Sloan looked over to her vampire squad. She hated having to ask them, but she knew they wouldn’t hesitate to follow her orders if she marched them into Hell itself.
“We’re going to relieve that beast of its legs.” Sloan nodded to Ashley on her right and Abigail on her left. Then she turned her attention to the three members of her squad in front of her. “Buy us some time.”
Hard stares of pure determination looked back at her. With head nods and grunts, her three vampires were off, already racing to put themselves in the way of danger.
“Go for its right leg.” Kimberly reached down to offer Abigail a hand onto her unicorn. “That’s where I’ve done the most damage already.”
“Don’t stop until it’s down.” Sloan began her run. “If it reaches Azra’s walls, we’ve lost the war.”
This is insane, a voice inside Sloan’s head told her. You’re racing toward a metal mage monster a hundred times your size, with a dead woman and a kid.
The idea was so insane, it even brought a brief smile to Sloan’s lips. But the smile was short-lived. Babs, Pia, and Doyle had already reached the beast. With weapons they knew couldn’t injure it, they put their bodies on the line so Sloan and her group could have a chance. That took guts. No, more than guts. It took a courage Sloan admired.
The metal beast leaned down, swiping with powerful steel claws the size of swords. It lifted its feet, trying to stomp them down. Just as Sloan reached the steel beast’s right leg, Doyle got too close, and with a sound of cracking bones, he was caught by a backhand from the mage engine’s right paw.
Doyle lifted off the ground, flying so far out of view, Sloan wondered if he would land in the ocean itself. The cover of night hid his exact landing spot, but the morning sun would not be far off.
As Sloan began hacking away at the monster’s leg, a horrible thought emerged: What if the gates weren’t closed by the time the sun rose? Morning was less than an hour away. Without Cherub’s gargoyles able to defend the open gate, the battle would be over.
This thought gave power to Sloan as she hacked away at the steel appendage in front of her. Ashley was right. Each leg was like a massive steel tree trunk. Abigail joined her, jumping off Ashley’s unicorn. Together, the women sunk their mage blades deep into the steel mass over and over again.
Kimberly joined them a moment later, allowing her unicorn to flee the deadly scene. Red, white, and blue mage swords sunk deep into the metal, turning the material to molten gashes.
“Don’t give up!” Sloan screamed as the monster took a wobbling step forward. “We’ve almost got it!”
Sloan was right. With the three impromptu lumberjacks hacking away at the section of the mage engine’s leg just above his foot, they had already cleaved halfway through its leg.
As soon as hope emerged, though, it was taken back. The mage engine ignored Pia and Babs, deciding to focus on the women at its legs. Sloan didn’t even see the blow that sent her sailing through the air toward the New Hope army. One moment, she was rearing back to send her mage sword at the mage engine’s leg again; the next, her entire body felt numb.
She flew through the air, head over heels, her sword lost some time during her flight, and she fell in a heap in the middle of the vampire army. All the soldiers looked stunned for a moment.
Sloan was still trying to figure out what was going on when a voice she recognized yelled through the black uniforms about to descend on her, “Get back! She’s mine!”
Sloan struggled to her feet past the pain. She was sure she had broken bones upon landing, but she had to trust that her vampire DNA would heal her.
As soon as she stood, Commander Steel hammered her with a blow across her temple, and the pommel of his mage sword sent a wave of blood over her eyes. Sloan tried wiping the sticky red substance from her vision, when a boot caught her in the stomach a moment later. Sloan doubled over.
Searing pain like she had never experienced in her life cut through her shoulder. A scream so loud, so unlike her, burst from her lungs, it took her a moment to realize she was the one doing the screaming.
Commander Steel had pinned her to the ground with his white mage sword. The weapon stuck out of the front of her left shoulder. With a smile, the scarred commander looked down at his pinned prey.
“Hope is lost to you and the city you fight for.” Commander Steel sneered, twisting his mage sword deeper into Sloan’s shoulder. “The sun’s almost up, the mage engine is nearly to your walls, and you are about to die.”
