by D. N. Hoxa
I smiled. Her time had come.
“Let’s kill this bitch,” I said and shot forward, knives in hand, mind completely blank, save for my goal.
I raised my arm to throw my first knife at her, but the handle never even left my hand. Before I knew it, a huge head made of blue light that looked like a cross between a rabid dog and a fucking goat, horns and all, was in front of me. It opened its mouth and let out a screeching sound before it came for me, teeth snapping in front of my face. My hands were on fire even before my knives hit the ground. I wasn’t going to need those to fight the evil spirit, but my fire was made in the same place it was—in Hell. Orange flames, half liquid, half gas, shot from my hands and slammed onto the face of the evil spirit, sending it back a couple feet, giving me just enough time to back the fuck off. Here I was, thinking they would not break their formation for me, but no. That was apparently too much to ask for.
Never mind. I could get through this one easily.
Except there were two of them. I only saw it when I stepped back and looked up. Four evil spirits were still dancing around each other, but two of them had separated from their friends. The other was coming for Abraham, whose hands were like two miniature suns, and he didn’t look afraid. Didn’t even flinch at the evil spirit getting closer, and when the spirit was close enough, Abraham jumped.
Vampires could jump really high. Most shifters, too.
Apparently, so could the Nephilim.
As much as I wanted to keep staring at him just to see what he’d do when he landed on top of his evil spirit, mine was coming for me again. My entire arms were on fire and my heartbeat steady. I waited for it to get closer, its huge mouth opening and closing as it growled, getting bigger by the second. I didn’t move even when it was right there, jaws ready to swallow me whole. I needed to wait for the perfect second for this.
My heartbeat was no longer steady. My phoenix cried, begging for attention, as death-by-evil-spirit-teeth flashed into my mind.
Not yet.
My fire rolled out of me with a strength that pushed me back so hard, my boots slid on the dusty ground. I poured every ounce of it into the evil spirit’s mouth, making it impossible for it to close its jaws. There was no limit to the hellfire my magic could produce, according to Daddy Dearest, and so I had no trouble letting out more and more until my knees shook—a clear warning that I was pushing myself.
Putting a stop to the fire was painful. A scream left my lips as I pushed my hands down, pulling my fingers into fists to keep from spilling magma all over my boots. They were going to get ruined anyway, but if I could be careful, I would.
My left leg gave up on me, and I fell on one knee. My heart hammered in my chest, and I raced to catch my breath, but it was worth it. The evil dog-slash-goat spirit had swallowed all the fire I’d given it, definitely not voluntarily, and its body didn’t like it. The blue light of its body began to crack like dried land, going from its mouth that was still dripping fire, and moving up to its snake-like body, until the cracks almost reached the other four, still floating in the air.
A scream tore the air and assaulted my ears a second before the evil spirit burst into a million tiny blue sparks that faded out of existence just as fast.
The scream had come from the nocturnal bitch. She had her hands to her chest now, as if I’d already stabbed her. Beside me, Abraham was still fighting his evil spirit. It looked a lot more like the one I’d fought in that basement the first time, except this one had about twenty eyes. It snapped its jaws as Abraham jumped on its body, pressing his hands to the blue glow and letting out small bursts of light every second. It hurt the evil spirit, whatever he was doing, and the hisses it let out were a clear indicator.
On my other side, Lexar and Feather Girl were still fighting the were-cheetahs and werewolves.
But they weren’t alone. I don’t know how I missed the huge lion that had apparently come out of nowhere and was now standing in the middle of the fight, currently tearing a fury leg off a body. Another two lions were there, too, but they weren’t as big as him. Michael Alifair. Fuck, his animal was impressive. The rich mane around his head looked fluffy as hell, too. I wondered if he’d let me touch it.
For just a second.
Then sparks flew—and you could tell it wasn’t Lexar’s lightning, even though the sky was full of it. This one was brighter, and it shot into the sky like fireworks.
Two seconds later came another, and since I was looking ahead again, I saw that it was coming from the hole in the ground in front of the nocturnal bitch.
