Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters)

by Rebecca K. Lilley

  “Make that showy axe useful, girl,” Christian said as we approached a still intact section of fencing. He had Dragonsbane bare in his hand, and it was growing as I watched. He held it in one hand, but it grew massive in seconds, glowing like blue fire. It was impressive. He used both hands to bring it down on the fence.

  I shook myself, drawing my axe. It wasn’t like me to get distracted so easily when there were things to kill. My familiar axe was heavy but well balanced in my hands. The double edged metal of the blade was shinning in the moonlight. It sang in my hands as I swung it at the fence. Christian was using his sword to carefully cut the links on the fence, but I hacked at it with gusto. It was just how I fought. I was controlled, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at me. I had cleaved the fence in front of me nearly to the ground with the force of my blow. I swung again, loving the feel of the axe even when it was still only a fence that I attacked. I couldn’t wait to kill things that bled.

  Christian’s line of fence fell just moments after mine. We had cut it from top to bottom, so it fell forward with nothing left to support it. Druids around us were trying similar techniques to reach the action faster, but ours had been the most effective. Several druids saw our success, rushing in directly behind us. You might have thought we were leading a group of them, if you didn’t know a thing about druids and their disdain for other races. Oh, yeah, and that every last one of them hated my ass with an enduring passion.

  I saw that we were maybe forty yards from where Dom was fighting, but it was close enough to get instant attention from the writhing mass of necros. A section of them broke off, rushing right at us like the rabid flesh-eaters they were. Christian got into a familiar stance, readying to fight at my back. We both needed space to fight, using such long handled weapons, but we had fought side by side too many times to count, so we positioned ourselves naturally. We waited for a wave of them to hit us, the druids behind us passing us with a few scathing comments about getting our asses into the fight. They were on us in seconds either way.

  My battle-axe sang as I swung it high, bringing it down on the first unlucky undead to get within my reach. It’s skin was graying, it’s eyes blood red. It looked like a walking corpse that had been through hell. And that about summed up the life of a necro. They were dead humans who just refused to recognize the fact, feeding on other humans just to buy themselves a little time. It’s head went splat, and I sliced him in half in an almost smooth motion, the noise wet and loud even amidst the loud sounds of battle. Necros were squishy. They were diseased and decaying, rotting from the inside out. They had to feast constantly on human flesh to keep from rotting until they had fallen to pieces. This group seemed particularly squishy, I noted, as I swung hard, decapitating a second monster in a flash.

  The trick to fighting with a big-ass weapon in the crowded battleground was to turn every strike into the next attack. I didn’t draw back to hack at the enemy, but just kept pushing, hacking through one undead body, and into the next. It was an effective tactic, considering my strength and my huge weapon, though the technique wouldn’t have worked for many.

  Something bit my back, and I screamed, more in anger than pain. I turned, blade sweeping at everything in reach, but the necro was already down, Christian’s sword being drawn from it’s body.

  I gave him a nod, then turned back to the chaos. In a blurringly fast movement, I raised the axe above my head, cleaving it down into the thick swarm of Necros. I began to turn my body with the motion, chopping into flesh as I spun. I had never been swarmed by so many before. It was both terrifying and exhilarating. We would take heavy losses in this crush of a battle, but on the other hand, I didn’t need to hold back. I could just let go, becoming the dangerous thing that I was born to be. I let my body and mind go into the trancelike state that lived for battle. I was a berserker, and this was my rage. Things would bleed, and I would glory in it.

  Some of the necros held weapons, knives and machetes, or something similar, mostly. But they were a largely untrained fighting force, teeth snapping and arms swinging wildly as I cut down one after another, or even several at a time. A few held guns, but that was uncommon. Guns were just harder to come by, and Necro’s didn’t have a long lifespan, thanks to the druids.

  I wasn’t a dancer, except for in battle. Here, I danced, spinning and lunging, swinging and slashing. I even had a song in my head, and I moved to the beat as I killed, and killed.

