by brett hicks
“I wouldn’t say that just yet little lady.”
I turned and saw my ashen covered grandmother stepping into the front room. She had her left arm held against her, curled up and I could smell her rich lifeblood leaking onto the carpeted floor. I rushed over to her, completely forgetting the aggravations of my previous conversation.
“Joan, what happened, who did this to you?”
I must have sounded as worried as I felt, because she chuckled and said, “Just a scratch, nay, a scratch.”
“Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find a grave woman,” My mom shot at her and said, “We have read that one—it did not turn out so well then either.”
“My daughter the poet, Kayla gets all her snarky honestly.”
My grandma muttered to herself, fully aware her supernatural family could hear her. I shattered the spell surrounding me and I felt my magic return to me. I was born to water witches, so I hoped I could manage healing manipulation.
I pulled free a dagger from my boot and I slit open my right palm and I quickly returned the dagger. I pried open her coat and I pressed my bloody palm to the wound and forced some of my hybrid blood into her wound.
I began to channel my magic in to the blood and I sent with it muttered chants, commanding repair and regeneration. Joan looked revolted, I knew why too, she hated having hybrid blood flowing into her veins. Too damn bad for her, this was likely going to keep her from bleeding out, since the wounds I could see were magical. Her powers were being blocked by something that looked translucent. I cursed and I began to chant and I felt my shadowy hand running along the veins, physically retrieving the bits of poisoned magic. I pulled my hand free and I threw the vile, corrosive magic onto the floor, it sizzled and dissipated.
Joan’s ocean blue eyes registered shock and awe.
“Jenny, please tell me you taught her that.”
My mom shook her head and smiled, beaming with parental pride.
“That was all Kayla, she has her mother’s flair for inventing her own spells it seems.”
Joan shook her head and said, “Seraphina did this once, back when scant sorcerers still roamed the earth. I was poisoned by their magic, then too.”
I shrugged and smiled sheepishly.
“She did not actually teach me anything, just traded my fire element for the shadow magic. In fact, she was pretty looney toon, if you ask me.”
“Only Seraphina knew such magic, at least until now. Kayla, child, you are truly remarkable.” My grandmother’s sudden praise made me feel awkward, she did not seem to give such high praise often.
A bloody Bella paced into the room quietly, she looked like she had just spent a day at Disneyland. I arched my brow at her random giddiness and she said, “It’s been a few centuries since I had a good battle. That, and I had a great excuse to drain a few witches.”
My grandma turned her nose up at that last line and said, “Just don’t start draining the wrong witches.”
Bella gave her a mock hurt look and said, “I know which, witches are on which side.”
“Try saying that five times fast,” I murmured lowly.
“Anyone going to tell me what happened?” My mom crossed her arms and waited for a response.
“Jaden led a preemptive assault on the wolves. It was nearly a massacre, but Jean Early called forth all his earthen powers. He held off Jaden himself and sent Dylan to pledge fealty to Sally. By the time we arrived, Jean was truly dead. Jaden was forced to fall back, since she still does not like her odds against an ancient and a McQueen at the same time.”
“Shit, how is Sally holding up?” My voice was dripping with sisterly concern and no small amount of grief.
“She is taking care of her people, as is her job now. Sally is keeping anything she might be feeling to herself.”
I scrubbed my hands through my dark hair and cursed vividly to myself. I was no longer welcome in the pack lands, so I could not just stroll up and check on my girl. I had to trust that she was a wolf-enough to keep her shit together for one night. I would see her tomorrow evening.
“That’s what this was…” I muttered to no one.
“What do you mean Kayla?” My grandma asked with curiosity lacing her voice.
“She hit the wolves tonight, it is a distraction. It is a ploy to keep us on the ropes and too busy licking our collective wounds, to be a threat to her tomorrow.”
My mom clapped her hands together and began to rub them, as if building up heat and friction.
“Well, let me tend to my mother. She needs some healing and fast.”
Joan shot her a hard look and said, “I’ll heal just fine Jenny.”
My mom waved her off and preceded to drag her into the back bedroom by her shirt. I turned to Bella and pointed at my blade resting on the table.
“Care to go a few rounds? I could use all the practice I can get, if I am going to fight another partially transcended being tomorrow.”
Bella nodded and said, “Sure, though, I don’t like my odds as much this time. My kind are vulnerable to shadow magic too Kayla.”
“Noted.” I said with no shortage of sass.
****
The red streak of hair blurred past an old, tall tree. She was using the forest to cover her position. Bella was an exceptional fighter and a cunning strategist. I could feel her vampiric magic, even when she suppressed her aura, it was like I had multiplied my magic sensitivity many fold over night.
I chased the aura, not minding my eyes for guidance, a being of the shadows themselves, did not need eyes to see, nor ears to hear. The shadows were with everything and especially with any living being, even undead ones.
