by Sandy James
Lightning crackled through the darkening skies. “I came here to kill you.”
“What’s that got to do with the monk outfit?”
“You. I wear the robe because of you!” Helen threw the hood back.
Sarita swallowed a gasp. Helen’s thick blond hair was now gray, hanging from her head in thin snarls and dirty tangles, making her appear more bald than not. Her face was grotesque, the skin sallow and deeply wrinkled. She looked as though someone had begun mummifying her and never completed the process.
“You did this to me!” Helen’s shriek echoed through Avalon as thunder boomed to punctuate her words.
“How is your looking like—like—that my fault?”
A bolt of lightning struck Sarita’s cabin, setting it afire. The action revealed Helen’s greatest weakness—she had lashed out at Water’s old home.
She had no idea about the recent changes in Avalon.
Beagan and Dolan were surely protecting the children by now, all of the innocents tucked away safely in their room beneath the lodge. At least Helen was venting her anger on the old cabins and not the lodge where Ian and everyone else she loved waited for the right time to join the fray.
“You cursed me!” Helen screamed.
“I what?”
Another bolt of lightning, this time sizzling through the branches of one of the tallest trees in the woods surrounding the compound.
“Don’t play ignorant with me! When you stole Darian MacKay, you cursed me!”
Searching her memory from her last visit to the island, Sarita could only find her fears for Ian and her sisters. Then understanding dawned, and the words that had filled her head when her anger had run hot and deep came forward.
Your rancid soul hides behind a beautiful face. I wish the world to see you as you truly are.
Being a benandanta, her words had carried more weight than she’d expected—or hoped for. Helen’s face was a now a mirror to her soul.
Sarita smiled.
Helen slammed a bolt of lightning down against Gina’s old cabin. Two buildings were being consumed by fire.
A glimpse of Zach’s brown hair caught Sarita’s eye. He’d pulled close enough to try to bind Helen. Her sisters had to be in place too. How frustrating that their thoughts weren’t connected. Never expecting an attack inside Avalon, they hadn’t fetched their communication devices.
“Since you gifted me with this new face,” Helen sneered, “I have a gift for you as well.”
She kicked hard at the tapestry, rolling it forward. When it reached the ledge of the climbing tower, the rug opened and a body spilled out, crashing to the ground with a sickening thud.
The woman didn’t move. Long black and silver hair tangled around her face, which made it impossible to tell whether she was alive or dead, let alone who it was.
Sarita approached cautiously, her gaze on Helen. The body could be a revenant, but with her sword in her hand, Sarita would dispatch it with one swing. Helen, on the other hand, could do some major damage. Sarita needed to stay on guard.
The body wasn’t moving, so she swept the hair away from the face. “No. It’s not—” A strangled cry rose from her chest as she dropped her sword. “No!”
Her Aunt Kamala had been dead long enough that Sarita could do nothing to help her. There was no life in her open eyes, no sign of her spirit hovering nearby. Her face was frozen in a painful grimace, one that made Sarita vow to repay Helen with the same pain she’d caused Kamala.
Rage blinded her as power sizzled from her chest to her fingertips. Balls of fire formed against her palms and she shoved them at Helen with a wish that they consume her.
Just before they struck, Helen held up her wrinkled hands, absorbed them and laughed.
The laughter only enraged Sarita more. Channeling the fury, she threw a shockwave that made the logs of the climbing tower crack. Helen stumbled before regaining her feet.
The arrow came from Sarita’s left, and she held her breath in hopes Rebecca was as accurate as usual. But in the split second before it would have hit Helen’s chest, she grabbed it from midair, clenching it in a fist.
“Nice try.” Heaving it like a javelin, Helen launched the arrow at Rebecca, who stood just beside Water’s burning cabin.
Rebecca stepped back, barely avoiding the arrow.
“I have a gift for you as well, Rebecca,” Helen announced. She looked to the darkened sky and blinked.
