Midnight Poison (Paranormal Poisons Saga Book 1)

by A and E Kirk

  Enchanted mist swirled from the wounds Kiara inflicted. The woman stood and backed away, studying her hand, touching tentative fingers to her bloody cheek.

  She glared at Kiara. “What have you done?”

  It was Kiara’s turn to smile, a cold and malevolent thing.

  “Answer me!” the woman screeched.

  Kiara pushed to her feet, shaky but already healing. She had won. Finally.

  But too late she realized the woman’s strength was greater than anticipated. Too late she felt the woman dredge up reserves of dark ancient forces. The magic hit Kiara like a tidal wave. Its power radiated out, flattening the miles of forest in one mighty blast.

  Kiara lay broken, fading. Her consciousness dimmed to black.

  CHAPTER 96

  The memory faded with the wind that gusted like a hurricane into the cold fairy court and shattered panels in the ceiling. Shards of ice rained. A dark mist curled in through the doors, rustling with the seductive fluidity of silken sheets. Kiara drew in ragged breaths. The air felt like sludge. Her whole body shook as the frigid temperatures dropped further.

  The mist crawled through the herd. The unicorns shrieked and wheeled, wild looks in their eyes.

  “She wants to put me back,” Kiara whispered.

  Jaeger bumped against Kiara and hugged Giselle to his chest. “I thought nothing scared unicorns. What the hell is that?”

  The eerie giggling drew closer. “Kiarrrrraaaa…” The woman sung her name in a melodic whisper stretched on a ghostly breeze.

  Kiara jerked, eyes flickering. “Leontes, take them. Run. I will keep her away.”

  Leontes took her hand. “I will not leave you. This is some sort of game. An illusion. She thinks you are fragile. Fight it.”

  The black mist poured in like a heavy ocean tide. It rippled across the floor toward Mab. Tendrils of smoke swirled up from the surface into the faceless shape of a woman with long hair and a flowing dress, both undulating as if she were underwater. Diving and resurfacing in the thick layer of fog, liquid and ever-changing, she circled Kiara with unnerving fluidity.

  “I never gave you permission to be released from your tomb,” she hissed.

  Kiara’s belly hollowed. A whimper trembled across her lips. Leontes had been the one who rescued her. The woman would never forgive that.

  “Sacrifice and surrender.” Mab’s words sliced like a blade on the skating rink. “Delicious!”

  Kiara choked on terror. This was no illusion. The woman would kill them all. Kiara had lost this battle before. If she lost it again, everyone would go down with her.

  CHAPTER 97

  “Kiara!” Leontes dug his fingers into her biceps.

  Her face skewed in torment, she was practically pulling out her hair. Kiara’s pupils dilated and constricted repeatedly. The irises flashed back and forth between gold and green. This was not the ideal moment to shift. She swayed like a reed. Leontes caught her against his chest.

  The mist washed across the ice and behind Mab’s throne. It kept in constant motion, a slow back and forth serpentine, which resembled a feral beast prowling and ready to attack for its master.

  “Are you staying, too, Leontes?” Mab’s voice twinkled with delight. “I promise my company to be most arousing.”

  “If he won’t take you up on your offer, I will,” Jaeger said.

  Mab looked him over and shrugged. “Why not? You shall be a most robust addition to my collection.”

  “Jaeger,” Leontes snapped. “Stay away from her.”

  “Hey, man, you had your chance,” said the werewolf, his words thick, eyes unfocused.

  “Dammit.” Leontes shook his head, exasperated.

  Mab batted her eyes with coquettish invitation. “Jealousy, Leontes? It becomes you so. Come, young prince.” She crooked a finger. “Drink with me as we watch Leontes. I have not seen him fight in ages.”

  Jaeger followed her command, though his feet were unsteady as he moved forward. Leontes wavered between going after the werewolf prince and holding Kiara.

  In his arms, Kiara whispered in a shaky voice, “I can’t win, I can’t win.”

  Leontes gritted his teeth at hearing the unsteadiness in her voice, how small and fragile she sounded. So lost.

  Mab’s guards created an arcing shield before their queen, with Callahan dead center, his gang of twelve holding the front line. They began to part to let Jaeger stumble through.

