by D. Fischer
With the hues, a fog rolls and spills from inside the pot, too thick to be natural. The tendrils and billows cover the grass and curl around the young witches’ ankles. A few young women dip to it, attempting to scoop the fog in their hands like one would capture a firefly.
“This is the stuff of fairytales,” I mumble.
Aiden grabs my hand from my lap and folds my fingers inside his oversized, hot palm. “We are the stuff of fairytales.”
I chuckle. “True.” And then my face grows serious. “What are we going to do, Aiden?”
“About the witches?” he asks, confused.
“No of course not,” I say, frowning. “About Kheelan. You say if I die, he dies, but if I kill him, I live.”
He nods, eyeing me between hooded lids. “That’s right.”
“So, I have to kill him,” I repeat, more for myself than for him.
“Yes,” he mumbles.
“How?”
He waits for a moment, chewing over my simple question as the fog pushes against the porch. “I don’t know, but I have no doubt the time will come. We’re not going to do anything about it until you’re ready until the time is right. Until we have no other choice.”
“Well,” I sigh. “At least, I know I’ll be kept alive for the sake of Kheelan’s life.”
“No.” He shakes his head slightly. “Corbin will kill Kheelan, Eliza. Kheelan is weak enough for it to be easy.”
“Oh,” I whisper, my hope withering away to mingle with the chip broken from my soul.
I’m just about to change the subject, to ask why Fate sent us here if there’s not an ounce of trouble lurking among the blades of weeds and unkempt grass when Janine gasps behind us. We swiftly turn, arching our backs to peer around the group gathered around her.
Trembling the wooden swing, Janine’s body quakes, her eyes still showing no irises. Her posture is slumped as she dives into the future, a grave one if her expression is anything to go by.
I stand, heart pounding, and Aiden follows my lead. “What’s wrong with her?” I ask, numbly climbing the last step to join the group.
“She’s found the answer.” Astrid bends to Janine’s level. Her joints crack and pop as she does so. “Janine,” she calls, gripping the knee of her fellow witch. “What do you see?”
A hush falls over the lawn, inside the trees, and a rumble of thunder vibrates against the witch’s barrier.
“Splashes of crimson,” Janine hums, but her voice isn’t her own as she dives into the future of this realm. Head shifting side to side as though she’s watching it unfold in real time, she double blinks, a trait her daughter inherited. “Fire and smoke. White light and black veins. Angst. An untamable craving. Red. So much red. Red, red, red!”
I look to Katriane and see her face pinched and arms crossed as she listens to her mother’s prophecy. She glances at me, and a sense of foreboding washes across the porch.
“Are we being attacked?” Astrid asks. She grips Janine’s knee tighter, the knuckles on her thin skin bright as snow. “When? From where?”
“When the smoke reaches the edge of sacred land, a swarm of darkness will push a wave of those who only see crimson,” Janine says.
Swiftly, I turn to Aiden whose arms are behind his back, his attention directly on the young witches completely unaware of the danger coming our way. His cheek twitches.
“When the smoke reaches the edge of sacred land?” Dyson asks, confusion dripping from every word. “What does that even mean?”
“The witch’s smoke,” Aiden mumbles, peering at the smoke rolling from the cauldron. It continues to travel and overtake the grass. When it mingles with the fire below the cauldron, embers begin traveling inside it.
“Shit,” Katriane curses, her hands dropping to her sides with an audible snap. “Sacred land. Witch’s ground is sacred land.”
I whip back to the trees, noticing the fog only feet from it.
“They’re here,” Janine mumbles, her voice her own this time. The prophecy ended just before it came to life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DYSON COLEMAN
EARTH REALM
“Do not use your magic,” Aiden growls at Eliza, stepping from the porch and wading into the fog. The fog, the witches smoke, parts for him billowing up and up until it evaporates. He stops short, peering into the trees.
“How did they find us?” I ask, following Aiden.
“Corbin has Oleum, remember?” Aiden says, distracted. “He can peer into any one of our minds. It’d be simple to find us. Ferox must not have destroyed it yet.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but his words aren’t what I focus on. Every bird tweet and squirrel chirp is completely gone. A slight, bone-chilling hush washes over the forest as though nothing lives in it.