  We had cleared a break in the mob when I paused to take a breath. “Fuck, you’re scary,” Christian said behind me, his voice quiet. “Let’s stay friends, k?”

  It broke me a little out of my trance, and I laughed, a rich sound.

  I saw Dom maybe thirty yards away. He too, had cleared the first wave, and paused to appraise the carnage. I caught his glance for one endless moment. The look he gave me was…enigmatic. It was hard to say what he meant to tell me with his intense regard. I did learn one thing with that shared look. He still loved to watch me fight.

  We moved towards the compound’s spartan buildings, taking the fight into smaller spaces. The force had to split up to accommodate the change.

  Christian and I found ourselves leading a small group of non-druid Others. I’m not sure how it happened, but we took the new company in stride, breaking away from the main wave of druid fighters. Druids were an extremely exclusive group, so it wasn’t really a surprise that the leftover Others had banded together.

  Christian had a small arsenal of explosives that he was way too excited to use, so our first order of business was to scout from house to house, basically blowing shit up. It was a simple plan. Christian threw the explosive in the door, and I lit it midair. The rest of our group helped us finish off whatever ran screaming out of the building. As far as demo-ing the whole necro settlement went, our plan worked well. We were doing more than our share of destruction. Oh, and as another plus, it gave Christian his blow-up-shit fix for awhile. Win, win.

  I swung my two-handed battle-axe in a circle, beheading two escaping necros at once. Yeah, I was showing off. Or rather, showing up Christian. He just gave me a disgruntled look. “Quit hogging,” he muttered, sending an explosive shotgun round into a running Necro as he spoke. It’s head exploded, spraying black liquid everywhere.

  I sent Christian a warning look. “Don’t even think about shooting one of those bullets anywhere near me. Those things are a mess. I don’t want any Necro gunk on me.”

  He snorted, eyeing me up and down. “You are already covered, you prissy b-”

  “Show a little respect,” one of the non-druid Others who’d been following us, spoke. “These things used to be human.”

  I turned my head slowly toward the new voice, glaring.

  “Uh-oh,” Christian said in a loud whisper when he saw the look on my face.

  “Respect? Have you fought these things before?” I asked the man, speaking slowly.

  He was a small man with thick black glasses. His nearly gray hair put him past forty. He looked more than a little out of his element in his armored vest, carrying his handgun awkwardly. He glared right back at me, answering. “No, but anything that once had a soul should be shown respect on it’s passing.”

  I raised my brows at him. “Is that so? Well, Mr.?”

  “Allen.”

  “Well, Allen, any soul these things possessed left them a long time ago. Me and Christian here have had more than a modest number of encounters with the necros. It’s been a few years since I’ve been on a necro raid, but let me tell you a little story about the last one we went on. It was at an orphanage the necros had ravaged in the middle of the night. They drank from the bodies of over sixty children. Killed all of the little ones in their beds. Not one of them rose from the dead. Not one. Do you know why that is, Allen?”

  He swallowed hard. He looked a little sick as he shook his head.

  “Because children don’t turn. In fact, many who’re bitten never turn. You have to make a choice to take another’s life to survive. An
d the taking of that blood creates another talking zombie. If you never feed, you never turn, you just die. The action that makes them a necro is murder, and most, given the choice, choose to abstain. So I don’t feel too guilty about not showing proper respect to the ones that choose to spread disease and death wherever they go. You wanna show respect, you take the safety off of that thing and take out some of the monsters that demolished an entire human city just weeks ago.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Death Spell

  “Watch this,” I told Christian as a growling necro came rushing from the building we’d just blown up. As he got closer, I stomped my left foot hard on the ground. A five inch blade switched out of the front of my navy running shoe. I kicked my foot straight up in the air, catching the creature dead-on with my blade in the bottom of his chin. I pushed forward hard with my right foot, taking him to the ground, his wind-pipe collapsing on impact. I pulled the blade out quickly, swiping my foot sideways and taking his head, just to be safe.

