“This is good,” I broke the silence, about halfway through my sandwich.
Abby nodded, “I talked to Sally and Stan. Both of them believe Vera’s here for revenge, and we’re the group that killed her, so they aren’t in danger. They believe she’ll leave after killing us, or she’ll be dead, either way they’re not afraid they’ll be attacked. They also think they owe us for that, for getting them out from under Adele’s thumb, so they agreed to help, and to a mutual defense treaty of sorts between us, for a favor.”
“A favor?”
Abby said, “They said if we’re mutual defending each other, then we should share our advantages in defense as well. In short, they want healing potions as part of that mutual defense. They’ll buy the ingredients, but you’re the only alchemist among the outsider groups.”
I nodded slowly, “I can brew a large batch of potions this afternoon. Sixteen should give them two each.”
Abby said, “It won’t be a black market, we won’t be selling them, but us supplying all the groups in the area with restricted potions could attract the council.”
“True, but if we do it then we’ll all still be alive to face that, and only if someone tells.”
Vic barked a laugh, “Can’t argue with that logic.”
Abby smirked, “True. I’d prefer to avoid it, but us attacking with just us four would be a mistake. The birds have been watching them all morning. It looks like Vera has two shifters with her, besides the vampire. I only know that because they shifted for a run this morning, a cougar and a wolf. We also have to assume the house is well warded with earth, and perhaps the remnants of fire wards. It also would be wise to assume she is like her sister and could call one to two demons to her aid, though there’s been no proof of that it wouldn’t hurt to include the possibility in our planning.”
I couldn’t disagree, it took time to raise demons and come to a deal with them, but she could have a couple waiting in the house and confined to a circle, until we attack.
She said, “Sally and Stan, along with their people, will meet us tonight at a restaurant after dark near Adele’s place to finalize plans. Earth witches can see through animals as well, not birds which are the domain of air, but squirrels, rats, or other non-flying animals. I’d be surprised if she didn’t have eyes on our property so that she knows when we’re on our way. If we can help it, we don’t want her to discover we’re not coming alone until it’s too late. If she sees Sally and Stan show up here, she could retreat and come at us again sometime down the road.”
I nodded. I couldn’t do it, I was too weak as an earth witch, but I was well aware of what a powerful earth witch could accomplish. Still, I let the condescending explanation go without offense, and swallowed my defensive and angry response. Abby was just tired, angry she had to fight and kill again, angry at Vera harming innocent animals and her ranch, and quite likely irritable.
Which wasn’t at all like her, but no one was perfect. I was tired too.
“Sounds like a good plan to me.”
Abby sighed, “Hopefully this is the last complication, I really thought we were done with Adele and her baggage.”
Vic said, “If we can, we should capture her, let John question her under compulsion. It’d be good to know if there were any more of their crazy sisters or brothers running around.”
Abby snickered, “We can try. If Sally and I work together, we can knock out all her protection spells to make her vulnerable to it, without a physically damaging component to the spell.”
I nodded, “If you three focus on her, the rest of the nine shouldn’t have a problem with the other three, or more if there are demons. I have plenty of holy water darts ready. I also have a somewhat unconventional idea on how to deal with her wards.”
Demons were incredibly tough, and they could soak up tons of damage. The ones with magic were even worse, but demon lords were incredibly hard to summon and bind, and even crazy witches on the left-hand path didn’t try that often. Well, all demons had magic in their true bodies, but many of them didn’t when they were summoned to this world and in body constructs.
Point being, it was something to be aware of, if they had magic and protections, my darts might not get through to inject the holy water. It was very possible Vera had done her research on her enemies, us, and knew about that. Even if the demons had no magic of their own, a strong earth witch could easily create protections for the demons. Magic at least strong enough to deflect the thin and light metal the darts were made of. Just like she’d imbued an object to create a localized earthquake and start an electrical fire.
Vic snorted, “How?”
