A Chance for Charity (The Immortal Ones) (25 page)

I raced toward the mountain lion, pausing
for a fraction of a second when I heard a sharp intake of breath
through gritted teeth behind me. That meant pain. But the yelp of a
dog followed, and I knew Link was getting the upper hand. So, I
continued forward. As I neared the Shape-Shifter I crouched down,
removed my boot dagger, popped back up, and slashed, aiming for its
shoulder blade. It growled fiercely and swatted at me, with its
paw. The skin was torn from the back of my hand as the animal’s
sharp claws raked across it. Red dots appeared in the snow. I
slashed again, this time coming in contact with the animal’s hind
leg. It was only a small cut. The mountain lion was exceptionally
fast.

As the animal backed away, I turned to the
Lords. I removed the two throwing stars I had stashed in my pockets
and unfolded the blades. A micro-burst of wind hit as I released
the weapons. The first one hit Leviticus in the thigh. The second
one merely grazed Ezekiel’s upper arm.

This storm was killing my aim. I should have
hit the targets dead on. I’d failed.

I turned around in time to see Link’s arms
raised in attack, ready to come down upon the dog. Rowan was
cowering in the snow. Elliott saw that his brother was in trouble
and pounced on Link.

I caught the gleam of metal as one of my
throwing stars spun through the air. It sliced through the arm of
Link’s coat, and through his flesh. Levi had retaliated.

Link hadn’t listened to me. He hadn’t run.
And now, he was being mauled by both Shifters.

“
No!” I screamed and raised
my only remaining weapon, the boot dagger. I charged toward the
animals.

“
Elliott, Rowan,” Ezekiel
screamed. “Stop!” He ordered. “We want the final kill.”

The animals paused their attack. They backed
away when they saw the knife in my hand and the look in my eyes.
Link was bleeding from the many scratches that now covered his face
and hands. I helped him to stand. He was a bit shaken, but I could
see that the wounds were not too deep. With a little of James’s
blood they would smooth over nicely. The arm was a bit more
serious, but that too would heal.

Ezekiel came forward. Rage radiated from his
every pore. My failed attack had awakened a beast.

“
Devil woman, stop this
fight. You will not win,” the rage in his face belied the calmness
in his voice.

The storm, which had been in full force just
seconds before, began to lose its power and the wind died down.

Ezekiel paced back and forth through the
blanket of fresh snow, gathering his thoughts. I couldn’t figure
out his next move. Everything began to slow down. The few moments
that lapsed, until he spoke again, could have been hours.

“
Interesting place you
picked to hide... Telluride. You know how it received that moniker
don’t you? The journey through the mountains was an incredibly
treacherous one, for the original travelers. Many perished along
the way. So it became a warning of sorts. ‘It’s to hell you ride,’
people would caution. Ironic isn’t it, poetic even... that it’s the
exact journey that you are about to make. You are an abomination
and it is to hell that
you
shall ride,” he screamed the last few
words.

All sense of reason and humanity, if there
had ever existed any in this crazed man, were long gone.

He raised his gun and fired two quick shots.
I doubled over in pain as I felt the first one tear through my
abdomen and bury itself somewhere in my gut. “Heal quicker,” I
whispered, impatiently waiting for my body to begin the healing
process. The bullet was soon being pushed toward the surface of my
skin. It was my first bullet wound. There was more pain than I had
imagined there would be.

Where was the second shot? I didn’t feel a
second impact. Panic quickly set in, and I turned to Link.

He had been standing beside me, but now lay
crumpled at my feet. A flower of bright red was blossoming
throughout the white snow underneath him. The crimson petals were
quickly growing. His eyes remained open, but they held no
expression. His hands grasped his stomach at the entrance wound. My
ears registered screaming - terrified, horrified screaming.

It was coming from me.

“
No,” I cried out, throwing
myself down in the snow beside him. “It’ll be alright,” I lied,
smoothing his hair back from his face. “You’re going to be just
fine.”

Levi stood above me, sword in hand. “Are you
ready for your ride?” he asked, his eyes sparkling with all that is
evil.