Fucking hell. The two sparks expanded as they fell back down. They didn’t explode like fireworks. Instead, they mutated and grew faces, and they fell into the already connected evil spirits hovering over the hole like drops in a bucket. They became one with them, just like that.
I stepped back, looking at Abraham, who jumped off the head of his evil spirit. It looked tired, barely moving its ugly head from one side to the other, but it was still there.
Just how many more of those things could the bitch summon?
No time to wonder because both the new guys were coming right for me, and I needed a plan asap.
I stepped back as fast as I could to give myself some room to navigate, but two huge lightning strikes landed right on top of the heads of the evil spirits before they’d made it halfway to me. Lexar was coming closer, his arms extended, lightning dancing on his skin.
“I’ll handle them,” he said. “Find a way to the witch.”
A look at the fight going on to the side and I realized Lexar wasn’t needed there anymore. Michael Alifair and his lions, together with Feather Girl, were perfectly capable of holding back the six were-cheetahs and two werewolves who remained standing. And Lexar was right. Even if I managed to kill all those evil spirits with my fire, or send them back to Hell at least, I’d be too weak for the bitch. Might as well let him take some of the load off.
I continued to step back as Lexar charged at the evil spirits once more with his lightning. To his side, Abraham rolled on the ground to escape the teeth of the evil spirit he was fighting, coming up dangerously close to the hole in the ground. Then, he raised both his arms up and a flash of blinding light shot from his hands and up to the evil spirit’s snake belly. Dots in my vision. I barely saw the cracks forming on the glowing light before it exploded into sparks, and the witch’s scream filled my ears once more.
Another one down, another two to go. Walk in the park.
Taking out my last two knives from my holster, I started running to the right, away from the shifter battle, away from Lexar and Abraham, away from the evil spirits. Going all around the huge hole on the ground wasted a precious minute, but it had to be done. The nocturnal bitch didn’t have eyes in the back of her head, so it made sense to go for her head from behind.
I made it to the other side, heart racing, my hands on fire all the way to my elbows. I’d been in fights before, plenty of them since I was eighteen years old, but nothing had invoked the feelings I had in me right now. Nothing had me as on the edge as I was now, pulling my arm back, aiming for the bitch’s head, because I knew what happened if I failed. I could imagine what would happen if she won, and those things were let loose into the world.
No, failure was not an option.
The tip of my knife’s blade left my fingers and shot forward, too fast for me to even see it. My breath was held as I waited, eyes on the bitch’s head, hoping, praying to see it splitting open.
But it never happened. The huge head that appeared behind the bitch was the scariest thing I had ever seen, and I’m not even ashamed to admit it. Its face was pressed in, eyes big, almost coming out of its head altogether, but what made him nightmare-worthy was the mouth. It was round and it was wide, and it had at least four rows of razor-sharp teeth that I could see. A thin long tongue slithered from the very middle of it, from a tiny hole that was probably its throat, and it aimed for me. I spun around but my foot must have caught on something beca
use the next thing I knew, I was on my ass, staring at the glowing blue tongue that looked like an oversized ribbon, coming for me. It didn’t look very threatening. If you removed the evil spirit attached to it, you might even consider it pretty the way it spiraled its way toward me, almost gracefully, the tip split into two. But I knew that if that tongue reached me, I was gonna have a bad time. I dragged myself backward as far as I could, and the tips of the tongue reached my face. Air left my lungs in a huff and the fire spread from my elbows to my shoulders, ready to swallow me completely, to protect me from the tongue.
But the tongue didn’t extend farther than it already had. It moved up and down, like a fucking snake, like it wanted to taste the air leaving my mouth, and then it withdrew like something was pulling it back. Terrified and not even sure what the hell was happening for a second, I only had a heartbeat to see the silhouette of an animal coming from my right.
Then, he slammed onto me.
