48. The Slayer
The Slayer
Iris looks at me like I’ve betrayed her, but I saw the fear in her gaze and the way those witches were ready to impart damage to my Iris. I needed to protect her more than I needed the spell books or to get revenge.
But it seems like I didn’t get us far enough.
A green bubble circles around where we are. The shifters and vampires are on the outside. I can see Silas and the disgusting vampire banging on the barrier, attempting to get to their mates.
Meanwhile, the witches look stunned at the level of magic surrounding them.
Balam is likely dead and there's guilt there, but maybe he got out. That, or Celeste needs him enough to keep him alive this cycle.
Celeste and the newcomer witch land in front of us and the hush that comes over the coven is unbelievable. Violet and the High Priestess seem the most shocked and I place all the pieces together.
It’s thirty witches to two, yet somehow our odds feel low. Celeste has lived longer than all the witches here combined, the souls she collects fuel her power. The magic she uses is dark and sinister, while the Celestial coven is of gentler magic.
“Mother?” the High Priestess asks and all the witches hold their wands high.
“Yes, well, you all should have been wiser and killed me. Shows what a weak leader you are. Now there will be no coven to speak of. It’s best this way, really. None of you appreciated what I handed you,” the new witch says.
“Vampire souls are like a little snack. Collecting all these magical souls should last me for centuries,” Celeste says, and my heart plummets.
Have we really lost? After all of this?
“Kill her,” Adam urges in my mind, giving me the inspiration I need.
These witches aren’t killers…but I am.
I turn to Iris, grabbing her face amid the chaos. “I love you, my sweet Iris,” I tell her, kissing her one last time. Her brows furrow as she looks at me, but I’m quickly out of sight.
Celeste and her new minion are too focused on tormenting the witches in front of the coven.
They don’t even notice me. There’s a chance it won’t work, and I’ve come to terms with that.
Iris is chasing after me, but she’s too slow as I come behind Celeste and shove a stake right through her back, piercing her cold, dead heart.
The witch beside her stuns me, and my muscles seize, making me tremble on the ground.
Celeste isn’t dead, but she can’t pull out the stake and I laugh through the pain.
Magic flares around me, spells shooting back and forth. Celeste is screaming at the witch I now know is called Aster, to remove the stake, but she’s too busy fighting off her own coven to help her.
The stunning spell eventually releases me. I’m weak, barely holding myself up as I walk up to the witch who has used me as a pawn, hurting my mate and her family. When I look down at her, it’s a disgust I haven’t felt in many years.
I’m ready to pull the stake out and dig my hand through her chest cavity and rip out her heart when a hand touches my shoulder.
I thought it would be Iris, but it’s none other than her grandmother. “Let me finish this,” she says, and I step aside, giving her space.
“I’ve seen it, you know? The way they burned you at the stake?” Delphine gets down to her haunches, so she’s face to face with a bleeding, defiant Celeste. “Though…it wasn’t thousands of years ago. It was today.”
Delphine flicks her wrist and I watch in amazement as the stake catches fire, burning Celeste from within.
The ancient witch writhes, burning before our eyes. The runes on the stake prevent her from doing magic or removing the hunk of wood. There’s no way she could transfer her soul.
Like she did all those years ago, she burns at the stake, but this time she isn’t coming back.
Iris finally catches up to us, and her breath hitches as she looks down and then at her grandmother.
“What…did you? She’s gone?”
“She’s gone,” Delphine says confidently as she approaches her granddaughter and cups her face. “She suffered for what she did to your mother.”
The two women embrace, holding one another. Meanwhile, there’s still chaos before me. Aster’s defensive magic is unbelievable and if I had to guess Celeste imbued her with something powerful to help them take us out.
But with Celeste dead, the bubble pops with a crack. The shifters and vampires can join the fray.
It’s now one witch versus all of us and she doesn’t stand a chance.
There’s a growl in the distance and I watch with utter amazement as two wolves, one with dark inky black fur and another that I assume must be Silas, approach the witch, tearing her to pieces.
A heavy somberness is thick as the two witches lie dead, but at least our side is left unscathed, well at least physically.
Iris and her grandmother finally part, and as I approach them, Iris falls into my arms and I hold her tight.
“We need to get the books,” Iris says and I pull back.
“That can wait. Are you alright?”
“I will be,” she says with a tight smile. “The whole coven is here. Now is the time.”
I grab her around the waist, teleporting us back to the office. Balam lies on the floor, but he isn’t dead. I nudge him and he groans awake.
“Fuck,” he hisses, rubbing the side of his face. I grab his elbow, helping him off the floor, and he stands.
“Celeste is dead,” I tell him as Iris collects the spell books.
“What do you want us to do with yours?” she asks, holding his tome.