Ezekiel must have lost the privilege of my
kill. Better luck next time, I thought.

It was over. I closed my eyes. I would not
fight anymore. There was no point. Lincoln, my love, would be dead
soon. He was bleeding out fast. Even if I could somehow figure out
a way to defeat the Lords and then conquer the Shape-Shifters, I
could not live through another loss. I refused to try.

I was ready. Ready to die next to my love. I
spread out my arms in surrender and waited for the cold metal of
Levi’s sword to slice through my neck.

A hot rush of wind came, instead of the icy
blade of the sword.

chapter fifteen

SURVIVAL

“
Company,” Leviticus cried
out.

I opened my eyes, in that split second, to
watch as a bright ball of fire landed on his chest. His coat
immediately started to blaze. The man swore venomously and threw
himself into the snow, desperately trying to put out the
flames.

Another ball flew by. It landed on Rowan,
the dog, singeing his fur. The animal whimpered, rolled onto his
back, and ran into the trees for cover. Another, and then another,
flew by... hitting the trees, the rocks, and the snow.

“
Charity,” Catherine called
out. I searched the darkness until I could see her face. She’d
found me, they all had. “Stay down,” she ordered.

I heard the angry growl of Elliott, the
mountain lion, and watched as he launched himself at her.

“
Catherine, your left,”
James called out a warning.

Catherine unsheathed a large hunting knife
from her belt and slashed it through the air, slicing the cat
across its shoulder. He hissed as he fell, missing his intended
mark, and now wounded for the attempt. Catherine moved back a few
steps, bracing herself for the next attack.

Marcus and Oz continued hurling balls of
fire toward Leviticus and Ezekiel, who were retaliating with their
silenced guns. The whoosh of the fire balls and the zip of the
bullets filled the air. The two pair of brothers were dodging each
other quite skillfully until Oz, who had been steadily moving
forward, found himself close enough to use his other talent.

“
Zeek, cover me,” Levi
shouted to his brother.

When he received no answer, or cover fire,
Levi looked back to find his brother – frozen. Ezekiel was a
statue, posed with his arms out and gun aimed, completely unable to
move.

“
Zeek!” Levi screamed.
“What did you do to my brother?” he demanded in a rage, turning his
gun on Marcus and Oz.

Eve appeared in front of them with both her
arms raised up high. She closed her eyes and drew all of the energy
she could, out of the air and toward her. Levi’s eyes widened as
the wind again began to swirl. It rushed by him, and all of the
surrounding trees started to bend in Eve’s direction.

“
Sorcery,” I heard him
whisper.

Eve lunged forward and unleashed the energy.
A great shockwave rolled out from her, and toward Levi and Zeek.
The two men were lifted up and flung twenty feet, landing on their
backs in the snow. There was a crunch of bones as their bodies
slammed into the cold ground.

Catherine was still circling around the
wounded Elliott, who had shifted back into his human form. Blood
oozed out of the open gash in his shoulder and dribbled from the
earlier cut to his leg.

“
Surrender,” Catherine
demanded.

“
Mere flesh wounds, silly
woman,” Elliott spat back at her. “Brother,” he called
out.

There was no answer. Rowan was nowhere in
sight.

I remained by Link, huddled over his
weakened form. James appeared at my side as Eve turned her
attention to Catherine and Elliott.

“
It’s bad, James,” I
sobbed.

“
The scratches can wait,”
James muttered as he glanced at Link’s hands and face. James
removed Link’s scarf and tied it tightly above the arm gash that
Levi had inflicted earlier. Next, he examined the gunshot to the
abdomen. He grabbed the scarf from my neck, balled it up, and
placed it over that wound.

“
Keep pressure on this,”
James told me.

We needed to stop the blood flow.

Link blinked his eyes, as his brain
registered my touch. “Get her out of here,” he managed to
choke.

“
Ssh, I’m not leaving you,”
I whispered. I turned away from Link and spoke to James through
gritted teeth, “Save him.”

“
His injuries are
extensive, Charity. I don’t know if I can. I won’t be able to
extract enough of my blood to heal everything,” James shook his
head.

