I moved to the side of the house, its wrap-around porch giving access to all sides. Every window appeared to be shattered and the fog was floating inside, slowly blanketing the furniture. Things had suddenly grown quiet again, only the shifting sound of feet on glass shards reached my ears.
As my foot pressed on a large piece of glass, a spell exploded above my head, I ducked and raised my hand up to shield myself as bits of wood tumbled down over me.
“Damn.” I scanned the area, straining to see into the dense fog. I could hear shifting, movement, people were positioning, someone was moaning. “Wyatt?” I whispered as I moved into the house through one of the broken windows. “Billy? Where are you?”
Frustration washed over me. The spell was working too well, I needed to free myself of the visual obstruction so I could find Ivana and know where I was targeting my spells. I muttered a counter spell, releasing the fog from my control. But nothing happened. Not immediately anyway. The trouble with fog was it wouldn’t leave once it found a place to settle. Without a strong wind, I’d have to accept the fact that the fog would dissipate slowly, something I’d forgotten from my childhood experiments.
“Wyatt? Billy?” I whispered in a hiss.
“Marco.” A chuckle sounded to my left and I spun around to face nothing but cloud. “Come on, someone needs to say Polo.”
Bitch. I spun again, blade raised, seeing nothing.
“Here witchy, witchy, witchy.” Ivana again, this time closer.
I moved my blade, clenching it tighter in my hand as I pooled enough power for a stun spell. I couldn’t risk hitting someone from my team and I didn’t have anything more powerful in my arsenal, which put me at a major disadvantage. As usual.
“Doesn’t anyone want to play with me? The other two didn’t last as long as I would have liked,” she teased, her voice mocking.
What did that mean, the other two? Had two of Billy’s fallen? What if it was Billy himself, or Wyatt? A lump of panic formed in my throat and my spell jerked erratically. If I didn’t calm myself down, my spell would go wild when I cast, potentially knocking out an ally instead of Ivana.
Friendly fire. Wyatt’s words echoed in my thoughts. He was so right. I forced myself to continue forward, circling to the side, trying to see, trying to hear, where she was.
I had to get her talking. “You’re surrounded, Ivana.”
She chuckled again. “Oh really?”
I nodded enthusiastically, even though I knew no one could see me. “Yes, you’re surrounded by hunters. It would be better to surrender.”
“I don’t think so.”
I shifted to the left. She was close, probably on the other side of the room. I moved a few steps then paused. I could hear movement around me, and guessed Billy’s team was backing me up. I wondered just how good their eyesight was in the fog. Would they be able to see better than I could at the moment? Unlikely.
“Did you know I can smell your blood flowing through your veins?” Soft words tickled my ear.
I jumped to the side and struck out with my blade.
Another laugh.
“Stop toying with me. Come out and show yourself.”
“Show myself? But, my dear, I’m right beside you.” A hand darted out and swiped a knife from my belt before I could do anything. I swung down with my blade, launching my stun spell at the same time, but without knowing exactly where she was, it was futile. I missed, the zing of air whizzing past my blade was the only sound I heard.
I crouched lower, moving cautiously to the side, my blade raised for another swing and my hand poised with another spell, a floorboard creaked, I ducked, but too late. A powerful blast of magic struck me full on the side of the face and set me flying backward. With arms flailing, I slammed into the opposite wall, my breath whooshing out of me and my blade clattering to the ground seconds before my body followed suit.
Once again, the world exploded into magical chaos as bellows and screams, gunshots and power blasts echoed around me. I lay helpless on the ground, panting as my lungs spasmed, screaming for air. I tried to remain calm, focused on pulling in as much air as I could. The fog floated around like mini clouds. I sucked them in, desperate for more oxygen, replenishing my lungs with moist, refreshing goodness.
I jerked my eyes to the right as a shrill screech sounded, so loud that it seemed to rock the floor. Ivana had cast another spell and a second later, yet another one fell around me like a net, battering me to the floor. She was throwing her magic around like it was confetti, which made me wonder just how powerful she really was.
