Chapter Twenty-Five
Jack
Jack wished he could take the time to appreciate the moment. There they were four people between an army of vampires and the backs of the fleeing New Order, and Abigail was screaming obscenities at Saber that would make even sailors blush in embarrassment.
A group of vampires broke off from the main pack. They approached from Jack’s right. Jack twirled his staff, sending bolts of green magic at them as fast as he could. It seemed the vampires were learning how to deal with a wizard. They ducked and weaved around the green balls of fire like gymnasts performing the routine of a lifetime.
“What’s a pot-licking scum kicker?” Sasha screamed from her spot at the reins. “I’ll probably agree with you, but that’s a new one on me.”
Abigail ignored Sasha, pulling herself up onto the carriage. She picked up one of Saber’s empty pistols, barrel first, to use as a small club.
“Guys, look out!” Jack shouted as he missed his targets again. The group of vampires to his right he had failed to take down with his magic were now close enough to jump onto the carriage.
As one unit, the five vampire soldiers vaulted into the air and clung onto the sides and the edge of the carriage roof.
“Get them off!” Sasha screamed as the horses added their own disapproval to the moment. “They’re weighing us down!”
“Kid!” Saber pointed to the army of vampires behind them who had closed the distance. They were feet away. “Take the main body. Abigail and I will send these unwanted hitchhikers packing.”
“Here!” Sasha kept her eyes on the horses in front of her, but reached toward Abigail with one of the stolen mage swords. “If you want to cut Saber, you have my permission.”
“Don’t tempt me!” Abigail screamed as she grabbed the hilt. A second later, she was wielding a mage-heated blade, fighting off the groping vampires.
With vampires climbing on top of the carriage, and Abigail and Saber fighting them back, the roof was getting cramped. For Jack to successfully fight back the wave of vampire soldiers, he needed room.
An idea sprung into his mind, though untested, he had no idea how it would work. But time was short, and their lives would be as well if he didn’t find a way to stop the oncoming horde of vampire soldiers.
What’s the worst that could happen? Jack asked himself as he drew on his magic and lifted himself into the night sky.
Jack concentrated on tethering himself to the moving carriage so he would always be right over it. This wasn’t easy as his brain struggled to keep him hovering overhead as well as meet the first line of vampires who were preparing to launch themselves aboard the carriage.
“I’m pretending each of these pale freaks is you!” Abigail screamed to Saber from somewhere below. “When this is all over, I’m going back!”
Jack closed his eyes for a brief moment in order to tune everything else out except for his hold on the spell he was performing. When he opened his eyes, the front line of the main vampire horde had reached the back of the carriage. One by one, they vaulted into the air to join their brethren on board.
Jack shot his right hand out, palm facing the vampires. A shockwave of green energy caught the vampires as they catapulted into the air. It hit them full force, redirecting their momentum and sending them flying backwards into their own ranks. Likewise, the first few lines of approaching vampires were sent sliding backwards as they tripped vampires behind them.
Jack felt a smile spread across his lips, and then fade. He had bought them time, but hadn’t solved their problem. A gap had grown between the front ranks of the vampires and the carriage, but vampires were already regrouping and continuing to give chase.
“Get off my carriage!” Abigail screamed.
Jack lowered himself onto the carriage just in time to see Abigail sever the head from the last vampire’s body. The head plopped onto the carriage roof. Abigail planted a boot in the sternum of the now-headless body and pushed it over the side.
“You think you can conjure a barrier to hold them for a few minutes?” Saber appeared at Jack’s side. Blood poured freely from his nose. “The horses can’t keep this pace all the way to Azra.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Jack took a deep breath and cleared his mind from anything that could cause him distraction. A spell came, one he had used when trapping creatures in the Outland with his father. It could work here, as well. He would just need to use it on a much, much larger level.
Jack tuned out Abigail’s yelling at Saber for the time being. Words like “kidnapper” and “traitor” drifted into the background. Jack’s mind was on energy. He pressed the button on his staff to once again shrink it to wand size. The effort for something like this to work would leave him exhausted, and he only had one chance.
Jack gritted his teeth as he extended his right hand, holding his wand. A green light shone from the tip as he ordered every bit of magical force he had into the tip of the instrument.
Trying to recreate the explosion that had occurred when he and Elizabeth ended their fight at the armory would be impossible on his own, but maybe he didn’t need something that large. Maybe he only needed a wall of flame to burn for a few minutes.
Jack held the energy in the tip of his wand until he couldn’t hold it any longer. His mind was fatigued with the exertion of keeping such a power contained, and his body was quickly feeling the same weight.
Jack’s arm shook as he finally released the power in his wand. Heat erupted from it, so intense, Jack thought the wand and his fingers would burn. A brilliant green light lit up the night sky as Jack did his best at creating a line between themselves and the oncoming vampire army.
Like a beam of green lightning, magic erupted from the point of his wand as Jack cut a path across the open space hundreds of yards wide. From the green line etched into the ground, a wall of emerald flame jumped up, creating a barrier between the carriage and the oncoming enemy forces.
