A Ra'Ak's appearance behind the kapirus was so much worse.
* * *
Half my claws were sheared away as I slashed at Xavier first.
Someone—or something—had placed a shield about him strong enough to destroy a vampire's claws.
Mine were strong enough to cut metal.
I watched, furious, as Xavier laughed. The storm was too strong and too loud for me to hear him.
Nevertheless, it infuriated me. Another claw shattered as I attacked his shield a second time.
One hand—one arm—almost defenseless.
Adam, stop, Joey screamed in my mind. They want you dead, but they want to watch you destroy yourself as much as possible, first.
Will shouted behind us as a roof flew past him before crashing into the shields protecting Saxom and Xavier. There, it was ground to bits by whatever protected them. I blinked in shock—the same thing had destroyed four of my claws.
That's when the rogue werewolves—twenty or more—leapt from covered trenches and attacked Joey and the others. They had a fight on their hands as I turned back to my targets. I couldn't worry about that battle—I had my own to fight. Two yelps came—two werewolves were down.
Had things not happened as they did at that moment, my anger would have remained in control and I would have continued to attack Xavier's shield in futility. The thing in our favor, perhaps, was that it took Saxom and Xavier by surprise even more than it did me.
* * *
"What the hell?" Daniel shouted as the black-scaled kapirus lunged toward him, fangs bared and ready to snap his head from his body.
The eye? Lion sent.
Everything had gone still and silent in the space of a blink.
Nothing moved.
No winds blew.
A few bits of debris floated down from a cloud-covered sky.
Watch out! Dragon's mindspeech sounded. His dragon roared at the Ra'Ak, which coiled and prepared to strike.
* * *
"This makes everything so much easier," Saxom sneered as the shield dropped about him. Xavier stepped from his protective bubble to stand beside the Seer.
Adam, what just happened? Joey's mindspeech reached me. Sounds of fighting continued behind me, so I knew Joey survived, at least.
"It's the eye of the storm," Saxom laughed. The sound grated while my anger cleared slightly and a thought formed slowly in my mind.
This couldn't be the eye.
The hurricane wasn't scheduled to make landfall until four hours from now. That meant the eye wouldn't pass over land until sometime afterward.
"You're both fools," I hissed at them before I charged, my hand extended, my remaining claws ready.
* * *
The kapirus snapped at Sam, who'd become werewolf the moment the monster appeared. Daniel had leapt aside already, leaving Sam vulnerable behind him.
The huge, black lion roared and charged, crashing into the kapirus. Both of them fell across debris from the building while the Ra'Ak's head snaked forward, determined to kill the Saa Thalarr battling the kapirus.
* * *
Xavier screamed compulsion at me to stop. I might have laughed—if there'd been time.
He was counting on controlling me.
He and Saxom, both.
His compulsion slipped away as easily as a raindrop slides across a windscreen.
Saxom shouted his compulsion, followed closely on the heels of Xavier's. He never finished his command.
His head rolled away before the final words left his lips. I savored a moment of grim satisfaction as Saxom began to flake.
Adam!
My name was a cry. I blinked as Xavier turned on me, fangs bared, claws ready. My right hand was toward him—the hand missing four claws. I shouted as he flew at me.
* * *
Merrill's claws took the kapirus' head too swiftly for most to see. Lion rolled away as the Ra'Ak snapped at him.
Dragon leapt as the Ra'Ak's head turned in his direction.
* * *
Did she know how this would end? Had she seen it, somehow?
I recognized the blade in Kiarra's hand when she appeared.
This was no steel blade.
This was her unicorn's horn. It gleamed a rainbow of colors, even in such gray light. There was no time to appreciate its beauty.
Xavier was on me, his claws slashing toward my throat.
He never made it.
With a single thrust of her horn blade, Kiarra skewered him.
I recalled Karzac's words as I watched my sire die.
If that touches evil, the evil dies.
The light left Xavier's eyes. I stepped forward to embrace my love.
Two giant serpents erupted from the wet ground about us.
* * *
"Take the children to safety," Karzac shouted at Merrill, Daniel and Sam. He'd gone looking for Rita's sons while the others battled monsters. Few knew until later that four rogue vampires were left flaking behind the healer.
Karzac was First among the healers for a reason.
Dragon breathed fire, forcing the Ra'Ak to back away for a moment.
"This way," Merrill shouted, pointing toward a whitewashed petroleum storage tank nearby. "We need to be on the other side quickly."
Sam Sheridan didn't need further encouragement. Snatching one of the children from Karzac, he ran.
Karzac folded space with the second child, while Merrill grasped Daniel's arm and flew toward safety.