“The barrier will stop them,” Astrid whispers shakily, and even as she says it, I know it won’t. With Corbin or Kheelan, nothing is impossible. If they want something, they’ll take it, barrier or not.
The rest of the group joins us as Astrid gathers the youngest witches and files them into the house where they’ll be safe. The older witches, some still young in my opinion, rush to the porch and wait, their shoes clomping against the wood. Janine explains to them what she saw while the five of us stand amongst the weeds, united, waiting to protect those behind us. To give them time to flee if they so choose.
A crack of thunder booms, blotting out the chatter amongst those on the porch. Erline, who has been silent until this very moment, turns to Katriane. “I must leave,” she says. I look at her in complete shock. “I cannot stay here.”
“Why?” Kat asks. “You’re bailing?”
She hesitates, pushing a blonde lock behind her ear. “I am weak, Katriane. They’re attacking my realm. And -” she wets her bottom lip. “I made a deal that I must keep, that I must preserve my strength for.”
“A deal?” Kat hisses. “With who?”
I close my eyes, knowing full well who she made a deal with.
“I cannot tell you, for you will discover on your own when the time is right.”
“Okay? This still doesn’t explain why you have to leave. It just fortifies why you have to stay.”
“Erline is tied to her creations, dragon,” Aiden says, still staring at the trunks darkening with the oncoming rain brisk in the air. “If they die by the masses, it weakens her.”
I suck in a breath. Janine had told us about the many deaths that had replaced this ‘flu’ virus. We had watched the tail end of the news before we came outside. The vampires went from feeding to outright slaughter, leaving the authorities to believe there’s a mass murderer on the loose. That’s why Erline is so pale, so sickly-looking. I hadn’t put two and two together. The fee have upped their game. It’s another card dealt and thrown on the table, and from the looks of it, we’re now caught in a mouse trap.
“Oh.” Katriane opens her mouth to say something else, but Erline gently cups Kat’s cheek. I bristle against the tender touch, and inside me, my wolf huffs.
“Be still, my daughter’s daughter. Do not worry about my wellbeing. Worry about yours, I beg you.”
As the words leave Erline’s lips, a figure at the edge of the forest pulls my attention away from the mother and daughter affections. I curse and begin pulling off my clothes. The figure was an ethereal statue in my peripheral vision, a light in the tunnel of dark tree trunks. A vampire, hunched and heaving with bloodlust, stares at our small line of unprepared magical beings. Bright red blood staining his clothes, the tucks of his lips, and his long hair, once blond no doubt, is soiled and tangled around his shoulders. My wolf quivers with agitation, begging to be released. To protect. To defend what’s mine.
“Steady,” Aiden rumbles deathly quiet.
Stark naked, I fist my fingers, the nails biting into my palms, and the transformation begins. My bones crack and reshape, hands turning into paws, nose elongating into a snout, and a growl rumbles up my chest. My wolf remembers what these
creatures did to us on the Death Realm, remembers what my old pack mates looked like as they lay, dead, inside the pack’s home.
“Just one?” Kat asks as a swirl of wind gusts beside her, Erline taking her leave with pockets of fog that had remained. But she questioned too soon.
In a blur of movement, seemingly one by one, more vampires file in beside the first until there’s one row, two rows, three rows…Rows and rows of heaving, bloodthirsty beasts.
“My god,” Eliza mutters.
“Get to the house,” Aiden says to her.
“Absolutely not!” she shouts at him. Lifting her hands, she slams them back to her side and two bolts – electric whips – appear in her palms, the ends crackling and sizzling the weeds at the ground, slicing through the fog like butter.
Aiden growls at her.
“There’s no point in hiding anymore, Aiden,” she utters to him with a sort of detachment that pricks at my wolf’s fur. Her eyes dart across the heaving vampires, assessing, calculating, receding to a place deep down inside herself. I recognize it, the blank expression of tucking mortality deep down in favor of survival. “They know where we are. They’ve known for a while. They’ve been watching.”
