by Jamie Davis
Quinn considered going to his assistance. The cultists in front of her held their ground, though, keeping their blades pointed at her. It wouldn’t have mattered since she couldn’t do much in her current condition. Her injured body could barely stand upright at this point.
Soon the cultists, led by Naomi, lifted an unconscious and bloody Clark, carrying him back to the table in the room’s center.
Quinn feigned bravado. It was all she had. “You can’t complete the spell. I took off Myles’s hand. He’s your high priest, isn’t he?”
“Only until the next one takes his place,” Handon said. He turned to the small cluster of cultists standing near the whimpering VirSync CEO. “Who wants it?”
Philip, Quinn’s old VirSync system moderator, shouted before anyone else could speak and dove on top of his kneeling boss. He pulled a short sword from beneath his robes and plunged it into Myles, running him through. The former CEO gave a gurgling cry and then fell silent.
Philip wrenched the bloody blade free and whirled to face his fellow cultists. “Anybody willing to try me, or do you acknowledge me as your high priest?”
The others looked from side to side. Seeing no takers for the challenge, they all took a step back and inclined their heads in a brief bow to their new high priest.
Philip pointed to Clark, now returned to his place on the table. “Hold him down while I complete the ritual.”
He picked up the severed fist, which was still holding the gemstone, and pried the fingers open until the palm-sized ruby fell into his hand. As soon as he grabbed it, the stone flared to life again, pulsing with an inner red glow.
Taking a stance beside the table as Myles had, Philip began passing the Ruby Heart in the air over Clark’s head and body in a smooth motion and chanting. The cultists behind him resumed their echoing chants to support the spell to enable demonic possession.
Handon pointed at Quinn. “Hold her there and make sure she watches. I want her to see another of her friends lose his life in front of her. I want to watch the despair and helplessness in her eyes before I feed on her.”
Naomi had returned to her place beside Handon. The three cultists held Quinn at bay with their weapons hovering near her chest. She had no doubt they’d kill her in an instant if she made any move toward Clark or Handon. Two of them reached out with their free hands to grip her sagging shoulders and press her back against the stone wall.
Quinn stood still and stared at Naomi, hoping against all hope that the former hunter would find a way to resist. It was the only chance she could think of. Would Naomi somehow become the mother she claimed to be and come to the rescue?
Despite Quinn’s wishful thinking, there was no sign the vampire would do anything to help. Naomi stared back at her, holding her gaze. That was all. The only sign of anything unusual was the faint twitch of one hand at her side. Everything else about Naomi stood in complete stillness, except that hand.
Quinn glanced down, concentrating on the hand. Why was it twitching?
The forefinger extended just a bit from Naomi’s left hand, moving to a slight angle away from her body. The finger pointed to Quinn’s right.
The huntress’s eyes shifted to the side, but she had no idea what the other woman meant by her gesture, if anything. There was nothing but a stone wall to her right. What was beside her that could help them in any way?
“Eyes front, Huntress,” Handon ordered. “Do not avert them from this. Give your comrade the respect of watching him as he surrenders and becomes everything he fought against. It is fitting that he be transformed here in the place he was instrumental in betraying.”
“What do you mean? He’s betrayed nothing. He survived to defy you despite what happened,” Quinn said.
“Didn’t he tell you, Huntress?” Handon said, his grin broadening. “He sought to impress someone and told a mundane school friend all about the hidden world around them. It was forbidden for a hunter, even a child, to tell any ordinary mortal about the supernatural world, yet he did so. Unfortunately, that friend decided he was tired of being an ordinary human.”
Handon laughed, then continued, “Clark probably never understood why his friend Myles betrayed him to those who stood to gain the most from the demise of the hunters. All he could do was stand by and watch as the clan’s innermost secrets were laid bare by one who sought all that hidden power for himself.”
Quinn turned her eyes to the corpse on the floor. Clark had known Myles? Why hadn’t he told anyone? He was wrong to tell someone hunter secrets, but in the end, it wasn’t his fault his friend betrayed him.
Handon smiled. “I thought it was fitting that he should escape, to believe that he’d somehow gotten away from the assassins on his own. The killers took the rest of his clan but let him live on, alone in the world. He’s lurked in the background all these years, unable to do anything as we slowly took over the whole city. In the end, he could do nothing, failing to defend those who’d befriended and hid him in those early days.”
“Is that why Filippa is here?” Quinn asked. “You took her into your twisted world as well?”
“Me?” Filippa asked. “I sought only what was rightfully mine. John will help me receive my due. My many cousins have long divided this continent among themselves, giving me only a paltry single share of it. I was the first to come here, and it should all be mine.”
“You did this to get a bigger fae kingdom?” Quinn asked. “Won’t your kindred be angry with you for siding with their enemies?”
“All will be forgiven when the terms of my agreement with John are made clear. Besides, with his power behind me, none of them will dare to stand up to me.”
Quinn ground her teeth. This had been a setup from the beginning.
The chanting resumed, and Philip continued using the stone to weaken Clark’s soul so a demon could come and take over.
