by brett hicks
Liam murmured.
“No, we’re going in with a small force, if he cannot control the wards, then this crime boss will not be able to know when and where we are coming from.”
I said and I licked my lips. Bix frowned and she seemed to consider this.
“I’m not sure Thea because he will know which warehouse he has lent to Henry. He would know that the chances of us coming to invade are highly likely and he will have adequate time to prepare nasty countermeasures.”
Seri swore beside me and I looked to Ariel.
“Can you do this spell a second time? Will it work again?”
She nodded her confirmation.
“So long as I keep the cauldron lit and ready, yes it will work.”
Seri said, “Thea, babe, what are you concocting in that strange and intricate mind of yours?”
I gave her a toothy smile and I shrugged innocently.
“I say we flush them out like the vermin they are. I have a plan, but it’s going to be risky and there is a good chance I will further damage our human PR rep.”
Bix murmured, “Why does that not surprise me?”
Liam said at the same time, “Finally a plan I can get behind!”
Bix promptly popped him in the chest and Liam rubbed it and looked unapologetic.
“How about we hear this plan in its entirety this time Thea?”
I frowned at my girlfriend and said, “You can’t still be mad at me for saving your ass last year, right?”
Liam snorted and snarked, “That girl has the capacity to hold a grudge for a lot longer than a year, or even a decade. Trust me on this one.”
Seri sniffed indignantly and she calmly restated herself.
“I just want to know how to plan around your shenanigans this time Thea.”
I was almost offended, but part of me just had to accept the truth in her statement. I was a wee bit of a wildcard.
Thirty-One:
S.W.A.T. washed through the area and even the roaches of the Bronx were running in the opposite direction now. Phase one was simple, apply too much heat to remain stationary and track our criminals on the move.
With a call to my former boss, I had him reluctantly agree to sweep the area for our killers. What I hadn’t anticipated, was the FBI showing up on the scene. They were arresting inhumans who resisted. Seri insured me that everyone up in this area were all very much dangerous criminals, I still felt uncomfortable with the sight of inhumans being rounded up by humans. I just said a prayer that I had not started a bad trend.
Humans were everywhere and most of them were wearing full body armor. They were swarming over the large warehouses raiding them one-by-one.
My phone buzzed and I flicked the green call button. Ariel’s voice broke through.
“Your rapist is about to pass by you now.”
I frowned and looked in each direction. Bix and Seri both said, “The sewers.”
Liam was already prying the manhole free nearby.
“His aura is right under you now.”
Ariel’s tone urged me to hurry. I leaped down the dark and pungent smelling hole as soon as Liam had the manhole free. My katana glowed to life in green and blue ripples of light and power.
Growling and groaning sounds rumbled from all around me. I spun quickly and realized I was surrounded by zombies, ghouls and behind them, a very hungry looking pale-blue eyed cloaked figure. His eyes were the same pale-blue as my only revenant.
He looked surprised and his inhuman growls cascaded of the dense walls. Several grey-skinned ghouls launched themselves at me and I spun my glowing blade in a sweeping arc intercepting them.
Liam and Seri landed next to me and Bix was already behind the revenant. Vivi was nothing but shadows slashing into ghouls and zombies.
Liam guarded my flank and Seri charged through the ranks of zombies with twin nibble blades slashing violent arcs.
The revenant moved at nearly imperceptible speed and Mina launched herself into him. She snarled in a guttural sound of fury. Her eyes glowed like twin vengeful orbs of pure hatred.
“Did you miss me?!”
She slashed her fingers and three-inch talons grew out and she connected with his chest and his cheek, leaving bloody ribbons in her wake. I didn’t have time to focus on her fight; I had to trust that I had raised her well enough to handle this still unnamed revenant.
“Where is Henry Jefferson?”
I roared in fury and I caught the hint of a smile on the revenant’s lips before he dodged again and he swept his clawed fingers over Mina’s chest. She snarled and jerked back quickly enough to avoid a fatal thrust to her heart.
I wanted to get to her side, but the sewers were teeming with ghouls and zombies. Everyone I cut down seemed to have two more in its place. Slashing and hacking at the ghouls and zombies, I dodged claws and slathering fangs.
My magic roared around me like a cloak and I thrust out with the full might of my icy power. I tore through the minds of the dead things with my metaphysical hands, clawing out their consciousness and will.
Pained shrieks sounded around me in a vibration of quaking death. Liam and Bix were clearing up the ranks of zombies to my flanks and Seri blasted out her kinetic energy. Limbs and bodies went flying into the walls.
I looked to Seri to ensure that she had everything here under control. She gave me a stiff nod to indicate I should keep going. I rushed to Mina, who was still managing to hold her own with the other revenant. He was agile and powerful and he had recently fed. She managed to evade deathblows from his talons, but Mina was gaining a collection of shallow cuts and slash marks.
I heard police thundering above our heads, having been drawn to the commotion.
“Down here!”
Someone called out and I lunged for the large man. His hood flew back revealing the scared features of the description my daemon had given me. He looked towards the next junction of the sewage system and I read his intentions clearly. He was looking to run now that the odds were stacked against him.
My blade roared out in vengeance as he shot for the steel door. I felt the blade pierce through bone and tissue with the ease of a hot knife through butter.
The revenant bellowed out a scream and Mina slammed into him in the next instant. I carefully cleaved my blade through his left leg and then I spun and hacked his right and then left arms.
The green magic on my blade corroded the tissue around the wounds and he couldn’t regenerate. That was not normal, most times revenants can slowly regenerate even lost limbs, but he flailed under Mina and his tissue was burning away, showing no sign of regeneration. It was as if I had magically cauterized the wound—perhaps that was exactly what I had done?
