Cursed by Destiny (WG 3) (12 page)

Taran was literally rolling in the mud with another witch. They screamed, slapped, and tore each other’s hair. They may have lacked a true fighter’s grace, yet the sparks from their clashing magic collided hard enough to charge the air. It was the ultimate catfight, one Bren would have paid to see, and one I couldn’t tolerate. I grabbed the witch by her neck and flung her away from Taran. Edith finished her off, but not before tasting the merchandise.

“Come on, Edith. We don’t have time for this.”

“Celia, it’s hotter than blazes out here. I’m thirsty.”

Taran’s screaming interrupted my reprimand. “
Celia!
”

More than twenty cages lined the wall. In one of them, a poor village girl had just given birth to a demon child. The thing had busted through her stomach and splattered her organs against the metal bars. I’d witnessed this too many times, but it didn’t make the moment any less horrifying. The newborn jumped through the cage toward Taran. I snatched him out of the air with my claws. His leathery wings slapped against my knuckles and his incensed screeches pained my sensitive ears. The warm slick blood slathering his reptilian body made him hard to hold. He bit into my wrist and licked my skin eagerly. I slammed him into the muddy ground and stomped on him. Bones snapped beneath my sneaker and yet the little bugger still wouldn’t die. Worst of all, he spoke in a dark psycho voice, “
Celia Wird
.”

I immediately cracked his head off like a Kewpie doll, not wanting to hear him say my name again. Maria approached me as his insides scurried away to dry beneath a rusted wheelbarrow filled with bones. “Hmm, you must have left quite an impression in hell if dey know you already.”

Perhaps she’d meant it as a compliment. I’d never been popular in high school, but knowing I was up for homecoming queen in Hades did nothing to lift my self-esteem.

More demons charged us. I turned my fear and trepidation inward and morphed them into anger and hate. My claws dug into chests to stab hearts, and punctured through eyes and into brains. If I let my human side think through my actions, I’d hurl from the brutality. So I called forth my beast to guide my hands. She could hunt, she could maim, she could protect, and she could push me forward. Her eyes replaced mine as I stalked through the mounds of slithering innards, ignoring the reeking scent of old blood, rotting flesh, and the mingling of defecation and sweat. Taran didn’t have a tigress to strengthen her and the gore became too much. She collapsed on her hands and knees, puking.

My tigress compelled me to the cages, to those we couldn’t allow to escape. The naked women inside cackled hysterically or drooped on their sides, staring expressionless ahead. All of them were pregnant. Some twitched with prebirth seizures.

My tigress drove me to kill them, knowing what slithered beneath their protruding bellies. My human side couldn’t, and wrestled to find a more merciful solution. I yanked Taran to her feet. Black strands of her hair stuck to her pale, sweat-soaked face.

“Taran, you have to draw up some magic-born sunlight.” Her lids peeled back and she wrenched herself loose from my grasp.

“Hell.
No!
It’s a pure light. It’ll kill the vamps and demons, but it will also toast these women like bread!”

I gave her a hard stare. “I know, Taran.”

“Goddamn it, Celia—I’m not killing innocents!”

“Taran, they’re only vessels for the creatures. They’re suffering. The only way to help them is to free their souls.” She seemed torn. “Do it, Taran.” More women fell to the filthy floor, seizing, their bellies vibrating from the demon children restless to get out. “Do it now!”

Emme stumbled to my side, her face the color of chalk. She wiped the perspiration from her eyes. “Wh-what about Misha’s family?”

“I’ll take care of them. Taran, go. Emme, you protect her.” The air charged and cracked around us as Taran drew from the magic surrounding the forest. I tore the head off a weremonkey trying to stumble to his feet and tossed it loudly against a steel drum used for fire. “SPF fifty!” I screamed.

At the sound of my oh
so
clever secret code words, Misha’s vamps abandoned their targets and scrambled for cover. Their adversaries paused. One lifted his fist in the air and screamed in victory. Boy, was he in for a letdown.

A sapphire and twirling white mist permeated into the cages and put the women to sleep just as Taran levitated in the air. Her irises blanched to clear and scorching heat built around her small figure. I shielded my eyes against the giant explosion of light that cut through the air like the snap of a whip.

