It was understandable that they were troubled by this realization. Fighting the Transformed was the most difficult battle a Demon might ever know. And of all of them, Gideon and Noah were the only ones other than the Enforcers who had any experience with it. Even so, their experiences were at the very least a century old, and at the very most quite limited. Legna turned her attention to Noah, suddenly understanding that he could not release his assault with Jacob lying in the center of the battlefield. The Earth Demon would be just as vulnerable to fire as any of the others.
Legna disappeared with a snap of the air before Gideon could think to stop her. She felt him shout in her mind as she reappeared in the streak of torn-up soil Jacob had left behind him. She crouched low, peering through the fog for him. He would not be far, but he had to be out cold to not be giving off any emotions. And as a typical Demon, right about then he ought to have been pretty pissed off.
Suddenly someone ran out of the fog and almost tripped over her. The human hunter’s eyes widened at the unexpected encounter, but she raised her crossbow and fired. Legna dodged getting the bolt in a vital body part, but as she rolled away she felt unbelievably searing pain and heat cutting through her jeans and thigh. Her mate’s roar of rage drowned her cry of pain, the frightening sound of it echoing through the fog. But Legna was not the delicate, graceful flower everyone seemed to think she was. She barely hesitated in getting back to her feet. Apparently, judging by the look of confusion and shock on the hunter’s face as Legna stepped with obvious menace toward her, the human had expected her to disintegrate, perhaps like the vampires did on mortal TV shows when staked through the heart.
Wait until they find out how well that is going to work, she thought wickedly as she lunged for her attacker. Legna tackled the woman at the midsection, disarming her as the crossbow went flying from her sweating hands. The hunter hit the ground with a grunt, echoed by an immediate second grunt when Legna bounced on her, driving her knee down into her sternum. With all of her disgust and her rage, Legna yanked the iron bolt out of her leg, screaming as the iron burned her hand and as she plunged the bolt into her victim’s chest.
She left the female human gasping for breath that would not fill her collapsing lung. She stood up and turned with a wild flinging of her loosening braid, feeling the sounds and scents and sensations of the night filling her, magnifying, calling to the huntress within.
She immediately recognized that Jacob was ten feet to her right. She advanced at as fast a run as she dared in the fog. She encountered another hunter on the way, and this time she was prepared. She dove into her opponent’s mind, causing a rush of fear to well in her until her heart was pounding too hard for her body to handle. It braked to a stop only a minute later; she had literally been frightened to death.
The empath dropped to her knees at Jacob’s side. Her hands hit his chilled body and without a moment of hesitation she teleported them out of harm’s way. Legna dropped Jacob onto the couch in his living area and teleported once more, this time popping up at her brother’s side.
“Jacob is safe. Go!”
Noah nodded once and began to steal energy from the enemies before him, converting it swiftly into a rushing wall of fire. He didn’t worry about Siena. He felt her heat and energy easily and was aware of her circling away from his target area. Damien was launching off the ground already to do the same.
The world went up in flames, screams of pain and death and shock filling the night air along with smoke and the scent of burning flesh. But once more it was the magic-users who managed to spare themselves. The necromancers began to land past the line of the wall of fire, facing off with Gideon, Legna, and Noah. Elijah was doubling back to call up the rear guards and the half-breed was lying in silent wait, watching to take the Demons’ cue.
Noah began to fire off little meteors of flame at the corrupted females. Gideon pulled a knife from his thigh and sent it winging into one necromancer as he reached to grasp a second around the throat. She crumpled instantly when he dove into the workings of her body and commanded her heart to stop.
Legna had reappeared at her mate’s side shortly before this new onslaught had begun. She was aware of only one thing: Transformed Demons were stumbling out of the dark, most of them on fire, none of them feeling it. They would die eventually, but it could be a very long time in the making and they could still cause a great deal of harm and damage in the interim. She sent herself out, projecting her cotton-candy thoughts first into one, then another. She had them engaged in thoughts of comfort at first, but then realized it was not going to hold their attention long. If she got them to stop and sit still, the fire would consume them more quickly without giving them a chance to damage anyone.
