by Lily Luchesi
She could feel and hear Danny’s heartbeat racing. Whether it was with adrenaline or fear, she did not know. His blood still in her veins causing a deeper connection. Without warning, she stopped walking and pulled Danny into a long, sweet kiss, as if it were the last time she would ever get the chance to do so.
****
Danny could admit that he was a little scared. It wasn’t everyday he went to confront a murderer as depraved as Miranda, and he knew his agitation must be tangible.
He had not expected her to pull him into what might be the best kiss he’d ever had right before battle. He wasn’t complaining though. Her fiery personality balanced him, and in that moment—that kiss—he felt invincible.
“What was that for?” he asked after she pulled away.
“In case I don’t get another chance,” she whispered, her eyes darkening. She turned her attention towards the house and said, “The energy I sense isn’t in the house.”
“Should we go around back?” Danny asked softly, in case someone was listening.
Angelica nodded. “Anyone would expect us to go inside. So we won’t.” Making sure their shoes didn’t crack any telltale branches or hit any loose stones like in a bad B movie, they crept around the house and tried to see what was causing Angie’s “bat senses” to tingle.
The curtains in the cabin ruffled, and Danny motioned to ask if he should go in. Angelica shook her head no, whispering, “It’s undoubtedly a trap.”
“No, it’s not a trap. Looks like I was wrong about you, Cross. You are as dumb as you look!”
Miranda landed before them, face stained with blood, eyes and fangs much more frightening than even Vincent had been. Her skin was glowing healthily, and he was reminded of how she’d looked when she’d been alive and sunning at Lake Michigan. She had fed, and fed on more than just the director.
Angelica did not bother with banter. She swung her blade at Miranda and it made contact, but nowhere lethal. The gash in the vamp’s arm immediately started to heal, thanks to all the human blood in her.
“What on Earth is wrong with you?” Angelica asked. “After decades of being with the PID, you throw everything away? For what? And what did Frederic do to you that you’d kill him?”
“You idiot!” Miranda spat. “I have had nothing since you woke me in my coffin and decided to be a fucking humanitarian by keeping me alive.” She lashed out with her own blade but missed Angie entirely.
Danny went to join the fight but had the wind knocked out of him from behind. He fell and ate a mouthful of dirt, turning quickly and aiming his gun at whomever or whatever had pushed him. He wound up firing three silver bullets into the chest of one of Fiona’s hybrid shifters, shredding its heart and effectively killing it.
“Angie,” he called, “we’ve got company!”
He scrambled to his feet as he heard howls and growls surround the clearing, and he heard Miranda laugh. He had no idea that even a laugh could sound contemptuous, but somehow she managed it.
“Did you think I’d be alone?” she asked. “Did you think I’d be unprepared and just let you two kill me?”
Angelica stood behind Danny, her blade put away and her longer falchion drawn. The other hand held a silver-loaded gun. There were so many auras, he counted at least eleven weres, and one more significantly odiferous presence.
Out of the shadows came the witch herself, flanked by a dozen hybrid weres. “Welcome to Hell, vamplet,” she hissed, her eyes flashing black, proving she definitely was a demon. “I can’t wait to watch you die.” Her smile could have killed were it a weapon.
“We’ve killed your little minions before, Fiona. What makes you think I won’t just slice through them again?” Angelica asked.
“Because they’re not the same minions at all. They’re mine. I made them from scratch using my own magic. And thanks to Miranda’s blood, they are even stronger.”
Danny said, “What? I thought you couldn’t mix werewolf and vampire blood?”
Miranda shook her head. “Ah, no. Werewolf blood is toxic to vampires. It doesn’t work both ways, however. In fact, the blood of a full vamp makes Fiona’s creations even stronger.”
Danny stepped closer to Fiona, and the weres took a compensating step back. “I thought as much. You programmed them not to hurt me, didn’t you? I can still hurt them, and your fucked up fascination with me will be your plan’s downfall.”
