Chapter 28 #2
I twist that third key within and rip that door open right as the devil’s death strike is about to hit me. Bloodred aura explodes into the room as that death strike hits a shield stronger than any type of beings. And then, just as fast, I slam that third door shut and lock it right back up.
My aura had dominated the devil’s for a split second. Now it feels as I was before. Magicless with no aura.
Both of the intruders step back. The mage widening his eyes as he coils his magic around himself. Pulsing with a power that sharpens the very air.
I roll out my neck as I begin making my way down the row. No one even twitches as I move, taking the stairs down until I’m facing off with a devil who has control over the death element and a mage who can control two separate elements.
A measly vampire would have been dead the second they stepped into the room.
Shrugging off my blazer, I place it on the desk behind me and twist the keys of that first and second door. I don’t open them yet, but just unlocking them builds my aura past the confinements of my body. It hovers like a sheet of smoke around me and they can feel it.
“Pink eyes,” the devil reverberates. “Which red-eyed bloodsucker turned you to give you power as you have?”
The depth of his tone almost sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it. Not that it matters. He’ll be dead soon anyway.
Taking my hands, I dig my nails into opposite palms and rip them open. My blood flows in a steady stream onto the floor as my scent billows around me. Building up my aura even more, and when they both realize what my blood smells like they both take another step back.
“A dead one.” His magic flinches and I think I’ve perfected my threatening deadened tone. “Just like you will be.”
And his magic explodes but I’m already waiting for it.
I still the blood falling from my hands and then solidify it. Rearranging the molecular structure and turning my blood fallen into my own weapons. Pulling up the two whip-like strands, the devil’s death strike hits it instead of me.
Connecting the ends, I sharpen the other side and twist, using my materialized weapon of blood like the precious whip dart it is. Letting it circle around me in twining strands as I show them part of my blood art.
And then I fracture the air with them.
Long threads of my solidified blood slice through the air before me. Cutting into the icicles from the water mage and towards the rebels. There’s a hum vibrating through my blood as it cuts. An age old song vibrating I know the mage can hear.
Power.
The devil blocks. A visible shield of transparent gold with runic markings, but my blood does chip the edges. He twists the runes and then shoves his shield towards me. Turning it into a force that hits me like a goddamn tank.
Runic-fucking-magic.
I go flying back into the wall and crash onto the desks below.
The students huddled, most in states of shock and panic, don’t even breathe with a movement to help me.
It jars my brain because they have magic.
They have something to defend themselves, and most of them something to attack with.
I mean there are giant shifters in here.
I’d say it’s pathetic because I’ve seen humans – who have no magic at all with no weapons – stand up against threats they know they can’t beat. But I can’t say they’re pathetic. I can’t, because they’re kids. We’re all still basically kids and we shouldn’t have to fight.
People as a whole shouldn’t have to only endure.
But all I’ve ever done my whole life is endure. So I cough up the blood stuck in my throat, grit my teeth, and force my body to stand. Right now I am the only thing between them and the students, and they may hate me but I will not let Jullia become a victim.
That hit was hard. I can feel a lot of my ribs broken and my head throbbing. I bet they thought it would keep me down. I grin bloody teeth at them as I straighten. The mage is fuming as I roll my shoulders out and crack my neck.
Pain.
In a twisted way it feels like home. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt pain from a beating.
Another golden shield comes from the devil but this time I cross my arms up in front of my head. My blood forms an X with them and the shield splits. Shattering against the edge of red.
It feels good. To have those doors within unlocked. To let my blood flow free in my veins without the control.
So much control, so much calculation, all the damn time.
Twisting my blood back around myself, I sharpen them to thin razored edges and pulse with aura from that third door still unlocked but not open.
I can feel color from my blood rushing back into my eyes.
Another tightly controlled moderation, keeping my aura from my eyes so they appear their rosy pastel pink instead of the bloodred they actually are.
Coiling my blood whips in the air until they’re teeming with barely restrained control. The magic vibrating with a need for release.
“This is impossible,” the mage whispers, and yet it thunders back through the room. “You are nothing.”
Slowly, I curl my fingers into my palms from where they’re raised in front of me.
My left hand horizontal before my stomach with my right at an angle before my chest and face.
I let my blood flow from my still open wounds on my palms, but instead of falling I wrap my blood around my hands.
I let it cover my wrists and stain my shirt.
“How do you smell like that poison?” the devil reverberates. His voice, it’s irritating that I can’t figure out where I’ve heard it from. His death damnation aura thickening in the room and for a moment his effect touches me.
The panic, the terror, freezing.
