Update
I plan, right now, to finish the short up, post it, and then keep working. I'll keep up the posting if I do, so be sure to keep following.
Final Word Count: 52,927
Scene of the Day
I saw the wall coming at me fast, and there wasn’t a
thing I could do to stop my momentum.
Agony launched through my entire being when I came to a
stop.
I slid down to the floor, the wall where I’d hit now
nothing but powder raining down on my head.
The choking dust only made the ringing in my ears louder,
and my vision’s edges greyer.
It didn’t take a doctor to figure out that impact alone
had shattered several bones, and what made it worse was that I didn’t have time
to wallow in the pain.
Not with her coming for me without so much as a pause to
consider the various ways I might be dead in the next few minutes.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Faery. Your kind has
powerful magic, but your frailty makes up for it. You break so easily. It’s no wonder the smaller
ones are our food.”
I forced myself up to a seated position, taking a second
to blink away the sparks dancing in front of me.
“Not tha’ I can… really argue with ya’… since ya’ just
‘bout shattered me… but I’m not as frail as all that,” I huffed.
Then, I pushed myself to my feet, and a whole new wave
of pain lifted through me.
“You are still
standing,” she agreed with a small amount of awe. “Still, your short blink of
an existence isn’t going to last much longer.”
I cursed when I realized I’d dropped my gun.
Which I discovered when the metal snapped under her foot and a silver cloud of smoke rose up.
She immediately jumped to the side, staring at the
broken weapon and its silver bullets in fear.
“You brought some dangerous toys. And your spine’s not
as snapped as I was expecting, clearly. That thing about you being more than
just a little Fae wasn’t boasting, was it?”
“You have no idea,”
I mused.
I shut my eyes and concentrated.
If she killed me while I wasn’t looking, that would be a
pretty ugly way to go, but at the time, I needed to throw every bit of my
concentration into what I was about to do.
“Sorry ta’ disappoint. But, on the plus side, bein’
coy’s done, now ya’ve attempted ta’ kill an APD liaison.”
“Have something you can throw at me while you’re passed
out?” she laughed.
I took one more deep breath, and then I lifted my
trembling hands to point palms-up at her.
“I call on fire. Under this domain of darkness and
death, come to heed my beckoning, oh purifying flames of the Archangels,” I
intoned.
The air around the room instantly heated up, and shimmering
waves started moving between us.
I opened my eyes once more to find her staring at me in
surprise.
“Oh, good! A Fae, and
a witch. Now that makes this a bit more interesting. I was worried I’d be
bored, there, for a second.”
Her hands stretched out, and her fingernails extended
into jagged claws as she approached me.
“I haven’t had a heretic’s blood for ages!”
“Yeah, tha’s great, but I’m not big on bein’ food. Great
spirit of the djinn, I call on your burning power. I give this mortal body as
vessel, and ask you use it to give me your aid!”
Around my hand, smoke rose with a loud hiss.
Brilliant, fiery red light enveloped the appendage as
the magic rose, consuming more of my energy by the second as it expanded.
I really didn’t like using the double-edged sword of
explicitly offensive spells.
It had a nasty habit of consuming too much, too fast,
and it could end up killing me before the vampiress had the chance to even
touch me again.
The decades of practice with magic in all its forms made
the chance of overexerting myself right into a grave smaller, but it still
existed.
Unfortunately, it couldn’t be helped, since that was
really the only option I had right then, unless I wanted to be snapped like a
twig.
“Flames that stoke the soul-charring heat of Jahannam, I give thee release through
divine word of power: Aduro!”
With a snap of displaced reality, the building energy
rushed forward and ignited.
To her credit, she was fast enough to try to react.
It did her no good, though.
And oh boy did
the fire hit.
A massive burst of white fire flared through the room,
seeming like I’d thrown napalm at her chest for all the fire now writhing
around her frozen body.
“You bitch!”
she screeched, her furious voice snarling at me from within the pillar of
flames.
The pyre suddenly sputtered and died, and the charred
vampiress wobbled where she stood.
Even the incredible amount of damage didn’t erase the
look of homicidal rage swirling in her lensed eyes.
In fact, the ugly, slowly closing black marks covering a
majority of her body made it look even more intimidating, to my lack of
surprise.
With every step towards me, she seemed to grow taller.
“Do you have any idea
how much that hurt!?”
I started backing away with every move forward she took.
