“There’s a good chance this isn’t going to start.” Wyatt grunted. “If the computer is fried.”
“Cross your fingers,” Billy turned the ignition.
It started without a problem. We all let out long sighs.
Billy pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the city.
“Maybe you should turn those lights out, big guy,” Wyatt leaned forward, his face suddenly right behind my seat. “You’re flashing a beacon for whoever is out there right now.”
Billy nodded, flicked the lights off, then looked briefly in the rearview, grunting approval when the rest of the team did the same.
“So what are we talking about here? Power outage?” Clive asked.
“Yep, I think so. Solar flare must have packed more of a punch than anyone was expecting,” Wyatt sat back. “Question is, how bad? Are we talking a short that can be fixed quickly or is this something worse?”
“And how organized are the Strix?” I looked at Billy. “No cell signal either.”
Wyatt cursed, then pulled his phone from his pocket. “Okay, that’s a bad sign.”
“Like what the doomsday preppers have been talking about,” Sam said.
With the exception of Billy, we all turned to look at her.
She shrugged. “What? I watched a news special the other day. These people, doomsday preppers, they were convinced this solar flare, they called it an electromagnetic storm, would cause major problems. Like apocalyptic problems. They were all getting stocked up, weapons, generators, building underground shelters.”
“They can’t have known about the vampires.” Not the vampires, no, but they’d known that some kind of danger could happen. Humans preparing for a future without power or modern day conveniences while the rest of us discounted them as insane and paranoid. Humans who didn’t have the ability to see into the future were ready for this and here we were lost in the darkness. No plan.
What fools we had been.
“No, they wouldn’t have guessed that. But they’re more prepared than the rest of us. Probably will figure things out faster too.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think this—” I waved my hand in front of us “—is because of the flare, not directly anyway.”
Billy glanced at me, his eyes narrowed. “What happened?”
“I felt a pulse of magic. Many, and I mean hundreds of signatures all tangled together, riding at the tail end of that flare.”
“You think there were witches involved?” Wyatt pushed forward again, grunting when Sam elbowed him back into his seat.
“I don’t know what to think.” I sighed as I rubbed my forehead. “I felt magic, possibly elemental, some of it strong and it bolstered the light show for half a minute, no more. I don’t know for sure if it caused this damage but my gut is saying to take a closer look.”
“Trust your gut, Kali,” Billy said. “From what I know about it, it’s usually right.”
“Let’s just go with what we know, or what we think we know. We have armed humans, vampires with an agenda, possibly witches as well, some master in control of it all,” I said.
We’d killed Ivana and it hadn’t stopped shit from happening. That meant there had to be another woman controlling things, if we were to believe my mother’s prediction.
“We don’t know how bad it is,” Billy said as he eased the truck down a side street, taking the non-direct route into the city.
“Worst case, we’ve lost everything. No radio, no phones, no satellite, no electricity. That’s what they were saying on that show anyway,” Sam said.
“But not the cars?” I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“And there was the flood light at the beach house,” Sam added, her voice rising with excitement.
“And down the beach.” Clive grunted. “I could see the boardwalk lit up in the distance.”
“But not the city. The city is dark.” My mind was reeling, leaping from one possibility to the next. “Depending on the location of the witch and the strength of their casting, maybe the attempt to bolster the effect of the flare wasn’t totally successful. Maybe they were attempting to knock out the areas that would cause the most disruption. We killed Ivana. Maybe she was positioned to bolster at the beach but because she wasn’t there to do it, the impact of the solar flare was nil.”
“It would explain why the cars started,” Billy said.
“The Dark War. It makes sense now,” Wyatt tapped the window with the hilt of his sword. “I think your theory has merit, Kali, but for the time being we should be prepared that this is the worst case scenario and go from there.”
We all fell silent as we entered the city. The city demanded it. Silence. Everything was dark on the first few streets we passed. Nothing looked devious. Or unusual. Just a neighborhood with a power outage. No street lights shone. No one was out. At least not from what I could see in the darkness.
As we moved closer to city center, we could see that a few buildings had lights, generators running possibly, or maybe unaffected by the bolstering spell.
A police cruiser pulled out from another street, driving with its lights on but no siren blaring. It moved cautiously, like us.
“Maybe we should flag him down, find out what the damage is?” Billy suggested. He slowed our speed even more. He rolled down his window and waved the rest of the trucks ahead, to continue down the street toward headquarters. Billy turned on the street to meet the cruiser.
The cop was headed our way. Billy stopped in the middle of the intersection. There were cars parked on either side, neatly lined up. No drivers inside. The police cruiser was merely a hundred feet away, if that. One minute it was there—the next it was a ball of flame rocketing into the air. The car landed with a crash on its hood close to us.
“Holy shit!” I rolled down my window and a swell of magic enveloped me. “That was a power blast!” A witch’s doing.
And then the swarm came out.
“Back up, back up, back up!”
“Hit the gas, Billy! Hit the fucking gas!”
There were hundreds of them. Fangs and fur and flesh. They pulled the officers from the overturned car, through the broken windows. The humans had no chance.