Sloan was doing everything she could to not lose concentration. She focused on controlling her breathing and coming up with a plan, any plan.
A howl—no, an army of howls—found their way to her and Commander Steel’s ears. A moment later, a massive rumble that could only be the mage engine crashing to the ground shook the earth beneath them.
“You’re wrong!” Sloan screamed at the commander who looked around in confusion even as the werewolf howls gained velocity. “That’s the sound of hope!”
Sloan reached up, grabbing Commander Steel’s hands that rested on the hilt of his sword and, with a scream of rage, drove the blade deeper through her own body. The act took Commander Steel off guard and off balance and he stumbled forward on top of her.
Sloan grabbed his neck with her right hand. In one motion, she tore out his throat, leaving him gagging, blood pouring from the wound, eyes wide as he died.
Complete and utter chaos took over the next moment as a dozen giant werewolves hammered into the ranks of the vampire army.
Chapter 35
Croft
Leah was more powerful than Croft could ever have imagined. Again and again, the witches clashed in the sky, but from the beginning, Croft understood she didn’t have a chance. Leah was too strong.
Croft picked herself up from the ground once more and lifted into the night air. She spat blood from her mouth, the metallic taste an afterthought as she looked over the battlefield. Cherub held the gates of Azra, where men and women from both sides died by the second. It was only a matter of time before the superior numbers of the vampire army won out.
A lone figure with a giant blue mage sword had captured the mage engine’s interest, but for how long?
“You have to realize by now that this will all be over very soon,” Leah taunted from her position in the night sky only a few dozen yards in front of Croft. “You can’t compete with me, and neither can your forces stop my own. It’s over, dear sister. If you bend the knee now, I might be persuaded to take mercy on you.”
“So you can stab me in the back like you did to Eleanor?” Croft gathered herself for another attack. She channeled the yellow power of her magic into her hands. Soon, they both glowed with an impressive yellow fire. “No thanks. I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
“Then die you shall!” Leah screamed. She pulled back her lips and her eyes glowed with the purple color of her magic.
Once more, the witches clashed. Croft sent bolts of yellow magic at Leah, to no avail. Leah allowed the bolts of magic to reach her, striking them with her own hands that pulsed with purple light. Every time both witches’ magic met one another, a loud cracking sound shocked the night sky.
Leah deflected the attacks, striking out with an assault of her own. A mass of bright purple tentacles exploded from her right hand.
Croft braced herself, crossing her forearms in front of her and summoning a shield. When the attack hit her, her shield held, but she was slammed down to the ground by its sheer force.
Croft grunted as the air escaped her lungs. She hit the ground inside the Azra walls so hard, her teeth chattered. Leah’s attack never stopped, the force of the writhing magical tentacles pressing down on her.
Summoning all of her reserve strength, Croft forced herself to her knees and then to her feet, trying to combat the magic with a burst of yellow magic of her own. It was a short-lived victory. Croft rose, meeting Leah’s channeled energy with a beam of her own. Her magic pushed Lea
h’s from her body, but only succeeded temporarily.
Croft’s entire body fought fatigue. Her muscles screamed as if they were on fire. Sweat obscured her vision as her attack broke. Leah hammered her again with the blast coming from her hand, and Croft fell to her knees.
This is it, Croft thought. She had always imagined the seconds before her death would end in fear. All she could think about now as her last reserves left her and her defenses broke, was how she hoped her daughters were far away from Azra.
CRACK!
Croft looked up from her kneeling position in the stone street of Azra. Her body was steaming from the intensity of Leah’s attack, but she wasn’t dead. Croft glanced at her sister, confused.
Hope, joy, fear, and a sense of pride and worry all hit her all at once as she saw Elizabeth floating in the air in front of her, the bracelet around her wrist gone.
“What are you doing?” Leah scowled at her. “I’ve come here to free you. Now move aside so I can finish this.”
