NOT DEAD YET: A Lucy Hart, DEATHDEALER Novel (Book Two) (22 page)

The werewolves recognized the thrust of Lucy’s movements as an attack, stopped backpedaling, and stood their ground.  Though the fully turned Sophie was stealing nervous glances at her half turned sister, surprisingly, it was Sophie that moved to counter Lucy first.  Be it her wolf’s instinct to strike, or just her nerves getting the best of her, the fully shifted sister surged toward Lucy like a freight train.

The wolf moved with amazing speed, but Lucy sidestepped and leaned out of the beast’s lunge even faster, and with a surprising amount of grace.  The werewolf stopped in her tracks and swung back around, throwing out one obscenely long, furry, muscular arm, tipped with razor sharp claws.  Lucy somehow dodged that too, and with surety, swung the sword in a blindingly quick, perfectly level strike to the werewolf’s middle.  She had leaned into the blow, and though she was aiming to run the blade straight through her to the other side, she was shocked to see the blade do exactly that.

There was a spray of blood, and a rather human gasp, and then the werewolf fell to the ground—her top half falling to the right, the bottom to the left.  The top half whined, then growled, trying to swing for Lucy’s ankles, but she bled out almost instantly, and her body twitched twice more before she died.

There was a great hiss, and Lucy turned to find the fully shifted Olivia snarling, her gruesome dentition dripping with strings of drool. 

Killing the first werewolf hadn’t sated the spirits around her one bit.  If anything it raised their calls for blood and death to a more fevered pitch.

The werewolf was vibrating with anger; Lucy could practically feel it.  But Olivia was obviously more in control of her beast.  She wasn’t about to charge half cocked and meet the same demise as her sister, angry or not.  Lucy and the wolf circled each other, the wolf poised for attack, her claws raised, her jaws open wide, her posture ready to pounce.  Lucy stayed relatively relaxed, her eyes never diverting from the growling beast before her.

When Olivia spoke, her voice was feral and terrible, but the words were nearly perfectly enunciated.  “Your death will be slow and painful, little girl.”

Lucy smiled, just a little.  “Yours won’t.”

The werewolf stalked around Lucy, claws digging into the dirt of the graveyard.  “I’m going to fucking kill you, bitch!”

“Yeah, yeah... you’ve been saying that all night,” Lucy said, rolling her eyes.  “If you want my life so badly, then come and take it.”

The iron of the sword was covered in werewolf blood, yet it sang, vibrated in her hand as if it yearned to sink into yet another.  She was all too ready to indulge it. 

The werewolf jerked, its canine face distorting with anger.  And then the great beast shot up straight into the air.  The jump was spectacular, and though Lucy couldn’t see the beast with her eyes—Olivia had gone too far up too quickly and was veiled by fog—Lucy could sense her perfectly. 

She held perfectly still, sword in hand, waiting as the beast’s mass came crashing back to earth.  She knew the instant Olivia reached out her huge, claw tipped hand toward her, and with a sudden turn and a swing, Lucy severed that hand from the werewolf’s arm.  Lucy could practically hear a sizzle as the old sword chopped through bone and sinew.

Olivia crashed to the ground, yelped and howled as she feebly held her other arm where her hand had been.  Lucy kept her feet firmly planted beneath her, holding her ground, ready for the wolf’s next move.

She didn’t have to wait long.  Olivia shot back to her back feet—or were they technically paws now?—and flung herself at Lucy, running full steam toward her, and then feinting to the left at the last second.

Lucy didn’t try going for a fatal blow.  She could tell far in advance that the growling wolf would be out of range for that, but she did lop off Olivia’s left ear.  It sailed through the air like a falling fall leaf, and made a small, wet sound as it hit the ground.

Olivia stopped and her remaining hand shot up and felt the bloody nub where her ear had been.  She looked at her hand, seeing her own blood dripping from it.

This made the wolf finally lose all its control.  Olivia’s eyes burned a hateful yellow tinged with red, and she roared as she charged toward Lucy once more.

