Mortal Sentry (Raina Kirkland Book 2)

by Diana Graves

  “You knew?” I asked. “You knew I would get them out of there?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t know for sure you could hold that many minds at once, or that the larvae wouldn’t intervene in their escape, but I hoped, and I planned for the best,” he said before he disappeared into the thick of the Olympic forest.

  I turned back toward the buses when I heard the engines start. Both buses were full and soon they’d be heading toward the closest hospital.

  A woman opened one of the windows. “Who are you?” she called out to me.

  “Raina,” I said. “Kirkland.” She smiled and thanked me. Had she felt me in her mind? Was my secret out? I worried about it only for a moment as I watched the buses drive away. But, my worries were interrupted by the sound of men shouting. I was nearly alone on the road. Only a few witches and a vampire were within my sight, and they were running toward the mound. I joined them. I was nearly there when I heard and felt the troll’s horn. It sounded like something wild and hungry as it sent shock waves through the air. The siege had started. When I reached the wood’s edge, I found some of the witches standing far from harm. They were praying a chant to the Goddess. I moved past them and watched in awe as humans, trolls, witches and other creatures were fighting the larvae that were spilling out of the mound. The vampires moved quicker than the eye could follow, filling the mound with rods and slabs of heavy iron with such ferocity, until the mound was covered in metal ready for the melting.

  During the planning of the attack, back at the Bastion, many argued for the use of their guns in this battle, but Cole advised against it. He said that they would only get a larva’s attention, iron bullets or no. The only way to kill a larva was to detach the head or do enough physical damage that their body was nothing but a gooey ruin. Instead of guns they were given iron swords, axes and maces.

  Damon was out there somewhere. I called out for him, but even if he were standing beside me I doubted he could have heard me. Between the roar of the troll’s horns, clashing metal and men dying, the sound of war was an overwhelming noise. Acting on pure impulse and adrenalin I joined the fray and soon found myself surrounded by tall warrior types, being jostled about like a sack of potatoes. I felt like a child in the middle of a particularly violent mosh-pit, except in this mosh-pit everyone had sharp pointy objects. Not cool.

  A vampire fell down dead at my feet. It looked as though something had taken a big bite out of her head; dark blood and gooey brain matter were spilled out over the green grass. Several men rushed in where the vampire had been standing, trampling her dead body into the ground. Everywhere I looked was a blur of violence, rage, fear and death. I didn’t really know what I was doing there. I had no weapon, no skill, just the desire to help, but what help could I be? I needed to get out of there, but that wasn’t going to be easy. The walls had closed in on me and they were made out of bodies and pain. I began running through the battle, dodging beasts and swinging swords all with the same lack-luster half-witted scurry. That I didn’t get myself trampled or worse was more than half luck, but luck never lasts.

  I found myself staring up at a larva. He wasn’t beautiful anymore. He was huge and angry when he came at me with his mouth open, full of hunger and rage. I backed away until I fell over a screaming man with a nasty stomach wound. I scrambled to my feet in time to watch him empty his gun into the things head. He filled the larva full of lead, for what good it did him or me. The larva was still coming for me, and the man was still dying a slow and painful death. Gun shots began to crack through the air from every direction. One shot rang louder than the others and a troll fell dead at my feet. Friendly fire, maybe. I looked down at his broken body in shock and the larva took advantage of those precious seconds. I felt his claws rip down my back, white hot pain! I fell to my knees with a scream, deafened by the sounds of war. The larva moved to finish me off, but I picked up the troll’s sword and turned and drove iron into his belly before he could take another step. He wasn’t dead. Not until a shadow came down on him and with a more impressive sword than my own, one that caught the light of the moon, Damon sliced his head off in one clean blow, like a hot knife through butter.

  I wiped the sweat off my face and smiled at him, but it didn’t last. Soon we found ourselves the target of another larva, and another. Each one took the both of us and other’s to take it down. The ground was littered with bodies, and the thick stench of blood and bile hung in the air, but the fighting was not done. The larvae were relentless. It seemed to take three or more of us to take down just one of them, but one of them could kill dozens of us!