Billy floored it, sending us all groping to hang on as he squealed away in reverse.
“Did you all see that?” Wyatt asked.
“They’re working together.”
Oh fuck. That was what was going on. Vampires and witches were bad enough, but a coalition of supernatural creatures. Fuck.
“Um, guys…” Sam pushed forward, her tiny body squeezing between the seats, finger pointed in front. “I think they saw us.”
A smaller swarm had broken from the big group and was coming our way.
“Oh shit,” I groaned. “This is not good.”
It took two seconds for the vamps and weres to catch up, but the witches weren’t far behind. One of them jumped on the truck’s roof, despite Billy’s attempt to pedal the metal us out of there.
“We are so fucked,” Wyatt popped open his door.
Billy slammed on the brakes.
“What are you doing?” I screamed.
“I’m not dying in this steel coffin,” Wyatt barked then slid out, sword at the ready.
Sam tumbled out after him. Her magic pulsing.
I made to follow when a long furry arm reached through my window and locked onto my throat, cutting my air supply with nails digging into my flesh. I’d forgotten about the bastard on the roof.
Everyone was out of the truck, including Billy. I struggled against my seatbelt, trying to reach a knife, my gun, something. The werewolf tugged on my throat, ripping my skin in the process, attempting to pull me out the window. I moved with him, my lungs screaming for air, my flesh tearing.
It hurt. Oh god, it hurt. The top half of my body w
as wedged between the seatbelt and the opening of the window, but the were continued to tug, grunting loudly in annoyance. I could hear and sense the fighting happening, chaos in screams, metal on metal, groans all around me, everyone too preoccupied to notice. My eyesight flickered and I looked up, hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars before I died.
What I saw were the disgusting red eyes of a beast. Distorted by its wolf-human transformation, it was the epitome of monstrous. Huge, hairy, its muzzle dripping foul smelling saliva, fangs bared in a cruel smile. It released my neck slightly, giving me a breath of air.
“Mmmm…pretty,” it garbled, sending a wash of fetid breath my way.
I choked, sputtering through my pain. With a swipe of a claw the seatbelt fell away and I was out of the truck and on the roof, wrapped in a tight embrace of a monster.
It stood at least seven feet tall, holding me up high enough that my feet hit its legs. I tried to kick, but the beast squeezed my ribs and put a stop to that.
“Gonna fuck you, pretty,” it growled in my ear. “Then eat you.”
No, I’m gonna fuck you. My power swelled. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!
I pushed it out, jolting a spark of magic through my body. The beast grunted again. It stumbled back, its arms falling loose.
I pulled my gun out, put it to the beast’s gut and fired. With wide eyes full of surprise, it took a staggering step back again, then disappeared off the side of the truck.
I sucked in breath after breath as I turned in a circle, surveying what lay around me. Everyone was engaged in battle.
We were losing.
I looked toward the cruiser to see the swarm had lost interest there, and was noticing us.
I raised my hands, muttered the only incantation I knew that could protect us. The bubble started with me, covering my body with a mist like shield. I’d never used it to protect others, knew it was a weak spell at best, working only for a few moments, if that. I pushed it out, expanding it beyond my body. Maybe, just maybe I could give my team the upper hand for a moment, turn the tide. Let us get away.
I continued to chant, pushing, pushing, pushing…until the bubble was pulled so taut, almost reaching the bottom of the truck but not wide enough to envelop the team. I pushed again and it snapped. Popping like a balloon.
Fuck.
Wyatt looked up at me then, catching my eyes, he pulled his sword from the body of another were. He frowned, shook his head. I knew what he meant. We were done. There was no way out.
I opened my mouth to yell something. What to say though when you know it’ll be your last words to someone?
Before I got a chance, a flash of light blasted me from the side, the force of the magic taking me off the truck. It was by sheer luck that I didn’t land on Wyatt’s sword as I tumbled on top of him.
“What the fuck was that?” he shouted into my ringing ears.
I felt another wave building and covered his head, melding our bodies together as magic blasted next to us.
Another assault.
Seconds passed, a hand grabbed my arm, pulled me up.
“Billy?”
His face was covered in blood, a deep gash on his head. He pushed me toward the door of the truck. Held out a hand for Wyatt to grab.
Confused, I squinted into the darkness around us. “They’re gone!”
Billy nodded. “Someone just saved our asses.”
Someone powerful and clearly not on the side of the Strix.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Don’t ask me how we made it back to headquarters. I can only commend Billy on his quick thinking and controlled driving. The streets we passed were littered with bodies. Small gangs of movement happening all over the place, no way of telling whether they were friend or foe.
From the outside, the Union headquarters looked dead too. No lights visible. No movement. Windows, which were always barred, allowed no one to see inside. A safe haven. For now.
The garage door opened when we approached. The only outward evidence that a generator was at work. Clearly someone was watching, though, for all the appearance of being deserted.
Once inside, the door closing behind us, we all stumbled out. Covered in gore, reeking of blood and guts and whatever else. We surveyed each other. No fatal wounds. No missing limbs. No one dead.
“That was close.” Clive tried to wipe the blood from his eyes, only managing to smear it more.