Her eyes returned to Naomi, her hand, and that one finger.
Naomi had told Quinn back at the museum that she’d never stopped being a huntress in her heart. Did that mean she still had some sort of connection to this place?
Naomi would have come here when she was younger. After all, it must have been the ritual center of the hunter clan here in Baltimore.
Feigning a cough, Quinn turned her head to the right and spared a quick glance around. All she could see nearby was one of the carved, square panels, the same as the others spaced all around the room. She turned her head back to the front and scanned the perimeter of the room. There were panels all around the room except for several places where the panels were just plain smooth stone, not yet carved with runes or images.
What had that voice said when she first touched the panel?
In a burst of awareness, Quinn remembered, and she knew what she had to do.
It was risky. The panel to her right was about two feet away. She couldn’t just reach out and touch it. The cultists stood on either side of her, holding her arms and pressing the tips of their blades against her. As soon as she moved, she’d risk injury from the nearby swords keeping her at bay.
As she considered her options, the ceremony and chanting increased in volume as Philip raised his voice and held the Ruby Heart directly over Clark’s forehead. The gemstone’s inner glow now pulsed in time with the chanting, gaining speed as well.
There was no time left. The spell to transfer a demon’s soul into Clark’s body was almost complete.
She pulled up her HUD. She had no stamina left to assist her. All Quinn had was the limited ordinary human strength remaining in her injured body. It would have to be enough.
Taking a deep breath and steeling herself to be skewered, Quinn shoved at the cultist to her right and dove toward the carved stone panel.
Her move caught those guarding her by surprise. They had gotten caught up in the ritual, chanting along with Philip. They tried to strike Quinn when she made her move, but none of their belated attacks connected.
Quinn landed on one knee, reaching out with her right arm.
She pressed her hand against the center of the carved stone, praying her guess was correct. She silently called out to the ancestors she suspected were entombed behind those panels.
A flash of white light passed through her, blinding her, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, pale, glowing figures stepped away from the carved panels all around the room—men and women, former clan leaders who’d been laid to rest here until they were needed again. The spirits turned in her direction and flew at the speed of thought across the room.
Her eyes widened as the first of the ghostly forms entered her. The huntress’s body jerked and twitched as they each flew at her, melding their energy with hers. With each added hunter consciousness came not only strength and power but also knowledge.
Quinn’s stamina bar filled in her HUD, returning to complete green status with the entry of the first spirit, and the ghosts continued filling her. The stamina bar pulsed and changed color again and again until the final ghost from the farthest tomb melded into her. The stamina bar now glowed with a blinding white light, pulsing in time with Quinn’s pounding heartbeat.
She closed her eyes, inner peace falling over her along with the power. The familiar voice in her mind, now backed by a chorus of other male and female voices, said, “The power of us all now fills you, Huntress. Go. Cleanse our holy place of this abomination.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Quinn opened her eyes. She still knelt by the wall. The first thing she noticed was the pain, or rather, the lack of it. The aches of her earlier injuries had all washed away, although she wasn’t exactly healed. Instead, she now contained so much energy that it supported her despite her injuries.
The world slowed around her, granting her a hyper-focus on every detail in the room at once. Barely a second had passed since she’d touched the panel, although it had seemed much longer.
Behind her, the cultists who’d guarded her charged at her back, weapons raised.
A grin spread across her face. Quinn’s hand stretched out, calling her Bowie to it. The blade snapped into her hand from the floor as she twisted around with a blinding speed unlike any she’d had before. She moved so quickly, the friction of the air molecules burned a little against her skin.
Parry, slash, lunge, block, stab.
That fast, she dispatched the three who’d guarded her.
She stood and faced the room’s center. At the same instant, the three bodies around her fell to the floor.
“End her,” Handon yelled, panic in his tone.
The cultists to the right and the vampires on the left all charged forward at once—all except Naomi, who stood rigid and quivering beside Handon.
Enhanced by the blood energy they fed upon, the vampires reached her first, although the enraged cultists were close behind them.
Quinn quickly dispatched the first pair of vampires to reach her. They seemed almost surprised by the way her Bowie slashed open one’s throat before transitioning to a different grip in her hand so she could lunge forward and sink it home in the heart of the other.
Her body flowed through all the combinations of attack and defense Clark had painstakingly taught her. Plus, she had the accumulated knowledge of the clan leaders in her mind upon which to draw. She began using combat moves so complex there was no way she’d ever replicate them. More of her opponents fell, dead or dying before they hit the floor. Vampires and cultists littered the ground around her, and still they came, driven by Handon’s orders.
Quinn ducked under an incoming attack. She grabbed the wrist holding a sword aimed at her throat and redirected it into the chest of another attacker behind her.
She twisted out of the grasp of several who sought to tackle her to the floor, somehow remaining on her feet, spinning to elude their clutching fingers.
Quinn needed help. Even with the enhancements from the ancestors, she had nearly been overwhelmed twice in a few seconds.
She spared a glance at Clark. He was still unconscious on the table and would be of no assistance.