Fiona flicked her hand, and two of the weres were on him in a second, knocking him over and making him shoot off two bullets in Angelica’s direction. She was fine, but he was trapped. Angelica started stabbing the wolves as they held him so tightly he could not escape. More attacked her, and Danny could hear her bones breaking. He was glad he could not see her as she righted the fractures. The wet, popping sound was what he had seen in a vision a year before, and he did not care to witness it again.
“You see, I don’t need to hurt you. I just need to hold you immobile until my pets have taken care of that little aberrance over there,” Fiona said.
“Well, you didn’t count on one thing, Fiona,” Angelica said, slicing her sword through one of the wolves’ chest. “I have drunk blood from the vein. I am much stronger than you anticipated.” She grabbed her gun with her free hand and shot the other wolf that was on her. The wolves might have been loyal and stronger, but they still only had one heart, and they were still as vulnerable as ever to silver.
Danny was still struggling with the wolves on top of him when he heard Angie say, “Close your eyes and mouth.” Shifter blood rained down on him as she killed one of the ones who were holding him down.
With one weight off him, Danny could move one arm, and he stabbed one of the weres in the neck, paralyzing it. The other one he was easily able to fight off. As he scrambled to his feet, another wolf charged at him, trapping him between it and a tree. He was good at his job, and he had been trapped like that by human perps before. He was able to sneak his gun between them and shoot its heart to ribbons.
There were still seven weres remaining. Fiona flicked her wrist, and they advanced while she and Miranda watched as if it were a prizefight on HBO. He wondered why and how Miranda had gotten involved with her. Because of him? Obviously, they couldn’t both have him, and Fiona wouldn’t just give him up. She had to have a plan up her sleeve.
As he and Angelica took fighting stances , he noticed Fiona sweating a little. Is this magic too much for her to handle? Even as a demon, magic was made of energy and if Fiona spent too much energy at once, as she was, she would need to rest and replenish it. She had not rested, apparently, and it was starting to show. He hoped Angelica noticed it, too, and could find a way to use it to their advantage.
“We need to make this last a long time,” Angelica said sotto voce.
So she did notice!
Despite the odds being against them, Danny and Angelica could easily taunt and tease their enemies with a game of cat and mouse. The hybrids were trained for one thing—murder. They did not seem know what to make of opponents who did not immediately go in for the kill.
They finally killed four of the remaining shifters, but slowly. Danny watched as Fiona became more and more exhausted with each one she had to watch die. She had put a lot of her own essence into the creatures, obviously assuming they’d be successful with little stress. As she had been before, she was dead wrong.
Angelica had backed up to taunt one of the remaining three to come closer when Danny heard Fiona say, “Make yourself useful why don’t you?”
Unsure of what Fiona meant, he saw a blur pass him by. Suddenly, Miranda was on Angelica, and the fight looked ugly. Unfortunately, he could not even look to help, as he was surrounded by three rabid wolf hybrids. He knew he they saw him like a rare steak to a starving man, and he didn’t know if he could take them all at once.
The fight went by in a blur. Danny’s skin split over his shoulder and chest from claws, and he felt the burn as he ignored his wounds to fight back. Three shots to one wolf took care o
f it, and a dagger to the heart dropped another as Danny’s blood stained its claws. He could hear Fiona gasping for breath as her essence was killed along with the weres. Danny hoped against hope that, when the last hybrid died, so would she.
His concentration was broken by a gargled scream from the vamps’ direction. He wished he could see what was happening, but a wolf filled his vision, all bloody claws and fangs dripping saliva. His panic increased when he heard a thud and crack against the rough ground and Miranda’s dark laugh.
His gun was empty of silver bullets, and there was no time to reload. His dagger was slick with blood, and he fumbled with it before he could get a good grip on the hilt. When he did, he realized the dagger wasn’t long enough to kill it. His longer blade was lying in the grass somewhere, and there was no way to get to it. It looked as if it was time to get dirty.
