by SL Perrine
“Which one?”
“Both!”
“Acknowledged.”
The com went silent, and Ravana began directing her men in the battle as she made her way towards Giovanni while cutting down anyone in her path. As if sensing her approach, Giovanni turned to face her, a grim look creasing his features. A torrent of reddish-purple lightning erupted from his hands, forcing Ravana into a roll to avoid the strike.
She pulled her sword from its sheath and twisting it in front of her, separating the twin blades as she rolled onto a knee. Another bolt of purple shot at her, and she deflected it with her blades, crossing them in front of her face.
“A child of the night. How fitting.” Giovanni boasted from his position in front of the altar. Leaping to his feet, he throws another bolt of magic at Ravana.
“Red, watch out!”
Ravana rolls to the left. “I’ve got it, Mo. Get those to Anthony. Now!” She makes a show of sliding her blades together, as well as making sure they are nice and sharp. “I think it’s time to deflate a few big heads.”
A growl caught her attention from the right. Two blurs of white passed by.
Gianna made her way to her daughter who, surprisingly, was calmer than the adults in the room. Anthony met the barathrum with a sound that shouldn’t have come from two bodies colliding. A combination of breaking bones and slapping flesh. Claws rake across the barathrum’s skin but the Matteo looking construct doesn’t appear affected by the attack as it casually throws its more substantial opponent to the ground.
“Get her out of here.” Ravana stood brandishing her swords, advancing on Giovanni. Massimo struggled with the manacles. The cuffs clanking together as he fends off acolytes in pairs. His Sai stuck in holsters. “Mo?” She blocks another blast from Moretti.
“Temporary setback, luv. No worries.” He throws the chains connecting the cuffs around his shoulders to rest on his neck and pulls his Sai from his back. “See, just gotta think outside the box.”
Tired of Giovanni’s show of power, Ravana reaches into the small bag Delia gave her. A powder-like substance fills her hand. She pulls from the bag and tosses it at Moretti. His hands go up to cover his face, and he falls back on the floor. He recovers quickly, jumping up to retrieve a sword from the wall behind him.
“Fine, have it your way. I’ll still stake you through the heart; and when I’m done turning you to dust, I’m going to take your hair as a souvenir.”
“Try me, old man.”
Giovanni lurches forward, his sword missing Ravana’s flesh as she moves her blade to meet his. She twists and turns bringing her swords up to strike his neck, but he moves with almost as much speed as the vampire. Ravana winces as his blade slices through her arm and then her thigh.
“Red?” She turns back to see Massimo fighting his way toward her.
When she looks back at Giovanni, his blade is heading straight for her heart. She pushes up from the ground flipping backward and lands on her feet. She thinks for a moment how different that move feels in combat boots, opposed to heels.
“Temporary setback.” She flashed Massimo a sly grin and pushes forward. A spark between Giovanni’s fingers shows his power is coming back. She reaches back for the bag at her waist to find it’s gone.
“Looking for this?” Giovanni holds out the satchel of powder and dumps it on the floor at his feet.
Massimo jumped to Ravana’s side. “Red, need a hand?”
“No, you’re supposed to be getting the cuffs to Anthony.”
“Done, luv.”
In the center of the room, Mila stares up at the snow-white creature attempting to break the bindings that restrained her against the stone altar. It looks familiar to her somehow, and its presence is causing a strange sensation to course through her body. She cranes her neck to look at the larger version of the creature beside her that’s now rolling around on the floor with the Barathrum. The two punching and striking one another vehemently. It, too, looks familiar. They look like Yeti’s, and something about that word tickles the recesses of her memories.
The creature has managed to free one of Mila’s hands when one of Giovanni’s minions rushes it with an ax. The Yeti gives the ax-man a negligent look before thrusting an open hand in his direction. He tumbles across the floor, his bones snapping and breaking from the force of the magic.
“Mamma?” Mila asks incredulously when she recognizes her mother’s magic.
The Yeti nods, its mass of teeth making speech difficult.
