Chapter 22 #2
His face fell. “Oh, right. See, I already forgot about that detail. Wait, isn't Sweyn the queen of vampires though? Do I ask her? Who is in charge on our side?” Then he looked to me.
“You’ll find no one actually went to Sweyn for almost anything,” I said with a smirk. Braison and Malik chuckled behind me. “The answer is me. You will come to me, and yes, you may sit this one out while you adjust.”
He nodded and let out a sigh of relief.
“Royce, stay here.”
B-O-S-S? Royce signed with alarm in his eyes.
“Poison Roycy anything unwelcome, got it?” When Royce smiled and nodded, Tenn turned to the room.
“Mei-Ling and Tai, I appreciate all the help you’ve been giving us but I fear it’s come to the point where I need to demand humans stay out of this fight.
We will keep you here for now but I need you to stay here. ”
Their faces fell but they nodded.
“Daniel, ma’am, that means you now,” Savannah drawled. “Go on, git.”
Daniel’s face paled. “What?”
“Yeah, Savannah, what?” Tenn scratched his head.
Savannah glanced around with wide eyes. “Ain’t nobody else here saw what happened this morning? Connie’s Mark literally jumped off her arm and landed on Daniel’s. Y’all, show ‘em.”
Daniel and Constance raised their left arms. The same Roman numeral XI Marked their skin but Constance’s was gray while Daniel’s was black.
The rest of The Coven grumbled and cursed.
“So much happened this morning, I just…was waiting to tell you.” Daniel grimaced. “And I’m not sure I’ll be much help—”
“Ma’am. Did you see what you did this morning? Do I need to find the CCTV footage? Look at the damn wall.” She gestured to the solid wall of black crystal filling the space a wall used to. “I say you know how to do that.”
His face flushed. He looked nervously around the room. “Oh, well, that was pure panic.”
Tegan chuckled. “Then keep panicking for now.”
“We’ll get to your initiation soon.” Tenn scrubbed his face with his hands. “Fucking hell. Constance, are you all right?”
“Yes,” she spoke softly.
“I’ll ask again later.” Tenn turned to me. “If you’re ready then we are.”
I held my hand out to Tegan. “Just open up your magic and I will do the rest, okay?”
“Sounds weird, I’m in.” Tegan grinned and skipped over to me.
“Oh, and Savannah?”
She jumped and looked at me with wide blue eyes. “What’d I do? I didn’t do it. I plead the fifth.”
I rolled my eyes and chuckled. “You are staying here this time.”
“Yes, Papaw Frost,” she said with a grumble but not much fight.
Ah, she learned a lesson. My great-granddaughter was a riot and a half, it was difficult to try and be stern with her when I was trying not to laugh. Celina wrapped her arms around mine and giggled against the back of my arm.
Tegan put her hand in mine. I felt her magic slide up my arm so I called on my sire bond to Sam — white light flashed all around us.
When it faded, my stomach sank. We stood in the middle of a cornfield.
The sky above us was crystal clear and dusted with sparkling stars.
There wasn’t an ounce of pollution in the sky so we were definitely far from the big cities.
“Henley, some light?” Tenn whispered. “Goddess, that felt good to say finally.”
Henley chuckled softly somewhere behind me. I didn’t see her but I watched as the moon grew completely full then lifted higher in the sky, casting a spotlight on the cornfield around us.
“Savannah’s gonna be pissed she missed this,” Rae mumbled.
“I’m worried we should be missing this,” Celina said as she squeezed my arm. “You know I’m not doubting your sire bond—”
“I don’t like this either.” I glanced around, trying to see between every shadow of cornstalks towering above my head. A sharp chill ran down my spine. “Tegan, get Tenn out of here now.”
Tegan spun around to her soulmate with a smile then shoved two hands into his chest. White light flashed again except this time Tenn was gone. “I don’t like that or this, Everest.”
“I agree. Let’s move.” I led the group down a narrow gap between stalks but I kept my eyes on the ground and let my other senses take the lead. My magic was all I needed.
I tapped into that sire bond with Sam and followed the pulsing trail toward her.
She wasn’t moving, that made my pulse quicken and my stomach turn.
With every step I took I felt more and more distress coming through the bond.
Sam was in trouble. This was either a horrible trap or Sam was dying.
With a curse, I picked up my speed. If this was a trap we didn’t want to give them any extra time to scheme.
If Sam was dying then we needed to hurry to try and save her.