He dug the blade in as deep as it could go, and then went deeper. He felt the blood gush over his exposed skin and soak his sleeve. His hand pushed deeper into the flesh of the wolf, and he tried to ignore what he was doing as the soft warmth enveloped his hand. Pretend it is the deer you and Dad used to hunt when you were a teen, he told himself. Pretend it’s that you’re gutting and don’t fucking puke!
Finally, when his hand was halfway inside the thing, the blade completely pierced the heart. The wolf died away with a wheeze, taking his knife with him. He backed away, furiously wiping the blood from his hand onto this suit.
When he looked up, his eyes met Fiona’s, but she was not alone. Fiona was pale and weak, sweat shining on her skin, and she was leaning in the arms of a very familiar man. Danny couldn’t place him at that moment because he heard Miranda laugh once again.
Turning in that direction, he saw Miranda—flayed and bloody—atop Angelica. Angelica was not moving and blood had pooled around her. Danny felt sick and faint, knowing that he might be too late. He had a choice to make. He could kill Fiona while she was vulnerable or save Angelica.
There was no hesitation. Fiona was being scolded by the man, and neither was even paying attention to him anymore. Killing them both would have been child’s play. Danny did not care. He saw his longer knife and dove for it, ignoring the gaping wounds in his shoulder and back.
Miranda did not notice anything in her triumph. She held Angelica’s falchion to the vamplet’s throat, preparing to bring it down in a fatal blow, but she never got that chance. Danny sliced clean through her neck, and she never saw it coming.
Her red, angry eyes faded to normal, and her head flew a few feet away. Blood pumped like a fountain from the neck. The body aged very little and did not disintegrate, as she was not even fifty years old in human years. It finally collapsed to the ground, spasming until it died.
Danny unceremoniously kicked her body aside, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fiona and the man disappear in a smoky cloud. He flung himself down by Angelica. She was alive, but unconscious. Her arms, chest and neck were sliced open, some with a knife and some with Miranda’s claws. He even saw bite marks. Her throat was in ribbons, her one eye was swollen shut and her stomach had a gaping hole. Her head was in a pool of blood, and he gently lifted her to see her skull was cracked like an egg. Thanks to her vampiric blood, she was still alive, but barely.
“Angie, Angie, hang on, okay?” he said, though he knew she could not hear him. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe, his own pain forgotten as he worried for his love. He pressed the button on his phone that was akin to PID 911, sending for help. He managed to get more blood out of his wounds, and he held his bloody arm to her mouth, hoping she could drink. As the blood slipped down her throat, she moaned, but did not wake. That gave him a small bit of hope, but not much. This was bad. He had never seen so much blood and such severe wounds on one person at one time.
“Please don’t die on me,” he whispered, trying not to move her body too much. Every little movement sent more precious blood to the ground beneath her. His suit and hands were covered in it. He put his hand in her bloody hair and allowed himself to cry.
****
Fiona was taken back to her suite in Hell, along with the demon that had come to her rescue.
“Thank you,” she gasped. Her power had been depleted, and she could’ve easily been killed had he not come to her aid.
“Do not thank me, you foolish girl,” he said, his once hazel eyes staring holes into her. If looks could kill, she’d be nothing but ghoul food. “What were you thinking, putting all your eggs into one little basket? Had Valdez not kept Cross busy, you would surely be decimated by now. You are lucky I believe in your plight, or I would kill you where you stand.”
“I just need time,” she said, trying to regulate her breathing.
“You had better hope Detective Mancini chooses rightly, or you will have a much bigger problem on your hands than just a halfling,” he warned. “And then time will be precious and short.”
“Chooses what?” Fiona asked.
“You will see.”
****
They took Danny and Angie back to the PID and had to sedate him. He was too frantic about Angelica to be a good patient, and they needed to put him under with a real anesthetic so they could heal him properly. Some blood and stitches, and he was close to being good as new. The witches gave him pain potions, and five hours after he had been admitted, he was well on his way to being healed.