My body must have known what to do because I sure as hell couldn’t come up with a single thought. I’d been sitting, so the were-cheetah was on top of me now, my hands covered in flames around his thick throat. His jaw was a hair away from my nose, and he snapped it, hissed, snapped it again, to show me what was coming for me if I didn’t get my shit together.
So I got my shit together.
Shifters were nasty, but I was nastier. There wasn’t much that teeth and claws could do to fire, and I had a lot of it. Closing my eyes to get the image of the shifter’s face from my head, I focused on the source of my power—my phoenix—and drew out of her everything she was willing to give. A new wave of heat spread down my arms focusing on my palms, and fire shot out of them like bullets. The were-cheetah was off me the next second, his cries of agony filling my ears. I sat up, no longer intending to give him a chance to get to me, and I jumped to my feet. Half the fur on the cheetah’s body was burned, some parts around his neck still burning. The smell of burning flesh would have made me throw up any other time, but the were-cheetah wasn’t going to give up. He licked his front legs, his big yellow eyes never leaving mine, and the next second, he leaped in the air, coming for me.
I waited, ignoring the cries of the phoenix, who insisted that now was the best time to let her out, and moved when the were-cheetah was just a foot away from me. He was a big guy, with lean, long legs, his body corded with muscle. I could see now that half his fur was burned, so I braced myself for the impact. I stepped to the side and turned only halfway, right arm extended.
But I’d miscalculated the altitude of the were-cheetah’s mouth and only realized it when his teeth sank into my arm. A scream tore from my throat before I could stop it. The neck. I’d been aiming to wrap my arm around his neck and knock him to the side before he could stop me.
Anger burst through me, more at myself for allowing these minutes of weakness. I was better than this. I needed to focus and look at what the hell I was doing.
Easier said than done when there was a three-hundred-pound cheetah chewing on your arm. But the anger did me well. It made my brain work harder to clear the confusion and make smarter decisions. Like to let the cheetah drag me to the side before he tore my fucking arm off. And once I was on my side, I made my move.
This time, I didn’t miscalculate. While his mouth was busy with my flesh, my other hand wrapped around the top of his head, my index and pinkie fingers jamming right into his eyes. My fire was ruthless. It was the hottest I had, and I let it all out. It was more liquid than gas now, and it spread onto the cheetah like a blanket. He let go of me. My arm didn’t feel like my own at all, but at least I could move away and get up.
Don’t look, I reminded myself. Whatever he’d done to me, all I had to do was not think about it. Not look at it. I would heal. I always healed.
But the were-cheetah wouldn’t. He was sprawled on the ground, trying to put out the fire, but it was all in vain. I left him whining and roaring, slamming himself on the ground, hoping for release, and I turned to the bitch again.
The shock of seeing her on her feet, facing me, made me think I was imagining it. But one smile on her wicked dirty face and I realized she was really staring at me from under the evil spirits that looked like an oversized moving umbrella over her head.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shouted because we were still about ten feet away from one another.
The bitch smiled. “You should have left it alone, silly girl. You should have run while you could,” she told me. It was the first time I heard her speak, and it sounded a lot like when she screamed—high-pitched and thin.
Taking the time to gather some of my strength, I breathed deeply. A couple minutes of rest were exactly what I needed.
“I saw the angels you left for me, by the way. In your basement. Nice touch.” As if on cue, the image of those horrifying angels that had drawn themselves with my fire on the walls came in front of my eyes.
The bitch pretended to be surprised. “I didn’t leave you anything,” she said, and I could swear her eyes were a reflection of the depths of Hell.
“Sure, you didn’t.” Of course, she did. She put those angels there. It was her basement.
“I tried to warn you, you know. I tried to make you see what you were dealing with here, but you’re as stubborn as your father,” the bitch said, her voice ice cold like a winter wind.
“Oh, yeah. I got all your warnings.” She’d sent that shifter who’d bitten Chelsea. She’d sent those vampires after me, too. “I still don’t get why you’re doing this. What are you looking for? You do realize what those guys are gonna do once they separate from you, right?” I pointed up at the evil spirits.