A chill raced down my body as I felt the waves of her strength ebbing toward me. This was not going to end well.
Suddenly, the fog cleared and I blinked into the darkness. The lights had all been blown out with that last blast. I couldn’t see a damn thing but vague outlines and blurry shadows.
Movement caught my attention and I shifted my eyes. The fog finally released the moon from its blanket and rays of light shone faintly into the house. It was enough to see the horror of what lay around me.
Ivana stood over top of one of the witch hunters—not Billy or Wyatt, Sam or Clive. One of the hunters I hadn’t met. Not that that should have made me feel better, but it did.
Ivana was holding a bloodied knife in her hand. It was my blade in fact, the one she’d swiped from me earlier. In the other, the head of the hunter still dripped blood. Ivana turned to face me, her eyes wild with insanity. She lifted the head and licked the bloody entrails of the shredded neck.
I pushed myself up, my eyes locked with Ivana’s as she closed her lips on the stem of the hunter’s neck and slurped at the blood pouring from the veins. I swallowed back the vomit that pushed into my mouth and snatched my other blade from the ground, moving toward her, weapon raised. It seemed like it was only her and me. Facing off at last. I didn’t know where Wyatt was, or Billy and the rest of the team. At that very moment, I didn’t care. I had her in my sights and I was not going to let her go.
Ivana paused her drinking and cocked her head to the side. I listened too and heard the soft patter of someone trying to move around the perimeter of the building, darting from one window to the next, hoping to move unseen. She spun, hurling the head in the direction of the movement and followed with a wild succession of spells, casting haphazardly.
I managed to duck in time, but a strangled yelp to my right told me that someone had been hit. I straightened and faced off once again. My eyes locked on Ivana, anger simmering, revenge my only goal. I raised my hands and cast, unleashing a stun spell on Ivana, which shockingly sent her reeling backward, seemingly catching her off guard for a moment.
It was then that Wyatt moved into my peripheral view. I shifted my eyes to glance at him for the briefest of moments before turning back to Ivana. I might have knocked her back but it wouldn’t last for long. Before she could right herself completely, I launched another volley of spells, each with the purpose of keeping her down, getting her on the defensive, wasting her magic.
Ivana shrieked with fury, stumbling back several steps as she blocked my attack. She regained her balance and swiveled her eyes to mine. Cold hatred stared back at me and I realized I’d merely been toying with a viper. Ivana struck and I knew I was in deep shit.
I raised my hands to block the spell, casting a feeble kind of protection bubble around myself. Just as Ivana’s spell hit me, so did Wyatt. He plowed into my side, causing us both to crash to the floor and roll to the wall.
I pushed Wyatt forcefully. “Get the hell off of me, Wyatt. I have it under control.”
He rolled to the side, trying to grasp my arm, but I managed to slip away.
I quickly moved to the forefront, propelled into action by the threat of Wyatt trying to stop me again. With Billy and his team distracting her, I launched my blade and, miraculously, it hit, embedding in her leg right to the hilt. I felt the
binding spell race over her, heard her scream in protest as it tugged and pulled her down, dampening her powers. Elation rushed through me. I’d done it. Somehow I’d managed to make a complicated spell hold.
I locked eyes with Ivana and a slow, wicked smile began to curl on her lips. I frowned, narrowed my eyes.
She mouthed something to me.
Gotcha.
Then the magic of my spell turned outward, back toward me and she brought her hands into her chest, then sent them out again. Like a powerful wave of water, I saw her magic envelop me.
As I flew backward, eyes wide with shock, Wyatt launched himself forward, jumping over me as I skidded across the floor. He dove right at Ivana, taking her by surprise as he aimed his sword for her throat. I felt the power of a spell knock his sword to the side. But it wasn’t that blade that he planned to use. Her smile faded as the dagger he held pierced her chest. His aim, as always, was true.
