Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gemma’s mind refused to process the sight of Skarde hanging by his feet from the ceiling in the middle of a lecture hall of sorts.
The high-ceilinged stone room had stadium style seating in a semi-circle around a raised dais above which Skarde hung.
Dozens of spectators watched as his body, encased in a cocoon of shimmery, moving bugs, remained motionless.
Spiders, centipedes, and other things with many moving parts shrouded him.
Gemma didn’t do things with too many legs.
Her stomach twisted. With a hand to her mouth, she struggled not to retch. To have those spindly legs moving over her body would be horrifying.
“Skarde,” she moaned.
Cade slapped a hand over her mouth and dragged her down behind the stone seating in the uppermost row. “Shh.” He crouched next to her and removed his hand. “Here’s how this is going to go. You will stay here with the witch. Keep quiet. I’m going to take out the humans and spectators. Then—”
“There’s got to be thirty of them,” Gemma interrupted.
“I got this. I don’t see Petra in here, but Mira is going to keep her occupied or frozen or whatever she can do to keep her busy.”
A smile filled with payback spread across Mira’s lips.
“Once I deal with the humans, I’ll figure out how to get him down. Or maybe he can do it himself—he needs a reason to care.”
“The bugs? Isn’t that VanFliet’s thing?”
“Perhaps, but I don’t see him here. Could be Petra.” Between one eye blink and the next, he disappeared.
Screams. The sounds of a scuffle. More screams.
Mira disappeared.
Gemma peeked up over the stone seating. She slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from shrieking at the gory scene. Blood everywhere. Body parts angled in abnormal directions, some still moving, and Cade barely visible as he moved quickly, annihilating another two people.
In an instant Cade cut Skarde free. Skarde fell on his side, hard onto the floor. Cade unwrapped the chains around him and commenced swiping off bugs. Skarde was dressed beneath the bugs, but he wasn’t moving. Gemma saw him blink. Guess a zillion bug bites slowed even a vampire.
Petra wasn’t frozen, as she should be if Mira had done her job. Where was that girl? Instead, Petra chanted something under her breath while sauntering toward Skarde.
Skarde shot to a stand and pushed his brother behind him. He chanted something himself and threw a sandy substance at Petra.
The witch began screaming and clawing at her skin where the sand struck her.
VanFliet appeared. He raised his arm in preparation to throw a knife that would hit one of the brothers. Probably a death blow.
The moment Gemma was about to throw herself into the action, Mira caught her arm in a brutal grip.
“What are you doing? I need to help them.” Gemma tugged against the witch’s grip.
“I’m sorry about this, but I made a blood vow, which supersedes even my promise to you.
I like you. I didn’t believe it possible you’d show, even though Serina said you would one day, but then you did.
I did ask you to not take me to get the vampire, but now there’s no other way to force him to act. ”
Mira rammed a huge knife deep into Gemma’s side. “So bloody sorry, but the future, our future, has to happen now. You need to be stronger for the next phase.”
Gemma moaned and fell to her knees.
On instinct she yanked out the knife. Bad move.
Blood flowed from the wound. She applied pressure, but there was too much, too fast. Something critical had been hit.
A quick anatomy review in her head indicated her intestines were at risk, maybe her spleen.
Crap, not the spleen. Please, oh, please no spleen. That was a fast death.
She pressed against the flow of blood.
Mira was gone.
“Skarde,” she whispered. “I don’t want to die here.”
Blood streamed around her hand. The world went woozy.