Chapter Forty-Five #2
better. I’ll make you a deal. If you manage to survive, I’ve got a present for
you. I brought back three bottles of the strongest sunscreen from the Earth
plane. I’m sure that one of those brilliant vampire scientists will be able to
reverse engineer something from them.”
Dante’s eyes light up. “Oh, yeah, they can, and I’ll be the
one who brought it to them. This is going to get me out of refurb hell. Nice.
I’m totally going to live. Profits are on the line. No vampire goes down when
profit is on the line.”
“I thought you might say something like that,” I reply,
heading for the door to the tent. “But, Dante, I’m going to need a cut.”
I let the flap close behind me as I hear the vampire curse.
I look through Dante’s binoculars. The enhanced
glasses give me an up-close view of Beck and Cian’s small fortress, even
through the rain. Dante eases down and nudges me. He points to a figure
standing mere feet from the green sanctuary. A black cat twitches anxiously
around the woman’s ankles. Kitty doesn’t like the storm, it seems.
It’s Liadan, all right, but she doesn’t look the way she did
before. She stands on the ground with her hands at her sides. Her previously
pristine dress is soaked and caked with mud. There’s a deer walking toward her
as though she called it. In an instant, Liadan attacks the gentle creature,
slitting its throat from ear to ear.
“She uses the blood to strengthen her spells.” Dante leans
close. “I wish she would use a spell to make her not look like that.”
Liadan shed the vestiges of her public persona. Gone was the
lovely Fae woman, and in her place stands the hag. Her face is withered and
cracked. Her hair, though still blonde, is gnarled, as though rats nest in it.
She has long fingernails, and she uses them to extract the blood she needs.
The hag begins chanting something in a language I don’t
understand. After a long moment, some of the vines protecting the sanctuary
retreat. I can begin to see the walls of the structure. The minute Liadan
manages to unveil the door, she’ll be able to attack my husbands.
“She’s been doing it for days,” Dante explains. “She’s
getting close.”
If only I could stop the driving rain. It pours down in
sheets, making visibility a real problem. While I can see Liadan’s body, the
downpour makes it a hazy thing. I’m not sure I can properly aim. Weeks of
practice sharpened my skills, but I don’t want to risk it in this drenching
downpour. I might only get one real shot.
I can’t stop the storm, but I know someone who can. I have
to hope my husbands aren’t so far gone that they can’t respond. Silently, I put
the binoculars down and open the connection I share with my husbands. I close
my eyes and seek them with my mind. A tendril of psychic energy brushes against
my brain. Cian. It’s a soft touch so I know it’s my intellectual husband. That
wave of psychic energy reaches out toward me. He’s weak, so weak, but I send
the message anyway. I let my mind wrap around his energy for a moment, pleading
with him to be okay.
After a long moment, the rain recedes.
Dante tenses beside me. He looks up as though he can figure
out why the rain stopped. “Is that a bad sign? Does that mean something’s wrong
with Beck?”
I reach up and tug on Dante’s jacket until he kneels back
down. I don’t want to give up our position because now the hag is trying to
figure out what happened, too. Liadan is paying attention to the forest around
her. The hag turns, those black eyes of hers flashing back and forth, taking in
everything.
“Beck is fine. I made contact with Cian and asked him to
shut off the waterworks,” I whisper. The jacket Dante provided is set to
camouflage mode. So far, the hag hasn’t seen us. It won’t take her long,
though. Already the black cat stares in our general direction, her triangular
head tilting in a curious manner.
“I’ll take the hag. You get the cat.” I never take my eyes
off Liadan. I stare in almost helpless fascination. The hag appears bigger than
she did before, her body stronger. There’s no question that Liadan is a
predator.
Dante’s voice cracks a bit. “I don’t like cats. They’re
creepy. I’m more of a dog person.”
“I’m not asking you to take it as a pet,” I practically
snarl back. “I’m asking you to kill it. I’m taking on the big, scary hag. You
can handle one kitty.”
“We need to talk about this new trend toward emasculating me
at every given opportunity,” Dante mutters. I stare at him, my eyes narrow. “I
can handle the cat.”
“Do that.”
I pull the gun from the holster and shrug out of the
confines of the jacket. I no longer feel the chill in the air. My skin is hot
with the anticipation of the next few kill-or-be-killed moments. My heart
pounds as I face down my enemy. Liadan is looking the other way. There won’t be
a better time. I stand.
“That’s not a good idea.” Dante tries to pull at my hand.
“Just take care of the kitty,” I shoot back at him. It’s
time.
I look out across the forest that separates us and take aim.
