Broken Souls (Book of Shadows)

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Four

HIM

It’s time.

After a month of RECON, planning, and training with Aleric’s men in the dark of the night, my brothers and I are gearing up to go after Antonio. We are in a warehouse on the west side of town, waiting for the vampires to phase in to join us. Micha and Krypto are safe at home with Mother, but all my brothers are here.

“Do you think,” Aleric asks as he suddenly appears and tosses a sheathed knife to Maddox, “that if I took a Rick, I could fuck one of those super werewolves without dying?”

Six other vampires phase in, all carrying the weapons Cara poisoned for us.

“What?” Leno asks, and everyone groans over the fact that he took the bait and asked a stupid question.

“Their cum’s poisonous to us,” Aleric says. “But if I take a Rick, then it’s not my dick, is it? Which means it’s not vampire dick.”

“I think it’s still your dick,” Leno says, actually giving thought to it.

Aleric waves him off, then pulls out a red vial from his jacket pocket. “Maddox, let me drink this and then you tell me –”

“I’m not studying your dick, bruh.”

He tosses the potion to my brother. “Then study yours and let me know.” He pats his pocket. “I’ve brought extras with me.”

“Does everyone have their weapons?” I cut in before my brother can decide he’s curious about that now too. With a grin, he slips the Rick into his pocket for later. I’ve been handed a machete in a leather sheath and a strap, and I slide it onto my back.

Everyone nods.

“Do you have the silver?” Vlad asks, and I head over to the box we’ve brought with us. The amount of silver we got through the portal was only enough to make a net and a couple of chains. We would have struggled to bind Antonio with just that. But it turns out Zara wasn’t Ryker’s daughter at all. She took advantage of the fact that we didn’t know her home tongue and none of her men knew English. She was nothing more than a pathological liar. Luckily, Lou is fluent in Geish (as well as seven other languages) and was able to communicate with them. No one, it seems, liked Zara. They just fought back because they thought we were going to kill them all.

So now we have two nets, half a dozen chains, and some powder to throw in their faces. There are also twelve small balls for the twins to use with their telekinesis. If they can bury one inside a werewolf, it’s game up for the wolf until they can dig it out.

Enoch and Ezriel take a net and six balls each. Then each of my brothers suck two chains into their shadows. Leno sprays us with a potion that smells like alligator musk so the wolves won’t be able to smell us as we wait.

“Let’s goooo!” Aleric sings. Grabbing my arm, he phases us across town.

We appear inside one of the alligator pens, only a few feet away from a massive reptile. The creature scurries into the water where it feels more comfortable. I stumble away from Aleric as my body shakes, and my stomach churns. Phasing isn’t easy on the body if it isn’t built to do it.

Rudy and Vlad soon appear beside us. Their bodies are tense, and they part quickly. Rudy drops to his knees as he heaves. I help him up. He nods his thanks before he casts an invisibility spell around the four of us, and then we wait.

I smell him before I see him. My eyes track to the start of the boardwalk. It takes a few seconds before he appears, but then there he is – the fucker who hurt my wife and caused me to hurt her even more. He will not be leaving here alive.

He steps onto the boardwalk on his own, leaving behind his guard of six women and two men. Aleric stills beside me, and for the first time, I truly see him for the beast he is. My blood chills as I glance at the hunger in his face.

A crocodile moves near the middle of the boardwalk, and I wonder if that’s where Maddox and Khalid are. My little brother needs to be within a few feet of his target to be able to shapeshift into them. We might have been robbed of our main stash of alexandrite, but we still have enough to craft three more soul dolls, and we only need one of them to kill Antonio.

With luck, it’ll be that quick and easy, and I can go home and tell Micha the threat to our child is over. But only a fool relies on one plan when they only have one shot to pull it off. So the rest of us are here as Plan B. Cara is infecting his car’s AC unit as Plan C. It won’t be as effective, and it will take a lot out of her to keep it alive without a host, but if he drives for more than thirty minutes with it on, then it will weaken him considerably. We might get another chance to kill him then, if we can figure out which safe house he’s recovering at.

I tense, my muscles ready to explode into action as I watch him cross the boardwalk. There is a collective weight in the air, an electric current of anticipation. My eyes dart back to where I hope my two brothers are. I can’t see them under the cloak of magic, but that means he can’t either.

Antonio walks without hesitation, but he isn’t fast. He moves leisurely, his head down, lost in his memories. He suddenly looks up to peer around the watering hole full of crocs and gators.

There’s something wrong.

Aleric phases away just as Antonio stops. The werewolf drops to his hands and knees, shifting in an instant. He’s a second too slow. Aleric appears on his back, his hands going around the werewolf’s face, gouging into his eyes as his teeth aim for his neck.

The eight soldiers Antonio brought as guards all start to shift, their bones cracking, their skin splitting. Vlad and the other vampires phase to their locations, working in pairs to kill three of our foes by ripping their heads from their bodies. Plants shoot forth out of the nearby shrubbery and grabs hold of a fourth werewolf mid-change. They haul her towards the water. Until her change is complete, she can’t control her limbs. The crocodiles will tear her apart.