  As Leontes loosened his hold, Kiara dropped to her knees, swaying slightly, her eyes glazed over. She muttered incoherently.

  “Do not worry.” Leontes readied his sword. “I have this one.”

  He turned and charged the wall of guards. Callahan nodded. Two of his people rushed to meet Leontes. They swung their swords in freakish synchronization. Leontes slashed his blade.

  Before the warriors made contact, an invisible force whipped Leontes backwards, his feet sliding over the ice. Jaeger flew back, too, and they both ended up positioned behind Kiara.

  “No,” she said, her voice strong and unwavering. “This one is mine.”

  No longer whimpering on the floor, she stood steady and strangely at ease, despite the fact that every muscle in her body tensed, wire-tight. Shoulders back, her arms rested slightly away from her body. Tendrils of magic churned in an angry wrath around her hands, which opened and closed in a slow, methodical fashion.

  At the sight of her, unease stilled the guards. The thick smog, which had entered the room, paused further advance.

  A lilting laugh parted Mab’s lips in a smile. She reclined in her throne, thoroughly amused. “Delightful.”

  Callahan frowned and retreated a step behind the first line of guards.

  Kiara reached out a hand and the duffle bag skittered across the ice to her feet. Magic cracked from her hands and hit the backpack. White, lance-like rods floated out of the bag. A serrated, slivery thread spiraled through each one.

  Unicorn horns.

  Leontes’ jaw dropped.

  With a snap of her fingers, each shiny horn rocketed into surrounding walls. Several pierced through guards on their rocket-like journey, laying the men out on the floor, blood pooling on the frozen ground beneath them.

  The horns impaled deep into the walls of ice with a resounding crack! The castle moaned like a giant beast. A low keening erupted. Fissures spidered out from the tips of the embedded spikes. The walls began to melt. Water trickled as if the structure was sweating from a monumental effort to keep itself whole.

  A horrified breath filled Mab’s lungs. “Remove them at once!”

  Her guards rushed to hack the deadly horns from the ice.

  Above Mab’s head, her rage swelled a blizzard that hissed around the room and ghosted over the cracks in the walls. A layer of frost plastered over the fractures in an attempt to shore up the damage, but the coating melted away almost immediately. Bones and bodies began poking through the disintegrating wall. Some of the figures who were in better physical shape actually blinked.

  “That is enough of your fun!” Mab roared to her feet. A storm brewed around her as she pointed at Kiara. Her voice shivered through the room. “Seize her!”

  “Kiara.” Tension threaded Leontes’ voice.

  Over her shoulder, Kiara flashed him a playful wink. She raised her arms. As she flung them back down, the floating chandeliers suddenly lost their buoyancy and plummeted onto Mab. The queen flicked her hand in a bored, irritated fashion. The chandeliers skidded to a halt.

  With Mab’s focus shifted away from Kiara for the briefest of moments, two nail guns spiraled up and out of the duffle bag. Kiara snatched them from the air and pulled the triggers.

  Nails penetrated Mab’s body. The queen screeched in agony. Ice cracked. Frost knifed across Kiara’s skin. The queen stared with seething disbelief at the iron stabbing into her. The smell of burning flesh wafted through the air.

  The Northern Lights of Mab’s eyes flashed venom. “How dare you!”

  Kiara walked forwar
d, pulling the triggers on the nail guns again and again. She cut down any guards in her way with one weapon while blasting Mab with the other. One shot finally knocked the queen off her feet. She plunged from her throne and landed in a heap at the bottom of the frozen stairs. Kiara lowered her aim and kept firing, continuing to stalk forward with fearless purpose.

  CHAPTER 98

  Fairies quickly moved in behind Leontes, Jaeger, and Giselle, blocking off the exit. They raised their weapons and attacked.

  With Giselle tucked protectively against his chest, Jaeger slashed, thrust, and parried his sword. He fought with skill and unrelenting violence, but protecting his niece kept him from a most aggressive assault, and the werewolf prince became cornered by two guards. He leapt back from a slashing blade, only to find himself about to be beheaded by another.

  With the knife edge only a hair’s breadth away from decapitation, Leontes deflected the guard’s savage blow and shoved his sword up under the fairy’s ribcage. A stunted grunt, and the guard shattered into tiny particles of ice.

