22. Consiglieri versus Guardian
Chapter 22
Consiglieri versus Guardian
T he Pink Pussy - Las Vegas, Nevada
April 17, 2018
(4 Days Before Death)
The Pink Pussy Club’s neon lights cast eerie shadows on the alley walls. The full moon’s glow painted the night in a surreal battleground. Sonya tightened her grip on the baton. Its dual laser-dagger tips hummed with lethal energy and gleamed.
Without warning, Sophie leaped. Her fangs bared and claws poised for attack. With a maddening snarl, she flew with the wind, her red hair changed colors to blonde and fanned out all around her head. Her eyes were like a serpent and her fangs were longer and sharper than even Sonya’s nightmares could imagine.
She came for Sonya.
“Sophie, no!” Shakespeare warned and charged forward.
Sophie was beyond reason. Sonya’s reflexes were honed for the fight. She sidestepped Sophie’s airborne assault with fluid grace. The baton spun in her hands. And the vampire’s claws missed Sonya by inches. As Sonya twirled around and lashed upward with the baton, the laser beam sliced clean through Sophie’s left arm. The limb fell lifeless to the ground.
Sophie shrieked in agony. She clutched her severed stump as black blood sprayed from the wound and soaked her pink dress. Sonya retracted the beam in time to pivot and face Shakespeare’s attack. With a daft maneuver, she struck him in the chest. The hard blow sent him crashing into the brick wall of the club. The impact left a dent in the structure as Shakespeare slid to the ground, dazed but ready to respond.
Fueled by rage and pain, Sophie sprang up and attacked again. Sonya dropped the baton in surprise but recovered her composure with swiftness. She launched expert kicks and rapid punches while she used her elbows to block and counter blows. The fight circled and Sophie, with one arm, returned blow for blow. Sonya defended each succession of blows with karate-like maneuvers against the injured vampire.
Sonya's movements were a blur of precision and power, each strike calculated and devastated. Every fist thrown kept Sophie on the defensive. When Shakespeare attacked, she engaged. Twisting, ducking, and maneuvering between them both.
She blocked Sophie’s wild swipes with her one arm, barely dodging Shakespeare’s attack, surprised at the way the crazy vamp fought hard with a missing limb.
It was sudden but expected. Shakespeare attacked Sonya from behind. Sonya was knocked into a garbage can, near unconscious. She summoned her sheer will. She leaped to her feet and landed on top of the large garbage can. Shakespeare was there in a flash. His attack was more charged than Sophie’s. They exchanged blows, arms, and kicks flying. Sonya punched him in the face several times and almost knocked him off the can. He recovered to deliver the most powerful kick she’d ever felt in her chest. She went into a somersault and landed on her feet on the ground.
She turned into another battle with the one-armed Sophie. The alley echoed with the clash of supernatural strength and martial prowess. Sophie was slapped around but managed to scratch her claws across Sonya’s chest, ripping her corset almost off her body.
Despite the ferocity of Sophie’s attacks, Sonya remained composed. She wove in and out of blows to deliver counterstrikes to Shakespeare, now caught between the two. She executed a cartwheel maneuver and freed herself from their grasp. Shakespeare leaped at her and she ducked, dropped, and slid across the dank alley floor to retrieve her baton. She flipped over from her back to her feet. She swung the baton, the laser light tips sharp and ready.
Her original plan was foiled, as the guardian had told her. She was to entice Shakespeare to bring her into the hotel. To seduce him from his hate and pain. To gain secret access to the sisters and her dear Charmaine and then escape. Now she was in for the battle for her life.
Sonya charged back at the vamps. She twirled and spun with the grace of a samurai and swept the baton low to knock, not cut, Shakespeare’s legs from under him. In the same second, she swung the baton high and then did a quick maneuver that decapitated Sophie.
Shakespeare screamed in shock. Sophie’s head flew off her shoulders, her body still throwing fists and claws, now blind and helpless. It dropped to its knees and fell over.
“No, Sophie! Nooooooo!” Shakespeare wailed; his pleas pierced the night. Paralyzed by the sight of his lover’s death, his eyes were wide with horror and disbelief. Before he could react, the roar of the engine pronounced the approach of a black-on-black hellcat as it swerved into the alley.
Sonya’s senses went on high alert. She could handle one consiglieri and an insane vampire like Sophie, but three consiglieri were too much, even for her. The car skidded to a halt, and Phoenix, the red-haired consiglieri, dashing in his appearance, emerged with a predatory grin. Raven, the dark-haired consiglieri, was out in a flash. Sonya made a split-second decision. She sprinted towards the wall, using her momentum to run up its surface. Her goal was the roof, her escape. The guardian had told her to allow capture, but she could not and would not bow to the consiglieri. Never.
Shakespeare shook off his shock and became charged. He went after her. He scaled the wall, driven by rage and grief. From below, Phoenix raised a specialized weapon, a glune, designed to subdue even the most formidable foes. One of Marcello’s designs that was used on the wolves during the national vampire hunt that Don Vittorio hosted for his children to prove their strength and mastery. It fired a magical net; the strands shimmered with enchanted energy.
Just as Sonya reached for the rooftop’s edge, the net ensnared her. She was dragged back down with brutal force. She crashed to the ground; the impact jarred every bone in her body. Sonya struggled against the net, her screams of defiance strong and proud. The net’s enchantment was too powerful; her movements were futile.
Phoenix did a slow walk to his prey. Raven walked a step behind him. Shakespeare got off his knees and joined them. The three spread out and circled the trapped vixen.
Shakespeare wiped his blood tears.
Phoenix looked at him and then over at the decapitated body of Sophie. “Be calm, brother.”
Shakespeare nodded. However, blood tears dripped down his cheeks. A dead, headless Sophie lay close to them.
