Chapter 35
Croft
Leah was more powerful than Croft could ever have imagined. Again and again, the witches clashed in the sky, but from the beginning, Croft understood she didn’t have a chance. Leah was too strong.
Croft picked herself up from the ground once more and lifted into the night air.
She spat blood from her mouth, the metallic taste an afterthought as she looked over the battlefield.
Cherub held the gates of Azra, where men and women from both sides died by the second.
It was only a matter of time before the superior numbers of the vampire army won out.
A lone figure with a giant blue mage sword had captured the mage engine’s interest, but for how long?
“You have to realize by now that this will all be over very soon,” Leah taunted from her position in the night sky only a few dozen yards in front of Croft.
“You can’t compete with me, and neither can your forces stop my own.
It’s over, dear sister. If you bend the knee now, I might be persuaded to take mercy on you. ”
“So you can stab me in the back like you did to Eleanor?” Croft gathered herself for another attack. She channeled the yellow power of her magic into her hands. Soon, they both glowed with an impressive yellow fire. “No thanks. I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
“Then die you shall!” Leah screamed. She pulled back her lips and her eyes glowed with the purple color of her magic.
Once more, the witches clashed. Croft sent bolts of yellow magic at Leah, to no avail. Leah allowed the bolts of magic to reach her, striking them with her own hands that pulsed with purple light. Every time both witches’ magic met one another, a loud cracking sound shocked the night sky.
Leah deflected the attacks, striking out with an assault of her own. A mass of bright purple tentacles exploded from her right hand.
Croft braced herself, crossing her forearms in front of her and summoning a shield. When the attack hit her, her shield held, but she was slammed down to the ground by its sheer force.
Croft grunted as the air escaped her lungs. She hit the ground inside the Azra walls so hard, her teeth chattered. Leah’s attack never stopped, the force of the writhing magical tentacles pressing down on her.
Summoning all of her reserve strength, Croft forced herself to her knees and then to her feet, trying to combat the magic with a burst of yellow magic of her own.
It was a short-lived victory. Croft rose, meeting Leah’s channeled energy with a beam of her own.
Her magic pushed Leah’s from her body, but only succeeded temporarily.
Croft’s entire body fought fatigue. Her muscles screamed as if they were on fire. Sweat obscured her vision as her attack broke. Leah hammered her again with the blast coming from her hand, and Croft fell to her knees.
This is it, Croft thought. She had always imagined the seconds before her death would end in fear. All she could think about now as her last reserves left her and her defenses broke, was how she hoped her daughters were far away from Azra.
CRACK!
Croft looked up from her kneeling position in the stone street of Azra. Her body was steaming from the intensity of Leah’s attack, but she wasn’t dead. Croft glanced at her sister, confused.
Hope, joy, fear, and a sense of pride and worry all hit her all at once as she saw Elizabeth floating in the air in front of her, the bracelet around her wrist gone.
“What are you doing?” Leah scowled at her. “I’ve come here to free you. Now move aside so I can finish this.”
“No.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I’m free of what you did to me now. I’m thinking clearly for the first time in a very long time. You get one chance to walk away.”
“Move, you idiot child!” Leah roared. Her hands met in front of her, forming a black sphere of energy. “I will not tell you again.”
“No!” Elizabeth screamed.
“Elizabeth, get back!” Croft struggled to her feet, her mind willing a battered and fatigued body past its physical limitations.
“So be it,” Leah roared, and she hurled the ball of black magic at Elizabeth without another second of hesitation.
Croft’s heart skipped a beat.
Her daughter didn’t move. Instead of dodging the attack, she caught it.
Croft had to do a double take. She blinked, trying to understand what she was seeing. The power Elizabeth had to have to be able to control a ball of magical energy that size was extraordinary.
The ball of magic grew in Elizabeth’s hands now as a layer of yellow magic coursed over the initial ball of black matter.
“What are you doing?” Leah looked on at Elizabeth, baffled. “How did you do that?”
Elizabeth ignored Leah’s question, instead concentrating on building her attack. Leah took the opportunity to strike again. This time both hands pushed away from her body, palms first. Purple lightning raced from her hands toward Elizabeth.
“Not my daughter, you bit—” Croft’s words were lost in the crackling noise as their attacks met.
Her maternal instinct and love for her daughter giving her strength she didn’t know she had, Croft lifted into the air once more and mirrored Leah’s attack.
Yellow and purple lightning met in the space between the witches, and a brilliant white light exploded to life.
Croft remembered what happened next in a series of brief scenes as she fell into unconsciousness.
BOOM!
Elizabeth threw the ball of black-and-yellow magic at Leah.
The ball was so large now, it encompassed Leah’s entire body.
One second, the witch was trapped in it; the next, she began to melt.
Through the translucent yellow-and-black bubble, her skin slipped off her face.
Like something out of a child’s nightmare, Leah’s skin, muscles, and finally bones were stripped away in the magical cell.
An ear-shattering explosion rocked Croft backwards, sending her once more to the hard Azra ground and into unconsciousness.