Dragon jerked aside as the Ra'Ak's deadly head snaked forward. The moment the Ra'Ak recoiled, Dragon leapt.
* * *
Even their scales are poison, filtered into my mind. I blinked in shock. Calling the Ra'Ak giant serpents paid them no justice.
Fifty feet long or more, with bodies at their thickest large enough to swallow a rhino. Copper scales gleamed as they moved, their heads spiked with lengthy, dangerous barbs.
The teeth, when their mouths opened to roar, were numerous, sharp and deadly.
One Ra'Ak for each of us.
Had they suspected and chosen to lie in wait for us?
"Adam!" she shouted at me a second time. I couldn't stop myself—I jerked my head in her direction.
Her horn blade flew toward me.
She'd tossed her protection to me. I caught it quickly.
Just not quickly enough.
The Ra'Ak she faced lunged in, almost too swiftly for me to see. Watching in horror, I heard her scream as the monster sank deadly, poisonous fangs into her body. I barely turned in time to stab the second, who intended to do the same to me.
Holding up a hand in reflex is a useless gesture. I had no time to think, and never considered going to mist. My love was dead—she died as I turned to reach for her. I barely had time to blink before the explosions came.
I'd seen spawn dust. Watched as their chunks flew in every direction. The younger ones felt like a sandstorm.
The larger ones required skill or a strong shield to survive.
When a Ra'Ak dusts, unless you have thick steel or strong shields between you and the blasting chunks, you will not survive.
I had neither of those things.
All I recall is the light so many speak of when they die.
* * *
The storage tank was battered and had collapsed on one side—the side facing the Ra'Ak.
Dragon had waited to strike until the others had reached the safety of the opposite side. "I'm glad that's over," Lion frowned at the mud covering his clothing. Chunks of the Ra'Ak's dusting were everywhere. "Pheligar has a cleanup waiting. You were right, brother. The Ra'Ak was here. Do we have information on Adam, or why the storm stopped when it did?"
The hurricane had vanished, and the winds had slowed dramatically. Lightning formed in clouds hanging low over the gulf, but those were far to the east and looked to be receding.
"Dragon," Bearcat appeared nearby, holding Joey up with both arms.
"Bear?" Dragon's voice suddenly held fear.
"Two Ra'Ak on the ship channel," Bearcat dropped to his knees, Joey falling with him. "Adam and Kiarra are gone."
* * *
Joey's Journal
Merrill and I returned to his brownstone in New York.
He wasn't speaking to anyone.
Radomir reported to Wlodek on the events in Texas. He knew that Adam was dead and Merrill in deep depression.
Bearcat promised to come for me in two weeks.
Merrill wasn't the only one in mourning.
* * *
"I am the Ear," he said, causing Griffin to jerk his head up at the sudden appearance.
"How may I be of service?" Griffin bowed his head respectfully.
He and the others knew of the three messengers. Most had never seen them, including many in the Hierarchy.
"You will retire, effective immediately," the Ear commanded.
"But I am not," Griffin sputtered. This was the opposite of what he expected might happen.
"Wisdom cares not that you are not ready. He knows that you saw deaths and the capture of the children. You did nothing to prevent them. Belen and Thorsten have already been advised of your retirement. We will not interfere with your power—or your friendships. That may change, however, so do not press your luck."
The Ear disappeared, leaving a seething Griffin behind.
* * *
Joey's Journal
"Kee knew," Bearcat said beside me. "No challenge was issued—by her or by the Ra'Ak. A challenge neutralizes a Saa Thalarr's blood."
"So, because a Saa Thalarr's blood will kill anything that takes it without permission, the Ra'Ak that bit her died?"
"Exactly. She timed it right, too, because there was a slight delay—enough time for Adam to stab the second Ra'Ak with her horn. Both dusted at the same time. I didn't have shields strong enough to cover them and the rest of you, too. Their bodies were blasted to bits, being that close to the epicenter, so to speak."
"What about the hurricane? Everybody thought that would kill her."
"There's been some talk. Pheligar won't speak to anybody right now, so we didn't get the Larentii opinion on this. One of the more popular theories is that she kept hopping from lightning strike to lightning strike—so fast that none of them had time to affect her."
"That would require days of frenetic activity with no rest," I pointed out.
"And that's the argument against that one. Another theory is that she employed Adam's talent of turning to mist. A lot can go through mist without affecting it at all. Bullets, winds, you name it."
"That sounds more like it," I sighed.
"She stopped it, too, at just the right time. That took a lot of power. Didn't make any difference in the end, though."