  “Kiara?!” Leontes called. He shoved Jaeger down and spun out of the way of a dagger flying through the air. “Kiara! We need to retreat!”

  When she reached the queen, nails puncturing over the length and width of her body, Kiara set a foot on Mab’s chest. She leaned forward and drove the iron spikes deeper. Smoke curled from the burning wounds. Mab’s eyes watered, but no cry escaped her lips.

  “I have not had this much fun in ages,” Kiara mused, a blissful smile on her lips. Without looking, she aimed a gun behind her and shot down two guards who were creeping close. “We simply must do this again sometime.”

  When Mab raised a hand, Kiara fired and nailed it to the floor, and then fired a few more nails into the queen’s palm, just for fun.

  “Kiara, get off her majesty,” Leontes said. “There is no shame in a strategically beneficial retreat!”

  Kiara smiled and held up a finger before turning back to Mab. “I have forgotten many things, but not how to play your games. In fact, I think you will agree, I nailed this one.”

  Mab’s grin was wicked. “Not for long.”

  Darkness flashed past Kiara as the shadowed mist surged toward Leontes, Jaeger, and Giselle like a falling black star. The vampire shoved the other two out of the way, leaving him in its path. He braced himself for the frontal attack, but was suddenly knocked aside by Kiara. As Leontes slid across the ice, he watched in horror as the black entity hit her instead.

  The darkness swallowed Kiara whole.

  A shrill howl rippled the space as the dark mass never lost speed, disappearing through the broken doors and out into the halls. Kiara lay crumpled on the floor as its eerie laugh danced on the air. Leontes smelled a delicious, coppery aroma. Scarlett bloomed in a growing pool on the ice beneath her.

  “Kiara!” he cried.

  With a moan, she pushed to her feet. At the sight of her, Leontes and Jaeger gasped. Her clothes were torn. A million shallow cuts raked across her skin. And a deep laceration in her bicep cut through bone and left the splintered edges exposed. Her arm hung lifeless, almost completely torn off. It dangled precariously from tendrils of frayed flesh. Blood spurted down and splattered the ice in thick globs of crimson as she staggered toward them.

  Her lips visibly whitened as Kiara lifted them in a weak grin. “I could be persuaded to retreat now.”

  “Not a chance,” Mab hissed.

  The queen stood in front of her throne and released a long, slow breath. One by one, the iron nails slid from her flesh and pinged to the frozen floor.

  “Oh dear,” Kiara said.

  She stumbled forward to place herself in front of Leontes, lying on the floor next to Jaeger, who clutched Giselle in his arms.

  Mab raised her pale, lithe arms and spoke a litany of ancient words. Blinding white light filled the room. Snow flurried. Wind howled and whipped around the room. Shards of ice appeared in the swirling mass and knifed through the air. A cyclone of dark magic formed high above, gathering Mab’s deadly wrath into a raging spell of monstrous destruction.

  With her one good arm, Kiara reached for Jaeger.

  Mab screamed the final words of the incantation. Roiling with powerful enchantments hungry to eradicate all in its path, the cyclone rushed directly for Kiara. At the very last moment before the mystical annihilation struck, Kiara ripped Giselle from Jaeger’s arms and held the child up into the air.

  The vile spell hit the sleeping infant right between the eyes.

  CHAPTER 99

  A massive explosion blasted Leontes into the air. White blinded his vision. He had started to get to his feet, but the force slammed him down onto his back once again.

  Bones cracked. Cold seeped through his clothes. He took a couple of ragged breaths and tried to focus his spinning mind. He flexed his fingers before trying to move, and then raised his head and blinked at the bright light.

  He lay in an open courtyard. Frosted trees with frozen leaves glittered with strings of diamond, gold, and pearl. Piles of snow and sharp splinters of ice scattered the space. The odd fairy body part jutted out from the debris. Above him, a giant hole loomed in the castle’s ceiling. Ice continued to break from the edges, occasionally twinkling down as puffs and swirling curls of steam.