  I fought back to back with a troll for a time, and I felt a measure of confidence knowing he was there. It was a mistake. I heard a grunt and turned to find him with a hole in his gut. The larva that did it smiled at me with blood and thicker things falling from his mouth. I brought my sword up, dodged his attempt at a bite, and swung it down on his neck with all my strength. I wasn’t as skilled at decapitating men as Damon and it took several downward chops at his neck to take his head off. Thankfully he stopped fighting after the fifth swing, and in the end I had to kick his head off his shoulders. As I stood in breathless triumph over the fallen larva I saw Alistair in the distance. He was lying on the ground, covered in blood. I ran to him. It was utter chaos, but I darted and lunged my ass through it all until my knees hit the ground hard at his side.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. Looking at the state of him, it was a stupid question. Besides being drenched in blood, his right arm had flesh lying loosely out of place, exposing muscle tissue and bone.

  “We need to burn the mound, melt the iron and stop anymore larvae from escaping. I don’t know where the other pyrokinetic vampires are.” He tried to sit up, but couldn’t. He growled in pain and frustration. I thought it was just his arm that was hurt, but his body was littered with cuts and stab wounds, and they weren’t healing either.

  “Why aren’t you healing?” I asked him.

  He ignored me. “Get to the mound and torch that damn thing. There’s more in there. Fairy mounds go deep, Raina. Torch it!”

  “I can’t burn it hot enough to melt iron by myself. That’s damn near three-thousand degrees.”

  “Raina!” Alistair screamed at me. “Go, set this place on fire!”

  “I’m not leaving you here like this!”

  He grabbed my shirt and brought me in close. “Killing off this infestation is more important than me. End this.” He let me go with force and I fell back.

  I stared at him for a moment. “No! I won’t leave you to die, and I can’t melt the iron without you. Arguing with me will only cost us time we don’t have to waste, so you’re coming with me!” I got up and pulled him into my arms. He didn’t fight me, and I half carried; half dragged him across the clearing. The fire wouldn’t kill the damned things, but it would melt the iron that covered their mound, and cage them in.

  “Raina!” Alistair yelled.

  I turned in time to lunge us out of the path of a sword wielding larva. With what little physical strength Alistair could muster, he placed himself on top of me, guarding me with his body.

  “I wasn’t finished with you, vampire king!” the thing called out.

  With Alistair’s weight on me I couldn’t defend us. I tried to push him off but he was dead weight. The larva smiled down at us and lifted his sword over his head for one massive downward thrust that might have cut through the both of us. Alistair braced himself for the impact, but instead of a sword through our bellies, the larva got a mace in the face. It stunned the thing, made him drop his weapon, but it didn’t kill him.

  “You sons of bitches are hard to kill!” Detective Fillips roared as she brought the mace down on his head a few more times to finish the job. When had EI arrived, and who called them? The leaders of the Olympic region voted against involving the authorities. She looked down at us, a warrior; our knight in bloody Kevlar. “Shouldn’t you two be setting this damned thing a blaze right about now? Goo
d people are dying.”

  I pushed at the wounded vampire on top of me. “Little help?”

  Between the two of us I was able to get back on my feet, and Fillips stuck around and watched our backs as we came within feet from the entrance of the mound. We were hidden from the larvae still pouring out to join the battle. I set Alistair down and I wished to Goddess that I had time to massage my aching muscles. It was the second time that day that I had to carry a heavy-ass vampire. I didn’t like to admit it, but I agreed with Gan. I needed more upper body strength.

  “Who called you?” I asked.

  “I received an anonymous call about two hours ago.”

  “I was wondering when you might show up,” Alistair mumbled. “Where’s the coast guard or army reserve?”

  “Not enough time to rally all the troops. You got me and all the cops I could collect.”

