Getting Away With Murder
“It’s one thing to fight alongside them when you are one,” the Irishman continued, pointing the tip of a twelve-inch Bowie knife towards Blaine and me. “But to betray your own heavenly duties to save them… Now, that’s just sacrilege. Like father, like son—no doubt.” The stranger gave a wicked grin as he surveyed Reese. “Oh, I’m gonna have fun with you.”
Blaine let out a low laugh. “I wouldn’t threaten him in front of the lady,” he said, nodding to me. “Things won’t end well for you. Trust me.”
“I don’t make threats, Prince. I make promises.”
The world thundered behind us. I looked at the base of the dual front doors, seeing shadows lurching from underneath the doorframe. Our little get-together was about to become an all-out event.
“Let’s see whatcha got.” The Irishman beckoned us on, aching for a faceoff. Blaine was only too happy to oblige. The two threw fists, even with ten feet still separating them. Magic crashed against magic, making the air ripple as runes lit up the entire lobby. I knew Blaine still hadn’t regained his fullest strength, but this Mage had to be pretty skilled nevertheless to parry his attacks. The distance closed, until flesh finally met with flesh and dagger met with dagger.
None of us could intervene, finding a new batch of opponents filing in the south hall. All bared black ink covering their eyes as they charged inside. Carly and Mark braced themselves for combat, but even with weapons at the ready, every last demon rushed past them as if they were invisible. Their sights were set on me, and I found myself taking on two, three, four demons at a time. I couldn’t stab them, too afraid to hurt the people whose bodies the demons were possessing, but as effective as my roundhouse kicks were, I couldn’t fight them off like this. There were too many.
Val was ripping as many of them off me as he could, but as more demons poured into the room, it was clear we had been overrun.
White light flashed to my left, and I whirled, seeing the Irishman throw a fistful of what looked like red powder into Blaine’s eyes. The Dark Mage staggered back, trying to wipe the content from his vision, but he wasn’t fast enough. The jolt to my chest was immediate as another blinding white light exploded. Blaine’s body flew across the foyer, hitting the marble floor with a crack. Red filled my vision, seeing the Irishman wink at me. My fangs had come out, and they’d locked their sights on their intended target. Raising my hands, the entire room rattled. I threw my closed fists down, watching the chandelier looming overhead tear off its hook. The Irishman leapt forward, rolling himself into a somersault to narrowly avoid the broken remains of the metallic fixture shatter around him as it crashed into the floor.
My fingers flexed out, and everyone standing, including my friends, was all thrown off their feet. They’d only caught the blast wave of my magic, dazing them for a brief moment. My aim had been centered on the Irishman, and it was a direct hit. He slammed into the floor with an equally painful blow as the one he’d delivered to Blaine, but he merely choked out a laugh as he pulled himself up. The bastard was egging me on, taunting me into a one-on-one.
And he’d get it.
But not yet.
More demons flanked me, and I promptly addressed the attack. One of them slashed a knife at me, forcing me to meet their proposal. I used Reese’s pocketknife to counter it, and even managed to sweep the weapons to the side, leaving my opponent exposed. The demon dropped the blade in hand and I grabbed his remaining arm, disarming any further movement. I quickly yanked him to me and drove my fingers into his jugular notch, watching him crumpled to his knees with a sickening wheeze.
The victory was short-lived.
A heavy fist pounded into the back of my head, and the world dimmed for a woozy moment. Just as I regained my bearings, I stood upright. A polite tap-tap hit my right shoulder, and I turned, catching a glimpse of wild green eyes before the Irishman blew a mass of red powder into my face. I’d expected it to have the same effect as silver or holy water, making my skin sizzle. The dust burned my eyes as I tried to blink through the tears, and it irritated my throat as I choked on the thick air, but the powder didn’t seem to affect me beyond that.
Clearly having found enough amusement with me, he vanished back into the throng of bodies. Still wrestling with two demons, Reese was suddenly thrown back by the collar of his coat as the Irishman hauled him toward the front desk. He didn’t miss a beat. As soon as the Irishman loosened his grip on him, Reese nailed an uppercut to his jaw. The stranger’s head snapped back, but he refused to let go of him, reinforcing his hold on the Light Mage. A pulse of energy slammed into Reese’s chest, and he staggered back, only to have the Irishman force him into a chokehold.
