Chapter 20
"Iwould never abandon you." Tarja's mental voice rang with affronted dignity that would have made me laugh if we weren't currently fighting for our lives. "Now stop being dramatic and listen. Move to your left and—duck. Now fire."
I didn't think. Didn't question her. I just moved three steps left.
It put me exactly where a Thessmark had been standing half a second ago.
I dropped into a crouch. My magic practically screamed in protest as I called fire to my palms. The flames that erupted were barely more than sparks compared to my usual inferno.
Tarja had positioned me perfectly, and its clawed hand sliced through empty air where my throat should have been.
At the same time, my blast caught the creature square in its exposed chest.
My flames hit where the stolen essence pulsed beneath translucent gray skin. It caught fire, shrieked, and stumbled backward into two of its companions.
"There are some coming from the right," Tarja warned. "They’re going for Stella's blind spot."
I spun, throwing another weak burst of fire. It was just enough to make the Thessmark charging my best friend hesitate. Stella capitalized on the opening. Her pink flames engulfed the creature's legs. They went down hard, and Nana's shotgun finished the job.
The boom echoed through the lab, followed by the wet splatter of salt-and-iron shredding through supernatural flesh. "That's six for me," Nana announced cheerfully, pumping the shotgun.
"Not the time!" Stella shouted, ducking under a swipe that would have decapitated her.
Shit. These bastards were like dogs with a bone—vicious, loyal to the end.
Even when their master deserved nothing but a blade through the heart.
You'd think with Taverner exposed for the sick bitch she was and hints that she would have betrayed them, they'd scatter like roaches when the lights flipped on. Cut their losses and run. But no. We weren’t that lucky.
They doubled down, clinging to her like she was some kind of savior instead of the monster who'd twisted them into this.
The hunger in their eyes was different this time.
It was sharper, more focused, as if they'd tasted something that made them crave more.
These Thessmark moved like water finding its path.
Each one flowed around the room with an awful kind of grace that made them even more lethal.
They'd been dancing this deadly waltz for decades.
They'd been practicing down here in Taverner's twisted playground just like she had been. They’d been taking the lives of children as often as she had.
The thought sent my fire spiraling outward despite the hollow ache in my core.
Through my bond with Tarja, I felt her mind working in ways mine never could.
She was able to see all the various threads of magic flying around us.
She understood and wove a plan together faster than I could blink.
And she was back home in Camden, probably draped across the couch near the nursery where the babies slept.
The fates knew exactly what they were doing when they wove familiars into existence, binding them to witches with threads stronger than blood.
Through our bond, Tarja could see what I saw, feel the thunder of my pulse, taste the copper-sharp edge of my fury.
And somehow, she remained utterly unmoved by it all.
She catalogued every detail with that cool, calculating mind of hers while I burned through the chaos like wildfire.
It was like she was tucked away in some candlelit sanctuary, serene and still, while I clawed my way through a hurricane. And from that quiet place, she could see what I was too close to notice. She saw the rhythm beneath the violence, and the openings I'd miss if I relied on myself alone.
“Go left. Now. Duck.” Hell. She didn't just point out which way the wind was blowing. She told me exactly how to use it.
“There are two coming through on Aidon's left," she projected. "You can't see them. They’re moving through dimensional magic in three... two... one..."
I threw up a wall of teal fire just as two Thessmark materialized from the ether behind my mate.
They slammed into my flames and recoiled with those bone-scraping shrieks that made my teeth ache.
Aidon's power lashed out without him even looking.
He acted on pure instinct and lethal grace.
Shadows wrapped around their bodies like serpents and twisted.
Then he turned them inside out with a wet, horrible sound.
Ugh, my stomach rebelled and threatened to send the snack I’d eaten earlier back up. Within seconds, their gray flesh rippled like disturbed water, and they were whole again. That hadn't happened last time. They’d been hard to kill, but that was ridiculous.
"They're learning too damn fast," Aidon growled, his voice rough with exhaustion and something darker. Frustration that had combined with rage. "This is getting old."