  His face was in a deep frown. He called the EI? He prepared the buses for the women and children? All of this was against the expressed wishes of the other leaders; the witches, trolls and vampires that ruled this region. Was their presence at the Bastion a mere formality?

  “What do you need me to do?” I asked Alistair.

  “Please tell me you know what the fuck you’re doing, Raina!” Fillips yelled.

  “I do. I’ve done it before.”

  “Fucking civilians,” she yelled in frustration.

  “Lie down,” he said, and even though I wanted to ask why, I couldn’t waste time. Time cost lives, and it so wasn’t worth the price. “You need to relax.” I almost rolled my eyes. I was lying in bloody grass, surrounded by gore and violence and he wanted me to relax? “Pull everyone out, Detective! This entire clearing is going up in flames!” he yelled over his shoulder.

  “I thought you could focus the flames,” she said. Apparently her questions were worth lives…

  “There’s just the two of us here, and I’m severely injured and Raina’s too new to focus well enough. The only way we’re going to get this hot enough to turn that mound into a solid iron crypt is wild fire. And, if the name didn’t hint it, wild fire is kind of unpredictable.”

  “But,” she began to protest, but Alistair cut her off. “Do you really want to stand there and ask me questions about pyrokinesis while our people are dying?! Is it worth their lives?!” he yelled.

  She didn’t respond to him. She yelled out, “FALL BACK!” over and over again, both out into the battle and into her walk-talky.

  Alistair looked down at me and smiled weakly. He let himself collapse at my side. “We’re lying down because when I call the wild fire it’s going to hurt like hell, bad enough that we’d end up on the ground anyway, so we might as well start there.” I nodded. I wanted to take deep breaths but I couldn’t. The whole place smelled like shit.

  He licked his lips. “These wounds were made with silver. I might not make it.” He looked at me with real fear in his eyes, and it was terribly out of character for him.

  I started crying, and I couldn’t stop. I was sure the tears were more a product of frayed nerves. It was this place, the death and pain. It was too much for a creature like me, a creature that could feel the pain of other’s more than most; deeper and more real. He brought his hand up to my face to wipe the tears away, and even that small movement hurt him. I moved closer to him and pressed my lips to his. I didn’t know why I did it, but he didn’t push me away. His lips were soft against mine, and I tasted blood. I broke from the kiss when an idea came to me.

  “If you drink my blood, could you heal the damage?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “Enough to survive?” He just stared at me with wide eyes. “If there’s a chance, no matter how small, we have to try.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, and it was barely audible. I leaned in closer, offering my neck. He closed his eyes and pressed his mouth against my skin. His teeth plunged in and it hardly hurt. Considering all my other injuries, sore muscles and adrenalin, two little puncture wounds at my neck were nothing.

  I looked out over the battle field while he fed. There was nothing but larvae standing tall as they hooted and hollered in triumph. They paid us no attention at all. We were just two more bodies on a ground fully blanketed with the dead and dying.

  He unattached himself from my neck and looked at me. “Ready?” he asked.

  I shook my head “No, but let’s do it.”

  He closed his eyes again and little by little my body began to feel warm, warm in an unnatural way, like I’d had too much to drink or the beginnings of a fever. I felt his body become hot, too hot to stand, just before blue flames peeked through his skin without burning it. They ate through his clothes with quick ease and jumped to me. While I felt the pain of the heat, my skin didn’t burn, only my clothes. I closed my eyes and focused only on not screaming, not drawling attention to what we were doing. The fire wouldn’t kill the larvae, at least not while it was in the hundreds. There was no telling what wild fire would do to them, there was no telling what wild fire would do, period.

  “Raina,” Alistair muttered between clenched teeth.

  “Yes.”

  “Let me in,” he said, and I began to say that I was letting him in, but he interrupted me. “More than this. Open yourself to me. It’s the only way.”