He had to be careful as he moved so the stitches didn’t come undone, but he would live. It was Angelica he was worried about. They reluctantly allowed him to see her, in an isolated room and with a mortal doctor, vampire doctor, and Wiccan priestess trying different remedies for her extensive injuries.
“What’s happening?” Danny asked, feeling weak in the knees.
“We’re giving her a constant supply of vampire and human blood. Her wounds are mostly healed, and what didn’t heal with vampire blood, we sewed up the old-fashioned way,” the mortal doctor explained.
“And I gave her anti-pain potions and can assure you that her soul is still intact, as is her mind,” the priestess said.
The vampire doctor’s news wasn’t so positive, however. “Angelica has always had an even amount of vampire and human blood coursing through her body. Once a mortal loses the amount of blood she did, nothing will replenish it properly.”
“What does that mean?” Danny asked.
“It means that, because she is half human, she is also half dead,” he said. “Her vampire side is keeping her alive at the bare minimum of capacity. Her human side is completely dead. Which brings me to giving you a choice that might be very painful for you, Mr. Mancini.
“If you choose to leave her like this, she will remain comatose for the rest of eternity. She can never wake again. Or you can choose to have us turn her. If you do, she will be, physically, as she was before this battle. I cannot guarantee that she will be the exact same Angelica. Turning changes a person, but she will be alive, and that is what matters.”
Danny looked through the glass. Angelica’s wounds were healed, and her body was no longer stained with blood. Her arms were hooked up to three different IVs: one with a saline drip, one with vamp blood, and another with human blood. Her skin was so pale it was almost blue, and the shadows under her eyes were like caverns. She looked like a corpse.
Angelica had never been too keen on turning. She had weighed pros and cons of it, and had come up empty. He knew her biggest fear was becoming evil like her father had. Danny realized that he would rather take the risk that she would become a murderer than see her as a living corpse in a hospital bed until the end of time. He could not handle that, not in a million years.
Angelica was sassy and vibrant. Her smile lit up a room, and her laugh was like music. How could he live, knowing he’d made the choice never to let the world hear that laugh again? How could he live, knowing he had condemned her to a living death? Could he live without her in his life? Without her kisses and her very presence? No. No, he could not. He had wasted so much time they could have been
together. He could not lose her now, not when he could save her.
He had not even realized that he was crying, hot tears falling one after the other, the salt stinging the superficial wounds on his face. He looked up at the vampire doctor and said the two words he never thought he would:
“Turn her.”
Epilogue
October 1881
Chicago, Illinois
Fiona desired power above all else, but there was also one thing she really wanted—love. She had never had love. Respect and fear, yes, but never love. Her parents had been afraid of her when she had begun showing her power, and the other witches had shown her respect, but they had not even liked her, let alone loved her.
She’d immigrated to America in the late 1600s and had been one of the witches who’d started the Salem Witch Trials in 1678. She, however, had been able to escape persecution by fleeing westward.
She’d settled in Chicago and watched the city grow and change. She began to feel like it was her city, somehow, and settled in comfortably. She was a small part in how the city became so great, donating money and using minor magic to fix things and make living easier for all residents.
Gradually, she saw other paranormal creatures begin to infiltrate Chicago. Werewolves had always been in the area, but all of a sudden in 1881 they started coming out more and more, walking around as if they owned the place. As did ghouls, ghosts, and other witches. Of course, there were the vampires, the creatures she’d always considered parasites—even as a small child.
Determined to find out what had made these things become so brazen, she set out in the city streets at night to question some of the creatures. After getting cold shoulders from almost all of the vamps, and only disgusting leers from the werewolves, she found some ghosts who would give her the information she sought.
Red Cross Blood Bank on Harrison Street. They told her she’d find answers there, so off she went. The place was nice, running efficiently for humans. She did not know about its other clientele yet.