At the edges of my vision, I noticed that all the light
in the room seemed to vanish as she did, making it so she was the only thing
visible.
I realized right around then how stupid I’d been to
underestimate that vampire based on the quality of her ghoul.
Vampires, while not the undead monsters portrayed in
mythology, still aren’t close to being human.
The older they get, the more they add to their hellish
bag of magical tricks.
Possibly the single most dangerous of their skills is
the geas, a kind of psychic general
purpose tool, which vampires tend to use to trap their preys’ minds.
And it was initiated via eye contact.
Every part of my being gave me natural defenses from it,
normally.
When I’d brought my mental barriers down more than usual
to play to her sense of security, I’d made a big mistake.
“Shite.”
“That’s right, Faery Witch. Took you long enough,” she
sneered.
I brought my psychic walls to their full force, and it
immediately shut the illusion down.
But it had already taken me too long.
All of the damage I’d managed to hit her with was healed
in the time it took to get free.
Worse, she actually looked a little healthier, unlike
when I’d first come, now she was really pissed.
Her claws started to close around my throat, and I
ducked back.
Which, I found out the next second, meant I was now
literally against a wall.
In a desperate move, I started dragging the life from
the very air around me.
Essence snapped along my every synapse as it built, at
the same time as the house’s atmosphere screamed in agony.
Before she knew what was happening, I launched forward
and brought a right cross directly into her jaw.
The essence released on impact, and she was sent
wheeling back.
I’d screwed up enough for one day, so I used the
opportunity to duck around her and go for the door.
I made it about halfway before a freezing hand closed on
my forearm, stopping me dead where I stood.
Another hand filled my vision, and the ground vanished
from under me.
My already painful body was flooded with a torrent of
pure, liquid agony that blinded me entirely.
Thankfully, it only lasted a few seconds before I came
back to the world around me.
My vision, greyed and blurred as it was, took a second
to realize I was staring up at a giant hole in the wall, plaster and wood
decimated beneath it.
I shoved the pain down to be dealt with when indulging
in it wouldn’t kill me, and pushed myself back up.
By the time my wobbling and shaking form was standing,
she’d climbed outside of her house through the hole.
I briefly hoped she was just stronger than her age, but
when she walked into the sunlight, that died.
Not that it was surprising, given her ability to take me
under, even as weak as it had been.
I started backing away faster with her every slow pace
forward.
“That fear’s nice. It’ll make you taste so much sweeter while I drain you dry,”
she sneered.
She paused in her steps, then, and that thoughtful look
formed again as she canted her head to the side.
“Actually, better idea. Death’s too fast. I think I’ll
turn you, instead.”
“Doesn’ work on Fae,” I returned.
It was really the only thing going for me, just then.
“Oh, for the purebloods, that’s certainly true,” she
agreed easily.
Dread crept down my spine the second she left the
statement hanging.
It wasn’t often that I felt uneducated, and that
unspoken but was horrific.
She seemed to have been waiting for it to hit me,
because she grinned when it did.
“But you’re not a pureblood, now, are you? No, you’re,
at most, three quarters. They’re the only
creatures that are immune. And there’s something else in your blood that
isn’t quite so immune, now, is there?”
I froze, and my heart started ramming into my chest as
horrific possibilities started going through me.
If I was turned, things could get very ugly.
Makers had the ability to force their ghouls to do
whatever they commanded, and with the powers and knowledge I had, that could be
catastrophic.
Some part of me, though, kicked the fear back, and a
burst of inspiration came to me.
“Well, c’mon, then,” I huffed.
She paused, and the wariness I’d been hoping for set in
her gaze.
“I’m immune ta’ yer geas.
Tha’s how tha’ psychic compulsion works. So ya’ turn me? I come outta’ it with
a vamp’s strength an’ metabolism on top a’ what I can throw already, an’ you come outta’ it with Lucas hella’
pissed an’ no Fae ghoul ta’ placate ‘im with.”
“You’re speculating,” she scoffed.
It didn’t sound as confident as she probably hoped.
“Ya’ ever turn a demi-Fae? Got experience ta’ back yer
confidence on tha’ up?”
“Please. You’d lose the will to resist like any mortal,
special blood or not. Without that will, as we’ve just demonstrated, I can get
in.”
“Maybe. But I’ve also jus’ demonstrated I’m not just
some Halfling, now, haven’ I? I’m willin’ ta’ bet my blood straight from the Le
Fey’s line can beat yer vamp mojo.”
