by Casey Lane
As she was apt to do, Lyra took stock of her assets and liabilities. She knew that if it were just up to kicks and punches, she had a pretty darn good chance of taking out Piers one-on-one. Even though he taught her many of the fighting styles she knew today, her superhuman strength and speed would likely be too much for the aging handler. It wasn’t much of an advantage, but she’d take it. Unfortunately, her liabilities were plentiful: she had a second-degree burn on her ankle, sore legs that had yet to completely heal from pieces of shrapnel, and a bullet wound that still caused her to slightly favor her right side. If she could, taking an extra day of rest would certainly improve her chances.
Lyra walked toward a set of work lights that remained on in the mostly abandoned building. "I am not loving these odds."
As she continued to press ahead, she saw a half dozen of Piers’ lackeys standing by a work elevator. One of them waved her forward.
She smirked. "It’s always so polite when the bad guys say, ‘Come over here now, I’m not going to try to kill you until later.’"
She could feel the unhumanness in all of the goons who surrounded her as she stepped into the wide, rickety, metal box that would take her to her former mentor. None of the creatures spoke as the elevator began pulling them upward. She wondered just how Piers was able to recruit so many self-hating unhumans who would immediately be snuffed out by the weapon they currently worked to unleash.
I hate myself sometimes too. That doesn’t mean I want to kill myself and everybody like me.
She opted to keep her thoughts to herself as the lights flickered creepily and the elevator creaked as it lifted.
Lyra felt as though she had been transported into some sort of horror movie. She had yet to gather enough information to see if she’d be one of the final girls or just the next victim.
The metal cage lurched to a stop, and the gate slowly creaked open. She looked up at the unhumans around her. "Thanks for the lift. Any of you want a tip?"
The beasts beside her remained silent, and she took the hint.
"I was trying to get rid of my last twenty, but I guess you guys aren't going to be around too much longer either."
As Lyra stepped onto the floor, she could see exactly what her handler wanted her to see. The vampire prince was hanging up on a crudely assembled set of poles. Lyra watched the blood trickle down from lacerations on his side and back. He seemed to be going in and out of consciousness as the crimson trickled down.
She slowly walked to his side, unsure of whether she had enough time to get him down or not.
Lyra sighed as she took in the painful-looking cuts on his body. "A lot of good that blood of mine did you. Half of it’s on the floor already."
Mace’s eyes shot open, as if her voice had brought him out of a haze. "Lyra, Lyra…"
Whatever Piers had done to him, it had made his voice hoarse and barely intelligible.
Lyra placed her hand on his muscular shoulder. "Don’t worry about it. You’re too weak to talk."
She looked left and right but there was no sign of her former handler. She did, however, spy something interesting from her past. On the ground beside the vampire prince was a half-foot-long wooden stake. It was an efficient kind of weapon that Piers had taught her to use in close quarters. In fact, she thought it might actually be the weapon that she’d employed on multiple occasions.
She looked down at the item that brought back far too many memories from her past. "Are you trying to make me feel sentimental or something?"
"You don’t know quite how many keepsakes I have from your time as a hunter."
Lyra’s eyes shot toward the darkness from which Piers emerged with a large swirling green bomb just behind him. The contraption was at least three times the size of what she’d defused at Wrigley Field. Something about it gave her the sense that this one held significantly more power. It’s possible that nobody would survive this one going off, even on the outskirts of the city limits.
Lyra stood up straight. "You could’ve given me a high school yearbook from the early 2000s. We could talk about old times. We could share embarrassing stories. Maybe we could even defuse a bomb together."
Piers remained as stoic as ever. "Pick up the stake, Lyra."
She laughed. "The days of you giving me commands are long gone."
Piers stepped back and placed his hands on either side of the explosive. "It’s not a suggestion, Hunter. Pick up the damn piece of wood."
A shiver coursed down Lyra’s spine as she bent over and grasped the familiar weapon in her hands. It was obvious when she grasped it that this definitely had been the stake she’d used. It was impossible to know quite how many vampires she’d killed using the razor-sharp weapon.
She stared straight into Piers’ eyes. "If this is some kind of traumatic reenactment for your sexual pleasure, I don’t think today’s encounter is going to last very long."
"None of this is for my benefit, Lyra. Stake the prince."
Lyra glanced down at the weapon. It’s not like killing Mace would be difficult in a physical sense. Her muscles had gone through the motions so many times, and her training taught her exactly where the unhuman’s heart lies. It was the thing she could do better than anyone in the world. That didn’t mean she was about to listen to a madman with a bomb.
She crossed her arms. "I think I’ve seen this movie before. I do exactly what you want me to do, and then you go ahead and blow the bomb anyway. Unfortunately, I think that film tanked at the box office."
Piers took a step toward her. "Lyra, you need to remember who you are. You aren’t a cop or some underground vigilante for the forces of good. Killing vampires isn’t just in your blood or destined for you." He almost seemed to smile at his own words. "It’s who you are."
Lyra let the truth wash over her. He was right that she’d never quite fit in at the precinct. Heck, she hadn’t even known her own partner well enough to figure out he was a shapeshifter. In her short time moonlighting above the law, she’d almost been killed multiple times.