I blinked my eyes to clear the spots as the torrent of light faded. What remained of the women, opposing vamps, and demon children were mere ashes. I caught Taran as she fell. She would no longer be able to fight. The magic she had performed had drained her completely. I cradled her in my arms. “Look, Taran,” I said as I held her up. “You did it.”

From the cages, glittering wisps of light bounded up to the sky. I prayed Saint Peter was welcoming the battered and tortured souls into heaven. Taran smiled and tears brimmed in her eyes briefly before she wiped them away and swore under her breath. I helped her to her feet and released her when Emme grasped her arm.

Misha’s vampires trailed the remaining
weres
, which were busting through the wooden fencing in an effort to escape. I thought to give chase and force a Tribesman to reveal the whereabouts of his master. It seemed I didn’t need to. A horrible roaring erupted from a large structure composed of a tin roof and cinder-block walls.

“Liz, Maria, get over here!” They scrambled to my side as if jolted by live wire.

Liz glanced nervously toward the building. “What, Celia?”

“Take Taran and Emme back to that hotel we spotted on our way into the village. If we’re not back within the hour, get on the plane and back to Tahoe.”

“No,” Maria protested. “De master says we are to stay by your side and keep you safe.”

“Misha is safe at home getting it on with his harem of hussies.
I’m
in charge, and I’m ordering you to keep my sisters safe!”

“I don’t want to leave you, Celia,” Emme said.

“Emme, Taran is vulnerable and I need you to protect her. Maria and Liz will see to your safety.” I growled at my good Catholics. “Won’t you, girls?”

Glass shattered and Hank flew past us like an irate, battered missile. Blood spurted from a deep gash on his head and onto his face. It sealed from one blink to the next. His shirt was missing and his shorts appeared to have been used as a tissue by something with a nasty cold. He leapt to his feet with a hiss and bolted back into the building. That was all the convincing Maria and Liz needed. They hauled my sisters into their arms and disappeared into the darkening forest. Night was quickly approaching. My tigress eyes could help me see in the darkness. Emme and Taran didn’t have that advantage. I needed them to be safe. And I needed to find Shayna. I chased after Hank and into the chaos that awaited.

The best way to describe what I saw was a bar brawl. Lynyrd Skynyrd even blasted from an old boom box in the corner. Fists and chairs flew harder than at last call at a biker bar. I ducked as a bottle of Victoria beer flew over my head and smashed into the crumbling cinder block wall.

Misha’s vampires held their own against the remaining Tribesmen. Agnes and Edith stumbled to my side, half naked, but that was nothing new. “Let’s finish this,” I told them.

They launched into the foray, shrieking like a band of angry streetwalkers in serious need of penicillin. Since blood already coated my skin, I had no problem attracting attention. A flock of skinny, winged newborns flew toward me, their tongue slithering like leeches through their fangs. As a sick joke, some idiot had tied baby bonnets on them. I decapitated two and crushed a third just as a witch set her sights on Tim. He hollered when a dark cloud of green swallowed him whole. I seized a demon child leaping toward the ceiling, snapped off his head, and nailed the witch in her face with it. She released Tim from her spell and veered toward me. “
Celia
,” she said, blood oozing from her nose.

Witches were funny. Not in a ha-ha kind of way, more like insanely twisted. They lacked in strength and speed, but compensated with spell work and personality. She spat at me from a distance. “
Puta sucia. Te mato, puta—te mato!
”

I didn’t like being threatened,
or
insulted. “
You’re
the dirty bitch!” I growled.
Hoo-rah!
Take that.

She’d started it, but she didn’t seem to appreciate the name-calling. Her magic assembled in a nauseating bouquet of molding herbs and rotting leaves. With every step, she barraged me with fireballs swirling with green and black smoke. But she was too slow and no match for my speed. I swiped demon children from the air and pitched them into her fireballs, using them to shield me from her flames. They exploded like mini fireworks stuffed with guts. Well,
shit
, didn’t that make her mad?

“
Hija de la gran chingada!
”

I didn’t catch what that meant. But I knew it wasn’t a good sign when her eyes rolled behind her head and disappeared into her skull. A giant swamp-colored ball rolled out of her mouth and spun toward me. It wasn’t anything I thought I could or should fight. Nor did I want it anywhere near me. I lifted what remained of a large table and fanned it back at her. I wasn’t sure it had worked since I was batting the table like the dickens, but I snuck a peek at the sound of her screeches.