His cheek ticking, he says, “Don’t do anything reckless,” and then to the rest of us, “Work as one. A team. This is not a test. This is not a practice. Screw your heads on straight, or we will all die.”
KATRIANE DUPONT
EARTH REALM
The breeze reeks of death. Of thirst. Of malicious intent. It slithers over my skin like a cold chill, and inside me, the side of me that has come to revel in everything I can do, everything I’ve become, rises to the challenge.
“Ready?” I ask, quirking one side of my lips, a half smile to the group. This is what we’re here for. This is what Fate made us to be – a force to stand between the enemy and the innocent. We’re outnumbered, but we’re chosen for such odds.
One heartbeat booms in my ears, then another. A steady beat of war drums, a thrumming of adrenaline through my veins, a pounding of flames with each heightened sense.
I breathe deep, blink slowly at my companions, and my lips widen into a full grin returned by Aiden – my relative, our friend, a stranger, everyone’s opposite. Destiny embraced, I snap my arms to my side, and flames lick up my nails, my knuckles, my wrists.
My question is a horn for battle, the vampires scream, howling to the blotted sky like a wolf to the moon. The sound sends the once silent birds flying to the sky, screeching as a single swarm and dodging a crack of bright blue lightning. My flames roar to it, licking up my arms, waiting for a command like a living thing.
The first row rushes toward us, a wave of black veins on a snowy corpse. I brace myself, not for the death they represent but for the thrill rushing my way. Aiden claps his palms together, a boom, and embers brighten and float from his skin. Eliza flashes her whips forward, striking the space between us and them. The footfalls of the witches who are on the porch rush to stand behind us, words muttering from their lips. I center my gravity as the ground quakes below our feet.
With a thrash against the magical barrier, the vampires stumble as they break through.
A moment of anxiety curls in the pit of my stomach at their fast approach, at their ease at breaking such a barrier, but the tree’s branches grow, elongate. Bark breaks away from the branches, falling heavy to the forest floor. They snatch the leeches from the ground and wrap so tight around their torsos that their bodies sever in two. Blood sprays before ash rains. Roots spring from the ground, parting the fog and knocking running vampires from their feet.
I fling my arms, and fire flies from my hands, engulfing each as they touch the flammable vampires. More and more, I call for my flames, for the rushing heat, and they easily obey, reaching up my arms to my shoulders, crawling up my neck. My clothes blaze along my skin until they are nothing but fabric embers floating away in the wind of the beginning storm. My bones shake with restraint to keep all of this power – all of the power of a dragon – at bay. I grit my teeth against it, desperate to stay focused. There’s not enough room here to turn into a massive scaled beast, to fly above and engulf the entire hoard. Not without hurting everyone in my wake.
Eliza’s whip wraps around the ankle of a male vampire, yanking him from his feet and throwing him to the living trees that wrap their limbs around the creature and drag him inside the forest. Nails clawing at the dirt, his screams echo until he’s gone from sight, the sound cut off abruptly from whatever fate the spelled nature delivered. Somewhere behind me, Dyson’s wolf whines and scrapes at the ground. I ignore him. If he were to get any closer, he’d be a liability to our magic.
The line of vampires gain ground, pushing the line, dodging the witches’ spells. A movement catches my eye, creeping shadows beside the porch, weaving between the cars. A snarl rips from Dyson’s throat when he whirls. Vampires attempt to sneak past our small line of defense, unnoticed, to the inside of the home brimming with frightened young witches. Fear blazes my flames, and without any instruction, Dyson takes off toward them, paws digging into the soil. Weeds soar in his dash. I have but a moment to watch as he leaps from the ground and collides with the first vampire. His powerful jaws snapping around the vampire’s neck.
A blinding light floods the gloom as lightning strikes the land, and as soon as I whip my attention to it, I’m tackled to the ground. In the shock of it all, under the assault of a painful thud and a heavy weight, my flames evaporate. The breath gushes from my lungs, and the snapping of jaws vibrates above me. Reeking spittle slaps my cheeks, and I thrash. With all of my strength, I push against the vampire, and heat builds inside my chest, a bubble of flame and fear. It’s hot, heavy, and I can feel my scales crawling under my skin, prepared, ready, waiting.