I told them, and we all broke down in giggles and chuckles. It wasn’t that funny really, but we were all tired, and maybe a little punch drunk, as we finished up lunch. I usually had the afternoons off to commune with nature, and I’d been hoping to catch a three-hour nap under the canopy of trees, but I headed back to the shop and started a large healing potion brew instead.
Adele had lived west of Chicago in a rural area on several acres of land. Maybe thirty miles south of our horse ranch. There was a three-story mansion, a small pool house in the back, as well as an iron gate and concrete wall. It was very private, so we weren’t worried at all about neighbors. She didn’t own as much land, without the need of riding trails and all that, but there were some woods on her property large enough to satisfy a shifter that needed a run.
We all had a very good idea of the layout of the place, as Abby finished her scouting report at the restaurant that night.
Vic, Abby, and I had already taken the potions that would keep us awake. I felt alert and well rested, and it would last for a few hours before we crashed hard. More than long enough to see us to the end of the fight. None of us were really happy about that night at all, Vera wanted us to attack. She was the true aggressor, but we had little choice.
We just hoped she didn’t see this coming, since she’d have had a much better chance in taking us if she’d just used the stable fire as a distraction and only faced four of us. That told us she wouldn’t see this coming, outsider groups rarely got together like this, and ironically it was thanks to Adele and her past machinations that we were.
A little irony there, maybe.
We went over the plans in detail, including mine to take out the wards, which got smirks all around the table. In general, Sally and Abby would take care of Vera, while the rest of us took a defensive tack and protected them from the two shifters and vampire, and the demon or two we weren’t sure if she had. It was overkill really, but that was the point, fighting fair was the best way to lose.
We got in our vehicles and went. We all thought Vera would be ready for us. The others all agreed she had to be watching the ranch. So not only would she be waiting for us, but she was probably feeling anxiety wondering where we were. With our stop off at the restaurant, it’d added a good hour to the half hour trip.
The air wards on our mansion were strong, but air wards weren’t solid like an earth witch’s wards would be. The wards on Vera’s place would physically stop others with stopping power far more powerful than air, but we weren’t worried about that.
Vic was in the lead, alone, in an old pick-up truck he’d found and bought for five hundred bucks that afternoon, while I’d been brewing healing potions. It was old, solid steel, so extremely heavy, and rusted. The rest of us were in our three vehicles, the SUV for John, Sally, and myself, with the other two groups driving similar vehicles.
My idea to break her wards was simple, and brutal. That part of the plan worked flawlessly.
Vic didn’t slow down when we did, and about two hundred feet from the house he hit the gas and then wedged a stick between the gas petal and seat. Then he dove out of the truck and ran back toward us while the truck kept going. Over a ton of pick-up truck hit Vera’s front door at about sixty miles an hour. Let’s see her wards take that. It’s not like we gave a shit about preserving Adele’s house.
The crash was
horrific as it took out the wards, door, and part of the walls, the front half of the truck made it inside of her house before it died.
That was when part two of my plan activated, and it was a little poetic justice. Sure, I was a weak earth witch, but I was also an enchanter as a fae, which helped. I’d taken the piece of metal studded with semi-precious stones, and I’d added as simple earth spell to it. Vera wasn’t the only one that could start a fire with her magic, and the small metal piece sparked, like a flint and steel.
It also happened to be sitting in the half-full gas tank of the pick-up truck, igniting the fumes. That part had taken a little help from Abby, as she’d made sure there was enough oxygen mixed in the tank with the gas vapor for a really nice explosion.
Boom!
The entire front of the house, on the first floor anyway, exploded into splinters while steel, glass, and rubber blew out like a big ass grenade as the rusted truck was literally blown apart. It was incredibly loud, and my ears were ringing, but it was worth it.
The point of that was not only were the wards down from trying to absorb the truck’s impact, but it would also force them to flee the house and face us in the open, where they didn’t have a home-field advantage, and we had the advantage in numbers. It was either that, or burn with the house, which was rapidly going up as the flames spread.