“Destroy it,” Balam says and Iris’ brows furrow.
“There’s a good chance that the void is gone. That your lover along with it.”
“Then I’ll find him in whatever is the true afterlife,” he says solemnly and Iris clicks her tongue.
“Can you give me Adam for a moment?” she asks, and I oblige. “Can you remember all the words to the spell?”
Adam looks over the words, not speaking them out loud, remembering the intricacies of each word.
“I’ll remember it,” Adam promises. Balam looks confused, but doesn’t question it as we take all the spell books and bring them out to where the two witches lie.
Iris places the spell books on top of their bodies and the coven circles them with interlaced hands, chanting a spell. A fire rages on, destroying the evil witches and the spell books that have controlled every slayer’s life.
I feel it the moment the spell book is destroyed, a sense of freedom I never thought I’d experience.
The blood lust that rallied through my veins is gone, the fear of dying another cycle to get sent through to the void disappears.
This is my last cycle, and there’s an endless amount of peace that comes with that realization.
After the last flame trickles out is when the witches finally break hands. There’s a lot of pain in what happened tonight for them. This coven might have been created by the hands of evil, but they’ve changed their fate. It gives me the strength to want to change my own.
I am no one’s weapon, except for my Iris.
She hugs her friends and family, quietly coming to stand in my arms as I teleport us home.
Iris and I shower in silence. I’m not sure what to say, or how to move forward now that everything is different.
All I can do is be here for her in all the ways she needs me.
“I can take over if it’s too much,” Adam says, and I know he would, but I also don’t want to shy away from the things I’m not particularly good at.
This is my official last cycle, and it’s time to learn different emotions and how to regulate them.
“Is there anyone else you need me to kill to make this better?” I ask Iris.
Adam makes the most irritated sigh in my mind, but when I look at Iris she doesn’t seem upset. She looks like she’s trying to hold back a laugh and it’s the first time I’ve seen her smile in a long time.
“No, Slayer, I think I’m good on that for a lifetime.”
“You will tell me what you need? I’m still learning and I don’t know what to say or do sometimes, but I don’t want to run away and always let Adam take control.”
Her face softens as she kisses the center of my chest.
“You being here is all I need. Just give me some time, okay?”
“I’m nothing if not a patient slayer,” I reply.
She needs time, but she also needs me, and that’s enough.
The next days pass by with Iris nearly working herself to death. It’s a mixture of working on potions, getting her shop restocked, and helping Balam.
Now, he’s my brother in some twisted way, and he helped us fight Celeste, however I don’t like how close he sits next to my Iris.
So I promptly drag a chair between them, tossing an arm over Iris’ shoulder.
She laughs at me, shaking her head as she works on the new spell book.
One that could summon Balam’s lover. She’s made him aware that there’s a chance that this won’t work.
We don’t know if the void was destroyed or not, or even if his lover is there.
Beyond that, Iris has also imposed some rules for creating the book.
If this other slayer is summoned, the book will be destroyed immediately.
Balam is amenable to that rule, since this is also his last cycle.
The trickiest part of Iris’ agreement is that the human vessel must give permission.
I’m not exactly sure how he’s going to figure that one out, but it’s his problem.
Adam is worried that she’s throwing herself into projects to keep busy and not work through everything that’s happened, but I told him my sweet mate can do whatever she needs to feel better.
Scarlett trots into the apartment, climbing onto my lap and showing her teeth to Balam.
“Quite the vicious beast,” he says, looking down at the fox.
I stroke her fur. “She is a ferocious little predator.”
“When is he leaving? He’s your friend, Slayer. You need to tell him his pants are too tight. How can someone even slay vampires with such little breathing room?”
Iris and I can’t help but to laugh and Balam knows he’s not being told the joke. Balam is working on not wearing all business casual clothes like he used to, and the jeans he purchased are a little tight.
“What did the fox say?”
“Oh nothing,” Iris says as I answer at the same time. “She says your jeans are too tight.”
“Slayer,” Iris hisses at me, while still semi-laughing.
Balam rubs his hands against the too tight jeans, his cheeks pinken, and he gives the fox a dirty look.
“I will head home. Let me know when you would like to work on the book next,” he tells Iris, giving me a nod of his head and a glare at Scarlett.
“Tell him if he glares at me one more time, he’ll be leaving here with one less finger,” Scarlett says.
I pick her up, kissing the top of her head. “So blood thirsty, little fox.”
“I should work on some more potions,” Iris says as Balam leaves and, with some nudging from Adam, I shake my head.
“You need rest, Iris.”
She looks away from me gingerly, and I place a finger under her chin, pleading with her to tell me what I can do to make this better.
“How can I take away your pain?” I ask, and I watch in horror as she bursts into tears.