She actually laughed at that, the sound grating and
painful on my pain-heightened senses.
“Your name’s Morgana, and you think you’re a descendent
of that witch? You Celts and your egos, I swear,” she mocked.
In response, I reached a shaky hand up and grabbed my
right wrist.
“Chaith mé dhuit
ar shiúl, róin a scarann na ríochtaí, agus nochtann branda mo chuid fola ar!”
Magic rushed across my skin, and I nearly passed out as
my blood started humming in tune with it.
Janet watched in surprise as my skin flared bright
green, for a few seconds.
In the burst of smoke that ensued after it was gone, her
vampire-given vision was able to pick up on the ornate scar there.
“That’s-”
“Mallacht Sí,”
I hissed. “I don’ boast ‘bout it, but my family’s the only one with the mark
this generation.”
The mark vanished as quickly as it had appeared, but it
definitely left an impression with her.
It tended to do that, and the simmering burn that spread
through my entire right side like a virus would be worth it if it meant she
wouldn’t attempt to turn me.
“Now, I’ll ask ya’ again. Ya’ gonna’ kill me outright,
or ya’ gonna’ gamble with the potential of unleashing somethin’ even yer leech
of a leader couldn’t handle?”
“T-that doesn’t mean anything,” she argued. “For all you
know, it could turn you into a ghoul without any intelligence or skill. A
braindead husk, borne from blood that rejects the transformation even as it
happens until you’re hollowed out.”
The thought had occurred to me, and I found myself
really wishing I’d brought more than just a single gun.
“Well, no point guessin’. Kill me or inject me. Either
way, I can’t fight ya’ anymore, so le’s not drag it out anymore.”
She straightened out, and her fangs flashed at me as she
hissed.
“You face death with dignity. I can respect that.”
She started heading for me once more, her hands coiling
to form claws.
There was something to be said about my life, when a
shredded throat was the least awful
scenario to end a day on.
Something in the air changed at the same time she
lunged.
Since the gods usually had twisted senses of humor when
it came to me, I wasn’t exactly the type to believe in miracles.
Seeing a vampire shot down by a lightning bolt coming
from nowhere, though, was pretty impossible to talk about with any other word.
She released a loud, echoing shriek as the electricity
coursed through her.
The fact that the lightning had struck when the sky was
completely clear was only a small concern.
Most of my attention was focused on backing away from
her reaching hands, which would likely stop my heart if they touched me.
I managed, barely, to keep out of her desperate grabs
until she fell to the ground in a spasming, limp pile.
And then, I was in the same state, though much less
burned and smoking.
If I had an ounce of strength left, I would’ve been
going for my car a few steps away, looking for anything that could help me.
Because she wasn’t dead, and that meant that her
vampiric healing was going to bring her back a lot faster than I could recover.
“H-how d-d-did yo-ou dooo that!?” she snarled.
“Ya’ think I wouldn’ a thrown tha’ at ya’ the secon’ we
got out ‘ere if I could?” I groaned.
“G-gods on y-yourrr s-side? W-w-w-what aaa joke.”
I was inclined to agree.
With nothing to do but wait for my death, I started
looking around for what had saved me.
And then I found him.
Collin was leaning against my car, his eyes narrowed
dangerously on Janet and his eyes glowing pure gold.
He pushed off and walked to my side, his aura rushing
through the air in its usual flamboyant fashion.
Normally, it kind of got on my nerves, to have his
psyche always pressing at my defenses, but just then, it felt like a balm to my
entire soul.
When he knelt at my side, I realized it was intentional,
as his fingers continued making gestures I couldn’t follow.
His expression softened when he finally broke his glare
and looked down at me.
“You seemed to be having trouble.”
“Miss Dewitt’s ghoul is not any kinda’ indication,” I groaned.
“Looks that way. The ghoul’s in custody now. I hurried
over, but I was half assuming you’d have her in cuffs until you broke the seal.”
Translation Notes
Aduro- Latin: "Scorch, burn, set fire to, etc."
“Chaith mé dhuit
ar shiúl,
róin a scarann na ríochtaí, agus nochtann branda mo chuid fola ar!”- Gaelic: "I cast thee away, seal which separates the realms, and reveal my blood's brand!"
"Mallacht Sí”- Gaelic: "Curse of Faery"
"Mallacht Sí”- Gaelic: "Curse of Faery"
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