Lucy stepped back as the raging werewolf charged.  The ancient spirits of the warriors around her howled in appreciation.  They clamored for more blood.  They urged Lucy to strike hard and fast, to kill her opponent in the most vicious, painful way.

The wolf shot around her in a preternaturally swift movement, and came up on her from behind.  A very good move, but Lucy felt her change direction, felt her every step falter and then turn confident again, as if her own nervous system where hardwired to the soil of the graveyard.

With a smooth turn and a seemingly random swipe of the sword in her hand, she removed the wolf’s remaining hand, at the elbow.  Olivia hissed and her face hurtled toward Lucy, her jaws open for the strike. 

But Lucy had already moved away, and with another flick of the sword she sliced Olivia’s nose clean off, leaving a red, bloody stump on the end of the wolf’s snout.

Olivia roared in agony and rage, and whirled around on Lucy.

Lucy had jumped upon what was left of Tobias Enoch’s gravestone, holding the sword out in aggression.  “Now, that is really more of a winter look.  You know: the whole Rudolph thing.”

The wolf looked to her amputated arm, and her lopped off hand, and started to hyperventilate.  But her eyes were flaming almost as red as her detached nose.  She was going berserker.  The rage and pain poured off the wolf like ripples in a pond. 

Olivia leaped for Lucy’s legs and Lucy leapt for the wolf.  She flew over the wolf like in one of those silly kung fu movies her brother Seth so liked to watch, and she reached down and ran the sword’s blade gently down the wolf’s back, slicing a shallow though painful gash down the wolf’s spine.

Olivia landed against the broken tombstone and turned on a dime, surging back at Lucy.  She was given another cut, this time to her leg, and arterial blood sprayed from the wound.  Lucy had hit the femoral artery. 

Olivia staggered, and then when she realized what had happened, she tried to scuttle away.  Loss of limbs was one thing—a were could re-grow something like that with a little time.  But with your life’s blood pumping out of your body with every beat of your heart, you suddenly started counting the beats and doing the math.

Better to slip away and heal before the blood loss caused you to lose consciousness, or worse, bleed to death.

No...

Something new and brutal inside Lucy would not allow the weak creature stumbling from her to get away.  She’d tried to beat her to death: that made her the enemy.  And there was only one place for the enemy.

Six feet under.

Lucy flashed across the graveyard, iron in hand, and she swung mercilessly.  First taking off the wolf’s good leg at the inverted knee, and then relieving Olivia of what was left of her handless arm as she raised it to defend herself.  Lucy swung and swung, chopping at the crippled werewolf as if she were kindling for the fire.

Finally the beast lay on the ground, whining in agony, blood seeping from her mouth, her breath coming raggedly as the blood slowed its spurting and her heart slowly gave up.

Lucy looked down on her adversary and a growl—a freaking growl!—issued from her lips.  She raised the sword in both hands and brought it down on the mangled wolf’s neck, severing her head and ending her wretched life.

The howling wraiths of the long dead warriors of the cemetery howled one final, satisfied chorus, and then fell deathly silent, basking in the blood and the pain and the fear that had been inflicted.

Holding the blood dripping sword in her hands, Lucy felt so powerful, so alive.  She could feel the spirits of the dead werewolves circling around her, no longer filling her with their power, but basking in the bonfire glow of hers.  A power that felt different now.  A power steeped in the essence of the wolf.

She licked her lips and tasted werewolf blood mixed with her own.  It didn’t taste good as much as it tasted like a balm, a balm she had earned.

Lucy heard a low gasp and whirled around to find Vin, Delia’s brother, and a vampire, crouched on the great wall surrounding the cemetery.  His eyes were wide and startled, yet as he took the sight of Lucy in, they turned dark until they are nearly black. 

“I thought you’d need my help.  When I picked up your scent at your house... your blood... ”  He licked his lips as his eyes ran over her blood splattered body.  “But obviously you don’t need rescuing from anything.” 

“I-I... ” Then Lucy felt the certainty. “I was defending myself.” 

“Yes, yes indeed.  You defended yourself to their deaths.  Two fully shifted, pureblood werewolves.  Amazing.”  He came closer, a spark of fear in his eyes.