  I clicked the blade back into place as I turned back to Christian. He grinned, nodding in approval. I grinned back.

  “Badass,” one of the Other soldiers muttered.

  “Those look like your normal shoes. You wear that thing all the time?” Christian asked, bending down to get a closer look.

  “Naw, it’s a little trigger happy. I save these for special occasions. Having a blade pop out of my shoe in the middle of grocery shopping isn’t my idea of a good time.”

  Christian laughed. “You get these from Caleb?”

  I nodded.

  “He’s so getting me a pair.”

  I shrugged. “If you want to owe him a favor-” I stopped, going completely still.

  I heard it again, the faintest voice calling out, “Help.” It was somehow separate from the sounds of battle, as though the voice was echoing from inside some small, quiet space.

  I looked around at the crowd of soldiers. “Anyone hear that?” Several of them, including Christian, looked at me strangely.

  “Hear what?” he asked.

  I held up a finger for silence again. No one moved. “Hurry!” the voice prompted. It was more clear this time.

  “No one heard that voice?” I asked them, glaring.

  Several of them shook their heads at me.

  “How can you guys not hear that?”

  “They’re killing Dom!” the voice yelled this time, and the words got me moving.

  “Follow me, you deaf bastards,” I told them as I broke into a run. I made a beeline through the compound, toward the loudest sounds of fighting. I knew Dom would be at the center of the battle.

  I stopped when we came in sight of the fighting. We were on a grassy incline overlooking the carnage, and I searched frantically for Dom.

  “They’re right in front of you! They’re casting his death spell!” the voice yelled, and I looked around, confused.

  “Where are you?” I screamed at the voice.

  “Don’t look for me, look for them. They’ve formed a circle. Find the circle!”

  “Jillian, what’s up?” Christian asked me carefully. I didn’t address the fact that it was his, ‘I’m dealing with a crazy woman,’ careful tone. There wasn’t time.

  “Everyone look for some kind of circle. It’s close, I think. Just cover every inch of this clearing.” Everyone started looking carefully at the grass. In the near-dark of the clearing, it was almost impossible to make out anything on the ground, so all of the soldiers without nocturnal vision quickly broke out flashlights.

  As I searched, my attention was drawn to the battle below us. Piercing animal screams filled the night as my gaze finally found Dom. He was in the middle of it all, of course, the light from a street lamp falling directly onto him as he ripped out a necro’s throat with his teeth. It was clear the druids well known bloodlust had a firm grip on him. I was staring at him, fascinated, when I saw it.

  It was just a break in the air that caught my notice at first. The voice had been right. It was literally right in front of me. I took deep breaths as I studied it, preparing for the pain I would feel upon breaking a powerful ward.

  I began to chant as I walked towards the circle determinedly. I stopped when my shoe touched a strange spot in the grass. The wind wasn’t strong, just strong enough to sway the grass gently. Or some of it, anyway. Where the grass stayed still was where I focused. “Christian,” I said softly. He appeared at my shoulder.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I need you to swing Dragonsbane at the ground exactly when I say. Ok?”

  He looked at me like I was crazy, but nodded slowly. He clutched the ancient sword in his hands, waiting for me.

  I pointed at the spot in the grass. “Watch that spot carefully. Swing with all your strength the instant I say ‘break.’”

  I began chanting again, holding my palms out to the circle. It was no comfort to stand empty-handed before such a circle, but a necessary evil. “Prepare yourselves to fight,” I told the soldiers who’d come to gather around us.

  I felt the spot weakening. “Break,” I screamed with every fiber of my being. Christian swung.

  It was like shattering glass as the circle broke. Within lay a large gathering of necros. They formed a circle, their King kneeling at it’s center. I identified him by the crown on his head. He held an unconscious druid in his arms, cutting deep symbols into the skin of it’s wrists. I didn’t recognize the druid it held at first, he was covered in so much blood.

  The necro King snarled at me, ordering his minions. “Kill them. We still have time to remake the circle.”