I couldn’t see what the bastard had pulled from his pocket, and I wasn’t about to find out as the Irishman brought his closed fist up to Reese’s face. Blaine seemed to notice the same thing, kicking his knife across the floor to me. I snatched it up, and without a moment to lose, I let instinct take over. With a snap of the wrist, the blade didn’t even spin as it sailed through the air. It cut through ten feet of opened space before slicing into flesh. The Irishman had been fast enough to avoid the direct blow to the head, but the blade still hacked into his cheek.
He pressed the back of his clenched fist into the grisly gash, and his slow smile only further stretched the cut. “I like a girl with some fight in her,” he snickered, tightening his hold on Reese until the boy choked.
“Then you’re gonna love me.” The air rang with a metallic reverberation as Carly grabbed the silver-plated vase from the reception desk and slammed it into the back of his skull.
The Irishman didn’t even have enough time to turn around to face her as she nailed it into the side of his head. The second blow delivered the knockout hit as we watched him slump to the floor, down for the count.
The atmosphere seemed to shift in the room, because the demons suddenly didn’t appear too keen on simply ignoring the vase-wielding blonde. It became an all-out assault, on everyone, as the remaining demons began lashing out at both Carly and Mark.
“Everybody, get down!” Reese hollered, finally managing to catch his breath. The space around him burned bright blue as half his runes roared to life. Mark ripped away the wiry-haired man trying to claw at me and yanked me down as the five of us dropped to the floor. The air resounded with a low rumble before the blast came. Everybody left standing was catapulted across the room, half of them crashing into the far wall.
I tipped my head back against the cool marble floor and finally sighed as the space around us went silent. Any relief I had vanished the moment I looked up at Reese. He swayed to the side, barely managing to catch himself on the edge of the reception desk as his legs buckled out. I shot to my feet and raced to his side, feeling the clamminess of his skin as his hand touched mine.
He had used too much energy.
“Look at me,” I demanded, watching his eyes sink shut. Why, why, why would he do that? He knew it would be too much.
It wasn’t until everyone was left in unconscious heaps on the floor that the scope of the situation sank in. There had to be close to eighty people lying all around us. Eighty people, against six. If Reese hadn’t done what he did, we wouldn’t have been walking out of here.
But as he lurched forward in a pathetic attempt to prove he was steady on his feet, it was evident he wouldn’t be doing much walking, regardless. Reese muttered that he was fine, but I couldn’t help recall Blaine saying the same thing before he nearly died.
The hastened doors at the front entrance pounded, bowing in under the pressing weight from the outside. And more footsteps echoed from the east wing corridor.
“Where are you guys parked?” I asked the guys.
“West Entrance, off the main drag,” Val and Mark both confirmed.
“Take Reese, and get out of here. Call Raelynd.”
Val was shaking his head, but Blaine nodded. “We’ll lead them away.”
“Are you crazy—”
“They’re only after Blaine and me,” I barked. “The Cutlass is right off the side street here. We’ll be fine. Get Carly and the guys out of here, now!”
Val looked between us, knowing damn well we wouldn’t relent. “Well, shit…” He took hold of Reese and nodded, letting Mark help distribute the Light Mage’s weight as they turned and hurried down the hall with Carly in tow.
Blaine canvassed the foyer, calculating the odds. “This was a bad idea, wasn’t it?”
“Terrible, actually.”
“You know a better way out of here?”
“The closest exit still takes us too far from the car,” I said, pointing down to a nearby corridor.
“I don’t think we have another choice.” Blaine snatched a hold of my hand and directed me to the hall to our left, but we both crashed to a halt as figures suddenly emerged from down the corridor.
We spun back around, only to see a sea of people flood into the entrance hall from the main doors as they burst open. Not to either of our surprise, every last one of them had black orbs for eyes.
Blaine rattled the knob to the door beside us, but it wouldn’t give. “Stand back!”