Mila turns her head and watches as the other Yeti pounds its large fists into the face of the downed Barathrum. The bones of Matteo’s face crumple under the repeated impacts. The jaw of the construct separates at the mouth with an audible tearing. Eyes come out of its sockets and disappear in a mass of pulped flesh as the repeated blows flatten the skull; causing decayed brain matter to squirt across the floor. The Barathrum continues to fight through it all. Shrugging off the blows like brushing away a gnat. The Barathrum finally lands a solid strike of its own and the Yeti assaulting it sails across the room like a leaf in the wind. It lands with an audible curse and scrambles back to its feet.
“Is that Jax?” Mila asks her mother.
Gianna nods again as she continues to work on the restraint holding Mila’s other hand immobile. It proves stronger than the last.
“Free my feet, mamma,” Mila urges.
Gianna looks at her daughter in confusion.
“Free my feet.”
Gianna moves to the opposite end of the altar and grabs the binding. The restraint snaps easily. She moves to the other, and it quickly repeats the task. Mila immediately rolls off the altar and, as soon as her feet contact the floor, power begins to surge from the earth into her small frame.
“Go. Help Jax,” Mila orders. “I can free myself now.”
Gianna looks to Anthony and back to her daughter.
“Go, mamma,” Mila says gently.
Gianna turns from her daughter and launches herself across the room towards the Barathrum.
Behind Gianna, Ravana is struggling against Giovanni’s grasp. He has her pinned to his front, an arm around her throat and a dagger shoved into the space between her ribs. She slides forward off the blade and flips over him, using the body of an approaching acolyte for leverage. Pushing Giovanni into his charging men, she reaches toward the fallen sword on the ground. As Gianna passes the sword, she picks the blade up and tosses it to the redhead.
“Thanks,” Ravana spins and dodges a blade pointed at her chest finding Massimo at her back. “Together?”
“Sure, got nothing else to do.”
“Always a comedian.” Ravana lunges back at Giovanni as Massimo takes the attention of the joining acolytes. He slices them through with his Sai, tossing the bodies in a pile against the wall.
Giovanni lunges at Ravana, going down to the ground to swipe at her legs. She tumbles backward almost falling over a discarded corpse but jumps up on the altar. Holding her blade by both hands, she propels herself in a flip over Giovanni’s head landing behind him and taps him on the shoulder with her blade. “Tag, you're it.”
“Insufferable wench.” He spins out of control, swinging his blade widely in her direction, anger driving him forward. They circle the room, and as she’s forced backward, Ravana stumbles on another body strewn across the floor. The edge of his blade catches her other thigh and blood trickles from the wound.
Ravana lashes out with her sword, barely nicking his throat. He moves back and then forward again; the tip of his blade enters her shoulder. “I’ll stake you yet, vampire.”
“It won’t be worth anything, but you can try demon.”
A body rolls at her from behind, but she jumps up as the body slides past her and into Giovanni like a bowling ball into pins. He’s knocked back on his ass, and she strikes. Her sword digs into his shoulder. His scream reverberates through the room with the rest of the shouting. “Bitch.”
“Aw, that’s not very nice.” She pushes
her blade into the flesh of his shoulder once he’s thrown the body from him and rises to his feet. He is once again thrashing his sword. His magic still not returned to him.
An acolyte grabs Ravana around her midsection from behind, pinning her arms to her body. Giovanni advances from in front. Kicking her feet on Giovanni she arches her body right and tosses the man at her opponent, but he sidesteps, and the man misses his target.
Giovanni lunges forward once more, Ravana hesitates, she falls back against the altar in the center of the room, and Giovanni plunges his sword through her heart.
“Told you I’d stake you.”
“And I told you, it isn’t worth a hot damn.” She moves slowly, pulling the blade from her chest. Blood falls down the front of her white blouse, but the wound beneath is visibly closing. “I’m not your average red-head.” She swings the sword from her chest with one of her own and removes Giovanni’s head from his body. “Like I said…deflate.” His head flies across the room and hits the wall. His body hadn’t gotten the memo that it was dead; it staggered drunkenly about for a moment before collapsing upon the end of the altar and pumping its blood across the surface.
