The mist battles past the spray and seeps into the slayers’ bodies. Immediately they drop the extinguishers and begin pulling out their weapons to turn on one another.
Suddenly, Ethan is by my side, taking hold of my hand. Close by are Gabriel and Alvie, who are chanting a spell I don’t recognise. By the frustrated expressions on their faces, I’d say the spell they’re trying to cast isn’t working. They need Rita.
Emilia watches this new turn of events from her window with a satisfied smile on her face. Only a second later I see her smile falter, and I follow her eyes to where Pamphrock and two other dhamphirs are fighting their way through the infected slayers. What on earth is he thinking? There’s no hope of him taking down Theodore in his current state of power. The sorcerer is practically pulsating with energy, ready to wipe out anyone who gets in his way.
Ethan pulls me behind him when a slayer tries to attack us, his eyes crazed. I’m about to move toward the slayer to push out the mist; unfortunately, Ethan snaps his neck before I even have the chance. Shocked, I try to let go of his hand, but he holds on tight.
Gazing down at me, he says, “This is a battle. There are going to be casualties, my love, so get used to it.”
I gulp and try to find Pamphrock again amongst the fighting slayers. So many of them have already killed their very own comrades because their bodies have been taken over. Their actions are not their own. Pamphrock wields a bow and arrow identical to the one Finn normally uses, and, standing amidst his own men slaughtering one another, he aims it directly at Theodore’s head.
Seeing the attempt on his life before it happens, Theodore steps forward with his arms outstretched.
“Come on then, Governor. Take your best shot.”
Pamphrock lets loose the arrow and it sails through the air toward Theodore’s skull. In my mind I’m thinking, is this it? Could this be the blow that kills Theodore? The momentary hope is shattered when, seemingly with just the power of his eyes, Theodore causes the arrow to disintegrate mid-flight. It falls to the ground as dust.
Theodore’s hand shoots out, as though he’s throwing an invisible rope. Something happens to Pamphrock directly after. He clutches at his throat like he’s choking and Theodore’s laughter echoes around the street. Finn and Wolf rush to Pamphrock’s assistance, but just before they get to him Theodore fists his hand and Pamphrock’s body flies up into the air. It reminds me of the trick he used with Rita in the church.
Pamphrock struggles and gasps for breath in mid-air, while Theodore and his group watch on, smug in their victory. I can’t let this happen. If Pamphrock dies then the only halfway decent leader in this city will be gone, leaving Theodore and Whitfield to battle it out. And neither of those two are a good option when it comes down to who should be holding the power in Tribane.
Ethan seems to come to the same conclusion, because he doesn’t hold me back when I start running; he runs right along with me. The next thing I know he scoops me up and throws me onto his back like he did last night. Now going at vampire speed, we reach the spot where Pamphrock is floating in mere seconds.
I need to think of something. I’m the granddaughter of a sorcerer. I can do this. With that thought, the book comes into my head again, the one Rita referred to as the “All Knowing Tome”. I hold tight onto Ethan’s neck as the pages flick and then stop on the information I need. It tells me that in order to kill a sorcerer, he must be decapitated and his body burned. I whisper this information quickly to Ethan.
“There’s no way to do it,” Ethan grits, his jaw tight with tension. “He’d have us up in the air just like Pamphrock before we got within feet of him.”
“There has to be some way,” I say desperately, looking up at Pamphrock who’s losing the struggle against Theodore’s magic.
My attention is drawn away when an unusual crackling noise fills my ears over the din of the battling slayers. I turn around and am immediately struck with the image of purple fire lighting a blaze down the empty end of the street. Fear pulses through me, because that’s not the only thing my eyes are drawn to. Within the purple fire is Rita. Only she doesn’t look like the Rita I know.
Her short hair fizzles with electricity and it absently shoots from her fingertips like lightening, bouncing off the ground as she walks with purpose. Her eyes are black and purple, the same as they’d been after Noreen died. She’s wearing her long, lacy black dress and no shoes.
I don’t know how she got all the way here, since we’re a good distance from Finn’s house. Did she walk? I can’t imagine her going unnoticed looking like this. Then again, the humans are hardly in their right minds at the moment.
She’s come to our rescue, my heart rejoices. She might look like a dazzling horror come true, but that should only work to our advantage if we want to scare Theodore off. It’s as though her grief has caused her magic to mutate, and the powerful witch she once was is even more so now. When Alvie sees her he almost faints.
“Rita!” he shouts, but she doesn’t even look his way as she passes him by. Okay, that was weird.
I climb down off Ethan’s back and rush to her, but I can’t get by the fire.
“We need your help,” I call in panic. “Theodore is going to kill Pamphrock.”
My words get absolutely no reaction out of her. I try to reach out, but the purple fire singes my skin. She stops for a second to look at me, and her black eyes go right through me. All I can see in them is darkness. In this moment I’m glued to the spot, because she looks absolutely magnificent, like she’s finally come into her own, yet at the same time she is the most terrifying thing I have ever set my eyes on.
She turns away then and continues to stride past me. I gape at her in shock as a feeling of dread claims my stomach. She walks through the carnage, and some of the slayers even stop fighting to watch her go by. It certainly says something for how fascinatingly scary she looks that even half crazed humans are stalling their madness just to stare at her.