“They’re not going to separate from me,” she said, and when she looked up, admiration filled her face. What a nutjob.
“You have daughters. You have nieces and nephews. Don’t you care about what happens to them?” I said, but it was only to try to distract her. She didn’t give a shit about anyone, that much was clear.
“I have been called for a higher purpose. My service is needed, and you are not going to get in my way of delivering it. A new order is upon us, and nobody’s going to stop it,” she spit, as if what I’d asked was ridiculous.
“What higher purpose? What exactly are you trying to do here?” Call me crazy, but I was curious. I wanted to understand what drove her because it didn’t happen often that people lost their shit like she had.
“The highest purpose,” she said, raising her head to the sky once more, this time closing her eyes. “I’ve found it. And now I’m going to let it out into the world.”
It. What the hell was it?
Behind her, all the way to the other side of the hole, I saw Abraham, his hands full of light, fighting an evil spirit alongside Lexar. And I remembered what he’d said about his visions. About the witch looking for something that the angels had once gifted to mankind. Was that the “it” she was talking about?
“Who are you working for, Darynda?” I said, and when I mentioned her name, she looked a bit surprised. “Whoever it is, he’s lying to you.” If it was Tobias, or anybody else, he really was lying to her.
“The only one here being lied to is you. Why do you think they sent you after me, Sapphire?”
So, she knew my name, too. I licked my lips that had gotten dry as a desert and tasted blood.
“Because they knew I wouldn’t stop until you were dead,” I spit.
The bitch laughed, and it sounded exactly like her scream. “Think again,” she said.
My mouth opened to speak, but I never got the chance. The magic that hit me square in the face threw me back and slammed me against the ground. Air couldn’t make it to my lungs. My ribs felt broken, and my eyes refused to close. I stared at the dark sky, words replaying in my mind, my phoenix trying to take advantage of my lack of control. If it wasn’t for my father’s bracelet right now, she would have ripped me apart in seconds.
Lies, I told myself. Everything the bitch said was a lie. To distra
ct me. To keep me from fighting, from killing her. Because she was afraid—and with reason. I meant what I said, I wasn’t going to stop until she died.
I just needed to remember that.
Gritting my teeth, I focused on pushing back the phoenix until I could breathe properly. Then I sat up and focused on my surroundings. The spell the bitch had hit me with hadn’t taken me back farther than a couple of feet. Not much had changed around me, except she’d sat down at the edge of the hole in the ground, her back turned to me. It was crystal clear that the evil spirits hovering over her head weren’t going to let me near her. If I tried again, I’d be wasting time.
On the other side of the hole, I saw Lexar, Abraham and Feather Girl fighting the remaining evil spirit attacking them, but it wouldn’t be the last. When they killed him, the bitch was going to bring more from the hole in the ground, which I suspected was made for easier access to the Underworld.
To the side, the were-lions had stopped fighting and were now circling the bodies of all the shifters they’d killed. Yes, all of them were dead, but the were-lions were restless. They kept growling at the evil spirits, but they didn’t dare go near them. For the better. They were no match for those creatures, anyway.
Standing up was easier than I expected. My body was still my own, and even though my wounded arm was still numb, I could run. Cursing under my breath, I ran back where I came from, wobbling to the sides a bit, knowing that I had no other choice. If we were going to get to the bitch, we needed to destroy all of the evil spirits dancing in the air first, then catch her before she summoned a new one. And that was hoping that my arm started healing the next few minutes.
I was going much slower than I would have liked, but it was as fast as my body let me move. About halfway to the other side, through the corner of my eye, I noticed a change in the glow over my head. It was getting bigger, brighter, which could only mean one thing. One of the evil spirits was coming for me, and knowing my luck, it would be the scary one with all the rows of sharp teeth. There was no time to turn and look, only to jump to the side and roll, trying my best to keep my right arm from hitting the ground. The pain indicated that I’d failed. Tears in my eyes. I gritted my teeth coming up to my feet. I wasn’t going to scream again—the pain be damned. It wasn’t permanent. It would pass.