I kept dispersing into darkness and emerging at the points were her magic signature were vibrating. I felt the clash of our blades, but I kept myself too far out of the physical realm to be affected by her oppressive aura. To her credit, Bella repelled my attacks with her own. Her speed was something that I would never have been able to track before now. She was so fast, I had slashed into what I thought was her, but it ended up being an after image. She could leave behind such optical illusions. This was not just glamor, since I was immune to the effects of glamor.
Bella rushed in and thrust high, then low, then high again. I batted her attacks with practiced ease and I felt none of the same problems with the kinetic force of her blows, that I had before. She had not become weak, somehow, I had become much stronger.
I dispersed to shadows and I felt her move, but this time, I did not follow the motion, rather I waited and when it came to a rest, I felt myself cover the ground in a second and appear in front of Bella, just as she was readying to move again. We locked blades and she smiled wider, pride shown in her eyes.
“Good, your instincts are serving you well little one.”
I saw the first rays of dawn beginning to pour in over the horizon and I cursed to myself.
“How long have we been sparring?”
Bella chuckled and she said, “Don’t know, just let myself go with the supernatural flow of it all. It has been many, many ages since I had a sparring partner who could so completely corner me into my full speed and power.”
I shrugged and said, “Well, you handled my attacks pretty well, considering you cannot disperse at will.”
Bella waved me off and said, “You are a fledgling in your shadowy path Kayla, yet you stood toe to toe with a master vampire. I have been forced to kill dozens of partially transcended beings before. Seraphina used to claim that ‘the abyss called for my death.’”
I raised a brow and said, “So that’s why you could counter me!”
She shook her head and said, “I was losing and fast, I might add, you were adapting quicker than I could anticipate. Kayla, you are like nothing Seraphina has ever seen before—like nothing I have ever seen before. You truly are a key figure in the near future child.”
“If I survive a fight to the death with a crazy, ex-witch first. After that I just have two very powerful and dangerous vampir
es to kill, along with any other players mixed up in these crazy, murderous schemes of theirs.”
Bella sheathed her blade and offered me her right hand.
“I shall stand with you through all that may come Kayla McQueen.”
I clasp her arm, it was an old warrior’s custom with their friends and allies before battle, even I knew that much about our history. Bella had shown me something I never considered before, that evil is not in the sect, but rather in those who abuse all the sects. I realized that I had spent far too long afraid of myself and hating half of who I was. When I looked into Bella’s fare eyes, I saw no monster, no blood lust, nor any hostility towards other sects—I saw a true friend.
Twenty-three:
Dusk fell upon New Orleans and I stood outside the haphazard barrier erected to prevent unwelcome little dyamphyrs form entering. I skimmed the perimeter, feeling out the magic in the air. Fluctuations flickered at the side of the market district. It was much too small a window for a physical being to benefit from, but I was no longer a completely physical being.
I fully dispersed and I focused on the shadow behind the wall of the nearby alley. As the power flickered, in that half second, I felt myself, will my movement to the shadow I was targeting in the market district ally.
I felt a fire run across my entire existence, but I pushed through it and I materialized inside the shadows of the alley. My fully black outfit and my raven hair hid me, the living embodiment of the shadows themselves. I needed a feeding to recover from the burns blistering my body. I dispersed again and I slipped from shadow, to shadow.
I found myself outside the keep and I felt no magic barring entry. I watched as twelve beings exited the keep and Jaden barked to them in a dry, throaty voice, “Get them here safely, or I shall slowly melt away all that you love and hold dear.”
Insert cliché bad-guy line here.
I waited for her to retreat into the keep and then I shot in, fully dispersed into the thick shadows of the early night. I found myself winding the hallways and she was ahead of me. I felt fifteen other magic signatures in the halls. Guards, all corrupted with the same form of magic as Jaden.
I needed more of a distraction, I slink down the halls and I rounded the back stairwell, past the greeting room I often entered to meet my grandma. There were steps leading into the depths of the castle and I could scent the cloister of unwashed witches bellows.
So, she is holding all the coven that will not corrupt themselves.
I rounded the corner and a single guard paced the length of the long, iron clad dungeon. Something that one would have expected to see in some mid-evil knight’s tale. I reformed into my dark, humanoid figure behind the guard and I pulled him to me, covering his mouth with my right hand and I sank my long fangs into his neck and began to pull his lifeblood form his vein. I savored my first vampiric kill and I embraced the reality of my situation. I was a dyamphyr, I needed to heal, I was going to murder him anyway, thus, I might as well kill two birds with one cultist.
As much as I hated Seraphina for stealing a part of my past self, I also owed her one. Without the loss of the chains I had bound myself to, I could never have learned to phase, nor could I have done what was necessary as a dyamphyr.
I fished out a set of old, rusted keys from his pocket and I sniffed the air, trying to check for any more corrupted energy sources. I could not find any in the room, or in the cage, no plants.
“Who… who are you?”
I plunged the key into the thick iron door and said, “The girl unlocking the damn door, so you’re welcome.”