Mila stares for a moment at the body of the man she had once called her papa until Ravana’s voice causes her to look up. “Sorry, Mila,” she says somberly before disappearing into the battle. Mila spits on the corpse and continues to work at freeing herself.
Gianna finds Anthony trading blows with the Barathrum. It’s misshapen head wobbling about on its neck like some macabre bobblehead. With a swipe of her taloned hand, she removes what’s left of it from the barathrum’s shoulders. The barathrum spins and backhands Gianna with a strength that sends her hurtling back the direction she came from. She smashes into the altar beside Mila with enough force to create a small crack across its surface.
Anthony lunges forward and scoops the barathrum up like a linebacker and carries it several feet before slamming it to the ground. The manacles appear in Anthony’s hand, and he manages to get one of the cuffs around the barathrum’s left wrist. As he grabs for the other cuff to bind the barathrum’s opposite wrist, he feels it snap around his own left wrist.
A spectral head appears above the shoulders of the barathrum, a diaphanous, chill, sickly green burning like copper chloride. The features on the head aren’t Matteo’s, but something of a nightmare. It laughs mockingly in Anthony’s face before rolling sideways and using the chain to jerk Anthony from his body. It moves to its feet and grasps the chain in both hands, turns, and pulls Anthony over his shoulder to slam him violently against the floor.
Stars dance before Anthony’s eyes, and he staggers to his feet for just a moment before the barathrum spins and propels him into the nearby wall. The stone breaks under the impact and small pieces fall to the floor. As Anthony falls forward, the barathrum brings its knee up to connect with his face. The force of the blow snaps Anthony’s head back, but he retains enough composure to grasp his end of the chain. Throwing himself forward, Anthony rolls across his shoulder and back to his feet. Stealing a move from the barathrum’s playbook, Anthony drags the construct over his shoulder and slams it against the stone floor. Before the barathrum can recover, Anthony jerks it to its feet and pulls the creature close. He sweeps the feet while maintaining control of the barathrum’s arm.
As the barathrum falls forward, Anthony leaps upon the construct’s back and uses the manacle to chicken wing the arm. He struggles with the barathrum as the jeweled dagger appears in his hand. He’s about to plunge the weapon into the constructs heart when a hand catches his wrist. His head jerks up to see Gianna holding the end of his arm.
“What are you doing?” Anthony growls.
“Saving your life,” Gianna replies. “The magic of the dagger would draw the essence from both of you, but since your life force is smaller than the barathrum’s, you’d die; and the barathrum would recuperate, and we’d be back to square one.”
“What’ll we do?” Anthony asked as Gianna ducked some gunfire.
“Let me think,” Gianna replied as she looked to where Mila had just broken the last restraint on the altar.
She watched as Mila raced into the battle where Massimo was standing off against several of Giovanni’s acolytes. Only his supernatural speed was keeping him alive against the obscene amount of magic they were unleashing on him. The air shimmered around her daughter as she drew power into her small frame. As she passed by Stanford, the little girl gently tapped the woman on the shoulder. Stanford dropped to the ground unconscious, and Mila entered the fray fully charged.
The small frame of the girl became a blur through the room. She picked up the twin of Ravana’s lost sword and sliced through two of her father’s men before stopping behind one that was about to attack Massimo. She reached up and tapped the man on the shoulder. When he looked back at her, she punched him in the face with the hilt of the sword.
“Nice, kiddo. Don’t think, just stab.”
“I’m not afraid to kill them, I just don’t want to get blood on me.” She kicked the feet out from under a man sending him flying onto his back, so she could hit him with her sword filled fist.
“And here I thought you were dainty.” Massimo chuckled as he picked the girl up and blurred around the men in a circle. Her outstretched blade slicing clean through the acolytes, without a drop of blood touching her. “All you need is speed, luv.”