That’s where the plan went a little south. Apparently, my plan to take out the wards had been too effective.
Stan said, “They’re running for it, out the back door and toward the woods. The shifters shifted.”
Our shifters started to shift, then we set out in pursuit. Stan, Abby, Sally, John, and I in the middle of them as we ran around the house, surrounded by five huge wolves, a bobcat, and a bear shifter. We were about halfway between the pool house and the trees when the ground cracked and shook, and then opened up beneath our feet.
The shifters scrabbled out of the affected area of the spell, john was able to jump clear, while Abby literally walked on the air to solid ground. She must’ve been prepared for such a spell. The rest of us weren’t quite so lucky. Stan, Sally, and I fell into the large pit which almost immediately started to grind closed.
Abby and Stan appeared to be struggling, their protective spells preventing the earth from slamming back together, which also protected me to a certain extent. My heart raced and my mind spun for a solution that didn’t involve outing myself. The top of the pit was at least twelve feet high, about twice my height.
To make matters worse, I heard Kevin the bobcat yowl in sudden pain even above the sounds of rumbling earth. I had no idea what was going on up there, but my mind flashed a picture of being ambushed from behind by demons while we chased the others.
Despite the surprise of my attack, it seemed Vera was quick on her feet. She’d stopped at the edge of the woods to start casting this spell, and she’d probably had the demons stay in the burning house until we were past. Sure, there were a lot of assumptions in that, but I doubted a vampire and two shifters could’ve overpowered and seriously harmed one of our shifters if they’d attacked. We still outnumbered them, for the moment.
Point was, my holy water tranquilizer pistol was worthless, with me down here in a hole, and the walls were far too smooth to climb. I was also being choked by all the dust the grinding earth had thrown up, and visibility was shit. It was only a matter of time before their protections failed and all three of us were squeezed into mush.
I was seriously considering outing myself, to save our lives, but a moment later we were pulled up and out of the hole by Abby’s spell, like a cork out of a champagne bottle. It took me a second to regain my balance, and to figure out what was going on.
Kevin, who was a womanizing asshole, but I didn’t want to see him dead, was still on the ground but still breathing. Two wolves and the bear were circling the demon warily. John was sword fighting with the Vera’s vampire, and they looked far too well matched for my comfort. The other three wolves including Vic were facing off with Vera’s cougar and wolf in a nasty fight.
That bitch was casting another spell, at least a hundred feet away at the edge of the woods, and Sally and Abby started a new spell to rip away her wards, but Vera would no doubt finish first.
I pulled the pistol and emptied out the five-dart magazine at the demon. Three of them hit, and bounced off, which was frustrating. Were they all protected? I pulled out the knockout pistol and shot the cougar, which it bounced off of. That bitch had protected them all from my favorite tactic. A disadvantage in facing an earth witch, and in settling in somewhere long enough that they learned my fighting style.
It was frustrating. I felt helpless, and so very tempted to let my true power out, but I swallowed that pride and foolishness.
I wanted to kill them all, but in the long run it’d get me dead.
Besides, my darts weren’t my only trick. I was also fae, if a weak one.
I extended a hand, and a bright strobing light that was targeted to the cougar went off. It was an illusion, a glamour, but as bright as the sun to the cougar. The cougar screamed in pain, and he was temporarily blinded. It couldn’t help its instincts, and he froze in place long enough that one of the wolves darted forward and tore his throat out.
The cougar flinched away, and started to heal, but not fast enough. Two more snaps of the wolf’s powerful jaw saw the cougar’s head separated from its body, no way to heal that.
Stan muttered, “Clever,” and did the same thing to the wolf. The other two wolves hit Vera’s wolf, one on the shoulder as it shied away, and one at its flank. The two wolves tore the other wolf to pieces.
Kevin’s bobcat had recovered, and he was back awake.