But that spark turned quickly to want and desire, and hunger.  Lucy could feel his hunger for her, and in that instant she felt a hunger for him as well.  He reached out and caressed her bloody cheek, and she shivered as her power moved against his.  He was dead.  That Lucy couldn’t forget.  But whatever animated him called out to her as well, and yet there was more. 

She wanted Vin, whether he was a vampire of not, there was something very basic in him that she liked... no... she loved something in him.  Loved it deeply and passionately, and wanted nothing more than to wrap that something around her like a blanket.  Like the arms of a lover. 

But I already have a lover.  It’s Gabriel, it’s always been Gabriel, ever since the first time I saw him in that restaurant.  It was him.
  She’d chosen him, right then and there. 

She stepped back from Vin, her hand touching the place where his hand had been.  “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” he asked, his eyes fastened to hers.

“I’m in love with Gabriel.”

Vin’s eyes chilled, and he looked away.

“I can’t deny that I feel something for you... because you know I do.  But I’m choosing... I’ve chosen Gabriel.  I’m sorry, but I won’t sully that with whatever this is trying to be.  I just won’t.”

A red tear trickled from his right blue eye.  He reached up and swiped it from his cheek and chuckled mirthlessly.  “And here I thought you were going to make me work harder for your affections.  I never imagined you would reject them completely.”

Lucy smiled, feeling shitty for being so viciously blunt.  But...

“That’s me... all or nothing girl.”

Just then Gabriel and Micah leapt over the wall of the necropolis.  Gabriel had a lean, long katana sword in his grasp, Micah a shotgun in one hand and a sword hanging on his back.  They landed silently, their bodies rigid with anger, eyes scanning the graveyard, and then taking in the sight of the slaughtered sisters.

They looked in unison to Vin. 

Vin shook his head.  “I just got here myself.  This was all Lucy’s doing.  She truly can take care of herself.” 

Gabriel moved with superhuman speed to Lucy, enveloping her in his arms as he pressed his face into her hair.  “I was so scared they’d kill you... is... is this all their blood?” 

Lucy shrugged, then wrapped her arms around Gabriel’s neck.  “Some of it’s mine too.” 

“Yours?”  Lucy recognized a freak out when she saw one winding up in someone. 

She quickly changed the subject.  “Don’t I deserve a kiss from my future husband?”

Just as Gabriel shook his head and leaned in to kiss her, Vin disappeared.  She didn’t see him leave, but she did feel it when he was suddenly absent.  She silently told him she was sorry, again. 

Micah was morbidly looking at the slaughtered pair of werewolves, and then he took the sword out of her hand—she hadn’t realized she was still holding it.  It just felt too good in her hand to part with. 

“This thing’s just iron!”  Micah looked up and locked eyes with Gabriel.  “You’d have to have wielded it with amazing strength.  Werewolf strength... or vampire strength.” 

“Can I have it back?” Lucy said, irritation in her voice, longing in her heart.  She didn’t like being separated from the sword even for a minute.

“Where’d you get it?”

“
Oh...”
She suddenly felt a little embarrassed.  “I ripped it out of that headstone there, so maybe we should have it restored... the headstone, I mean.” 

The brothers silently gathered around the ancient looking tombstone—a Celtic cross. 

“Tobias Luther Enoch,” Gabriel read.  “He was our great-grandfather, and a great warrior of our people.”

Micah said:  “They say he was so powerful he didn’t need silver blades to kill his enemy.  I think he’d be happy to see the sword being used again.” 

“We’ll get it sharpened and shined, restored in the morning.” Gabriel said, reaching out to Micah for the sword.  But Lucy intercepted him, and took hold of the sword instead. 

“I think I’ll keep this with me... just in case I need to save myself again... ”

Gabriel gave her a bewildered look. 

Micah snorted.  “I sleep with my
Sig Sauer
under my pillow too.”

Gabriel looked to Lucy, an argument forming on his lips.  She popped up on her toes and kissed him.  “I promise, it will stay under the bed.” 
Just close enough to grab if someone attacks me in my sleep.