He set her down, and she moved as quickly as he had, expertly driving the blade from one man’s torso to slice off another’s arm. Stopping, she looked at Massimo. “Ok, I’ll give you that.”
“Your mother is going to kill me.” He shakes his head and punches a man rushing him from the side.
“Not if you don’t start killing the bad guys. You know, for a big bad vampire, you’re not real good at this.”
“Not good at what?”
“The killing thing. Don’t punch, luv, stab.” She teased.
“Fine, tally up, little one. I’m thinking a hot fudge sundae for the winner.”
“Deal, old chap, but I want extra whipped cream.” She mimics his foreign accent and heads off in the opposite direction.
Massimo shakes his head as more men file in the room from the two opening. “How many men does this ass-hat have?”
“What’s the matter, old guy, getting tired?” Mila slides back to his side.
“Where did you come from?”
“My mother.” She giggles and punches a man in the gut. When he bends over to clutch his mid-section, she slides the sword through his neck.
“Clever child.”
“You’re not going to win if you just stand here, ya know.” She scurried off again, the skirt of her dress twirling as she skipped away.
“Are you two seriously making a game out of this?” Ravana sidles up next to Massimo.
“She started it.”
“Nuh-uh.” Mila sticks her tongue out at Massimo and stabs a man in the groin, pulling him by the shirt until his head was at her eye-level and poked him in the eye. The man fell to the ground, and Massimo stabbed him in the chest. “Hey, that doesn’t count. He was mine.”
“Killing blow, luv. That counts.”
“Cheater.” She yelled at him while two more men attacked Massimo.
Ravana took a knee and raised her right fist as a man approached. Her ring dagger slipped into his throat. “Do I get to play too?”
“Nope. This is between the rug rat and me.” Massimo tells her swinging at acolytes.
“Pfft.” Ravana slips on a body as another attacker shoves two knives into her torso.
“Red!” Massimo stabs the man in the back of the head and drops his weapons to catch his mate. Her swords tumble to the ground. “Red, luv. Are you ok?”
“You know it takes a lot more to bring me down.”
“Yes, luv, but you’ve already been skewered. You’re losing too much blood.”
“I’ll be fine. We have to keep these men off the others so they can deal with the Barathrum.�
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A crackle of electricity shoots out of Mila’s hands, and she races between the remaining men. One tap of her hand and they fall to the ground. The little girl, Massimo once believed was sweet and innocent, picks up her sword and slices the throats of the fallen soldiers. “That should do it.”
“We’ve ruined her, Red.”
“Or, we made her a better soldier.”
“You say apples, I say oranges.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense.” Mila stares at the two vamps with wide eyes. “Come on, old people. Let’s go.”
Massimo helps Ravana to her feet. She holds an arm across her torso, but he can see the wounds are closing. Biting down on his wrist he offers it to her. She accepts only enough to help her regain a modicum of strength, and the three of them head across the room to where Anthony and Gianna fight against the Barathrum.
The barathrum struggles beneath Anthony as he attempts to use his free hand to raise himself off the floor. Anthony lost control of the arm and was struggling to maintain control of the construct, Gianna grabbed the cuffed arm to assist. Pressing down on the barathrum’s shoulder, she grabbed the wrist and jerked it from under its body and attempted to twist it behind its back again. In the process, she accidentally tore the limb from the body.
“I think I figured out how to get the manacles off,” Gianna stated.
“Wrong arm, baby,” Anthony replied.
Gianna was about to reply when a spectral arm appeared on the body, much as the head did when it was torn away. The creature began to lever itself up, it’s laughter grating on Anthony and Gianna’s senses. Without thinking, Anthony dropped his forearm across the back of the barathrum’s neck. As soon as the iron from the manacles touched its spectral body, an unholy wail of rage and pain emanated from the skull.
Ravana slid in beside the barathrum on her knees and took control of the free arm. “What are those manacles made from?” Ravana asked over the noise from the besieged creature.
“Cold iron, salt, silver, gold, amber, holly extract, and a ton of other things I can’t recall right now,” Gianna replied.