He plunged his dagger deep into her chest and twisted, severing her heart from the artery in a blindingly fast turn. He cradled her as she fell, her eyes going from triumph to surprise to nothing as she slid to the ground.
And I lay there, my mouth agape, stunned at what Wyatt had just done.
Ivana’s body vibrated for a few moments and then truly died. She didn’t ash though, her hybrid physiology more like the Dhampirs than the Strix it seemed. Wyatt dropped her to the floor and wiped the blood from his hands onto his pants.
I pushed myself to my feet and walked toward him until I was at his side. He smiled at me, reached to…what? Hug me?
I stepped back and shook my head, glaring hard at Wyatt as my anger finally slid back into place. “That was my kill.”
Wyatt’s mouth dropped open. “She blasted you with a spell. She would have killed you.”
I crossed my arms. “I had it under control.”
Wyatt clenched his jaw, a muscle ticked in his cheek. He moved a threatening step closer to me and opened his mouth but before he could say anything Billy was at my side, panting and frantic, his big bear arms encircling me into a crushing hug.
“Oh thank god, you’re okay.”
I was rigid in his arms, eyes still locked on Wyatt’s, seething with anger. “I need to get Ivana’s heart for my clients.”
Billy pulled away from me, frowning like he wanted to argue.
“And do what with it?” Wyatt growled as he checked his watch. “Thirty minutes until the solar flare.”
“So? Ivana is dead,” I yelled. “You just saved the motherfucking world, hero.”
It was a standoff again, anger burning between us. Years of it, flowing back and forth. Unspoken words, feelings, all those things I wanted to lash him with.
“You guys kill any vamps?” Billy glanced around us, searching the floor for bodies.
I frowned. “No, just Ivana.”
All of us froze at that moment, realization dawning. Wyatt’s amulet, nestled in his pocket, pulsed with magic. He pulled it out and we all stared down at it.
“Oh fuck…”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Wyatt’s amulet was ripped from his hand by the force of its magic, coming to a thud against the opposite wall and staying there, at eye level, all our gazes locked on it. That was when the screaming started.
“They’re swarming the beach!” I yelled.
All those humans. A feast for the Strix.
We rushed out of the beach house, stumbling down the stairs, jumping to the sand. Billy was shouting to the team, giving orders, cautioning about fangs.
It was fully dark now. The sun long gone, the fog I’d called had dissipated.
Down the beach, in the glow the giant bonfire and the limited light of the half-moon, I saw a blood bath.
Men, women, children running in every direction. Vampires chasing them down. Laughing as they gorged. I didn’t think, I just ran. Pulling my gun from its holster, aiming, then thinking better of it. I’d hit a human to be sure. The point was to save them right? I needed to get closer.
Wyatt was almost parallel to me, his long strides carrying him past, his sword ahead of him again, leading the way, drawn to the violence. We came into the melee at the same time. He cut down the first vampire he saw. Not hesitating to slice its head off with one stroke. The human the Strix had been feeding on fell lifeless to the ground.
A girl. Young like my sisters had been.
A flash of dizziness rocked me. A massacre. How could we stop a massacre?
Something warm splattered against my face. It smelled like blood. I wiped it from my eyes. Yes, blood. It was surreal. I was frozen. A little girl ran toward me, her eyes wide, frightened. She was being chased by a monster. I looked past her, pulled a knife from my belt and launched it above her head. The vampire stumbled, Wyatt took its head off. Wyatt locked eyes with me.
Snap out of it, his eyes said.
I nodded, shifted to look down as the little girl ran into me, her arms wrapped tightly around my knees. I touched her head. Her hair was slick with blood.
I unlatched her arms as I knelt down. “Run, sweetie. Run to the house back there. Hide.” I didn’t know what else to do. I needed to help the others. Couldn’t keep her with me.