The cat hisses, the sound so much louder than it should be. It echoes through
the forest. As the hag turns, I let out the breath I was holding and pull the
trigger.
The hag is quick, but not fast enough. She moves to the
left. I was aiming at her heart. Blood blooms across the hag’s shoulder, and
she shrieks as the hollow-point lodges itself in her flesh. It isn’t enough. I
curse when Liadan staggers but does not fall. She remains on her feet despite
the blood beginning to soak her dress.
Liadan snarls as her eyes find me. I pull the trigger again,
but Liadan is ready this time, jumping across the space. One moment, the hag is
there and the next she’s ten feet away, the bullet flying uselessly through the
forest. Liadan holds her good hand up and speaks some words I don’t recognize.
It’s as though a giant rush of pure energy strikes me
squarely in the chest. It knocks me off my feet, but I don’t hit the ground. I
fly back, the air sucking from my lungs so I can’t breathe. The hag grows
smaller as I race backward through the forest. The world around me seems to
spin out of control. The weight of the gun in my hand is the only thing that
seems real. I clutch it tightly and don’t try to fight the power shoving me
backward. My body hits the rough bark of the tree, and my head falls limply forward.
Breathe. Beck’s voice speaks inside my mind. He’s
calm and patient, and suddenly I don’t feel so alone. Beck is with me, and he’s
lending me his experience.
I drag in a breath as my body slides to the muddy forest
floor.
Stay down and take cover. Don’t panic. You can
do this. Take out her heart and she’ll die.
“Easier said than done,” I complain quietly as I shove the
gun in my holster and force my aching body to crawl through the mud toward a
downed log. Every inch I gain makes my bones ache, but I manage to hold on to
the gun.
“So, the little bitch made it back.” The hag’s voice booms
through the forest. “I wonder how much that cost you. What did you have to pay
the demon for the trip? And he gave you some form of magic as well. You must
have given him a lot.”
I make it to the relative safety of the log. It’s time to
set up my next shot. I ease the gun back into my hand and peek over the curve.
Dante is still in his hiding place. He’s crouched down, his eyes seeking
something. The cat prowls not far away. Her feline nose scents the air with
predatory grace. The hag paces back and forth as though the pain from her arm
bothers her. Her black eyes scan the area up and down, seeking any sign of
where I landed.
“I had to sacrifice a virgin to that damn demon. Then I had
to sign a contract offering him my soul,” the hag admits. “And look what it got
me.”
I clench my fists thinking of the young woman who’d been so
kind to me. The hag is trying to force me out. She is the one who killed Bri,
and she obviously knows I cared about the girl.
But the voice inside my head urges patience. Beck whispers
to me that I must stay calm. Calm wins battles.
“I slit that stupid girl’s throat, and you’re back anyway,”
Liadan says with a sigh. “Do you have any idea how messy that can be? She had a
lot of blood in her. It should have gotten me something better than this. Ah,
Ain found your friend.”
There’s a loud hiss and then something that sounds like a
five-year-old girl’s scream. Apparently, Dante didn’t lie about not liking
cats.
Dante lands on his back as the cat pounces. Ain, as Liadan
called her, is a hissing mass of claws and sharp teeth. Blood streaks across
Dante’s face as the cat’s claws find purchase in his flesh. Dante wraps a hand
around the cat’s throat and squeezes.
“I changed my mind,” Dante yells. “I’ll take the hag. You
take the cat.”
“Too late,” says a voice right beside my ear. I turn and the
hag is at my side, so close I can smell her fetid breath.
I twist my body and roll up into a crouch, every muscle
screaming in pain. The hag’s fist comes out, lancing from her body. It crosses
my jaw, and the impact snaps my head back. Pain flares and the gun slips from
my hand.
I can’t lose the gun. I don’t have magic. The gun is the
only weapon I have.
I grope for the gun, getting it back in my hand, but Liadan
is too close. I have to keep moving. I kick out as Liadan tries to jump on me.
I hear a satisfying groan from the hag as my foot makes contact with Liadan’s
gut. I get to my feet, and Beck is whispering to me.
Take the advantage.
I kick Liadan again with all the force I can muster. I plant
my boot in Liadan’s chest as the hag tries to get up. Liadan hits the muddy
forest floor. I press my advantage, jumping on the downed woman, planting my
knees on Liadan’s torso. I’m taking no chances this time.
I place the barrel of the gun against the hag’s chest. I
steady myself to pull the trigger when a terrible pain lashes across my back.
Ain leaps on me, scratching and clawing through tender
flesh. Pain screams across my skin. I try to get a hold of the blasted thing,
but it sinks its teeth into the back of my neck and won’t let go.
“Oh, no, kitty cat,” Dante growls.