From the clouds, a body fell, the sound of it hitting the ground turned Sarita’s stomach. She prayed whoever it was had already been dead as long as her Aunt Kamala, because healing someone after such a drop would sorely drain Sarita’s powers.
Slinging her bow over her shoulder, Rebecca ran to the body. The guttural cry meant she recognized the victim. She dropped to her knees, rolled the woman to face her and screamed. “Aunt Kay! No!”
“Damn you, Helen!” Sarita shouted.
“That you did! Just look at what you did to me! Look at my face!”
“Then come after me. These women did nothing to hurt you.”
“They mattered to you! They mattered to all of you!”
Two identical Zachs stepped from either side of the compound, palms raised to throw their tethers at Helen. Megan had done a stupendous job in her transformation—even Sarita couldn’t tell which one was the real Zach.
Tie her good and tight, Zach. Then I’ll kill her.
The rage flowed through Sarita, and she fought to hold it down. She wasn’t successful, especially when her gaze went to Rebecca and she saw the anguish in her sister’s eyes.
With a shudder, Rebecca stood, grabbed her bow and plucked an arrow from her quiver. She aimed it at Helen and shot at the same time both Zach and Megan grunted as though releasing their binding powers.
Things happened so quickly, Sarita had a hard time keeping up.
Helen grabbed the arrow mid-air and sent it hurling back at Rebecca. Before it could sink into her, the Sasquatch appeared and threw itself in the path of the arrow. It sank into the creature’s chest, and an unearthly howl filled the air.
With a swish of her hand, Helen sent one of the Zachs flying into the wall of the closest cabin. Hard. By the time Megan slid to the ground, she’d shifted back into herself.
The real Zach fared no better as Helen plucked at the invisible binds the way a puppeteer pulled strings, wrapping them around her wrist and jerking until Zach stumbled forward, trying to break the links. He collided headfirst with the climbing tower and went down. He wasn’t moving.
Gina hurried from her hiding place to crouch at her husband’s side.
Helen raised a hand to the clouds. “You mustn’t believe I forgot you, Gina.” A woman’s body fell close to Zach, no doubt the last of the “gifts”—Gina’s Aunt Carla.
With a shout, Gina sprang forward, her jump high enough to put her at Helen’s level, but she never got a foothold on the tower. Helen greeted her with a raised dagger that she sank into Gina’s stomach.
Sarita couldn’t even scream as she watched Gina fall to lie at her husband’s side.
“I’m going to kill you,” Sarita whispered, letting the hate build to a crescendo.
Helen must have heard her, because she said, “Not before I give you my final offering.”
“Megan’s Aunt Tasha is already dead, so you’re out of aunts.”
“Ah, but I have someone left who is as good—if not better—as a special punishment for you.”
The sing-song moan of revenants filled the air, their stench following right behind. A large group of zombies began lumbering from the woods.
Sarita’s heart plummeted to the ground when she saw the rotting corpse of Lalita. “Please...no.”
Lumbering along, the zombie snarled, snapping her teeth several times befo
re she fell into a stumbling walk.
Then Kamala reanimated. Watching her fall in step with Lalita made Sarita so nauseous, she feared she’d empty her stomach right then and there. Swallowing the bile rising in the back of her throat, she gripped her sword tighter as the last of the “aunts” stirred.
“Fuck you, Helen!” Sarita couldn’t catch her breath, her chest heaving as she let the hatred fill her soul.
The electricity crackled through her fingers and she blasted the shocks at Helen, catching her in the chest.
Helen stumbled back but didn’t fall.
Sarita channeled her wrath and hit her again.
This time Helen sank to her knees. But before Sarita could deal the death blow, Helen disappeared in a shimmer of light.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Damn it!” Hands clenched at her side, Sarita scrambled to think of a way to chase after Helen, to follow her celestial escape and hunt her down. To kill her. “I let her get away!”