She continues walking until she reaches Theodore and he holds his arms out to her.
“Daughter,” he trills, “you’ve finally decided to join us.”
She stops beside him as he takes her into his embrace. Oh, God, please no.
“This can’t be happening,” I breathe. I’m so scared that I hardly hear my own words as they leave my mouth.
“I have,” Rita answers him, her voice low and dark – so dark. She doesn’t even sound like my Rita anymore. The harsh reality sinks in as I realise that my Rita could be gone forever. I can hear Alvie weeping behind me, as he realises the very same thing.
Above our heads Pamphrock finally loses the battle against Theodore and his body goes limp within the magical hold.
“He’s gone,” Ethan states.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I all but whisper, practically repeating myself. The fact that Rita has just joined Theodore is messing with my brain.
Theodore lets Pamphrock’s body fall to the ground with a sickening thump. I glance at Emilia’s window to see her smiling and closing over the shutters. I don’t know if she’s a fan of Theodore, but she’s gotten what she wanted all the same. Pamphrock’s dead and now nobody’s going to try and take Rebecca from her. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more hopeless.
Theodore joins hands with Rita and the others who came with him. Tears stream down my face. I want to rage at him and pull Rita away by the scruff of her neck, whether she likes it or not. But I’m no match for either of them, and I’m certainly not a match for the both of them together.
“I think you might want to climb up onto my back again,” Ethan tells me in a low voice.
“Why?” I question him, too lost in my own despair to understand his request.
He doesn’t answer. Instead he swings me up onto his shoulders without effort. Finn and Wolf are beside us moments later, as are Lucas, Delilah, Alvie and Gabriel. Practically all of the slayers have either killed one another or are still fighting it out. The only ones who didn’t s
uccumb to the mist are the handful of dhamphirs among their numbers. They come and join us too.
Something’s happening now that Theodore has joined hands with Rita and his followers. The mist seeps out of the dead bodies on the ground and returns to the cloud above the sorcerer’s head. That’s when I realise it’s coming after us, and it no longer seems repelled by me and my magic. Now it seems fearless. It practically crushes everything in its path, vehicles, trees, people. I’ve never seen anything like it. The black cloud descending on me and my little group instils terror into my very bones.
“Hold on to me and don’t let go,” Ethan instructs.
I wrap my arms tight around his neck and my legs around his waist. He doesn’t have anything to worry about, because I have no intention of letting go any time soon. Before I know it we’re running at vampire speed. I’m feeling extremely dizzy, but I do manage to turn my head just enough to see that we’re outrunning the chaos cloud. The blackness is getting further and further away.
When we stop, however, we find ourselves on Campion Row in the midst of the worst carnage I’ve ever seen.
Chapter Seventeen
I Joke About Death Because It’s Funny When You’re Frightened
It takes a minute or two for Finn and the others to catch up with me, Ethan and Lucas. Mayhem is erupting all around us. We probably ran to the worst possible spot we could have chosen in the whole entire city. Vampires are killing people and people are killing each other. From the corner of my eye I spot a vampire coming at Ethan with his fangs out and blood all over his face and body. By the look in his eye, I can tell that he recognises exactly who Ethan is.
This fact is further cemented when the vampire calls out to the others around him, “There’s that traitor, get him!”
“Ah fuck,” Finn swears and begins shooting arrows at the vampires approaching us, managing to take a couple of them down. Wolf growls and pounces on a female vampire. He jumps and his entire body flies in mid-air, before his open mouth clamps down on her throat. The vampire struggles against the animal, but Wolf makes an abrupt jerk and her neck snaps off. Jesus. He really isn’t any ordinary dog.
I clock another vampire just a second before he’s about to swing a sword at Ethan’s throat. Pulling the stake out of my pocket and manoeuvring my body, I manage to plunge it hard right into his chest. He clearly made the mistake of dismissing the human sitting on Ethan’s back as no real threat. People should really stop underestimating me.
Ethan smiles a 100 watt smile when he realises what I did. “Good girl,” he praises me.
“Come on, we have to get off the streets,” Finn orders, gesturing for everyone to follow him down a side alley.
There’s a narrow ladder running up one of the walls and leading to the roof of a two storey building. Making sure we haven’t been followed, we all take turns going up. I don’t bother to get down off Ethan’s back, and he carries me up the ladder with him.
The roof is flat and empty, and although it isn’t as high up from the street as I’d like, it will do for now as a place for us to rest. A solemn atmosphere permeates those present; we’ve all lost so much. Ethan finally allows me to climb down from his back and he frowns when he sees the damage Rita’s fire did to my hand when I’d tried to reach out to her.
“This isn’t good. A burn from magical fire can be life-threatening,” he says, and fear fills my gut. The burn doesn’t exactly feel life-threatening, but it does hurt pretty badly. Up until this moment there had been far too much adrenaline rushing through my system for me to notice the damage done to my hand.