She shook her head. I couldn’t blame her. I wouldn’t have wanted to go there either. She was crying. It broke my heart.
“You have to go. There are monsters here. The house is safe.” Monsters. All around. I feared it was too late, that nothing would ever be safe again.
The little girl seemed to understand. She let me go. She ran.
I jumped back into the fight, cutting, hacking, staking. The vampires fell among the corpses of their prey. So many dead on both sides. At least after a few seconds, the vamps turned to ash. Coating the humans as they did. Disgusting.
Billy came up next to me, covered in gore. I imaged I looked the same. He pointed up.
That was when everything stopped.
The darkness was alight with the most beautiful array of colors. Shades of blue, green, purple all dancing across the sky. It ebbed and flowed, rolled in waves, blanketed the stars in light.
Tears welled in my eyes. My breath hitched. I’d never seen anything so wonderful.
Something bumped me from behind, hard. I stumbled forward, caught myself, spun and staked another vampire. Stupid to get distracted like that.
We continued to fight. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the lightshow fade to nothing. Just at the tail end, just when it was almost gone and the stars began to shine brightly, there was another wave—one that rode the coattails of the flare, one that enveloped me in elemental magic.
I swayed as dizziness washed over me. Too many signatures veering off in different directions, bolstering the Aurora Borealis so that it rose from the dead like a zombie. The lights danced once again, but this time it was artificial, kept alive for the wrong reasons. Chaotic. Unbalanced. Wrong.
“What is going on?” I whispered, my head pounding to the pulse of light.
Just as suddenly as it had come, the spell died, snapping out like a flick of a switch. I gave my head a hard shake. The screaming rose around me. I was bumped to the side. Instinctively, I launched a stun spell. It veered off erratically, slamming into a vampire I hadn’t meant to hit.
My powers were not reliable. Too dangerous to cast. I was lucky I hadn’t hit one of my own.
Wake up, Kali.
I used my gun, my blades, my fists, my stakes. I cut them down, one by one. Until there were no more enemies.
Until there was silence. A quiet like I’d never known in all my life.
We all stood still. There were no more vampires. No more humans. Just bodies. It had been a massacre.
“What the fuck?” Billy pointed to the west, where the city lights should have burned brightly.
It was dark. Pitch fucking black.
&
nbsp; “Oh shit.” In my gut I knew. This was just the beginning.
Billy pulled out his cell, the light from its small screen blinding. He turned it toward me. “No signal.”
The scientists had said the solar flare would disrupt cell service. Might cause the electricity to flicker. But they had been wrong, hadn’t they? So very wrong. They hadn’t counted on the witches.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
“Back to the trucks,” Billy said as he assessed his team. “Headquarters to rally. Find out what the fuck is going on.”
Everyone obeyed. We were all numb. Shock soaking through us.
What was happening? I mean, really happening? I was scared to find out.
I made it a few feet when I stumbled on her body. The girl lay lifeless at the water’s edge. Her little body swaying in the shallow waves. The light of the dying bonfire made her skin look like it glowed, sparkling with the water as it enveloped her.
I gulped down a sob. One little girl. How many more would there be before this night was through?
We moved on. Bundled in a tight grouping, eyes scanning in vain, the darkness so complete that even the moon didn’t penetrate. Someone’s hand was on my back, guiding me forward. I couldn’t tell if it was Billy or Wyatt. Only that it made me feel a little less vulnerable.
I didn’t like this.
The house loomed just ahead, illuminated by the eerie glow of one floodlight, the only one to have survived the battle with Ivana. We skirted it, unsure if there were vampires lingering, if any had hightailed it back to their den. Now was not the time to seek predators. Now was not the time to hunt.
When the trucks were in sight, we all ran for it. Call it instinct, or whatever. We’d done the fighting and now it was time for flight. I jumped into the passenger side, Billy at the wheel. Clive, Sam and Wyatt squeezed into the back.
The Dark War: The Dark War, Book 1 Page 17