Before I could move, he drove me away from it. His vision tunneled as he threw his hands out. The entire door blasted right off its hinges, falling in broken bits inside the top of a lecture hall. Blaine cursed though, gripping his arm as the lights atop it sputtered. He shook it off, taking my hand again and propelling me down the rows of seats. He charged over to the elevated windowsill off to the side, and prepared to blast the glass out of the pane, only to find the energy crackle uselessly at his fingertips. I pushed him aside and took out the window with my own runes. It worked, but I buckled over as the power thrashed inside me. The energy was still alive beneath my skin, only it felt like a teeming dam with nothing but a tiny spout to evacuate the building pressure.
That red powder!
Whatever the Irishman had thrown at both of us was blocking our energy. We still had use of it, but it was mere scraps compared to what we should have had.
Blaine hoisted me up to the window and thrust me right out of it. I flew out headfirst and barely managed to tuck under before falling into the snow covered grass on the other side. My body crashed down hard, the wind escaping my lungs as I hit the ground on my back. Blaine’s boots squeaked as he ran up the wall. His hands and arms came into sight, and he grunted as he struggled to pull himself through. A roar of footsteps clamored behind me, and he only just managed to snake his body through the casement before a pair of hands grappled at the windowsill from inside.
Blaine stealthily recovered to his feet, and we sprinted across the campus lawn. A sharp whistle shrilled behind us, and that seemed to be a signal to the others. More people came darting out from the front of the building, catching sight of us as we raced toward the side street where the Cutlass was parked. My legs frantically carried me forward, and I almost lost my footing on the small hill leading to the road.
Unable to stop myself in time, I hammered into the passenger side as Blaine slid over the hood of the car to get to the driver’s door. Since there weren’t electronic locks on the vehicle, he had to unlock it manually. Blaine pried the door open and hit the button to let me inside. I practically fell into the seat, wrenching the door behind me just as a sea of riotous people rushed at the vehicle. Armed with crowbars and other unsavory tools, they came with their arms raised, prepared to take out the windows.
Blaine punched the keys into the ignition. The tires squealed furiously across the dampened pavement before gaining traction. The Cutlass lurched forward, and we tore off but not before someone managed to take a swing at the backseat window behind me as the man ran alongside the car. Blaine jerked the wheel and the Cutlass’s backend swerved, bumping right into the guy. The force knocked him to the side, and the man stumbled off back down the hillside. It took us a few minutes before Blaine confirmed that we were in the clear. We hadn’t been followed.
The others hadn’t been so lucky. Val called not a moment later, barely audible over the mass of static interfering with the call. They’d made it, but not without catching a few stragglers along the way. Since the demons weren’t interested in Mark and Carly, they had taken off in McDowell’s Camaro while Val led the rest of the trailing demons away with Reese in the Mercedes. But they’d made it out.
Blaine rambled on about our next plan of action, but the words were lost on me. Dark masses of trees flew by the passenger window as we rocketed down the forested stretches of streets. The scenery blurred as tears began clouding my vision.
“Kat?” Blaine gave me a soft shake. It was only then that I realized he had asked me something.
“He’s dead.” Of all the thousand of thoughts racing through my mind, that was the only one I could verbalize. Madsen was dead, and it was all my fault. He’d only ever tried to help me, and they had killed him for it. Every muscle in my chest contracted, stealing my breath as I began sobbing.
“Mystic Harbor - 10 miles.”
The road sign came into view, and the very site seemed to fuel something in Blaine, because his foot slammed down harder on the accelerator. We were only fifteen minutes from the manor. Fifteen minutes to safety. The sound of the Cutlass’s roaring engine drowned out the world around us, making the low drone humming behind us nearly undetectable until it was right on top of us. Blaine and I both looked at one another, seeing our Omen runes simultaneously ignite.
The whirr grew louder, and just as Blaine and I turned around, blinding headlights shone in through the rearview window. The vehicle revved, and it came so close, I could see the two men sitting in the front seat of the large black pickup. The truck jolted forward, ramming into the back bumper of the Cutlass.
“Shit!” Blaine tried regaining traction, but a patch of black ice sent the whole backend of the car into a tailspin.