"Of course they are," Taverner called out from near the altar, her voice dripping with that saccharine quality that made me want to claw my own ears off.
"Did you think I'd send my elite forces against you without preparing them first?
Each one has been exposed to witch fire, Underworld shadows, and every variation of binding magic your precious little network has thrown at us. They've built up quite the resistance."
I watched Stella throw a binding spell at the nearest Thessmark.
It was the same spell that had dropped three of them in the fight earlier that day.
Pink light wrapped around the creature's wrists and ankles like a silken rope.
For half a heartbeat, I thought it would hold.
Then it slid away like water off waxed canvas.
"Shitty whore," Stella breathed, backpedaling fast.
The Thessmark lunged. Nana's shotgun boomed.
My ninety-year-old grandmother had better reflexes than I did.
The creature went down in a spray of gray ichor that spattered across the floor.
"Like I said before. Salt and iron don't give a damn about your magical adaptation," Nana cackled as she racked another round with practiced ease. "Perks of being old-school."
"How many shells do you have left?" I asked, throwing fire at another Thessmark. The blast singed its skin, but it was like trying to burn stone with a candle flame.
"This is my last magazine," she admitted. For the first time since this fight began, I heard something tight in her voice. Fear, maybe. Or just the cold calculation of someone who knew the odds. "After this, I'm down to hand-to-hand combat and my winning personality."
Shit, she was nearly unbeatable with her weapon, but she was an older woman and not strong physically. She would be overrun in an instant. I couldn’t allow myself to think about how fast we would lose her if that happened.
Through our bond, Tarja showed me the power coursing through the lab.
Not the room itself, but the magic of everything.
It was like suddenly seeing in infrared.
Every supernatural signature blazed to life in my mind's eye.
Our auras pulsed bright and steady despite our exhaustion.
The Thessmark circled us in cold, hungry streaks of gray-green energy.
They were like wolves closing in on wounded prey.
Taverner burned near the altar. Her signature was a sick, oily purple that made my skin crawl. Parker stood at her side. His brand of magic was a shimmer of silver-blue that was growing brighter by the second.
Then there were the doors at his back. Those were invisible to me before. Like this, I could see them starting to pulse. "Oh hell, no," I muttered, watching the dimensional energy gather and twist. "They're manipulating the dimensional magic and opening portals."
Even as the words left my mouth, three rifts tore open in the air around the lab.
They were jagged wounds in reality that made my power recoil.
They weren’t traditional portals. Very few beings could open those.
These were a bastardization of what they were using to make the room exist in the first place.
These doorways stabilized. Parker was the one holding them open.
More Thessmark began pouring through. Fresh reinforcements to replace the ones we'd managed to take down.
Crap on a cracker. We were already running on fumes. Now we were outnumbered three to one.
"Jean-Marc!" I shouted into my earbud, ducking under a clawed swipe that would've scalped me. "We need backup NOW!"
"I've been reaching out through Stella’s network!" My son's voice crackled with tension. "Every witch and paranormal within fifty miles has received the coordinates. I told them it was urgent!"
Thank the gods he’d already reached out. I’d done something right with him. "How long until they get here?"
"Ten minutes, maybe less if they're closer.
But Mom—" His voice tightened. "The lockdown protocols Taverner activated are blocking the building's access points.
They can't get through the doors. When I can see them gathering outside, I will take down the mundane protocols, but that leaves the magical ones. "
Ducking another set of claws, I pulled my dagger from its sheath and sliced across the flesh of its forearm. "Can you destabilize it and force the doors open?"
"I'm trying to reroute through their backup servers now. It’s going to take time."
A Thessmark's claws raked across my shoulder, shredding through the enchanted jacket and cutting through layers of skin and muscle.
Pain exploded white-hot through my arm. My fire guttered out completely.
It was snuffed like a candle in a windstorm.
My magical core was empty. It was running on nothing but fumes and the kind of desperation that made people do stupid, reckless things.