Eventually she adjusted her visions to ones of a carnal nature. Demons Transformed had only two thoughts: freedom and lust. They had the one already, so the second was all that remained to engage them. The Transformed began to fall to the ground, flopping around with a grotesque glee and pleasure as they took hold of imaginary partners.
Weak from blood loss and all her teleporting, Legna could only engage three of them at once, leaving others to head for her brother and her beloved.
Gideon felt Legna drop to her knees. She was too close to the fighting to be left where she was, and too weak to move. But at the same time, to touch her might disrupt the tenuous control she had on the three Transformed Demons. His only choice was to battle on, to protect her by eliminating any advancing threats.
Gideon was throwing his second knife as he retrieved the first, spinning as he moved with lightning speed. He saw Noah drawing energy from one female until she collapsed and then sending a bolt of fire into the next. Many of them knew a shielding spell; some of the men’s elemental attacks bounced off unharmed women.
Damien suddenly flew out of the fog and darkness from behind the attacking harpies. He had the ability to cast fear before himself, just as Siena could, though on a different, less natural level. It was a power of pure darkness, of the malevolence that inexplicably caused fear of the dark, the monsters under the bed, or the inevitability of death as that horse and rider rode across a grave. Since it was a part of every living being on the planet, no shielding could protect them from it. Shields prevented things like power and weapons from entering; the darkness Damien manipulated already existed within the shield and within the people themselves.
Magic-users were losing concentration left and right as he advanced, all safeguards and magical means destroyed along with their shattered focus. He began to seize necromancers one at a time, the quick turn of delicate necks preceding an eerily casual discarding of the remaining bodies. To Damien, it was no different than disposing of trash, and it showed. Too many of these creatures had staked out his brethren in the midday sun for the joy of watching them burn to ash, and they deserved none of his pity or his mercy.
Contrary to mythic belief, a Vampire did not conflagrate all at once when exposed to the sun. The imprisoned creature would smolder like a moss fire, for hour upon hour, no doubt screaming for mercy the entire time. And for what? For having a differing body chemistry that enhanced their mental senses, gave them the ability to fly and the need for blood to survive? The lawful majority of the race did not kill when they fed, and the idea of converting humans to Vampire was the most ridiculous in human history. Just like all species, Vampires were born to this world.
So it gave Damien no guilt, no moral dilemma to dispose of these women in this fashion. It was a far more merciful fate than they would have planned for him had they been given the chance. Even more merciful than the fates they had planned for the Enforcer female and her innocent unborn child.
Suddenly, a second wave of dirt surged up from under the feet of the front line of Demons, tumbling the fighters backward into the softened hands of Mother Earth. The wave caught up the enemy, surfing them like drift-wood back to the edge of the cliff, hurling many of them off it.
There was a massive surge of power from behind th
e front line of battling Demons as reinforcements arrived. It was a relief to feel it. The most powerful of their species had done their worst, had destroyed the majority of the threat, but it had cost them all in energy and health. It was time for the first line to fall back and entrust others to finish the battle.
Jacob hurried forward to Legna, who lay in the soft mattress of aerated soil he had provided for her. He pulled her up into his grasp and, relieving them of the hold of gravity, used it instead to propel them skyward and behind their advancing line.
Gideon was overwhelmed with the urge to go to her but knew that she would be safe with Jacob for the moment and that he was needed to fight where he was. Elijah was lifting the fog as those who had survived the last attack sailed up over the cliffside once more. They surged up like an enraged flock of predatory birds, screeching out spells and incantations as they faced the force of Demons.