“No.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I’m free of what you did to me now. I’m thinking clearly for the first time in a very long time. You get one chance to walk away.”
“Move, you idiot child!” Leah roared. Her hands met in front of her, forming a black sphere of energy. “I will not tell you again.”
“No!” Elizabeth screamed.
“Elizabeth, get back!” Croft struggled to her feet, her mind willing a battered and fatigued body past its physical limitations.
“So be it,” Leah roared, and she hurled the ball of black magic at Elizabeth without another second of hesitation.
Croft’s heart skipped a beat.
Her daughter didn’t move. Instead of dodging the attack, she caught it.
Croft had to do a double take. She blinked, trying to understand what she was seeing. The power Elizabeth had to have to be able to control a ball of magical energy that size was extraordinary.
The ball of magic grew in Elizabeth’s hands now as a layer of yellow magic coursed over the initial ball of black matter.
“What are you doing?” Leah looked on at Elizabeth, baffled. “How did you do that?”
Elizabeth ignored Leah’s question, instead concentrating on building her attack. Leah took the opportunity to strike again. This time both hands pushed away from her body, palms first. Purple lightning raced from her hands toward Elizabeth.
“Not my daughter, you bit—” Croft’s words were lost in the crackling noise as their attacks met. Her maternal instinct and love for her daughter giving her strength she didn’t know she had, Croft lifted into the air once more and mirrored Leah’s attack. Yellow and purple lightning met in the space between the witches, and a brilliant white light exploded to life.
Croft remembered what happened next in a series of brief scenes as she fell into unconsciousness.
BOOM!
Elizabeth threw the ball of black-and-yellow magic at Leah. The ball was so large now, it encompassed Leah’s entire body. One second, the witch was trapped in it; the next, she began to melt. Through the translucent yellow-and-black bubble, her skin slipped off her face. Like something out of a child’s nightmare, Leah’s skin, muscles, and finally bones were stripped away in the magical cell. An ear-shattering explosion rocked Croft backwards, sending her once more to the hard Azra ground and into unconsciousness.
Chapter 36
Jack
There was no time to think, and even less time to come up with a plan. As soon as Jack and the others stepped through the portal Amber had made, they were greeted by scene after scene of madness.
To their left, an impossible steel monster swatted Sloan through the air, leaving her to land amidst an ocean of black-clad New Hope vampires. Witches battled in the sky, while a female warrior wielding a large, blue blade cut down the metal beast.
Jack’s heart caught in his chest as his mind registered who was with her. Abigail cleaved at the right leg of the beast with a white mage sword in each hand. Already the gigantic monster was stumbling.
“They’ve got things handled!” Marcus’ shout brought Jack back to their present dilemma. “Sloan’s in trouble right now. On my back! Follow me!”
Marcus went to all fours, transitioning into his lupine form. Jack jumped onto his back before considering what he was doing.
Marcus let out a wild howl and charged. Followed by the rest of his pack, they sprinted over the short distance toward the rear of the vampire army, their battle cries lifting to the heavens and drowning out the clamor of war.
They struck the rear of the unsuspecting vampire army with such brutality, Jack almost felt sorry for the surprised soldiers from New Hope. Almost. Werewolves tore into the vampire soldiers with precise killing moves. It seemed in Term they had realized the best way to deal with their enemies, and now they went for their heads, and in some cases even completely severing their skulls from the rest of their bodies.
Jack jumped off his father’s back when he saw Sloan, who was pulling a white mage sword from her shoulder with a grimace of pain. Commander Steel’s body lay broken beside her. He was missing his throat.
Jack extended the wand in his hand into a staff. Green light blazed from his weapon as he struck out left and right, fighting his way to Sloan’s side.
“Look out!” Sloan pointed over Jack’s shoulder.
A blue-suited man with dark hair and a strangely sincere smile held a ball of energy in each hand. The sparking power he held wasn’t exactly magic; it was something else altogether.