Finn, Lucas and Delilah are taking stock of the weapons we have on us, while Gabriel is holding Alvie in his arms as he cries over Rita. I want to cry too. Even though she’s still very much alive, it feels as though she’s died. The sense of loss is palpable; it’s like somebody has gone and cut out a piece of my heart. The person wearing Rita’s skin who stared at me with those dark new eyes didn’t feel like my friend at all.
There are four dhamphirs with us, three men and one woman. They appear wary of the presence of Ethan and Lucas, but Finn quickly explains our alliance to them and they seem to accept it.
Ethan leads me over to a private corner of the roof, still examining my burned hand.
“I should give you some blood for this,” he says. “It could turn necrotic if left untreated.”
“Necrotic, does that mean it’s going to fall off?” I ask with a shudder.
“It means that the living cells will die, and that’s not something you want to happen, believe me.”
He stands so close that if I were taller our noses would probably be touching. He leans in even more and whispers in my ear, “You drank from my wrist before. How about this time you try my neck?”
I know I shouldn’t be getting turned on in this situation, especially since we’re discussing the possibility of my hand falling off, but I can’t help it. Ethan’s voice always manages to send a shiver through me, and the idea of drinking his blood again is more than appealing. The last time I did I was on a high for hours afterwards.
“Okay,” I reply softly, my eyes drawing instinctively to the subtle cords of muscle in his neck, the hard line of his jaw.
“You’ll have to cut me, honey,” he goes on, still whispering with a touch of humour. “I can’t bite my own neck for you.”
“Oh,” I breathe. Why does the idea of cutting Ethan seem so tantalizing? It’s not like I want to cut him in a harming way, I just think that giving him a little nick would be kind of…sexy? Yeah, my mind has definitely sunk to the gutter these days. Remembering the razor in my pocket, I pull it out.
Ethan smiles approvingly when I flick it open, but then he frowns when he recognises it. “Isn’t that the blade the slayer gave you?”
“Uh, yeah.”
His frown deepens, which really irritates me.
I roll my eyes. “Get over it. I don’t keep it for sentimental value. This blade has helped me out of a sticky situation or two. I guess that makes it my friend now.”
This seems to appease him. He nods and breathes deeply, awaiting the incision. Raising the blade to his golden skin, I press it in and cut a shallow line about two inches long. Some kind of urgency comes over him as he backs me up against the wall of the next building, his arms braced on either side of me. Licking my lips, I move my face to his neck, where a trickle of blood runs out. I lick it away and suck at the cut I made, the taste of it hitting me powerfully.
I relish the scent of Ethan’s skin and how his blood invigorates my entire body as it slides down my throat. I’ve only swallowed down about three gulps when he gently pulls my eager mouth away. His eyes are scorching when I look up at him. He rubs a thumb over my lower lip, and I feel the blood on my mouth smearing. My breathing quickens at the intense way he’s studying me, taking in my every feature.
A second later he swears, “Oh fuck it,” and then his lips are on mine, tasting his own blood in my mouth. I groan as his tongue strokes over my own, but I manage to push him away before anyone notices our clinch.
Seeming amused that I was self-conscious enough to break our moment of passion, Ethan takes my injured hand into his and massages it with his fingers. “See how quickly my blood heals you?” he asks.
I glance down to find the burned skin repairing right in front of my eyes. It’s miraculous. The relief is short lived though, because another thought instantly springs into my head. “Was it a bad idea for me to drink from you again? I don’t want to become addicted.”
He strokes a hand down my cheek. “You won’t become addicted. We’ll just be a little more bonded now.”
“Is bonded simply a nicer way of saying addicted?” I smirk.
Ethan smiles seductively. “You’re already addicted, just not in the way you’re imagining.”
I cock an amused eyebrow.
“I’m addicted too,” he adds. “God help me sometimes it can be to my detriment, but I am.”
The atmosphere bet
ween us suddenly turns serious. I can’t find the ability to say a single word, as Ethan asks, “Did you find time to look up the translation of what I said to you?”
His voice is laced with emotion now. Our gazes lock and I can’t look away.
“No,” I answer. “I forgot. What was it again…Te iubesc?”
“Yes, you should have looked it up.”
“Why?”
“Because it means I love you,” he tells me, deadpan. He slides his arms around my waist and holds me tight.
I suck in a shocked breath. Suddenly, all sound vanishes and all I can see is Ethan. I forget about the killing that’s happening on the streets below, about my friends on the other end of the roof.
“Did..did you mean it?” I stammer, my heart going ninety.
“I don’t say things I don’t mean, my love.”
I let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “You really pick your moments. You should have just told me what it meant last night when we were alone.”
He smiles and caresses my neck. “Ah, but telling you now adds a certain dramatic touch, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to say…” I trail off, all rosy cheeked and befuddled.
“There’s nothing that needs saying. I have simply told you how I feel.”
I reach up and place both of my hands on his face. “We’re going to discuss this later, okay? When there’s time and we have more privacy.”
He leans down and kisses my lips, feather-light. “As you wish. Come, we should join the others.”
Pushing the emotions that Ethan’s declaration brings out of me to the back of my mind until I have time to dissect them, I walk straight to Alvie and throw my arms around his neck. He’s not crying anymore, but his eyes are all red and blotchy looking.