The thick iron door clicked open and swung out with a loud creak. The startled witches were brave enough, or just desperate enough, to run out the door. One of the young men studied me for a long moment and he eyed me with suspicion.
“Why are you helping us Kayla McQueen? This coven turned on you and yours.”
I shrugged and said, “I kinda need the diversion of a prisoner escape, so I can neutralize Jaden’s guards and finish the bitch off once and for all.”
His light blue eyes flickered with power and his hands produced two flaming balls of fire.
“You shall have your distraction, but you must not fail to kill her, she is going to do something unforgiveable tonight.”
I nodded and said, “Sure, no pressure, piece of cake.”
“Thank you, now let us be gone.”
I dispersed into the shadows after he finished speaking, leaving a group of shocked witches in my wake. I slithered up the shadows of the stairs and I moved back down the main hallway. I rounded the main chamber and I began to ascend the stairs once more.
By the time I located the first guard hiding in a cove, the blasts of fire magic rung loud in the keep. I faded behind the witch and I covered her mouth and slit her throat from ear-to-ear. I unsheathed my second dagger and I dispersed once more, a witch stumbled out of another cove, due to the quaking of the ground from the young witch I had met in the dungeons.
She saw the shadows slithering into her and she began to call up white flames, but I appeared at her left flank. I severed the tendons in her wrists and then I slashed her throat, dispersing afterwards.
I felt eight more guards up on the second floor. If I could manage to kill them, then I could have Jaden all to myself. I slithered in the shadows and I pounced as a guard stopped at the end of the next corridor and I slashed his throat open and dug my other blade into his chest.
One of his friends saw me and she started firing off acidic water in my general direction, but I had moved to the shadows and I stepped behind her both my blades found their marks through her back, piercing her corrupted heart.
One by one, I systematically picked off the guards. They were helpless to the shadows that empowered my movements. They could not seem to sense my massive power signature while I was dispersed, so it had made dispatching them, child’s play.
The gates boomed open once more and I heard the howls of wolves in the distance. Sally’s roars were heard, felt and very tangible—even from inside the keep. The wolves moved forward, their hearts filled with the desire for vendetta. Sally had sworn to me that they would not harm the innocent witches, since it was easy to smell the corruption on the witches.
Jaden was just about to walk out of the study, my grandma’s study, when I materialized and I aimed for her throat. She was not like the others, she vanished in a ball of light and dispersed, retreating from my blades. I cursed under my breath, she was a little more transcended, than I was led to believe.
“I should have known this was your doing blood whore. Tell me, how much of your soul did you have to sell for that parlor trick?”
I shrugged and said, “Funny you should ask, all I had to do was kill a newly turned vampire and forget one memory. I think I picked the better of the two sisters, all things considered.”
She narrowed her eyes and said, “How can that be? You do not bare her mark, yet you wield her power over the dark.”
“What is it with you bad-guy types and wanting to have some pre-fight talk? I am here to kill you Jaden, no jail, no second chances. Let’s just get this over with.”
She smirked and her green eyes lit with magic and she flashed forward in a blur of white light. I parried her thrust, she was thrusting time and again, with the speed of light. Her blade was slender and light, a rapier.
I parried her thrusts, but her blade’s reach had my twin daggers at a disadvantage. I backed up a few paces, but Jaden did not let me move to draw my katana on my back. She knew that reach was her advantage right now. Jaden was never one to give up an advantage. Practice in all things, except maybe her deal with the damn devil!
She slashed and thrust with the thin blade and I dispersed to avoid it. I focused my physical form on reappearing with my hand on my katana. I paid heavily for my mistake. Jaden giggled with her throaty voice and I looked down, feeling the burn of the acid in my bloodstream now. Her blade had crossed through my dispersion. I cursed my stupidity. She wou
ld probably be the only one on this damn planet who could figure out how to attack while her opponent was not corporeal.
Coughed and I tasted my own blood on my tongue now.
“That’s the problem with you Kayla, you are always much too over-confident in your powers. You have too much ego, whereas I am subtle and I wait, bide my time and gather information.”
I grunted and I drew my katana with my left hand. I hissed at Jaden and said, “Spare me the villain bit why don’t ya?”
Her blade glowed with gathering light. I shadow stepped behind her and she spun fluidly and the light pulled me back into the corporeal realm and back into my physical form.
I cursed under my breath and jumped back, avoiding the blade’s tip.
Her poisonous acids coursed through my veins. I could feel them taking their toll on my body, slowing my motions.
“It’s nearly over now Kayla McQueen, time to rest. Time for me to release your brothers from their eternal slumber!”
Twenty-Four:
My world slowed to a crawl around me and I saw the dark-haired form of Kimi standing over me now. I looked up at her as I coughed up blood.
“Pathetic! I cannot see why the mistress believes in you so deeply.”
I shot her a look and said, “I have poison in my blood and a gut wound, spare me, I am getting enough evil snark from the bitch with the rapier and the weird light magic.”