As Enoch and Ezriel cast a ward around the entire area to keep our fight secret from humans, Maddox rushes under the boardwalk towards Antonio. He’s in the form of a six-foot croc. All he needs is a few minutes – minutes Rudy is keen to buy as he focuses his magic on the alpha, bringing his fears to the surface.

A woman screams, and I snap my head to the left, for an instant thinking it’s Micha. It sounds exactly like she did when she was strapped to that chair. My pulse skips a beat as I look for her, but then it settles as I watch half a woman, her body missing from the waist down, drag herself across the boardwalk towards Antonio. Her intestines trail a line behind her, and there are wails coming from it. High-pitched. Child-like. And I realize I’m staring at Siome – at the twisted memory Antonio has of her death.

Knowing he will never leave Micha alone for the sins of my mother, I rush towards him to help Aleric. The Boss of the Blood Fangs phases away just as Antonio tries to grab him off his back. He appears behind the half-dead woman and stomps on one of the fetuses with a smile on his face. Antonio roars as he charges him.

I quickly scale the boardwalk behind him and unsheathe my machete. Shadows seep out of the cracks in the floor. The sound of clicking and hissing coming from it tells me it’s the reaper. He’s the only one of us who can call the monsters to the surface. He wraps around Antonio’s back left foot, but before he can start climbing up his leg, the wolf bends down and bites it off.

I lunge for the right, knowing he’s going to jump into the water. Shadows can’t form there, but even with my secret speed, he moves faster. Throwing himself off the boardwalk, he leaves part of his foot behind.

The crocodiles go for him as soon as he hits, dragging him under in a feeding frenzy. The murky water gains a tinge of red, and I place my hands on the railing as I peer over it. My eyes search the sea of scales. Aleric grabs my arm, and we’re suddenly on the other side of the swamp. I fall to my knees, the second round of phasing affecting me even more than the first. It’s a cumulative pain, but I push back to my feet just in time to see Antonio emerging from the water. Aleric clearly knows him well.

The two Bosses clash, too fast to really watch. Antonio is moving with all the power he’s recently gained from eating hybrid babies, and Aleric is phasing with the precise skill of an experienced killer. He grabs Antonio’s arm and phases a step to the left. He can’t hop far with the beast who doesn’t want to go with him, but he doesn’t need to. Phasing a step away or a mile makes no difference to the effect it has on one’s body.

I charge forward with the poison-lined machete. If I hit Aleric, it could severely wound our side, but the month we have practiced training alongside each other has helped me to learn his movements.

I dart around their blur of bodies, and every time the wolf goes to bite Aleric Zadar, I slash at him, demanding his attention. He snarls at me as he swipes. His claws rake into me but only surface level. I might not be anywhere near as fast as him, but he doesn’t want to fully lunge at me. Doing so will leave him open to be attacked by the bigger threat.

A person on our side screams in sheer agony, and I know they’re dying. I don’t turn to look to see who it is though. Rudy will defend our brothers. He’ll sacrifice his life to do so, and he can’t scream.

So I keep my focus on killing Antonio. I dart forward as he and Aleric return from another quick phase. My machete swings up, then down right over the vampires’ back. I’m using him to hide my attack, just like we trained, and he phases away right as I’m about to hit.

The blade slices into the werewolf, cutting deep. He kicks out at me, and I go flying, pain searing across my chest. But thankfully, he kicked me with his severed foot rather than the clawed monstrosity he was balancing on. A direct hit from his other leg would’ve ripped open my chest, possibly killed me.

I hit the ground hard. The air in my lungs whoosh out. Another wolf charges me, moving at a speed that nearly matches Antonio’s.

I lift the machete to swing at him. My ribs protest, and that blast of pain makes me a fraction too slow. The wolf’s mouth covers my face as he slides into me, but just as his teeth are about to close, his head flops to the side, and the rest of his body follows. I scramble to my feet to see a large silver bullet get pulled out of the werewolf’s splattered brain with telekinesis. When the bullet ‘waves’ at me, I know it’s Ezriel who saved me. Enoch might complain about doing any work ever, but he at least has the ability to stay focused.

Tightening my fingers around my machete, I turn back to continue my fight with Antonio, but I don’t see him or Aleric. Someone screams behind me. Then two more do the same in quick succession. I spin around, seeing if it’s him doing the killing.

My eyes widen at the sight in front of me. The last two of his soldiers aren’t werewolves. They’re fully grown hybrids, monstrous beasts standing over nine feet tall. Fangs drop down like they do on sabertooths. Their claws are like that of a giant sloth, and their build is as heavy as fucking tank.

Three bodies litter the ground between them. Khalid is dragging a fourth one out of the combat zone. My pulse kicks up as I realize it’s Enoch. My brother’s chest is ripped open. His head lolls to the side, unconscious.