Bile rose to my throat. She wasn’t a cute girl to start with, but even the most beautiful of starlets could not have pulled off her new look. Snakes spun free from her eye sockets—and every other orifice in her body—like pulled Slinkies. The serpents coiled around her limbs and torso, feasting on her flesh as they twirled and squeezed. My stomach roiled with disgust and terror. Her fate was meant for me. I needed to find Shayna, and we needed to finish this mission—now.

The harsh clinking of metal signaled her arrival. With Jedi grace and speed, she beheaded four machete-wielding vampires. I fought my way to her, killing every Tribesmen in my way. “
Shayna!
”

I ducked when she flung knives over my head. Her reflexes and skill were startling. She hit a
were
in the throat and a vamp through the eye, allowing Misha’s vampires to kill them with ease.

Shayna grunted and whirled until the fighting around us gradually ceased. Her eyes darted wildly, seeking more targets. I approached her slowly, pulling my tigress back and speaking softly. “It’s okay, Shayna. They’re dead. Take a breath, babe.”

The floor was littered with the remains of dead Tribesmen. I had to step over several limbs to reach my sister. Our group stood triumphantly. Hank pointed to the decapitated torso on the floor. “Yeahhh! Take that, fuckers!”

I lifted the edge of my tank to wipe the blood trickling from my chin. “It’s not over yet, Hank. We need to find the Tribemaster.”

You’d have thought I’d sent the villainous bastard an Evite. The scent of pure evil filled the room, sharp and sour all at once, announcing the Tribemaster’s arrival. I swore when my tigress fixed on the rear entrance. The good news was, there wasn’t a Tribemaster. The really bad news was, there were two.

Twins. Fantastic. Just what we needed. Our mission had just doubled in size, viciousness, and ugly. Their faces were similar to that of rhinos. Tusks protruded over their drawer-sized snouts. Silvery reptilian scales covered their skin like body armor. And, funny thing, the last rhino I saw didn’t have long leathery wings, glowing yellow eyes, or fangs the size of yardsticks.

We charged on pure instinct. There was no command, no hesitation. I dodged a barrage of swings from arms as thick as tree limbs and grabs from meaty fingers tipped with six-inch nails. Five of Misha’s vamps weren’t so lucky. Blood splattered my face when the Tribemaster I fought ripped them in half. I fell to a crouch and dug my claws into his stomach, attempting to tear it open. They stuck in his thick belly and I couldn’t break free . . . until he hauled me up by my hair. He jerked me with such force my head snapped painfully back and two of my nails stayed embedded in his stomach.

He lifted me to his face. “
Vení, muñeca, te quiero besar
.”

It was bad enough that he called me “doll” and I wasn’t lovin’ the fact that he wanted to make out with me, but it was his dark demonic voice that made my skin crawl.

His tongue reached out to kiss me. I brought both my fists down to his snout. My claws raked down his chest when he dropped me, allowing me to
shift
him through the cement floor.

I plunged him deep into the earth, so only his neck and head were exposed. “
Shayna!
”

Shayna’s head whipped toward me. She sprinted from the fight with the other twin. Her opportunity had arrived. And damn it if I wasn’t going to let her take it.

Chunks of concrete burst upward as the Tribemaster punched through the floor. I dove on his free arm and ducked, allowing Shayna to sever his head in one clean swoop. His insides spewed like a volcano and sprayed my back in quivering chunks. I lurched to my feet, ignoring the remains crawling down my legs, and bounded toward the other twin.

Shayna chased the head she’d disjoined to finish off the brain. I heard her hacking through the skull behind me as I reached the remaining Tribemaster. The last of Misha’s vamps covered him like a swarm of insects. The Tribemaster roared with pain. But Misha’s family wasn’t enough to cripple him. He ripped them off and tore their limbs as if shucking corn. I propelled myself into the air and into a jumping spinning kick. He caught my leg and crushed my ankle.

My screams turned to roars. I
changed
,
knowing my human body wasn’t enough to make the kill. I maneuvered my body and went for his throat. My fangs accomplished what my claws could not; I tasted his blood as I ruptured his larynx and pulled it apart. He heaved my body and threw me into the wall. It was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. I crashed to the floor and looked up to see the perfect outline of my body dented into the cinder block. Too bad we never made it to a commercial break. I could have used the opportunity to remember how to breathe and to stop my bleeding.