BOOM!
An explosion from the sky caught the attention of nearly every single warrior on both sides of the conflict. Jack looked up to see Leah Eckert caught in a magic orb of yellow-and-black. A moment later, she was melted from the outside in and disappeared in another blast of magical power.
“Oh, that sucks.” The man in front of Jack allowed the power in each of his hands to dissolve. “There’s nothing for me to gain from being here now. A different time and a different hero, maybe.”
Jack was so confused, he wasn’t sure what to think. On his part, the man winked at Jack and retreated into the maelstrom of war that had renewed around the battlefield.
“Where did he go?” Sloan severed the head of a vampire to her left. Another soldier came at her with an overhead swing. She sidestepped it before planting her white mage sword into his chest. She moved the blade down and then up, separating her opponent into two parts. “Where’s Dominic?”
“I’m not sure. He’s gone.” Jack sent two balls of green magical fire from his staff and lit a pair of charging vampire soldiers on fire.
Sloan let out a roar of anger as she threw herself into the fight once more.
But it was already over, whether or not the New Hope army understood that—leaderless, with their will broken at the sight of the mage engine now lying like a useless pile of scrap metal, its head cut from its steel body, courtesy of Abigail Ahab.
Hundreds of vampires died by the second as the Azra guards shouted in victory, pushing through the gates. Jack and Elizabeth joined the fight, cutting down vampires. As the sun rose over the horizon, the day brought the surrender of the New Hope army and the victory the city of Azra had so desperately fought for through the night.
Chapter 37
Sloan
“He was a hero, and he will always be remembered that way.” Sloan rested her head on Kade’s shoulder. “Your brother was a great man.”
“He was.” Kade leaned over and kissed Sloan on the head. “I just wish I’d had more time to get to know him.”
In the days after The Battle of The Mage Engine, as people were starting to call it, the dead had been buried and the survivors had begun putting back together their broken lives.
Jack had his father back and had summoned the courage to ask Abigail to marry him. The woman who had helped defeat the mage engine had said yes, and Sloan couldn’t have been happier for them.
Kimberly, Sasha, and Cherub were seeing to the imprisonment of the s
urrendered vampire soldiers, trying to figure out what to do with them next.
“They look so happy, don’t they?” Kade asked, wrestling Sloan from her thoughts. The two were on the Azra battlements, the sun high overhead, the ocean to their right.
Sloan followed his gaze to where Aareth and Ashley strode hand in hand on the beach.
“They look great together.” Sloan breathed a deep sigh, so happy for her friends. “I’m glad Ashley remembered her past with Aareth. Maybe now they can pick up where they left off.”
“Speaking of picking up where we left off.” Kade turned to Sloan and wrapped his arms around her. “I think I love you.”
Sloan felt a rush of heat burn her face. Her mouth went dry.
“This is the part where you say it back, or else it gets awkward.” Kade smiled down at her. “Any time now.”
“I’ve never said those words to anyone before.” Sloan leaned in and kissed Kade so hard, it almost hurt. “But I do, I love you, Kade Hyde.”
An awkward coughing from behind ruined the moment. Croft stood with her arm in a sling and an amused expression on her face. “May I have a quick word with the woman you love, Kade? It will only take a moment.”
“We have the rest of our lives together, so I guess you have my permission. But do hurry.” Kade winked at Sloan. “Go ahead, I’ll wait here.”
Sloan walked down the battlements on the Azra wall, trying to stop, but not succeeding in completely harnessing a silly smile playing across her lips.
“I’ll make this short.” Croft began to walk back the way she’d come. “You’ve earned some time to rest.”
Sloan followed by her side.
“New Hope needs a team of people to help rebuild their leadership. I can think of no one better than you and your vampire squad to go and maintain the peace while they elect their new leader. Edison and Elwood have volunteered to go with you.”
The Complete Vampire Project Series: (Books 1 - 5) Page 80