"Yeah."
"All that time, too, the Ra'Ak were using the refinery as their hiding place. That was the deal Roy Cheek made with them—he offered them empty petroleum storage tanks as housing. They shielded those and we never suspected there were that many of them. It was in their plan all along to get the refinery shut down and Cheek and the workers out of the way. When Saxom showed up, he and Xavier used the administration building as their hideout."
"I thought there was only supposed to be one Ra'Ak—according to the rules." Yes, I remembered my lessons from Bear, Karzac and the others.
"That was a world not worth saving, remember? The rules get thrown out the window for the most part. It doesn't have anything to do with the blood, though. That holds true, no matter what."
Joseph? The voice entered my mind like the softest velvet.
Nobody called me Joseph.
Cool hands came from behind and covered my eyes. Soft hands. Smaller than mine.
"What?" I turned swiftly and almost fainted from joy.
Kiarra grabbed my arm when I almost fell from my barstool.
Adam was the one who lifted me and set me on my feet.
I only managed one word before the tears came.
"How?"
* * *
"I can't tell you, because we don't know," I shrugged and accepted the glass of Scotch from Lion. When Kiarra and I appeared in her kitchen, surprising Joey and Bearcat, the news spread like wildfire. Everybody showed up, eager to learn how we'd survived.
The truth was—we hadn't. Both of us died. I know that, as does Kiarra.
Someone, or more than one, perhaps, in a much, much higher position, had taken an interest. Someone very powerful wanted us to live.
Therefore, we lived.
What I did know is this—Kiarra had been offered a promotion. She had taken an impossible situation and resolved it, at the cost of her life and her love.
She'd refused. Told Belen that she wanted to be where she was—First among the Saa Thalarr.
He said the invitation to join the Nameless Ones was open anytime she wanted to take it. She thanked him and we'd gone to find Joey.
Three weeks had passed since our deaths. I can't explain where we were in that time, because I have no memory of it.
What happened after our reappearance is this; Merrill was declared a friend of all Saa Thalarr and accorded special privileges. In fact, I'd invited him to dinner at one of my London restaurants the following week. He'd been overjoyed at our survival. I didn't lie to myself by believing he wasn't mostly overjoyed at Kiarra's resurrection.
"But what's this?" Dragon held a glass of Scotch in his hand as he came forward to examine me closely.
I didn't turn down the offer for my promotion. "Fourth, in Griffin's place," I nodded. "He retired, and I was offered his position."
"What's your fighting animal?" Lion asked, grinning hugely.
"I chose a black gryphon," I said. "Griffin held the brown and gold gryphon. I wanted black, to honor my Lion friend." I held up my glass to Lion.
I didn't think it was possible, but his grin widened.
* * *
Xenides studied the lists of names before him, while Saxom's last mindspeech played continuously in his mind.
Make them pay, Saxom sent, just before his life ended. Xenides was resolved to obey his sire's command.
Epilogue
A year has passed since the incident on the Texas Gulf Coast. I've gone on assignment twice in that time. I'd only just returned recently, to find Kiarra waiting for me. Pheligar stood behind her when I arrived.
"I'm pregnant," she blurted when I went to embrace her.
"What?"
"Four months. Happened just before you left," she said.
"I thought we were sterile," I said, forgetting my manners and my good sense for a moment.
"We're supposed to be," she snapped, turning her back on me and walking away.
Adam, this is your child—something you never thought to get. What sort of fool are you? Pheligar's mindspeech shocked me for a moment—he seldom bothers speaking to anyone.
He was right, though.
It's a boy child, he added.
"My heart?" I stepped toward Kiarra, my hand held out in apology. "Is that Justin there?" I pulled her against me.
"Is that what you want?" She sniffled as she looked up at me.
"Yes. Please say we can name him after my brother."
"We can name him after your brother." She huddled into my embrace.
"We're having a baby," I breathed. "Does Joey know?"
She laughed.
The End
More information may be found regarding Xenides' war with the vampires and other races of Earth in the Blood Destiny series, beginning with Blood Wager.
* *
Information regarding Adam's first assignment with Joey can be found in the short story, Tracking Merrill, in the anthology Other Worldly Ways.
About the author:
Connie Suttle lives in Oklahoma with her patient, long-suffering husband and three cats. For information on forthcoming titles, please visit Connie's website at www.subtledemon.com, her blog at subtledemon.blogspot.com or find her on Facebook—Connie Suttle Author. She is also on twitter:
@subtledemon.
Hope and Vengeance (Saa Thalarr, book 1): Saa Thalarr, book 1 Page 25