From that moment on, it was pretty much all about magic and mayhem. Natural versus unnatural. Evil versus the Just. Jacob left Legna at the paws of the mountain lion who had circled back around to get out of the line of battle. She lay down over Legna’s arm, lazily licking the wounds that were scattered over her golden coat as her intelligent gold eyes reassured the Demon that she would protect Legna now.
Jacob turned back. He had some Transformed Demons to take care of now that he was returned to his senses. He was positive that Legna’s little manipulations of their warped minds could not last much longer, if indeed the barely conscious woman still had hold of them. This was his duty, to punish his own for their wrongdoings and perversions, even if it was a byproduct of being manipulated by black magic. They were beyond redemption now, beyond hope of reclamation. The only mercy he could show them would be their swift deaths. For the first time he wished Bella were there with him. This was where she excelled; this was where she would have been his relief. She was like an angel of mercy to the poor souls, and she would have swept the field with her inborn skills to bring them peace from such torment. This, he realized, would have been her best revenge: to deprive these depraved bitches of the power of the Demons they had captured, stealing away their prizes and their access to even more power names with which to make more unfortunate, deadly monsters.
Iron bolts were flying with more accuracy now that the fog had thinned, and Demons began to take both injuries and casualties. The necromancers were headed full bore into the fight, dragging fresh hunters with them. This was not the small army they had heard of in the meeting. Noah began to suspect there had been a tipped hand somewhere along the line. With so many people involved, it was always a possibility. He suspected, however, that Corrine’s rescue had been the cause of the additional human influx. The Demon King believed that, when this battle ended, the Demon race would have struck a mighty blow into the ranks of necromancers. Female ones, at least. The questioned that remained was, did Mary realize she had been caught? And what of Ruth? Would they now have to hunt them both down before delivering them to the justice of the Enforcer?
The Demons followed the example of the Ancients among them, changing to hand-to-hand combat in order to dive past the magical shields meant to fend off elemental attacks. It was at this point that the Lycanthrope half-breed made her appearance. She might have been the weakest of them all in a certain sense, but she was a remarkable fighter. It was clear that, had she been a full Lycanthrope, she would have been some form of fox or vixen. She displayed sharp tearing teeth, small black claws, and a sinuous speed that left her little more than a streak of black leather clothing and auburn hair. When she stopped, victims suddenly began to fall like dominos, their throats laid open with those tiny but lethal claws. She paused to lick one of the little black blades, then smiled and was once more a blur.
The tide of battle was always meant to be in the favor of the Demons. They were the more skilled and experienced fighters. The one saving grace of all the wars they had lived through had to be the skills they had gained, now to be used in defense. It was all a tragedy of terrible proportions. The hunters thought they could win with the human version of great fighting skills, blind motivation, and following this cause whose true purpose was honestly unknown to them. No one enjoyed the idea of harming these misguided souls, but they would be foolish to let them go and survive to perpetuate more of this awful discontent.
As the humans began to fall back and retreat from the Demons’ battle skills, the Demons felt little victory. As with all such clashes, there would be ramifications from this. The fighting had been cloaked from the curious mainstream human populace with the isolation of Jacob’s home and the fog and storms of the Wind Demons blanketing the area. Bodies would be buried and destroyed. The field of battle would be returned to its flawless nature without so much as a speck of blood to show for the evening’s work.
And yet there was a permanent stain flowing over all the surviving souls of that battle. The waste of lives, both human and Demon, all because of the need for revenge, could never be compensated for.
Finally the fighting came to an end. There was little ceremony, and less rejoicing. The only befouled humans who remained were the dead and the wounded. Very few had fled any farther than the beach below, and it was only a matter of minutes before warriors caught up with them. They began to gather prisoners. Gideon displayed his remarkable ability by casting out a powerful stasis energy across the field, helping to maintain wounded until warrior Body Demons could reach them. He held this extension of enormous energy as he turned to find his mate.