But I shake it off and curl my blood stronger around myself. He is nothing like the sun devil, and I am not six-years-old anymore. I just need my blood to touch them. Just like my blood touched them when I was ten.
I let that third door crack open. I let my aura expand. I let that fury I felt two nights ago free.
I can see it in the mage’s eyes. In the posture and body language of the devil. I wonder if they can see it, if it’s visible in my eyes now.
The devil raises up his own death magic around himself in preparation. Picking up on the influence and strength. Within, I twist a fourth key to unlock a fourth door but not open it. It expands my magic further. Past this room and further out. Past the aura of the devil with his death damnation.
The hum in my blood hitches and then I release.
Relaxing my fingers and hands as I let the blood covering them finally fall.
Droplets like rain that are about to hit the floor and then it almost feels like nothing.
My magic explodes towards the intruders and it will kill them.
I know that to be truth. This expulsion, this release, it’s not something you can survive.
Too strong, too powerful, too raw. I’ve kept it locked up for too long.
An exhale and time moves at a pace that shouldn’t be real. My droplets of blood are about to hit the floor and the devil and mage are about to be dead, except time moving at a pace that shouldn’t be real flinches back.
My blood does not hit the floor and when I look down I see it hovering an inch above the hardwood. Something, someone, outside of this fight is controlling my blood. Stopping it from hitting the ground and by extension stopping my force that was supposed to kill the devil and mage.
My magic ripples and the force is lost and instead of killing the devil and mage as it was going to, it hits another golden shield.
The impact shakes time from its slow movement and everything resumes at its right pace.
At the doorway another type of force enters.
Fuming rage and an aura that consumes the space steps through.
Red wrapped in gold lock on me and I make it all disappear.
I shut every door and turn every key to lock it all back up.
The devil and mage rebel don’t even glance at Professor Asier, they simply disappear. Leaving only a wisp of shadows and a faint scent of copper and ozone.
What. The. Fuck.
Callahan comes bursting through the door next, his golden eyes wide and fearful.
When they find me and the destruction around he hesitates.
I hadn’t noticed the room before. Chairs and desks crumpled between me and the professor.
The power of me and the rebel devil destroying the room.
There are even cracks through the walls that extend onto the ceiling.
Rolling out my shoulders, I wince at the pain fluttering around my body. Callahan jerks towards me at it, and then slowly, carefully approaches me.
“Mavyn. . . “
I turn to the students behind me all huddled together. Most of them in states of shock. Jullia stands from where she had been crouched in front of everyone. Twin transparent blades are strangled in her hands as her wide lavender eyes blink rapidly.
My shoulders drop seeing her. She’s okay, and even scared she had been ready to defend.
Another body pumping blood in a rush bursts through the door with a single name roaring from their mouth. Jullia drops her blades that turn to water and splash onto the ground as Asher flies up the stairs and wraps his arms around her.
Lovesick fools.
But I smile at them because they are both alright. Probably terrified, but alive and seemingly unhurt.
A presence draws behind me and my name is whispered on their lips. Callahan’s shadow falls over me and I can feel the warmth from his body caressing my back. “Can I please touch you?”
He sounds. . . strangled?
“I need to know you’re real. That you are alright.”
I am, even though I feel like my skin is just a sack holding crumpled bones. I know he needs the confirmation, but my blood is still rushing. My magic is locked up and my aura once again feels nonexistent, but I can’t quite get the grasp of control to slow my heartbeat and blood flow.
It’s still vibrating with that hum.
I should have been able to kill them.
Stepping to the side, I turn to face the professor. He’s surveying the damage and behind him is Darian and the two councilmen from before. I can feel other blood-filled bodies large enough to be people near, but they don’t enter the room.
“This is. . . “ The devil chairholder turns up to us. His burnt gold eyes looking at me and his son. “Who was it to face against Kolasi and the second lead of the rebels?”
Burnt gold faces against pale pink. The force of red circled within gold burns too, but I don’t look at the professor. I keep my attention on the devil chairholder of the Mage Board. If only they had listened to me before. I already told them.
I am not a vampire.
But they did not want to listen. They did not care about the blatant facts right in front of their fucking faces.
And with their hatred towards the vampires.
. . well, now I’m just going to make sure they rethink their entire opinion of the race.
Because they wanted a vampire, so I’m going to give them a fucking vampire.
“A worthless,” I begin, gaining every eye in the room, “powerless, weak, auraless, piece of nothing.”
Because that’s what they think vampires are. That’s what they think I am. And they are correct – about me. Vampires as a race are just as complex as any other, with their faults and difficulties, but they are not scum. They are not nothing.
I am.
But I will make them regret ever talking down about the vampires.