“Shift, Kat!” I hear Aiden roar. But I can’t. I can’t. Not here, not where there’s not enough room, not when everyone could die. My dragon’s too big, my flames are too wide and hot. They’d take over the forest, lick across the grass, and –
The vampire lunges and snaps at my neck. His chin painfully jars my collar bone, and I cringe, waiting for his teeth to rip out my throat. But they don’t . . .
I blink in shock when he snarls and ripping agony doesn’t ripple through me. He lunges again, fangs fully exposed, aiming for my shoulder. I wriggle, horrified, a scream bubbling inside my chest while the weeds and twigs scrape at my back. Scales wrap my pale flesh before his teeth can sink in, and his teeth scrape against them. He leans back, his weight too heavy to push off, and he screeches inhumanly to the sky.
Leaving nothing to chance, I seize the opportunity and allow the heat out. My body blazes, a bright star against the weeds, and the vampire turns red eyes to mine . . . right before my fire turns him into a torch.
His ashes pepper my skin, and I sit up then stand, and slowly, I swivel to observe my surroundings with my heartbeat lashing in my ears. Eliza, untouched so far, hovers an inch from the ground, a living storm. Electricity bounces across her skin timed with the storm above our heads. A boom of thunder shakes the atmosphere, brushing her red curls from her neck like a lover’s caress . . . as though she’s creating it, as though she’s the reason for the storm in the first place.
Blinding blue bolts slither across the grass like quick snakes, electrifying any vampire they touch before they explode into ash.
Aiden’s shoulders are bunched, exhausted. He’s a living a sparkler, a memory of flame, of fire, of death. Somehow, his embers keep lighting and soaring from his skin even as he holds a vampire in each hand, even under the weight of fatigue. He inhales deeply and then again. Each time he does so, the vampires’ skin sucks closer to their bones until they look . . . mummified.
A crack of wood draws my attention to the porch, the railing in splinters as Dyson’s wolf snarls and snaps, a ball of fur and black-veined riddled skin tumbling to the grass. The sky opens up, and the clouds sprinkle a cold rain.
The witches helping us on the groun
d scream as one when half a dozen vampire’s barrel into them. Blood sprays from a few, and I leap into action. Flicking flames to those attacking the ones I can save, I hold my breath and . . .
No. No, no, no!
I stride forward, then run, flame after flame after flame engulfing the vampires’ attacking those I once called family – those I grew up with, loved as sisters, thought of as family. I reach the first witch’s side and drop to the ground in a heap of sorrow. Mom. Still ablaze, my gaze glues to her aged fingers gripping her throat.
“Mom,” I whisper. “Mom, no!” My flames evaporate the tears swelling as I watch her struggle for air, her legs writhing, kicking, for oxygen. Her mouth is gaping, trying to speak past her shredded skin. Blood pours between her fingers. Twigs underneath her snap as she writhes in agony. With wide, frightened eyes – the same shade as mine - she stares at me, blinking rapidly to keep the spraying crimson droplets from obscuring her vision, the view of her daughter. A sob leeches from me when her blinks slow, a settling calm, and I know . . . I know this is her last look upon this world.
With every bit of willpower I have, I let go of my flames, wanting her to see me as the daughter I’ve always been. The daughter who has always loved her. The one who never let go of the hope we’d be able to have some kind of relationship when this is over. Over . . . Over. This is over.
I cover her hands over her throat, tears freely falling down my cheek. “Mommy, no. Mom! Breathe! Breathe!”
Her face is blurry as I sob and sob. Her body relaxes under mine. Her fingers loosen. I grip her wound tighter, frantic to keep her blood inside her, to find a way to get her to breathe. To be the one who stands between her and death.
My tears fall on her skin, the tears of the dragon. Drawing in a breath, I remove my hand and blink the tears from my eyes faster, allowing them to fall on the wound. Desperate. My movements are jerky and desperate. But it’s not quick enough. The healing is not fast enough. The skin tries to knit back together, but the wound is too wide. There’s nothing but shredded meat, like wet strips of cloth, and gushing blood.