Ezriel and Leno are fighting one, alongside two vampires. Leno is wrapping tree branches around its limbs, molding them like vines, Ezriel is wrapping silver chains, but they’re not burning it like silver should. The vampires phase like gnats around it, stabbing it here and there with blades.

The other hybrid is only fighting Rudy. It slashes him apart with its claws, tearing great big chunks out of his skin. Its teeth latch onto his shoulder, but he stabs it in the eye with the broken sword he has in his other hand. The beast howls as it releases him. Half his shoulder is missing, but Rudy moves like it isn’t. He powers forward, hacking the thing apart with both his swords, one broken in half, the other not.

He dances around the creature like a god of the dead, using his magic to keep going. He fears being trapped in a decaying body, forever alive, forever forced to suffer. He will be the sole survivor.

A sudden gasp of air has my head snapping towards the water. Aleric punches out of the surface, then he’s gone in the next second, having phased to land beside me. He’s bleeding profusely from multiple bite wounds. “The fucker dragged me in,” he rasps.

Then he’s on me in the next second, his teeth sinking into my wrist holding the machete. My first instinct is to hit him, but I rein it in. He is one of our strongest players, and I need him in the game if we’re going to finish this.

“Where is he?” I demand as my eyes search the water. All the reptiles are moving away from us, having finally clocked that we’re too dangerous of a prey, so it’s hard to pick out someone swimming beneath the surface.

“I don’t know,” he says as he lifts his head. His eyes flash blood-red as he licks his lips, and I suddenly realize what he can discern from having drank from me.

“Son,” he says with a harsh stress on the word.

My pulse spikes as my stomach drops. I rip my arm away from him. “This is not the time.”

He smiles, accepting that. Then he laughs and grabs my arm. I spotted Antonio at the same time he did, on the other side of the swamp. We appear not too far in front of him. Knowing I’m going to drop to my knees and heave, I roll into the motion to take out the werewolf’s legs. He tumbles over me, and Aleric is on him in a flash, landing on his back and ripping chunks off it with his claws.

Antonio starts to push up as I roll around to look at them. Aleric isn’t a big man, and Antonio is a werewolf. It will not be a hard endeavor. Then he’ll get away, his speed not one I can match, and I will be forced to rely on Aleric to give chase. But I want to kill him.

I want to be the one who makes him suffer.

He hurt my girl. I need to kill him for that.

Launching myself forward, I shove my machete through his calf with all my strength. He howls as the blade pierces through the concrete below him. I draw another knife I have on me. This one isn’t lined with Cara’s poison, but I don’t need her magic if I can cut off his head.

I scramble forward. Aleric clocks my intention, and he focuses his attack on one of Antonio’s shoulders. He severs the muscles and tendons. The werewolf falls to the ground as his arm can no longer take his weight. He snarls as he tries to grab Aleric off him with his other hand.

Aleric grabs it and twists, keeping the werewolf’s arm locked so he can’t defend his head. All he has now are his teeth, but they can’t protect his nape. Raising my arm, I swing the blade into his neck. He falls forward as the knife bites deep into his flesh. It lodges into his spine, and I twist as I rip it out. Blood sprays all over me. My ribs protest in pain, but I ignore them. I slash at him again. Aleric rolls off him as the wolf no longer needs to be held down. With one more swing, I sever his head completely.

For Micha.

For me.

For our baby girl yet to be born.

Lifting my head, I look at Aleric, expecting him to have questions or to make a dumb dad joke, but he isn’t staring at me. His eyes are narrowed on the body in front of us.

“What is it?” I ask, a sliver of unease moving through me.

Without a word, he grabs hold of the body and phases. I turn back to the others, looking for Vlad to ask him what the hel his Boss might be up to. But then I see Aleric. He’s reappeared near Maddox. He shoves the body in front of him, and I race over, that sliver turning into a cord that knots thick in my stomach.

My blood rushes through my skull as I catch the words, “Is it him?”

Fuck! Of course it is!

But when I get there, Maddox is squatting down beside Antonio’s headless body with a frown on his face. Khalid walks over to him, as does Vlad and Ezriel. Leno is tending to the wounded.

“Maddox!” I snap, terrified of the answer.

“Give me a sec, bruh,” he says quietly.

My heart racing, I start tracking the wounds on the alpha werewolf – the partially missing foot, the slices across his chest and back. I try to decide if they’re the same or just close fucking matches.

No.

They have to be.

It has to be him.

But the doubt is curling in my stomach.

Did he switch with a patsy when he was under water? Or was it the wrong person from the start, just spelled to look like him?

Maddox’s face pales as he looks up at me. “Some of his DNA markers are different.”

My heart seems to claw its way out of my chest. I spin towards Aleric. “Take me home,” I snap.

Because if Antonio left mid-fight, then he only came here to make sure none of us were there.

“He said he would come for our baby, Varius.”

“I won’t let him.”

Fuck! I promised her that. I fucking promised!

As Aleric grabs my arm, I pray that I’m not too late.