing of her sword. Gina and Rebecca attacked as well, leaving Sarita—as usual—to guard their backs.

  Fuck that.

  Power surged inside her and she sprinted past her sisters, throwing herself in the thick of the revenants.

  * * *

  Ian watched the tiny woman he loved charge into the fray and reached for his own sword—only to remember it was back at his castle.

  His heart pounded, and he tasted fear. Until he saw her rush toward the hideous creatures spilling onto the beach, he’d lied to himself that she was nothing but an infatuation—a woman who might have captured his heart but meant nothing more than a few pleasant interludes.

  Revenge had driven his soul for so long, he hadn’t recognized the depth of what he felt for Sarita. Now, justice seemed unimportant when he compared to the devastating loss he’d experience should Sarita die now.

  Running from his hut, Ian went to the man who’d arrived with Sarita, the one whose gaze scanned the area, no doubt looking for Helen. The man hung back, letting the women take on the creatures—the undead—that smelled worse than they looked.

  “I need a weapon,” Ian told him.

  “So you can kill me?” The man shook his head.

  “To help the women!” Ian insisted. “I need to protect Sarita!”

  “Swear it.”

  Anything for Sarita. “I swear!”

  Without taking his eyes away from his task, the man yanked a dagger from his belt. “Stab them in the head and don’t let any of them bite you.”

  “What are they?”

  “Revenants. Zombies. Dead people brought back for one purpose—they want to kill you and eat you. Don’t let them.”

  Ironic, but when he joined the fight against these dead people, Ian felt more alive than he had in a long, long time. He ran after Sarita, ready and willing to attack anything that kept him from her. He might have been the laird’s younger brother, more concerned with keeping the clan fed than fighting, but he’d been trained as a warrior—at least when Artair wasn’t babying him for his crippled hand.

  Artair. Should Ian follow Sarita to her home, he’d finally face his brother—and only God knew what would happen when they finally met again. Could Ian truly kill the man who’d raised him? That man who’d fought at his side at Culloden Moor?

  The man who’d so callously left him to die an agonizing death?

  Letting a battle cry spill from his lungs, he channeled all his anger into killing the undead.

  The first creature he attacked had a fragile skull that cracked and split as Ian drove the weapon deep into its brain. Damn, but he wanted his sword. Getting close to the revenants brought a stench that rivaled any other. What had once been a man collapsed to his knees and planted his face in the sand. Ian moved onto the next one, keeping his eyes open for Sarita.

  He had to kill three more revenants before he found her. Three creatures had encircled her, and her sword was embedded in the neck of one she’d felled. Before she could jerk her weapon free, a female zombie jumped on her back and dragged Sarita to the ground. Hands clenched in Sarita’s hair, the revenant yanked her head back and opened her mouth, ready to take a fatal bite.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Nay!”

  The cry of warning rose from Ian’s chest until it became a roar. His strength surged, and he shoved aside the zombies blocking his path. When he reached Sarita’s attacker, he never got the chance to touch her.

  A shout sounded from under the zombie, and Sarita rose to toss it from her back. She grabbed the hilt of her sword, put her foot against the zombie she’d been trying to decapitate and jerked the weapon free. Then she finished the job before whirling and slamming her sword down to behead the one that had been on her back.

  Ian gasped when she faced him, holding her sword high as though she’d split him open. She barely stopped the swing of her weapon before delivering what he had no doubt would have been a fatal blow.

  “Ian!”

  “Aye.” His gaze scanned her from head to toe. “You’re well?”

  She didn’t look well. She panted for breath, and her eyes were no longer a warm brown, but had shifted to black orbs.

  “Where’s Helen?” she demanded.

  “I’m nae sure. Her home’s on the other side of the island, and though I hear her, I cannae see her.”

  More of the revenants surrounded them. Ian and Sarita turned their backs to each other and faced the threat.

  * * *

  Sarita swallowed hard, worried that Ian was caught up in a fight against creatures he probably never knew existed. Although he brandished a dagger, he wouldn’t know how to use it properly to take out a revenant.

  She’d just opened her mouth to explain when a male zombie—fresh enough to be a class one—lunged at Ian. Before she could shout instructions, he’d buried his blade deep in the top of revenant’s skull and sliced down hard enough to split the creature’s nose.

  The battle was on. Swinging her sword and using sweeps and kicks to bring down the zombies, Sarita tried to cull the herd. Seemed the more she eliminated, the more appeared.

  Anger ripped through her and she shouted, not caring who heard. “Where in the fuck is she getting all these dead bodies?”

  “Sarita!” Gina’s desperate tone cut through Sarita’s rage.

  Her sister was in trouble.

  How could she not have felt it? In every fight, the women were connected by their bond, a tie so strong they could work together and—

  But they weren’t working together. She hadn’t been helping her sisters. Instead, she’d let the Seior blind her and set her out to hunt Helen instead of doing her job.