Filippa had backed away and was inching toward the door, probably bent on escaping the carnage from either side.
Only John Handon and Naomi stood in the same positions. The vampire lord glared at Quinn. Naomi stood trembling beside him.
Quinn understood in that single glance what had happened to Naomi. She had been ordered to kill Quinn. She resisted that command, but Quinn realized her resistance was a finite thing. She’d seen how Handon’s commands eventually overcame the woman’s will.
If Naomi entered this desperate melee, Quinn was done. The enhanced vampire/hunter hybrid would be a solid match for her own souped-up skills.
Unless…
Quinn twisted, working to disengage and break away from the mob surging around her. The move left her open, and several attacks landed at once.
She cried out in pain. Her enhanced power compensated for the pain, simultaneously lessening her strength and speed a little.
Despite the injuries, the move worked, allowing her to disengage from the massed opponents. Quinn leaped upward to run sideways along the wall, clear of the mob of vampires reaching up for her.
Once past her closest attackers, Quinn dropped back to the floor and charged at the vampire lord. He didn’t seem alarmed. A smile spread across his face. He reached into his black suit coat, pulling a foot-long dagger free as he turned to face her.
“You can’t think you can take me, girl,” he snarled. “You’ve none of the training needed to take on one such as me.”
Quinn smiled and accessed the inner voices before she answered him. A chorus of her ancestors replied, “The girl is no longer alone, creature of the night. The might of the entire clan resides within her.”
Handon’s eyes widened, fear filling them for the first time since Quinn had injured him months earlier. Before he could respond to her taunting words, she was upon him. Her knife flashed in blinding attacks, seeking to break through his defenses.
Block, slash, parry, thrust.
Quinn engaged in a never-ending series of combination moves, using every defense and counterattack the vampire offered her.
Twisting and dodging, Quinn kept moving so Handon’s followers couldn’t get near enough to close with her while she fought their master. On several occasions, she was able to twist away in a way that allowed one of Handon’s attacks to instead kill a cultist behind her.
The first of her attacks to reach him was followed almost immediately by a counter from him. That strike scored a shallow slash in her side. Her piercing attack on his shoulder had been serious, but the vampire could take more damage than she could since only a strike to his heart or decapitation would kill him.
Quinn glanced at her stamina bar. It no longer glowed bright white. It had nearly returned to its standard green color. She had to finish this while she had the power to do it.
Taking a chance, Quinn feinted toward Naomi, who was still rooted to the spot beside Handon.
The vampire lord took the bait and lunged at Quinn’s exposed back.
She twisted a hair too late to avoid his blade altogether, and it cut deep into her right shoulder. The move succeeded in overextending him, though, which had been her intent. Quinn ignored the searing pain in her back and continued her twisting maneuver, bringing her Bowie around.
With a shout of triumph, she thrust the shining silver blade up into Handon’s chest, her Bowie sinking in to its hilt.
He stared at her for an instant in disbelief, then sank to his knees, the light in his eyes dimming.
Quinn yanked her blade free and spun away to avoid the continued attacks from the ten or so remaining cultists and vampires still trying to reach her.
She shouted to the still frozen vampire standing next to John Handon’s crumpled corpse. “Naomi, wake up.”
Two other vampires closed on Quinn at the same time, and she failed to escape their clutching talons as she tried to duck and pull away. Before she knew it, they held her between them as a pair of cul
tists with curved daggers charged at her. One twisted her wrist until the Bowie fell from her clutching hand to the ground.
“Naomi,” Quinn called out, desperation coloring her voice. “Mother! Please!”
The frozen hunter vampire snapped out of her trance, going from total stillness to eye-blurring speed in an instant.
The vampire to Quinn’s left went down, his head spinning in one direction and his body toppling in the other.
That was all Quinn needed. She pulled hard on the other arm, gritting her teeth against the pain of the talons digging in to try to stop her.
Taking advantage of the vampire’s savage grip on her arm, she swung the vampire, a female, around in an arc until she collided with the two cultists rushing in. The move tripped the three of them, and they all tumbled to the ground at Quinn’s feet.
She scooped up her Bowie from the ground and thrust down once, twice, and a third time, leaving a dead vampire and two twitching cultists on the ground.
Quinn straightened and spun, searching the chamber for a new target. None were close. Three cultists ran for the chamber entrance, trying to escape. Nearby, Naomi battled a pair of vampires, a third already fallen at her feet.
The huntress ran over and stood side by side with her mother as they took on the last of Handon’s vampire coven together.
A few seconds later, it was over. Quinn hunched over with her hands on her knees. She gasped to catch her breath. Moving at that speed for an extended time had taken its toll on her. The power of the clan ancestors inside her had subsided over the course of the fight. There was a faint hint of a connection lingering in the back of her mind.
Quinn clutched at her side as the pain of her other injuries returned.
Naomi asked, “Are you all right? Where are you hurt?”
“It’s only a few scratches from this fight. I’m still pretty beat up from the fight at the museum, though. The power that masked the pain so I could fight is mostly gone now.”