Jack slumped onto the carriage roof, exhausted. Panting, he examined his handiwork. The wall of flames was crooked and rather short, but it was already doing its job. The wave of approaching vampires were forced to stop. Not even the bravest among them dared to vault over the green tongues of magical fire.
“Yeah!” Sasha screamed into the night. She let off the horses, cooing at them in praise.
“You did it, kid.” Saber knelt down to rest. He placed a heavy hand onto Jack’s shoulder. “I knew you had it in you.”
“Stop, let me off.” Abigail stood over Saber with her mage sword still lit. “I mean it.”
“You can’t be serious.” Saber stood, his own sword still glowing in his hand. “You’ll get your chance to see your sister again. This isn’t over.”
Jack was shelving his fatigue another time. He didn’t think Abigail would resort to violence, but the crazy gleam in her eye was new to him. There was no telling what she would be willing to do if it meant saving her sister.
Something in the dark caught Jack’s eye. Something large neither of the two beside him had noticed, and Sasha was too busy navigating the road in front of her to see it.
Fighting back his exhaustion, Jack struggled back to his feet. Whatever it was, it was large and long, like a snake. Jack looked over Abigail’s shoulder, trying to get a better look at it through the night.
“Don’t try to talk me out of it, Jack.” Abigail mistook his intentions of standing across from her as taking Saber’s side. “I can’t ask you to come, but you would do the same thing if you—”
Then Jack realized what he was seeing. At the same time, he took Abigail’s shoulders in his hands and gently tuned her around. Everyone was quiet as they took in the railroad being built to Azra.
The track was long, and it had to be new. It ran parallel with the road they were on, a hundred yards to their left.
“You’ll be able to see your sister soon.” Saber’s voice was devoid of any victory. “I was wrong. Leah’s not waiting to see her sister in the ground at a
ll. Her invasion has already begun.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jack
The four members of the New Order traveling by carriage stood stunned for a moment longer. The battle they knew was coming was much closer than anyone had thought.
“Elizabeth is Leah’s greatest weapon.” Saber took a seat at the top of the carriage. “She’ll be coming with the mage engine.”
Jack knew what Saber was saying was more than likely true. He just hoped that Abigail would feel the same way. If she didn’t, then it would be a long walk back to New Hope for them.
“We have to take her alive.” Abigail didn’t merit Saber’s words with a response. Her eyes were still on the track as she, too, took a seat on top of the carriage. By the light of the stars and the moon, Jack saw her turn her eyes to his own. “Promise me you’ll do everything you can to capture her alive.”
“You know I will.” Jack sat beside her as he turned his gaze back to the tracks.
It was strange to think that their small worlds would be entirely connected to one another soon. If Leah was successful in bringing her mage engine to Azra, there would be no stopping her. She would be able to ship soldiers and supplies back and forth in a single day.
“Up ahead.” Sasha’s voice reached them at the same time. “God, help us.”
Jack looked down the black railway, where a red glow shone from somewhere up ahead.
Sasha maneuvered their carriage farther off the path and to the right. The landscape in this stretch of land was mostly long, lonely hills full of thick grass. The carriage rolled over the terrain like a ball rolling over a stone floor.
Jack didn’t know if he had enough strength in him, if the red light meant another fight. As the seconds ticked by, the macabre flickering red light became clearer. It wasn’t just one light; it was a city of torches. A traveling city of makeshift tents and lean-tos traveling with the construction of the mage engine tracks.
Jack thought back to the time when he traveled to Burrow Den. They had come across something very similar, the main difference between what he was seeing now and what he saw then was this traveling tent city was three times as large.
Sasha pulled even farther away from the tent city, allowing the horses to edge by at a comfortable pace.
Black tents supported flapping flags too distant to see in the night. Large fires and braziers supported light for the camp. The dark shadows of men at work could be seen. The distant calls and clangs of workers under hard labor drifted to Jack’s ears. When they came parallel with the massive gathering of men and equipment, Jack saw it.
His mind couldn’t comprehend what his eyes were seeing. The new mage engine had been painted a dull black. He didn’t know how he could have missed seeing such a massive machine, but somehow the night had camouflaged it … until now.
Gone was the mage engine he and his father had used to travel to Burrow Den. In its place stood a weapon of warfare. A thick, iron engine pulled a single compartment behind it. The compartment was nothing special, nothing more than a plain, steel box.
The mage engine, on the other hand, had what looked like two pointed ears sprouting from the front. Yellow magic burned somewhere deep in the engine, showing through two yellow slots that reminded Jack of eyes. A thick plume of smoke rose from a stack sprouting from the top of the quiet engine.
It was too dark to make out what twisted face had been used as decoration at the front of the mage engine, but whatever it was, wasn’t pretty.
“I just want to make sure everyone’s seeing what I’m seeing.” Abigail’s voice was low, still in awe at what they had just passed.
“Did you see a traveling city of slaves working to bring that battering ram to Azra?” Saber picked up the question in stride.
“You think they’re using slaves?” Jack looked over at Saber. “Slavery was abolished hundreds of years ago.”
“We have a new queen now, kid.” Saber’s single orange eye seemed to glow in the darkness. “Who knows what she’s capable of? But I have a hard time imagining those men are volunteering to work through the night and bring a weapon of war to Azra’s gates.”