  Sarita screamed her frustration as she kicked aside two attacking revenants. Then she sprinted over the bodies littering the beach to get to Gina.

  Air was down, an obese male revenant pinning her to the sand. He knelt on her sword arm and had his mouth wide open, ready to take a bite while Gina struggled to hold him back with her free hand.

  “Get off her!” Sarita’s flying kick sent the zombie flopping to his side. She lopped off his head while Gina scrambled to her feet.

  There wasn’t time to exchange a word. Revenants were on them again.

  In her mind’s eye, Sarita suddenly saw her sisters, Zach and Ian, sprawled on the sand—bleeding and broken.

  They were going to lose this fight if she didn’t do something. Now.

  Her hand shot out to touch Gina, and in the blink of an eye, they were both back in Avalon. Another blink, and Sarita returned to the island.
/>   Ian was nowhere in sight, so she hurried to Zach’s side and flashed him back to Avalon as well.

  The next round, she popped up between Rebecca and Megan and had them both home before either could protest. She dropped her hands, ready to go get Ian when Rebecca grabbed her arm.

  “You can’t go back,” she ordered.

  “Ian’s there.” Sarita shrugged Rebecca’s hand away.

  “Helen will protect him. He’s on her side, remember?”

  “I’m not leaving him there!” When she tried to jerk her arm free, Rebecca squeezed harder. “Let me go!”

  About to close her eyes, she sensed Megan’s telekinetic power before Megan used it. Sarita held out her hand and “caught” the energy that would have sent her sprawling at Rebecca’s side. She crushed it in her fist, absorbing the power into her own body.

  “Nice try, Megan.” Narrowing her eyes, she growled before saying, “Don’t try that again or it’ll be the last thing you do.”

  Rebecca tugged on Sarita’s arm to pull her closer. “You’re playing with danger, and there’s no way I’m letting you leave.”

  With nothing but a sweep of her arm, Sarita used Megan’s energy to send Rebecca flying. Earth landed on her butt in the grass.

  “I told you. I’m going back for Ian. None of you are going to stop me—or I’ll stop you.”

  “Sarita, what are you saying?” Gina asked before gasping. “Your eyes. What in the hell happened to your eyes?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They’re black.”

  Rebecca was on her feet and striding back to the Amazons. “Just like Sparks. You’ve got to get rid of the Seior. It’s going to destroy you.”

  The ground beside her split as Rebecca’s kudzu came hurtling at Sarita. The moment the vines wrapped around her wrists, she jerked hard, breaking what were supposed to be unbreakable bonds. The plants slithered back into the grass and the splits sealed.

  “Another nice try.” Sarita dropped the remnants of the now brown vines to the ground. “Actually, lame try. Is that the best you two can do?”

  With one jump, Gina was behind Sarita, wrapping her arms around her. “I’m not letting you go without me. Can’t you see what this is doing to you?”

  Sarita laughed as she bent forward and flipped Gina over her back. The power growing inside her was incredible. Intoxicating. There was an almost overwhelming urge to kick Gina while she was down.

  Instead, she thought of Ian. He needed her.

  Since this discussion and her sisters’ pathetic attempts to show they were more powerful were getting her nowhere, Sarita closed her eyes and took herself back to the island.

  Beheaded revenants were scattered across the beach, their stench almost unbearable. Several zombies milled around, stumbling blindly as though having no true destination. Ian was nowhere to be seen.

  She had to resist the urge to shout his name because it would alert the last of the revenants to her return. Instead, she stepped lightly over bodies and heads, ignoring the macabre litter. When she had a clear shot to his hut, she sprinted.

  Snarls rose behind her, making her speed her pace.

  “Ian! Where are you?”

  The hut was empty.

  “Ian!”

  “I have what you’re looking for.” Helen’s voice boomed through the hut.

  “Come out and fight!”

  Ian’s voice came from the beach. “Sarita, leave! Now!”

  Sarita beheaded two revenants that had made their way inside the hut. Two more fell to her sword before she had a clear view of Helen standing ankle-deep in the ocean with Ian kneeling in front of her, hands bound.

  She had her fingers tangled in his hair and held a dagger to his throat.

  From deep inside Sarita, a fire exploded into an inferno. She dropped her sword as her hands burst into flames, although she felt no pain. When the revenants closed in around her, she unleashed her new power on them.

  Fireballs erupted from her palms as if fired from a machine gun. One after another, the revenants were hit by the fireballs and burst into flames, collapsing to the ground. Only when the last zombie fell did Sarita close her hands into fists and smother the blaze.

  “Impressive,” Helen had a rather calm tone considering the situation. “You’ve managed to do something I never had the chance to do. Bravo, my dear.”

  Marching away from the smoldering, fetid corpses, Sarita headed toward Helen. “Let him go, and I might not kill you.”