An adult Demon had aided her briefly, enough to stem the tide of blood that had gushed from her. Gideon knelt beside her pale figure, glancing at the Lycanthropic animal beside her for only a second. He reached to stroke Legna’s soil-dusted hair and a cheek streaked with blood from her own fingertips when she had scratched an itch or pushed back her hair unthinkingly. Her blood supply was dangerously low, her heart pumping valiantly to try and circulate it as fast as possible to maintain her oxygen levels.
Gideon laid a hand on her injured thigh, feeling the residual burn the fragments of iron had left behind. The adult healer had been wise to not attempt to heal this wound. It was beyond his skill and he could have done more harm than good. Gideon could heal her, working out the iron filings as he did so. She would be scarred through both sides of her thigh, but that was of little consequence considering she might have died.
He reached into her with his power, closing his eyes as he absently stroked the wound sight with incredible gentleness. He healed her nicked bone and proceeded outward. At the same time, he encircled her wrist with his other hand and fed a transfusion of his blood into her weak body. He could only give her enough to maintain her, because he was weak and still expending tremendous energy in too many directions that were required of him. He had not felt so drained in a long time. The last instance had also been during a battle of this kind. He had hoped he would never be involved in such a thing again, but it seemed the ignorant and corrupt would have their way at the expense of his wishing for a peaceful life.
She stirred, his name the first word on her lips. He smiled at that, then reached to cast a deep sleep inducement on her. He sat back, his exhaustion growing as he held the stasis field on those who had not yet received medical attention.
The Lycanthrope who had protected Legna began to shake her gleaming head, her moonstone and gold collar jingling at its links. Her hair began to peel away from her body, shaking looser and looser until it was falling in wide coils. With a majestic shudder, she went from feline sinew to human athleticism. Her hair concealed her nude figure better than a bathing suit would have, but the half-breed vixen was approaching her Queen with her clothing at that very moment. In a minute, Anya dropped a simple slip of a dress over the Queen’s head. Once it settled over her curves, both women extracted her hair from beneath it.
Gideon gave little thought to the actions taking place so close to him. What he did notice, however, was Elijah watching the Queen with a dark, brooding expression. W
atching the Lycanthrope change form had disturbed him. No doubt it had brought back many memories of his battles with them. They were fierce fighters; one had to respect them or find oneself quite dead. It did not surprise Gideon that Elijah remained wary of her intentions.
Elijah moved closer as he saw Gideon sway under the strain of his exertions, even though the medic was already seated. The warrior reached Gideon a moment before the paling Demon fell back into an exhausted unconsciousness. He caught him behind the head and lowered him gingerly into a supine position. The warrior was aware of the gold eyes that were fixed on him and he looked up to meet them.
“You are uncommonly gentle for a fighter,” she mused softly, blinking and seemingly looking through him with those vivid eyes.
“You are uncommonly…peaceful, for a Lycanthrope,” he returned.
“And you doubt my sincerity.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“I would think you an utter fool if you did not doubt me, warrior. Instead, I am forced to respect your uncommon intelligence. Now what, do you suppose, should I do from there?”
She left him hanging on the question, rising to her feet and leaving him before he could formulate an answer. He watched her go, his gaze searching and curious as he fixed it on the feline slink that she maintained in her human form just as well as she did in her form as a lioness.
Chapter 15
All lost Demons but the Transformed would be mourned on the eve before Beltane. There would be wounded hearts, and tears to soak the timbers of the pyres. And as they burned, those fires would be tended until the Beltane torches and bonfires could be lit from them. It was the cycle of life—unfortunately not a simulated one—from death to rebirth. It was the nature of Beltane, the Rite of Spring, at its sheerest definition.
The Transformed had already been destroyed. At the moment of death, they burst into flames, pyres unto themselves. Jacob took on the task of creating a mass grave for their enemies. It was a perfunctory end to a shameful waste of life. Elijah undertook the task of organizing the prisoners for interrogation. Gideon and Legna were recovering at Gideon’s manse.
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