Chapter Nine
Once I made it to the clearing, I saw that it was midday. The snow was mostly melted, water dripping from boulders and the leaves glistening wet in the sunshine. Seth took off running toward Blackwater, but paused when he realized I wasn’t following.
“What are you doing? We have to help Mom!”
“We will, but she has to find Sekhmet first. You can take us directly to her.”
“That’s too risky. Sekhmet could overpower her and then we would appear right in the middle of a trap.”
I shook my head. Porschia wouldn’t let that happen. Not now.
Mess with her, that was one thing. But mess with Seth? And Saul? My God.
Sekhmet might be powerful, but she wouldn’t survive the hell Porschia was about to unleash on her.
If she’d been decent, a good sister, I might have felt sorry for her. But she was evil. She was never going to stop. This had to end once and for all, and Porschia had to be the one to stop her.
Porschia was no kitten now. She was a mother bear and she was about to consume the person who dared to step between her and her cub.
Seth raked at his hair again. The leaves on the ground, as far as the eye could see and likely farther, lifted off the ground, hovering a few feet above it. “Seth,” I said calmly.
When he opened his eyes and saw what was happening, his mouth gaped. “You have to calm down. You’re much more powerful than I realized.”
An explosion from the direction of Blackwater shook the ground. “What the hell was that?” Seth yelled, covering his ears.
“I don’t know, but get us there. Now.”
In the center of town, at the Pavilion where I first saw Porschia, there she stood, Sekhmet’s neck in her extended hand and glittering magical remnants raining down around them.
Golden tears traced down Porschia’s cheeks and a mournful howl escaped her mouth as she screamed at my sister. What the hell was this?
“He’s pure power, isn’t he?” Sekhmet taunted. “You drank from him, too?” Sekhmet’s throaty laugh was cut short by the squeezing of Porschia’s fingers.
It was because of Seth, or possibly the combination of my blood and his.
I heard the vertebrae in Sekhmet’s neck begin to crumble, popping and crunching as Porschia lowered her to the ground and quickly snapped her neck to the side.
The last thing my sister felt wasn’t triumph; it was every ounce of power she’d ever had being drained away by the person she once described as a bug – so easily squashed.
Seth and I moved in from East and West, placing our hands on Sekhmet’s body, slack on the ground, her eyes lolling back in her head. “Destroy her!” Porschia screamed after ripping her fangs from Sekhmet’s neck.
We called for the guardians to drag her to the Underworld, to bind her there.
She would have felt when her soul was jerked from her body.
She would have felt when her body slowly dried, each part of her becoming no more than sand itself.
She would have known the moment I blew her away, scattering what was left of her body to the wind.
Porschia, sitting on her knees, began to laugh; a hollow, frightening sound. “She is nothing,” she whispered.
Colonists had gathered in the commotion and now they stood, staring at the three of us. As Seth and I helped Porschia stand, I could feel the power beneath her skin, aching to be set loose.
I nudged Seth. “Make them forget.”
“All of them?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, all of them. But wait until we leave first.”
I pulled Porschia away from her neighbors, Mercedes among them. She covered her mouth wordlessly while Roman held their children’s hands behind her. I shook my head. “I’ll take care of her,” I told Mercedes.
“How’d this even happen?” she screeched.
“Better explained later,” Porschia said, but as soon as Mercedes saw Porschia’s fangs, a full-blown meltdown started.
“Porschia?”
She looked at me, her eyes feral and wild.
“We have to leave now.”
“Okay.”
I expected a fight, not complacency, but Porschia was hollow. Numb. Her mind hadn’t yet caught up with the gravity of what had taken place in such a short expanse of time. When our hands met, palm to palm, a pulse of energy flared between us and we disappeared to The Sand.
I bound her there.
For her good.
So that everyone on earth was protected from her.
She and I would remain the last vampires. We would stay in this place, separate from the world and Underworld. A haven for the two of us.