  “Leave, and I might not kill him—or you.”

  Sarita sprang into the air and across the sand, halving the distance between them.

  “Another power you borrowed. Oh, how I wish I’d had the chance to feel the strength of my sisters’ abilities as you do.” Her words were wistful, but her commanding voice revealed how much she believed she held the upper hand. “Now, you need to tell me exactly what you plan to do with them.” Helen pushed the tip of the blade against Ian’s skin, drawing a bead of blood.

  “Don’t touch him again!” The ground beneath Sarita rumbled in response to her rage. After a few moments, the quake subsided and her steps faltered. Every ounce of her energy evaporated, and she sank to her knees.

  Helen clucked her tongue. “I should have warned you. Seior might let you steal powers, but it comes with a cost. You must pay for it in body and blood.”

  Body and blood.

  Using her new abilities had cost her, all right. She didn’t have the strength to fight off a trout. What good was Seior if she couldn’t use it to help the man she loved?

  “You surprise me, Sarita. Of all your generation, I never would have thought you’d be the one who’d turn out to be the strongest.”

  Strongest? Hard to feel that way as she knelt on the wet sand, unable to launch any kind of attack to save Ian.

  “But here you are, wielding black magicks and stealing your sisters’ powers.”

  “I didn’t steal my—” The words froze in Sarita’s throat.

  Helen was right.

  Back in Avalon, Sarita had absorbed each of the Amazons’ attempts to stop her. And each time, she’d grown stronger.

  “Now,” Helen continued, “you’ll have a chance to do what Rebecca was too afraid to.”

  “Get out of here, Sarita!” Ian was rewarded for his shout with a brutal yank on his hair.

  Sarita couldn’t stand to see him suffer. “Let him go.”

  Helen shook her head. “Not until I know where we stand.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Do you enjoy being so strong?”

  How could she possibly deny it? She gave Helen a nod.

  “Then I can make you stronger.”

  Although she wasn’t sure what Helen was babbling about, she kept an open mind. Whispers filled her thoughts, tempting words of the power and control she could enjoy. She shoved them aside.

  “Let Ian go,” Sarita suggested, “and I’ll stay. We can talk. Just the two of us.” At least her energy was returning, and her words no longer sounded breathless. If only she could have made it all the way to the water, she could have recharged her batteries. Then Helen would see what magicks she could wield.

  “Nay,” Ian said. “Donnae do this. Go back to your home. Keep up the fight.”

  With a growl, Helen jerked his head back and dragged the tip of her knife down his cheek.

  Déjà vu swept over Sarita, and she was back in the desert. Sekhmet, the lion goddess—the Destructor—was scoring Sarita’s face with one long claw.

  She’d been aware of what was happening, although she’d never told Gina. Her sister had remarked once that it was a blessing Sarita had been unconscious when Sekhmet attacked her.

  No, she’d felt every bit of the searin
g pain as that claw dug into her flesh and drew a jagged line from her eye to her chin.

  Shaking her head to dismiss the haunting memories, Sarita glanced back to Ian. Blood seeped from the cut.

  “Let him go!” A burst of energy propelled her back to her feet, and she clenched her sword in her fist.

  “Bravo,” Helen said. “That’s exactly the way to make Seior work for you. Find that anger. Use it. Let it flow through you. Focus all your energy on what you hate. Only then can you use it for your purpose.”

  How odd. Sarita was trying to destroy this bitch, and Helen was giving her lessons in using black magicks.

  “Let me show you all you can do once you set the rage free.” With a chilling smile, Helen raised her dagger high.

  “No!”

  Every ounce of her fear and anger pooled inside Sarita’s chest. She dropped her sword and raised her hands. Two balls of white flames formed against her palms, and with a cry, she shoved them forward. They joined into one sphere that flew across the beach at Helen.

  Helen shoved Ian to the side and raised her left hand. When the flaming orb reached her, she swept it aside. It landed in the ocean and fizzled out.

  “Good, Sarita. Good. You’re using Megan’s power well.”

  “Then you’ll love this.”

  Seaweed sprung from the water on either side of Helen, twining around her wrists and forearms.

  With nothing but the blink of her eyes, Helen made them wither and die before they snaked back into the waves. She blinked again and disappeared.

  Sarita hurried to Ian. He’d sat up and was struggling to remove the binding on his ankles.

  Instead of helping him, she laid her hand on his arm and closed her eyes, wishing them both back to Avalon.

  Nothing happened.

  “We should go, loving. Now.”

  “I’m trying!” She wished again, imagining the beauty of her home and trying to sense the love of her sisters.

  “The powers will return,” Helen called from where Sarita had stood moments before. “You lost your anger, which took away your true strength.”

  “Then I’m in luck,” Sarita replied, “’Cause just seeing you stirs my rage right back up.”