Jack turned back to see the fading tent city. The last thing to be lost to sight were the two yellow eyes that decorated the front of the machine.
“We still have a while until we reach Azra.” Sasha’s calm voice drifted over to the three warriors still riding on top of the carriage. “You should get some rest if you can, riding inside the carriage like normal people.”
“I’m not going to be able to sleep.” Abigail stared off into the distance.
“How long until we reach Azra?” Saber picked up a pistol and began reloading it in the dark. “Can we push the horses any faster?”
“These poor animals have been through enough,” Sasha chided her brother. “We’ll give them a breather before we force them on again. They deserve that much. Besides, our fellow New Order members who get to Azra first will have seen the same thing we did. Those who survived the night, I mean.”
“Sasha’s right.” Saber holstered the pistols he had finished reloading. “Let’s see if we can get some rest.”
“Go ahead.” Abigail didn’t move from her position next to Jack.
Saber didn’t bother asking his sister to stop the horses so he could jump off and enter the carriage. Instead, he lowered himself over the side of the carriage and through a window. In a few moments, he disappeared from sight.
Jack moved to a lying position on the top of the carriage. His muscles were still aching, his brain exhausted. Now that he was free from having to try to rally for another fight, Jack thought he could fall asleep right there.
“I’m sorry.” Abigail cuddled up next to him on the carriage roof’s hard wood exterior. “I’ve been so preoccupied with my sister that I haven’t been the most fun person to be around lately.”
Jack ignored the jostling that shuddered through the carriage wheels and up through the frame of the carriage to the roof. His eyelids were so heavy. “You have nothing to apologize for. We’ll get your sister back, I promise.”
Jack couldn’t remember falling asleep, but what he did remember was waking up. Voices woke him from his slumbering state. He blinked open tired eyes, recalling the very edges of a dream where people traveled in the sky on steel birds.
AHHHHH!
Jack jumped to his feet at the sight of what looked like a demon in the dark.
“What, is it Christmas already?” Abigail jolted to wakefulness beside him.
“Easy friends.” The gargoyle lifted her empty hands in a sign of peace. “I am not your enemy.”
“Her name’s Cherub,” Sasha shouted from the seat at the front of the carriage. “She’s Azra’s military leader. She’s come to help.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sloan
“Are you all right?” Sloan looked over at Croft.
With the debriefing of the escaped soldiers of New Hope over, everyone was getting ready for a much needed rest. Everyone, that is, besides Sloan and Croft. Where Sloan didn’t need to sleep at all, there were bags under the witch’s eyes.
The two women sat in the same room in the capital where Croft had first revealed to Sloan she was the sister of Eleanor and Leah. The door was still broken, but Theo had managed to shut it on his way out to make sure Pia, Harrison, and Doyle were comfortable for the night.
Croft winced, bringing a hand to her head. She addressed Sloan’s question a moment later.
“I’ll be fine.” Croft waved Sloan away. “I’m just tired. Go. You’ve done enough for one day. Tomorrow you and Aareth both turn your soldiers, and they start their training under your instruction.”
Sloan rose to go, the events of the day already playing back in her mind and vying for importance, from Kade’s pocket pies, to the many interviews of Azra guards wishing to become vampires, to her old comrades arriving at the gates. It had been an eventful day, to say the least.
Sloan left the room, walking
down the hall toward the exit where the night waited for her. To her surprise and delight, Kade stood waiting for her. He offered the crook of his good elbow. “Well, you look like a good time. Can I offer to walk you home?”
“Well, you’re very attractive,” Sloan played along, biting her lower lip for added seduction. “But I’m kind of seeing someone right now.”
“Only kind of?”
“It’s still new, but I think I really like him and I don’t want to scare him off.”
Kade broke character with a smile of his own. “Okay, I don’t have anything else. And that biting your lower lip thing? That was a great touch. It kinda got me all excited.”
“Oh, good.” Sloan laughed out loud as she took Kade’s arm, and the two strolled outside. “I felt like a dork doing that. It’s new to me, but kind of fun.”
Shifter and vampire walked down the sloping path to their quarters at the apartment provided for the refugees of Term. At this hour of the night, it was quiet. The distant slapping of the waves drifted on the wind, the clean, salty odor of the sky reminding them how close to the shore Azra actually sat.
“How’s your arm feeling?” Sloan asked, looking over at the white gauze that poked through Kade’s loose shirt. “Any better?”
“Well, I’m lucky to be a shifter. We heal fast. I mean not vampire fast, but it’s already feeling a lot better.” Kade’s eyes drifted to Sloan’s, looking deep. “How are you?”
“Physically, I feel great. Mentally, I feel like I’ve been doing cartwheels the whole day. There’s still a lot to be done. I have four soldiers to turn and begin training tomorrow, and a war to prepare for.”
“You’ll be great,” Kade said without the slightest pause. “You’re the right person for the job.”
“I wish I had your confidence,” Sloan shook her head, thinking of everything that would need to be done in the coming days. “I’m glad I have you by my side.”
The Complete Vampire Project Series: (Books 1 - 5) Page 63