‘God, this was too easy…”
I muttered to myself and I leveled my blade at his throat.
“Where is Henry Jefferson?”
He smiled up at me with his sinister eyes. He managed a mangled looking sneer.
“You’re too late bitch. He’s already well beyond your reach. It’s too late for all of you now!”
Liam strode forward and he pulled the other man up by his collar and snarled at him.
“What does that even mean?!”
He laughed like a lunatic and he flashed me one more sinister look.
“Everything is complete now. You have only managed to destroy the distraction.”
He threw himself forward onto my blade as the police were storming over to us and green fires conflagrated his torso and began to spread throughout his body. I tried to pull back, but the damage was already done and Mina was across from the green-fire. Her reflexes were amazing and likely the only reason she had managed to dodge the heatless fire. The green fire was something that seemed to consume things on a molecular level.
“Police, don’t move.”
Several men and women were around us with assault rifles. I watched them approach as the killer screamed his final moments of agony.
“Don’t touch him.”
&
nbsp; My voice came out clipped and I had a barrel shoved in my face.
“Easy there cowgirl, I’m doing you a big favor. I could have just let you incinerate yourself.”
Hell, I was half tempted to do so, just on principle alone. The only thing that stopped me was that fact that they would likely blame me for her death. Cryptic or not, I had to agree with the deep-fried rapist on one thing, nothing was resolved. Hell, the humans were as hostile now, as they have ever been.
“Salvo, what in the holy hell are you doing here?!”
Inspector Johnson had come down the sewer himself. I spared my recent boss a glance and shrugged.
“Is there a reason why this lady still has her gun in my face? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was me who called you.”
I chided him with a dull tone and narrowed eyes, challenging him to fuck with me. He seemed to read the atmosphere well because he barked at the officer wagging her gun in my face.
“Stand down; she was the one who called this all in. She’s not our enemy.”
The unspoken “for now” seemed like a few thousand pounds of a pink elephant in the tunnel between us.
He strode forward to the smoldering remains and nodded towards what was left.
“That was him?”
I nodded my confirmation.
“Yeah, he heard you coming and threw himself on my blade. He claims that Henry is gone and it was “too late.”
Johnson grunted something and his eyes narrowed.
“Are you saying that the mastermind was indeed Henry Jefferson? Did you find any proof?”
I shook my head and licked my lips.
“Only the revenant’s confession before you got here.”
His gaze narrowed to slits.
“Convenient, a confession we cannot confirm and an alleged mastermind we cannot see. Anything else, or is that the extent of your evidence?”
I growled in annoyance and I shrugged.
“I’m done looking for proof that will convince you of anything Johnson. You have my word as a domain ruler, if that’s not enough, then you can kiss my brown ass. I don’t work for you anymore, remember?”
His jaw clenched so tight I almost thought he might pop it out of place under the force.
“I have wounded people to see to. Get the hell out of here before the news circus arrives.”
I grinned at him in a feral manner.
“Roger that.”
I turned and ignored the hostile looks of the other officers. Liam, Seri, Bix, Vivian, and Mina were all waiting for me. It was not lost on me that their body language spoke of inhumans ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. Our loyalty was to each other, not to the humans. If they were going to treat us like animals, then we were going to protect ourselves. Things had spun towards havoc in a matter of a single week. The architect of this disaster was nowhere to be seen either, which lent an ominous air to this situation.
Where the hell has he gone now?!
Epilogue:
Mina was on TV giving her personal report as a victim and a new journalist on the serial killer. While the human media was trying to spin everything that this was all evidence of the inhuman threat to the public safety, we had run with the truth.
Rebecca Lowman and Mina were conversing on the serial killer. They also floated pictures of Henry Jefferson to the entire world, in hopes that we would get tips. Seri had set up a hot-line of sorts to field all the calls we were getting about alleged sightings.
While we had many hoaxes and troll calls, we had enough reports coming in from the greater Boston area claiming Henry sightings, that we were able to ascertain he was hiding somewhere in his parent’s backyard, my old stomping grounds.
“This whole thing reeks!”
I muttered to myself and I flipped the TV off. My revenant, Mina, was immune to the sun, as was my only sired vampiric offspring. Skylar had risen and it had taken me three days to wean him into human contact. I was shocked at how much harder his blood-lust was to control than my own. Seri claimed that this was more natural. She didn’t outright say it, but the implication lay heavy over our heads. This was yet another thing about myself that was very different than “normal” vampiric beings.
The only things I seemed to hold in common were my need for blood and some aversion to the sun if I tried to starve myself.
Everything about my past was a black hole. I couldn’t learn anything of importance.
I was distracted by my own thoughts that I didn’t even realize something had entered my rooms.
I turned and found myself face-to-face with the massive giant from my fitful sleep in the hospital. Green and blue magic burned between us and his pale eyes were yellow like twin suns. He smiled through sharp teeth. His revenant claws were still on display from what I could only guess was a climb up the side of my building.
His rumbling voice echoed it was so deep and brassy.
“Atlantis, I have finally found you….”
My eyes were bug-wide at this declaration and my mind spun with unanswered questions.
Thank you for reading!
Book Three ‘Lost Heir’ Coming in December!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brett studied English Lit in college. He has been writing full length manuscripts for about ten years consistently now. He lives in Richmond, VA on the East Coast. Writing is not a hobby. It is something he does as soon as he wakes up in the morning. Brett grew up an "outsider" socially. It has gifted him a unique perspective that he endeavors to capture to its fullest in his work every day.
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