She looked down at the stake and thought of the thousands of hours she’d put in to train her body and mind for one sole purpose. She looked to Mace, who seemed to have a pleading look beneath the haziness.
She looked back to Piers and held the stake tighter in her hand. "You’re right." Lyra moved into position. "I was meant to kill vampires."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lyra turned toward Mace with the stake. Following Piers’ instructions would be easy this time, but it hadn’t always been that way.
She thought back to her first kill, a day she hadn’t brought to mind in far too many years. Her legs had shivered in a short skirt that day. It had been picture day at school, and many of the girls avoided pants despite the chilly Chicago fall. Piers had met her the moment the final period ended and whisked her away to a Southside alley where a vampire was standing over a dead girl’s corpse. He wasn’t that much older than her, perhaps 14 or 15 when he’d been changed. He was sucking the blood out of the girl’s neck when Lyra and Piers arrived on the scene.
Her handler waited until she was out of the car, tossed her a stake, and drove away at top speed. She was alone with the vampire, and only one of them would walk out of that alley alive. She left the encounter with cuts and bruises and a kill under her belt. Her future missions tended to go much more smoothly than the first, and disposing of a bleeding, half-conscious vamp would be one of her easiest assignments yet.
Piers eyes widened as Lyra approached the vampire prince.
Lyra readied her weapon. "I am a hunter." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "But that doesn’t mean it’s who I have to be."
With a flick of her wrist, Lyra tossed the stake like a dart. The pointy wooden weapon flew as fast as a bullet toward the heart of her former mentor. The handler’s reflexes were lightning-fast as he caught the weapon just before it impacted his chest.
Lyra sprinted across the room and let out a volley of kicks. She swung her right leg
, but her mentor blocked the blow. She spun with her left, but Piers was fast enough to repel the kick. She followed up her assault with a combination of a dozen punches, including highs, lows, lefts, and rights. Piers blocked every single one, grabbing her wrist tightly on the last punch of the combo.
"Is this really what you want? Are you going to let a vampire scum tell you what to do?"
Lyra twisted her wrist to get ahold of Piers’ arm, which she promptly twisted behind his back. "It’s better than listening to a creepy, old man who saves your stuff from 12 years ago."
Piers kicked backward to free himself from the arm hold. He let loose his own barrage of punches, but she knew all of his moves too. On the final block, she caught his hand in hers and squeezed with all her might. She heard the bones break in her grasp.
As Piers screamed, he swung his other fist, but Lyra caught it as well. She whipped her neck back and then suddenly forward to use her forehead as a battering ram. She hit her former mentor hard in the temple, and as soon as he staggered back, she let his hands go and lifted her leg high to kick him in the neck. He wobbled back and forth but remained on his feet.
Adrenaline coursed through her. "I’m not your little girl to command anymore."
As her former mentor gagged, she stepped forward and landed an uppercut just underneath his chin. The handler flew high in the air and landed with a sickening bounce on the concrete.
Lyra cracked her knuckles and felt a bit of retribution as she looked at Piers’ fallen body. She nodded to herself. "Another tally in the win column."
She glanced toward the elevator, where the unhuman guards were rushing inside to escape. Lyra shook her head and let them go without a fight.
When she heard the vampire prince groan, she ran back in his direction and released the restraints that held him in place. Mace’s bloody body collapsed onto her, and she gently let them both sink toward the ground.
The vampire prince was groggy and continued to try to speak in his condition. "Lyra, Lyra–"
"Don’t worry about it, Mace. I’m going to defuse the bomb and everything will be fine–"
"Piers has magic. Lyra, Piers has mag—"
A powerful blast of green energy shot from across the room and slammed into both of their bodies. The magical burst shot them in both directions, sending Lyra through the air and onto the hard floor below. She rolled several times to her right until she came to a stop.
Lyra looked up to see Piers standing tall and decidedly conscious. Green magical energy swirled around his hands.
The former handler smiled. "I always told you to never turn your back until the stake is through the heart."
Lyra couldn’t feel it before, but now that Piers had made his magic known, she could tell that it was unnatural. As if the ability had been gifted from a much stronger individual. Lyra knew from her long studies into the subject that magical gifts always require great sacrifice.
Lyra’s mouth hung open. "Piers, what have you done?"
"I’ve done what I’ve had to do for the greater good."
Lyra watched her former handler with dread. What exactly had he given up for this unexpected gift?
Lyra attempted to move her legs to kip-up, but her muscles would no longer respond to her brain’s commands. A quick look down at her ankles revealed magical green restraints holding her in place.
Lyra shouted. "Piers! You don’t actually want to do this. You and I both know there are good unhumans out there."
Piers chuckled softly to himself. "Using reason. Very nice, my dear. It’s exactly what I taught you to do." Her mentor began building up a larger and larger ball of energy between his hands. "But this is not a time for reason. This is a time for change."
The man who taught her everything she knew aimed his large ball of green energy straight for the bomb that would immediately silence thousands.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lyra struggled against the magic that was holding her down against the concrete, but it was no use. She screamed and cursed and fought with everything she had. And still the unnatural energy kept her from any progress whatsoever.