The sounds of people running and shouting and the moans of the zombies drew her back to reality.
Avalon was in the middle of an invasion—and it was being led by four people who’d meant the world to the Amazons. The first revenant Sarita had to face was the woman who had made her childhood meaningful, the woman she loved—the mother of her heart.
Lalita.
Common sense told Sarita this body stumbling toward her—mouth open in the snarl and eyes glazed with death—wasn’t Lalita. This was nothing but a physical shell. Lalita had moved on to the afterlife. But the prospect of raising her weapon made Sarita’s stomach twist into agonizing knots.
Swallowing hard, she whispered, “I love you. Please forgive me.” Then she swung her sword and let out an agonized cry as she took Lalita’s head from her shoulder.
Ian’s shout echoed behind her, as did Artair’s. They threw themselves into the fight, striking down revenants as Sarita took a quick inventory of what needed to be done and how quickly she had to act. She pushed her worry for Ian aside when she saw how well he wielded his sword, lopping heads from shoulders with little effort.
Gina was her major concern. Helen had stabbed her, and Zach knelt at her siding holding pressure on the wound. Before Sarita could go to her, she had to hack her way through a throng of zombies, including her Aunt Kamala.
Kamala was beyond her help. Gina needed her now.
Cheeks wet with tears, Sarita faced Kamala as she had Lalita and did her distasteful job.
Ian took position at her back, and once Sarita reached Gina and Zach, he faced anything coming their way.
“Sarita,” Gina rasped. “I need to get into this fight. Fix this. Now.”
“Bossy pants. When I heal you, you’re gonna need to rest, so fight’s over for you.” Sarita tried to manage a reassuring smile, but it wouldn’t come. She swiped away her remaining tears and focused on the injury. Fingers wrapped around the dagger, she stared into Gina’s eyes. “This is gonna hurt.”
“Just do it.”
Yanking the dagger out, Sarita tossed it aside and held her hands over the wound now gushing fresh blood. Her hands didn’t immediately glow or warm with healing energy, so she took a couple of calming breaths, willing her power to work.
It wouldn’t.
“Your eyes,” Gina said, raising her bloody hand to rest on Sarita’s arm.
“Don’t talk. Save your strength.”
“It’s your eyes. Get rid of the anger.”
“What are you talking about?” Sarita demanded.
Zach was the one who answered. “Your eyes are black. You’re using Seior.”
Gina’s words echoed in her head. “Get rid of the anger.”
So much easier said than done.
Sarita tried again, interlacing her fingers as though she would perform CPR. “C’mon. C’mon, damn it.”
A hand settled on her shoulder. “Loving, let the hatred go. We’ll find Helen. I promise you—we’ll find her. Think about Gina, remember how much you love her.”
I love my sister.
Ian leaned down to brush a kiss over Sarita’s lips. “You’re a good woman, Sarita. Hate isn’t a part of you.”
I love you too, Ian.
Her hands suddenly flared white, and she blinked back grateful tears. Sealing the wound—one that could have easily taken Gina’s life—the energy flowed from her into her sister. Exhaustion followed closely behind as the injury knit closed. There was too much happening for her to surrender to the fatigue, no matter how much healing drained her.
Sarita cast a glance around at the chaos surrounding them. Artair, Rebecca and Johann fought the remaining revenants, but their numbers weren’t dwindling fast enough to bring the herd under control. Since Megan was nowhere to be seen, Sarita assumed she’d gone to watch over the children. The Sasquatch had morphed back into Beagan and Dolan—both changelings lay still on the grass.
Sure that Gina’s wound was healed, Sarita closed her hands into fists to stop the light, trying to curb her power so she’d have enough left to help the changelings. She stumbled to her feet, steadied by Ian’s strong grip.
“Go help the others,” she scolded and smacked at his hands. “I don’t need your help.”
When he let go, she fell on her ass, wondering when the bones in her legs had become rubber.