“We need to figure out what the fuck is going on. I need to regroup the teams, restock the weapons, then head back out there.” Billy walked to the back of the garage and snagged a clean cloth from a shelf, then dabbed his forehead with a wince. “There are a lot of humans dying.”
“We don’t know who we’re fighting,” I said. “You’ve got supernaturals attacking humans, others defending them. How will you know who to go after?”
“If I see fang, fur or otherwise, I’m gonna shoot first, ask questions later.” Billy tossed the cloth in a garbage bin.
Wyatt tensed. “You can’t be fucking serious! A witch just saved our asses out there! You can’t just kill indiscriminately!”
“It’s my job to protect humans. If I see a human in need of protecting, then damn right I’m gonna take the shot. You got a problem with that you can stay behind.”
Wyatt made a move toward Billy. “Until we know more, we should be staying here. You’ll all be killed out there. You saw what happened to those cops! We need to wait and see what the human military is going to do.”
“The military are organizing to be sure, but they don’t know what they’re up against. We do. We need to get out there and help.”
“That’s an idiotic decision! Your union members must be suicidal to follow you out there!” Wyatt sneered.
“I’m going back out there. I need to find my clients.” My voice wavered.
“Are you fucking nuts?” Wyatt growled. He abruptly turned toward me, yanking my arm until I faced him. “We almost died out there, and what? You want to collect your pay?”
I pulled my arm back, then drilled him in the face, knocking his head to the side. It hurt, fuck it hurt, but it was so worth it. “No, you asshole. I need to tell them that their daughter has been avenged.”
“They’re probably dead, Kali,” Billy said quietly. He touched my other arm, all the venom he was spewing a second ago gone.
Wyatt rubbed his jaw while he contemplated me. No anger at being struck. Just watching.
“I promised them.” I walked to the door, opened it. “I don’t care if I go it alone, but I’m going to deliver the news.”
* * * * *
Billy showed Wyatt and me to the barracks. It was basically a long room with lines of cot-like beds, maybe twenty or more, all white sheets and pillows. Very military looking. The floors were polished concrete, shiny and clean. There was a row of metal cupboards to the immediate right of the door. I assumed a bathroom was at the other end, where another metal door was closed.
“There are clean clothes in the cupboards. Towels and toiletries in the bathroom. Get yourself cleaned up. Lie down for a few if you need to. We’ll meet…” He looked down at his watch and frowned. “Fuck, I’m gonna need a wind up watch when the battery dies on this one.”
I frowned. “What?”
Billy shook his head, smiled at me. “Never mind. We’ll meet in a few hours. I’ll send someone to get you.”
“What are you going to do?” I motioned to his wound “You need to get some stitches in there.”
I wasn’t about to ask Wyatt for another favor, to heal Billy. I wasn’t going to ask Wyatt for anything ever again.
“I’ve got to brief the rest of the members. See if there’s any way we can communicate with the other factions.” He touched my cheek. “Clean up, get some rest. Don’t worry about me.”
Wyatt pushed past us with a grunt, effectively sh
oving Billy’s hand away.
Subtle much. Ugh.
Billy smiled, winked, then left.
“You’re such a fucking bastard,” I spat as I turned toward him.
He didn’t bother turning, continued to open the cupboards in search of clothes or whatever. “I’m a bastard, eh?”
“You took my kill.” Ivana had been mine. My revenge. He’d denied me that.
“Are we seriously back to that?” He turned then, his eyes flashing with anger, a piece of clothing clenched in his fist. “I did what I had to do. I saved your ass.”
“Saved my ass?” I yelled. “I had it under control. I was ready to take the shot.”
“With what? Your skilled magic casting? I couldn’t take that chance. She was in my sights, I had her. I took the opportunity.” He turned back to the cupboard. “The least you can say is thank you.”
“What did you just say?” I launched at him, my fingers flashing with sparks, anger fuelling me forward.
He turned, grabbed my wrists, flinched as my magic jolted him. “Pull your claws back, kitty.” He spun me so my back was against his chest, arms crossed in front of me. Locked in place.
“Let me go!”
“You are mine,” he growled against my ear. “Mine.”
I froze. Mine. Possession in a word. The force of that word making me shiver.
“You don’t want me, Wyatt. Not really,” I whispered.
“Are you fucking nuts, Kali?” He nipped my neck. An angry touch that made me wet. “You’re the only one I want. You and I, we’re meant to be together, no matter how hard we push each other away.”
I heard the truth in his words. I felt it. “No,” I denied. I couldn’t give in. Not after so many years of anger. Not after what he’d done. No. He was toying with me again.
He gripped my wrists in one hand, the other cupping a breast. “You’re my soul mate, Kali. Always have been. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are mine and I am yours and that will forever be the truth.”
* * * * *
We ended up in the shower together. The giant, five man shower that was obviously not meant for co-ed. The walls were tiled stark white, cracked in places, showing some age. Same with the floors, a bit of a dip happening close to the drain. But the water was hot, the soap plentiful.
The Dark War: The Dark War, Book 1 Page 18