  For a moment I was confused. I didn’t know how to do what he asked. I was lying there, naked and breathed in flames. How much more open can a lady get? But, then I realized I was still holding something back. Physically I was very vulnerable, but mentally I was a fortress. After I’d put those people on the buses I closed up shop. I closed my mind, made it into a rigid thing, and even though vampires were usually immune to my talents in that area, I wasn’t entirely open, and he needed full unabashed access. I tore down the mental wall I’d put in place and I felt him inside me, filling me with his call. He wanted my fire, hot, wild and fierce. The flames grew in both size and temperature until the larvae could not help but notice the burning bodies. They just stared on as the white and blue flames became something more violent than anything I’d ever felt, but when the fire began to roar from us in vicious tidal waves they ran. I screamed until my voice gave out and there was nothing left of me.

  “Stop!” I yelled over the roar and crackle of the flames.

  “Hold on!” he said.

  He was beautiful lying there, his skin and eyes were glowing; his hair was dancing in the flames. I nestled in closer to him, and held him tight. The last thing I saw before I passed out from the pain was giant arching gold flames riding high atop the mound, melting the iron down, trapping those larva still inside in an eternal crypt.

  AFTERWARD

  I WOKE UP at Bastion’s VCC late Saturday morning covered in rapidly healing injuries that I didn’t remember getting. One injury, however, wasn’t healing as fast as the others. I had a deep cut running down the length of my back over my right shoulder. I vaguely remembered a larvae chasing me during the battle. I felt something rip down my back and I thought it was his claw, but it was a silver blade. I had itchy stitches to deal with for weeks afterward and an ugly scar that would take years to fade, if it ever did.

  Katie was released from Tacoma General earlier that same day and she and Fauna had movers take everything to our new home; Robert’s old home. It was the place where his family lived and loved…until Nanuet came to town. She destroyed his family to get to me, and now I was supposed to live there. Cole said that Robert was the man who smuggled the larvae into America, and that he killed a lot of people to do it, but that didn’t make me feel any better. His family was innocent. I felt horrible about it, but what could I do? It was Saturday and my time was up. Having a home of our own was part of Raphael’s deal.

  Damon decided to take me up on the offer to move in. I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure I wanted a romantic relationship with him just yet, but I knew for certain that having two parents under the same roof was the best thing for Thomas, and that I’d need assistance helping Katie deal with the death of he
r mother and Jed’s abuse. However, while my family was coming together in one area, it was falling to pieces in another. Tristan still hated me more than ever and Nick was still a marked suicidal vampire. I couldn’t do much about Tristan, but Alistair said Nascosto could help Nick. I never got to say my goodbyes, but that was probably for the best. From what Alistair said, Nick did not go willingly. They had to sedate him and place him in a box wrapped in silver to keep him contained until they got him out of the country.

  As much as it pained me to admit it, my mom was right. Because of what I was, I was a magnet for dangerous people and I needed to be taught how to defend myself. But after that whole business with Nick, Ruy refused. He wouldn’t turn me in for helping Nick, but I was sure that was more for my mom’s sake than mine. In any case, I was left teaching myself how to track and kill preternatural beings through the wonders of the worldwide internet and old rare books.

  Saving the women and children from the larvae may have given my conscience peace of mind, but it only added fuel to the fire as far as the mainstream media was concerned. The liberal’s loved me. I was the supernatural community’s darling and a hero. The conservatives hated me, though. I was a dangerous vigilantly, and an unlicensed killer. All this I only knew because Katie and Alicia got a kick out of telling me such things. I made a habit of avoiding the television and newspapers. I knew what happened and who I was. I didn’t need to hear it from talking heads or clever word-smiths. But I couldn’t avoid the number of calls, emails, and letters I received from people asking for my help. I declined each and every one of them for months until one came along that I could not turn down. In the small Washington town of Black Diamond, children were being kidnapped from their beds and their bodies were being strewn about the forest like Christmas tree tinsel. The city had contracted several hunters and all of them failed. It took almost no effort on my part to convince Damon to help me and even less to convince Detective Fillips to push my hunter’s licenses through. I was a bounty hunter and Black Diamond was going to be my first real gig.