  “Giselle!” Jaeger yelled, stumbling through the snow and rubble. “Where are you? Giselle!” He pulled Leontes to his feet and shook him hard. “Do you have her?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then help me, dammit!” Jaeger shoved past Leontes and hurtled chunks of ice aside as he dug through the mess. “She threw Giselle right in front of the attack! What kind of crazy does that!?”

  Leontes stood, flapping snow from his coat. “Puppy—”

  “Don’t puppy me! Quit standing there and help me find her! Giselle!”

  Several yards away, the snow and ice moved. Jaeger froze. Then he lurched forward and scrambled ahead, tripping and slipping in his haste. Before he could get to the spot, Giselle burst from the ground, held up on the palm of a hand.

  “Please tell me this is not a pillow!” Kiara said.

  Jaeger lunged and snatched Giselle into his arms. He frantically checked her over. “She’s fine? Yeah, she’s fine. Breathing. Heartbeat. Still sleeping, but there’s not a scratch on her. How is that possible?”

  “Let us leave before Mab regains power,” Leontes said. “We got hit with the blowback from Kiara’s death curse hitting Mab, but it was not a killing shot.”

  Jaeger blinked. “Oh God. Oh God! I forgot. Son of a bitch, that is one powerful curse. So it’s still working?”

  Leontes pulled Kiara out by her good arm. “Not anymore. Time ran out, which is why we need to get out of here post haste.”

  Blood slushed the snow around Kiara from the nearly severed arm, though the cold had slowed the bleeding. She glanced around, her skin pale, eyes watery and uncertain, her fingers fisting Leontes’ shirt. “Did I do that?”

  Leontes followed her gaze to the wreckage of the castle. “No. Mab.”

  “Why did she blow up her own castle?”

  He gave her a measured look. “Because you shot her with a nail gun. What do you remember?”

  “We got Giselle, we were talking to Mab. And then something came in. But after that, I don’t know.” Kiara tried to scratch her head with the hand on her mangled arm. When it did not cooperate, she looked at it. She stared for a shocked, horrified moment.

  Then she screamed.

  Leontes grabbed her arm as gently as he could to stop it from swinging in a wildly macabre manner, then hustled her across the courtyard and into the castle. “Shhhh. It is fine. We will deal with this later. Right now, we have to depart. I need you to open a door and get us home.”

  Kiara did not respond. She just stumbled along, mute and unfocused.

  CHAPTER 100

  “Find them!” Mab’s bellowing command flew through every hall, blew open every door, and shook every wall. The trampling of boots, hiss o
f ice skates, and metal clank of jostled weapons filled the air.

  Shouts that echoed with violence seemed to be closing in on them as Leontes put his face close to Kiara’s. “A fairy door. We need it now or we will all die. The child will die.”

  For several seconds, Kiara’s eyes flickered everywhere and settled on nothing. Then she gripped the handle of the nearest door. A giant keyhole began to emerge. The wood glimmered a bright gold. Kiara trembled. Sweat glistened on her brow and blood pumped faster, almost streaming from the tattered remnants of her arm.

  Suddenly, frost washed from all sides and slammed the fairy door closed. The gold on the door vanished in an instant. Ice ate off the handle and up Kiara’s hand and arm. She shrieked and jumped back.

  Crack! A deep rumble shuddered the castle around them. The walls began to shimmer and close in.

  Jaeger held Giselle tighter. “Is this place shrinking?”

  “Yes.” Leontes caught Kiara’s wrist. “It is Mab. Just a trick to frighten Kiara.”

  Kiara closed her eyes and thumped her fist to her forehead. “I can’t breathe.”

  “Here!” Jaeger shoved the sleeping werewolf baby at Leontes. “Take Giselle. Get her and Kiara outside. Fly them somewhere safe until she can open a fairy door and get you all home.”

  “We cannot,” Leontes said, brushing hair from Kiara’s sweat-ridden forehead.

  “Sure you can!” Jaeger looked over his shoulder. “I’ll hold them off while you guys escape. But you’ve got to hurry!”

  “No, you imbecile!” Leontes shouted. “Vampires cannot fly!”

  “But you said—”

  “We were messing with you! A joke. Humor. Look it up!”

  “Seriously?” Jaeger said. “You really are an ass!”

  Leontes peered down the hall toward an exit. “Perhaps, but you are correct in that she will be better outside in the open terrain.”