Phoenix used his watch to release the Guardian. She dropped to her hands and knees in the center of the consiglieri circle.
Sonya took a deep breath. She was slow to move. Her mind raced with ancient knowledge of what the servants of Draca could and would do to her. Then her gaze lifted to the one she knew was the oldest. The Magistrate.
“My contacts at the airport told me the most unbelievable story. They sensed two Guardians deplane from New Orleans. I don’t respond to hysteria and gossip from lower supernatural’s, but these are strange times. And Don Vittorio is near death. So, against my customs, I ventured into daylight. If Guardians had arrived in Vegas, then that witch Greenlee was playing with magic again.”
Phoenix looked up at his consiglieri brothers. “I waited outside Circus Circus, in the morning sun, to witness the miracle firsthand.”
“You knew? You let her come into my club! You let her kill Sophie!” Shakespeare yelled.
“Marcello didn’t want the guardians touched.” Phoenix stared at Sonya with respect. “This, my brothers, is greater than a miracle. Say what you want about those First People fangirls. They have achieved the impossible. Bow before her.”
“What?” Raven frowned.
Phoenix glared at Raven, then at Shakespeare.
BOW! He yelled in their heads.
With superior strength, Phoenix forced the consiglieri to their knees. He then looked at Sonya with so much adoration and lust in his eyes she had to look away. Phoenix bowed before her and got down on one knee. Desire swirled in his green gaze. “There hasn’t been a Guardian as beautiful among us in three thousand years. Welcome to the Fratelli, Guardian.”
“I am not here for you!” Sonya spat blood from the cut in her mouth into Phoenix's face.
Phoenix shivered with delight. He smiled. He wiped the blood and tasted it. His eyes fluttered over the essence of her on his tongue. She looked away in disgust.
“I am aware of your mission. And you know you will not stop us from saving Don Vittorio. Now, we can engage here, fight to the death, three against a Guardian in my realm. Or you can come with us, face your destiny, and we vamp’s will roll the dice on the consequences.”
Sonya knew she would not survive a fight with the consiglieri alone. In order to protect the Chosen, she needed her sister. She realized Phoenix had studied the old teachings and possessed this knowledge as well. She glanced at the baton. It was her weapon of choice.
Phoenix smiled. “Sorry, love. You can’t have her.”
Sonya looked at Shakespeare. He heaved and wheezed with labored breathing and blood tears. She thought of another touch to his black heart. A mercy of healing for him for taking away his mate. The hatred she saw in his eyes halted her from the action.
Sonya turned her gaze to Raven. His dark gaze and lust-filled thoughts of draining every drop of blood from her lady parts after he fucked her into extinction overwhelmed Sonya.
There was no escape.
Her gaze returned to her captor. She gave him a respectful nod. “Bellagio?”
“Of course, the brothers are waiting for you,” Phoenix said.
She held her hands out before her. Phoenix put cuffs on her wrists, crafted from the same crystalized magic that had created the net. He was careful not to touch her.
Sonya smirked.
“Touching me is like a dream come true,” she teased. “Isn’t it, Shakespeare?”
“Fuck you!” Shakespeare sneered.
“Maybe later,” she winked. “I prefer you do me than Raven.”
Raven's brow arched over the rejection.
“She is reading your fucking minds, idiots. Stop with the games and letting her in. You can’t beat her that way,” warned Phoenix.
“Put her in the trunk, since she lacks the respect we showed her. Let’s teach her some manners on the drive back to the hotel,” Phoenix ordered Raven.
Raven gave her a psychic push that she tolerated. Sonya walked to the back of the car and climbed into the darkness of the trunk. The lid shut down on her like a coffin.
Phoenix looked down at the concrete. He paused at the sight of the carnage. He picked up the Guardian’s weapon. Shakespeare collected Sophie’s head. He remained weak with grief and regret for how he had treated her.
“Sophie was consumed by her madness. She prophesied that a dark force was coming. It was stupid and insane,” said Raven.
“She wasn’t. She had visions, dreams,” Shakespeare said. “She saw her own death. She said she would die this way. I never listened.”
“We are of the dead. We don’t dream,” replied Phoenix. “It had to be madness over her Draca consuming her. Either way, she is gone. Now you need to pull yourself together. We have a problem here. A big one.”
“I can’t leave her body out here like trash!” Shakespeare shouted at Phoenix and Raven. “I won’t!”
“Fine. Take her to the Venetian and put her in the vault. Then meet us, brother.”
“Why hasn’t she turned to ash?” Raven frowned. “That is the true death.”
“Not if taken by a guardian. She is condemned and her body will rot until the last of the Draca in her fades, and her soul turns to ash.”
Raven's eyes stretched. “Without her head, the Draca lives? Since when. She should be dust.”
“What’s left of the Draca is being preserved by the powers summoned through the darkness. That guardian is the Defender of the Pain. Trust me, there is no coming back from her judgment. Shakespeare, you are fucking lucky. She didn’t take you instead,” said Phoenix.
Shakespeare frowned. Several times during the fight, he felt the guardian hold back when she could have used the baton to end him. He thought it was a weakness. But now he saw it differently.
“The death the Guardian gave her is filled with suffering.” Phoenix looked up at the moon. They could hear the howl of the wolves in the distance. “If we keep fucking up, we might lose control of Vegas. The supernatural’s are on the hunt. Let’s move!”
The consiglieri could see Sophie’s hands twitch, and her face contort with pain, but her eyes remained shut. It scared Shakespeare and Raven to their core. They had not believed all of Phoenix’s stories and teachings. Now they saw proof. There was something worse than the true death by fire. Something much greater.
Shakespeare gave an obedient bow of his head. Phoenix and Raven returned to the car with Sonya in the trunk and sped off into the night.