“Oh, aye. I can see you’re doing verra well on yer own.” He hauled her to her feet and swept her into his arms. “The little men need you.”
Sarita held tight to his neck as he ran to Beagan and Dolan. When Ian put her down, she fell to her knees, trying to figure out which one needed her more. Instead of choosing, she held one hand over the deep wounds in each changeling’s chest.
Nothing happened.
“No. No, damn it!” Shaking her hands out, she tried again, willing her love for Beagan and Dolan to bring her healing power to her hands. “You can’t die. You just can’t.”
Ian stood at her side. She looked up, her gaze meeting his. The small shake of his head made her want to throw up.
“No!” Rebecca screamed as she ran to Sarita’s side and fell to her knees. “Help them, Sarita!”
“I’m trying!”
“They saved my life,” Rebecca said, her voice falling to a harsh whisper. She kissed each of the changeling’s foreheads as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I need them.”
Nothing Sarita tried worked, which could only mean—
I’m too late.
Ian stroked her hair. “They’re gone, loving.”
She wasn’t giving up, not on Beagan and Dolan—the last of their kind and the most unselfish beings she’d ever known.
“Give me strength,” Sarita said, hoping the Ancients—especially Rhiannon, who loved the changelings—would hear and answer her plea. “Please.”
Joining her hands, she focused on Beagan, pouring every ounce of strength and power she had left into healing her friend.
But he was gone. As was Dolan.
With guttural shriek, Rebecca got to her feet and gripped her sword. Then with an agonized battle cry, she charged at the revenants that had moved closer.
Sarita took a shuddering breath and dropped to her side like a fallen tree. She couldn’t summon the energy to stop her tumble.
Like it or not, she was out of this fight.
* * *
Ian knelt next to Sarita and smoothed her white hair—the color it had turned when she’d healed Gina—from her face. Her breath was deep and labored, and while he feared for her, there was little he could do. The battle raged, and Rebecca was out of control, attacking anything close to her with fury born of her pain. Artair had moved to protect his wife’s back, but that had left his own exposed.
“You’re safe here,” he said.
Gina struggl
ed to stand. She might not be entirely healed, but she was steady on her feet and held her weapon without trembling. Her cheeks were also wet with tears, although her expression was stoic. “I’ll watch her.”
He nodded his thanks.
Leaving Sarita, Ian charged a zombie that was poised to take a chunk out of Artair’s shoulder. A kick to the back of the knees dropped the creature to the ground, and Ian split the dead man’s skull just as Artair whirled around with wide eyes.
“I owe ye one,” Artair announced as moved to protect his wife.
“Nay,” Ian softly replied. “Now we are even.”
The stream of revenants pouring from the woods seemed never ending, and Ian despaired at the slim chance of victory. But he dug in, figuring dying a fourth time would be sadder than those times before because he’d be giving up this life when he’d finally found something worth living for.
A loud pop sounded in the center of the courtyard, followed by an unusual comment.
“Avalon is a foul mess,” Freyjr said, stepping over a couple of headless corpses. He stared at the burning cabins. “You humans should care better for the gifts you are given.”
“Freyjr!” Rebecca shouted back at the god. “Do something!”
“I am doing something, dear Rebecca,” Freyjr replied. “I have brought assistance in your fight. I have brought two of your brothers to lend you aid—Richard and Jory wished to join you.”
Two more pops were followed by the shouts of two new men trying to make sense of the disorder surrounding them.
“Dick! I’m actually glad to see you!” Zach stumbled to his feet, looking pale and shaky from the hard hit he’d taken to his head. He pointed at the revenants as he grabbed his sword. “Go get ‘em! I’m right behind you.”
“It’s Richard,” the man replied through gritted teeth. “And you don’t look like you could fight anything bigger than a squirrel. Keep an eye on Gina and Sarita.” He ran toward the zombies, swinging his sword.