I pushed through two tall stalks and slid to a stop so fast Celina crashed into my back with a hiss. Sam stood ten feet in front of us in a white power suit and her long blonde hair cascading over her shoulder. Her back was to us but that only made my heart skip more.
This is very wrong.
“RUN,” I yelled into my crew’s minds without moving my gaze off Sam.
Tegan and the others didn’t hesitate, they bolted back in the direction that we’d come. Only Celina, Auryn, and Rae stood with me now.
“Sam,” I said with a warning growl in my voice.
Slowly, she spun around and a sickening evil grin spread across her face. “Oh good, a family affair.” She pulled the black sunglasses off her face revealing a pair of glowing red eyes.
Entirely red.
“NO,” I swayed and staggered back. “No. What did you do?”
She cackled. “Well hello, offspring…”
I balled my hands into fists. “Mother.”
“What? You don’t believe in a little…family bonding?”
“Where’s Sam?” I snarled.
She gestured to her body - Sam’s body. “In here somewhere. For now.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because my greatest weapon turned out to be my enemy and has evidently been playing me a fool for a millennia so now I have to come down here and handle this mess myself.”
I smirked. “You don’t trust Sweyn?”
“The best parts of Sweyn were her carnage…and you.” She shrugged. “If you want something done right you do it yourself, isn’t that the saying…Celina?”
“Says the monster wearing someone else’s skin,” my wife snarled back.
“Don’t you worry, I’ll be back in my own skin soon enough.
” Mother held her hands out to the side.
“Not that I intend to let you all stick around to see it. Or should I say, let you do anything about it. Because I intend to make you watch what I do to this little precious realm of yours. Starting now.”
She thrust her arms forward and a sea of demons emerged from the shadows of the cornstalks.
Thousands of demons filled the night sky.
It was more than a trap, it was an ambush.
Up ahead, magic sparkled and flashed. I heard The Coven shouting in alarm.
Celina and Rae took off, their wings carrying them toward our friends at blinding speed.
I glanced back but mother was gone. Sam’s body was nowhere in sight and the connection through the sire bond was growing weaker.
“RUN!” I shouted to Auryn and charged after the others.
Auryn flew up over my head to fire magic into the demons from above.
I flicked my arms left and right, taking out dozens of them at a time.
Part of me knew we needed Tennessee, even without Michael’s sword he was a killing machine, but without Michael’s sword we’d never defeat mother so Tenn had to be protected at all costs.
By the time I caught up to The Coven I had to have killed a hundred demons yet I hadn’t made a dent.
This was Samhain all over again. Mother had unleashed hell upon us.
Our greatest weapon was Tegan but Asmodeus had pinched her magic so she was operating with civilian level power.
It would take more time than these demons would give us to get her healed.
The sound of a propeller engine caught my attention. I looked toward the sound just as a small old school red crop dusting plane came into view. It was flying right towards us and only thirty or so feet off the ground.
A woman stood on top of the wings with a katana sword sparkling in the moonlight in one hand and a ball of fire in her other.
I frowned. The hairs on the back of my neck stood tall.
The only Card with the power over fire was the Empress and that woman had long brown hair and no bandages wrapped around her eyes. That woman was not Emersyn.
I prayed it was another fallen angel and not what I suspected.
But as the woman shot a stream of fire into the field of demons and not at The Coven I knew my prayer had not been answered.
Tegan let out a broken wail and her whole body locked up.
Celina dove in front of her and sent a wave of her blue tide into the sea of demons.
The woman on the plane leapt off the wing and walked across the fire she’d thrown out.
She threw rivers of fire in every direction then ran along the tops of them to burn our enemies to ash.
The rest of The Coven was panicking. I wasn’t focusing on their words but I heard the name Emersyn cried out over and over.
They’d all realized what I had. The woman running through the sky above our heads with the Mark of the Empress on her left arm was not Emersyn Bishop.
Devon, Hunter, and Cooper were trying to get a closer look at her like they refused to believe what their eyes were telling them.
My stomach turned. Please don’t let her be dead.
Tegan was staring at the woman and her whole body trembled.
Rae turned to me, his eyes flashing through a dozen colors in a split second. “Get them out of here. Now.” Without another word he leapt off the ground and shifted into his dragon form.
The new Empress looked over at him with a menacing grin. She used her katana to point over Rae’s shoulder. “YOU GET THOSE!”
“Father, go.” Auryn cursed and shot up into the sky on her wings then raced after Rae.
“Tegan,” I hissed and grabbed her arm. “We need a portal. Now.”