Only a few seconds had passed. Both John and the other vampire had several shallow wounds, but none that were definitive, and the demon had sent our bear shifter flying across the field. The bobcat and three wolves took his place though, and now the demon was surrounded by five wolves and a Bobcat, and it wouldn’t be long before the bear recovered.
We all ran to the sides when we heard Vera finish her spell, including the enemy demon, save Sally and Abby who didn’t want to interrupt their casting. There was a split-second pause right before it went off. The ground that’d been under us exploded, and most of us including me were still close enough that we were tossed into the air and away. My back felt like someone had shot it with a shotgun, the small sharp pieces of earth shredded my shirt and back. It felt like hamburger, and I was raw and bleeding.
When I looked back, both Abby and Sally were fine, their protections had done their job, and they were almost done casting their spells.
The demon roared in anger, and my head snapped up at that indication he’d taken harm. Had the bitch broken her own earth shield around her minions, in that explosion which had hit the demon as well? I pulled my holy water tranquilizer pistol before I’d even finished the thought, and emptied it again, another five darts. This time they hit. Two in his back, one in his neck, and the last two in his chest as he’d turned to rush me.
The demon was toast, his body already steaming, but unlike the last fight with a demon, this demon wasn’t kept away from us by a sturdy door and air wards so he could safely die. Apparently, he wanted to take me with him, and he’d live just long enough to do it too, before he was banished back to hell, if I wasn’t careful.
I prepared to throw him, or just dodge his strikes, but that’s when the bear he’d slapped across the field earlier, came back with a vengeance. It was almost comical in the surge of relief I felt. One second the demon was racing at me, and the next there was a large brown blur, and he disappeared under sixteen hundred pounds of angry bear with extremely sharp and hooked claws. The bear went into a blood frenzy or something, it wasn’t pretty.
In the end, I honestly couldn’t say if it was the holy water, or him being ripped to pieces that sent the demon back to hell.
The only enemies left alive at that point was Vera and her vampire, Darren I think. Darren and
John were still fighting with swords and incredibly speeds, they were dodging, circling, engaging and backing off. Vampires were the fastest race, and while shifters were fast it was clear none of ours felt comfortable with rushing in, just in case they hit John on accident. The shifters surrounded them all instead, five wolves, a bobcat, and the bear who was still snuffling and roaring in victory at his revenge on the demon.
I was terrified for John, but I had the same problem. Fae were fast, faster than shifters even, but not faster than vampires. Hmm, maybe my darts might hit John on accident, but my magic wouldn’t.
Another cheap trick, I did what worked for a weak earth witch and fae. An illusion of a blindfold appeared, tied around Darren’s head. It might not be real, but it still blocked all light from reaching his eyes.
It was over two seconds later, John took his head, and took a deep shaky breath as he quickly downed one of my healing potions. I cursed myself though, for not thinking of doing that thirty seconds ago. Of course, it wouldn’t have worked before Vera’s poorly considered area of effect explosion had stripped her own protections off her people, and the demon had been the greater danger. So perhaps I’d done alright after all.
I downed a potion as well, though I suspected it’d take hours to heal my back, itching and stinging the whole time. Still, hours were better than weeks, and the potion would make my skin perfect, without blemish or scar. My shirt front was still there, protecting my modesty, but the back of it was absolutely shredded. My bra strap had broken as well, so the twins were floating free. Fortunately, my thick denim jeans had done better than my thin cotton shirt, so my ass wasn’t hanging out in the wind.
At Darren’s death, Vera was alone. She abandoned the spell she just started and ran for it, but she’d only gotten a few steps into the woods when Abby and Sally finally finished their spells.
Abby lifted her hands and nothing really happened, at least not to our eyesight, but I felt a huge surge of air magic reach out and ablate Vera’s protections with a magical elemental wind of sorts. Nothing in the real world, but magically it was draining Vera’s protections, much like her crushing pit had been draining ours earlier.
Hexes and Hellfire: Kyra Bell: Book One Page 15