Sweat dripped from Lyra's face. "Piers!"
Her mentor ignored her cries as he let the magic go from his hands. The green blast of energy shot forward toward the explosive. It was within inches of making impact, when it hit something different instead. A purple shield of light appeared around the weapon at the last second. Piers’ magic collided with the forcefield and fizzled into nothingness.
Lyra’s eyes widened. "What the hell?"
Piers scrunched up his face and built the energy anew. With a shout, he sent a second blast of energy, twice as large as the first had been, toward the bomb. Once again, the burst of energy slammed into the purple barrier and completely evaporated.
Piers yelled at the unknown forcefield and tried once again to conjure up the magic. In his effort to go larger the third time around, the green energy sputtered between his fingers. He was temporarily spent.
Lyra felt the powerless restraints release her legs and she was up in a heartbeat. Beyond the now-protected bomb and her incensed former handler, she saw the source of the magic behind them.
Her jaw dropped.
All five feet and two inches of Rhea stepped forward and blasted Piers in the chest with a wave of purple magic. Her handler flew so far and so fast that it only took seconds for him to reach and go over the edge of the open-walled floor. Lyra’s heart jumped as she watched Piers vanish over the side. Before she could ask Rhea just what the hell was happening, she watched her former handler float back into view.
Piers’ laugh echoed through the half-finished building. "This is my destiny. You will not stop this from happening."
Rhea planted her feet and lifted her hands into the air. "We’ll see about that."
Piers went full-on Superman, flying horizontally and straight for the short, elderly woman. His flash of green was no match for Rhea, who spun out of the way at the very last second and propelled Piers into a pole with her quick magic.
Mace caught Lyra’s eye with a wave of his hand, and she ran in his direction, ducking a magical blast as it shot over her head.
She rolled to his side and pulled him underneath another enchanted projectile. "Mace, will you explain to me what on earth is happening here?"
In the midst of Piers’ battle, whatever hex he placed on the vampire had seemed to vanish.
Mace’s breathing seemed heavy. "Rhea is neither human nor unhuman. She has incredible power that neither of us could–"
"Whatever. Can we go defuse the bomb now?"
Mace smiled and nodded.
Lyra spied exactly what she needed to render the bomb inert. The very stake Piers had wanted her to kill Mace with. She kept low to the ground under the zipping bursts of magic and placed the stake in her hand. She crouched down and made it back to Mace’s side.
The barrage of green and purple light ceased for a second as Rhea and Piers stood 10 paces away from each other.
The woman who wouldn’t be out of place at a senior center seemed ready to go another 10 rounds. "That magic isn’t yours, handler. Let this one go and return to whoever gave you this power."
Piers snarled in her direction. "I don’t need your permission to do what has to be done."
The two magic users sent equal blasts of energy toward one another, meeting in the middle. A loud, almost electrical hum filled the air as Rhea and Piers struggled to overcome one another. With bursts of their magic shooting off sparks in every direction, Mace and Lyra needed to stay low.
She caught the vampire’s eye. "Give me a boost over to that bomb."
His forehead wrinkled. "You might get hit."
"Hasn’t stopped you."
He smirked and placed one hand over the other. Lyra took a few slow steps back before all-out sprinting toward the vampire. When she placed her front foot on his hands, she put all her weight behind it. With a mighty heave, Lyra flew into the air, just avoiding sever
al blasts of energy along the way. As she landed a few feet away from the bomb, she heard Rhea’s scream. The second she turned back to see that Piers had taken the advantage, her arms and legs once again locked in place. Her stake was frustratingly close to the bomb beneath her.
Piers sent a controlled burst of magic toward the immobile Lyra, and it wrapped around her throat. As the green energy squeezed, her lungs fought for oxygen that wasn’t there.
Piers stepped toward her. "This is your last chance to pick a side, Lyra. Will you die fighting for them, or live your true purpose by killing them all?”
Her mentor released the magic around her neck and she coughed to fill her lungs with air.
She took one look at Piers and gave a slight smile. "You know which one I’ll choose, but I have to tell you something before you kill me."
Piers raised an eyebrow. "And what is that?"
"You should really do a better job of following your own advice."
Before Piers could react, Mace leapt onto Piers’ shoulder from behind, sinking his fangs into the former mentor’s neck. Piers screamed, releasing Lyra just long enough for her to bury the stake into the bomb. She could feel the ancient energy begin to dissipate from the unenchanted weapon. Within moments, it was just as harmless as the cement floor it lay upon. Beside her, Rhea got to her feet and joined Lyra. They watched Mace release his fangs from Piers’ neck and stand above the fallen handler. As the three of them converged upon him, Lyra noticed something.
The green energy that had been at his beck and call now seemed to be eating him alive. The man was dissolving from the bottom up.
Lyra knew she didn’t have long to pay her respects and knelt beside the man before he was completely erased. "I’m sorry, Piers. I’m sorry you made this choice."
If there was any pain from the magic destroying his essence, he didn’t show it as he looked deep into her eyes. "It wasn’t a choice. I did it to save…"