  The necros rushed our small group, and we met them head-on. I ran straight for their king. He stood, roaring at me, “You wish to die?”

  I pulled the huge axe from my back, hacking it down at him with one fluid motion. His own blade met mine, the druid tumbling from his arms. My eyes swung down to the unconscious man, and I sucked in a sharp gasp. It was Collin, and if he was breathing, I couldn’t see it.

  I sent a bolt of red fire straight into the air. It was a make-shift warning flare, accompanied by my scream, “Dom!”

  I couldn’t tell at first if it worked, occupied as I was with the necro King. I hacked at him relentlessly, cursing him every time our weapons clashed. Finally I sent him sprawling. I wasted no time, sending a wave of flames crashing into him. He screamed, rolling away, frantically beating out the flames.

  He flew at me, sharpened teeth sinking into my neck. “That doesn’t work on me, you zombie bastard,” I muttered, ripping him off my neck. I threw him hard across the clearing.

  He rolled to a stop and lay still, but his eyes were open wide. “What are you?” His discordant voice filled my ears.

  I approached his still body, my foot stepping hard on his neck. “Haven’t you ever watched a zombie movie? You guys aren’t supposed to speak. So shut the fuck up.” I punctuated this with a hard stomp of my heal to his throat.

  I took a quick glance around at the rest of the fight. More necro bodies littered the ground than not, but it still looked grim.

  I looked west at the sound of approaching howls. Dom and crew were bearing down on us at full speed. I braced myself for the onslaught.

  The rest of the circle’s necros perished with one viscous wave of fighting.

  Cam reached his brother first, frantically feeling for the pulse in his neck. He was nude, obviously newly changed from beast form. I got way more of a show than I wanted as he sprinted to his fallen brother’s side.

  “He lives,” Cam finally spoke. Dom loomed over his shoulder. Their eyes turned to me. “Why was he carving these symbols into his arms?” Cam asked me. His tone was cold. He didn’t seem to properly understand that I had just saved both his brother and his Arch.

  “He,” I indicated the necro I spoke of by bouncing my heal on his neck, “was using him to cast some sort of death spell against your Arch. I’m not familiar with his magic. Don’t ask me to interpret those symbols.” My
tone was just as cold. “They were practicing their magic within a very powerful circle. It was almost completely invisible. I wasn’t even aware that necros could do this kind of magic.”

  Dom looked grim. “That’s because it’s druid magic. Apparently the necros have been learning a few things.”

  I tapped the neck beneath my foot again. “Want this one for questioning? Or should I finish him?”

  “We’ll take him.” At his words, the unconscious necro was bound, bagged, and dragged away. I tried to be subtle as I knelt down and quickly grabbed his fallen crown, clipping it to my belt. I had a slight problem with hoarding treasure. So what? Name me a dragon who didn’t.

  I looked back at the two brothers, healers now descending on the unconscious one. Cam met my eyes. “How did you know about the circle if it wasn’t visible?” His voice held accusation.

  I looked at him coldly. Leave it to Cam to turn it around on me. He’d always been an asshole like that. “There was a voice calling for help, actually. It was loud enough that I caught the sound from across camp.”

  “Collin’s voice?” Dom asked.

  “No.”

  “Whose voice was it, then?” Cam asked, standing.

  “I have no idea. It sounded like a child. A little boy, maybe.” My tone was flat.

  Cam looked back at the soldiers who’d accompanied me. His gaze settled on Christian. “Did anyone else hear this voice?”

  They all answered with a no. Christian glared at Cam. “So she has better hearing than the rest of us. What are you getting at?”

  Cam looked at Dom, jaw clenched, eyes defiant. “I ask that she be taken in for questioning. You know how hard these circles are to detect. It makes no sense that she could find and break one. I charge that she was involved in this plot.”

  Dom stared back at him for long moments. I saw that familiar tick in his jaw. “This woman just saved your brother and your Arch from possible death. You can guess very well what he was doing with those marks on Collin’s arms. Your reaction is to accuse her of a crime? Your hatred blinds you-”