“
You have to try,” I
pleaded. “I can’t lose another... I just can’t.”

While I was pleading with James, Eve was
trying to convince Elliott to give up his fight.

“
Surrender Shape-Shifter.
It seems your brother has left you all alone. You are outnumbered,”
Eve called out, trying to reason with the injured
creature.

Catherine held her stance, hunting knife in
hand, ready to defend herself again if necessary.

Leviticus and Ezekiel were beginning to gain
consciousness. They sat up slowly. Marcus and Oz stayed close by,
standing guard.

Ezekiel found his voice first,
“Shape-Shifter, what are you waiting for. Transform into something
fierce. Finish them.”

“
You never mentioned the
Witches,” Elliott shouted back.

“
An unforeseen glitch in
our plan. We’ll double what we promised you,” Leviticus sounded
off.

“
They promised you riches,”
Eve spoke up, scanning Elliott’s mind. “I can see the conversation.
‘A half million in cash,’ promised Levi, ‘plus whatever jewels are
found at the Immortal’s house,’ added Zeek,” she repeated the
exchange.

Elliott stopped moving, apparently stunned
by Eve’s ability. Shock appeared on his face.

“
They’re lying,” Cozmo
shouted. “I can sense when a person is truthful. I can see nothing
but deception in their words.”

Eve stepped away from Elliott and toward the
Lords. She took a moment to scan each brother, looking for further
information.

“
They planned to kill you
and your brother as soon as the Immortals were reduced to ash,” Eve
addressed Elliott. “I saw it in both of their heads. You were dead
to them the moment you made the deal. They abhor you.”

“
Rowan,” Elliott roared as
his naked body grew suddenly furry. He dropped down onto all fours
and his face distorted. A muzzle appeared in-place of his nose. The
creature before us was not a mountain lion. The Shape-Shifter
transformed into a bear.

Elliott, the bear, stood on his hind legs
and let out a fierce roar. The bear turned toward the tree-line. A
second roar escaped his muzzle.

I looked up to see two Eagles fly out of the
high branches and circle overhead. They squawked back and forth, in
conversation. One swooped down to land next to the bear. The eagle
grew taller and began to change shape. I blinked my eyes. A second
bear appeared where the eagle had landed.

The two bears spoke to each other in a
language unknown to human ears. They grumbled and growled, and
roared up to the sky. The remaining eagle screeched in response,
then flew away, landing on the nearest tree branch.

“
Kill them,” Levi cried out
to the bears.

“
Destroy them,” Ezekiel
ordered.

The bears stood on all fours, poised, ready
to strike. They charged forward - passed Catherine, passed Eve.
Marcus and Oz hurled a few fireballs as the bears came their way.
Oz took a defensive stance, ready to paralyze their muscles if they
attacked. But the animals ignored the Witches.

The bears charged on - passed Oz, passed
Marcus, and surged forward. They leapt into the air and landed on
Leviticus and Ezekiel. The men shrieked in pain as the bears began
to maul them. They managed to scramble backward when the bears were
distracted by the squawk of the Eagle. The men stood, and limped
away from the animals, moving closer to the edge of the iced over
falls.

“
Wait,” gasped Ezekiel. His
voice was weak with fear. “They lie,” he uttered,
unconvincingly.

As the two bears held their stance, a small
red fox shyly crept out of the tree line. It stopped, a few feet
behind the bears. The fox barked a small sad sound and the bears
froze. The little creature grew taller and morphed into a delicate
young woman with strawberry blonde hair, almost the same shade that
the animal had been. She stood, bare and vulnerable, in the
snow.

“
Elliott... Rowan... My
brothers...,” she cried out.

The bears turned their head for but a moment
and nodded their muzzles toward the young woman. But their
attention quickly turned back to the Lords. Rowan started the
charge forward first with Elliott just a stride behind. Again, they
attacked the two men, who were now much too close to the edge and
standing on slick ice. In a jumble of fur, flesh, screams, and high
pitched moans - the four beings slipped over the edge of Bridal
Veil Falls.