The drift sent me slamming into the passenger door, and Blaine’s immediate rotation of the wheel tossed me back again. The car fell into a fishtail and Blaine managed to recover, pushing the car as hard as she could go once we straightened out. We seemed to be gaining ground on the truck, until the vehicle floored it. In mere seconds, the truck barreled down on us, slamming once again into the backend of the car.
“Oh, Sitri!” wailed a snide voice. “Come out to play!”
The truck swerved over into the oncoming lane and sped up until it was right beside us. The two men in the truck barked and howled, their eyes visibly black as we raced beneath the streetlights overhead.
“Hey, Princesssss!” The man sitting in the passenger seat pointed to me. “Time to face the music, missy!”
The driver jerked the wheel, and the mass of the truck pummeled into the side of the Cutlass. Blaine pumped the brakes in an attempt to slow down, but between the impact and the fact that we began hydroplaning, he couldn’t keep control of the car.
The truck plowed into us again, and the nose to the Cutlass dipped down into the ditch. Blaine barely managed to recover, but it only incited more catcalls.
“Not so fast there, Speed Racer!” The truck repeated the maneuver, smashing into us once more. Harder.
The car wrenched off the shoulder again, the front end drifting to the right. In an instant, the front of the car nose-dived into the ditch. The trunk of a tree was suddenly illuminated by the headlights before the car crashed right into it. With the Cutlass’s speed and the fact that the back end was in the midst of a spin out, the momentum wrenched the car to the side. The world spun viciously as the Cutlass jackknifed, flipping over.
Again.
And again.
And again, before plummeting into the ditch.
My vision slowly came into focus as the nauseating smell of burning rubber filled the car. An excruciating pain seared all the way through my ribcage, and the veins in my head throbbed as vertigo set in.
“Blaine…”
A dampness streaked across my forehead, but the liquid was running up to my hairline. That’s when I noticed it. I looked up to see the ends of my blonde locks dangling above me. I was suspended upside down. Lights flashed through the passenger side window, and I could see the inverted view of the road. The truck was just down the stretch.
“Blaine…”
Every little movement I made awakened another pain in my body as I tried to unlatch my seatbelt.
“Blaine!” I looked over at him, seeing blood dripping all over his face. He lay motionless with his arms limply hanging down. Another pair of headlights roared into view, stopping alongside the truck. I tried rolling down the window, but the crank broke off in my hand. I called out for help, pounding my fists into the glass.
A few brawny figures stepped into view from the other vehicle, and laughter resonated in the air as everybody strolled down the road toward the flipped car.
Shit.
They weren’t here to help…at least not me.
One of the men sauntered over to us, twirling a crowbar about in his hands as he practically skipped along.
“Blaine!” I reached over and started shaking his frame, begging him to wake up.
He didn’t.
I continued fiddling with the busted seatbelt, but it wouldn’t give. I grabbed the holster around my ankle, only to find it empty. Where was my pocketknife? Frantically looking around the car, I saw the silver glinting on the roof a few feet from me. As hard as I tried, my fingers couldn’t grab it. The knife was out of reach.
“Awww, look what we have here.” The man with the crowbar laughed, bending over and peering in through the passenger window as he approached. “She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? Sure we can’t have some fun with her first?”
The whole gang chuckled.
“Sorry, boys, but the bitch is damaged goods,” remarked another man. “It is a shame though, isn’t it?”
“Indeed.” The man with the crowbar grinned and winked at me. “Best cover your eyes, sweetheart. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to that face now.”
He drew the lever up and I shrank away, frantically trying one last time to free myself from my seatbelt. It wouldn’t give. The glass exploded into the vehicle from the crowbar’s impact, splaying over me before falling down to the roof of the car. He dropped the tool and reached inside to grab me, only to get a face full of claw marks as I scratched and tore furiously at his eyes.
“Feisty, I see.” He pulled out a switchblade, and the knife sprang free with a push of a button. “I like that.”
I instinctively froze as he drew the blade over to me. It grazed down my torso before digging underneath the seatbelt harness strapped around my waist. With a flick of his wrist, the blade snapped the material apart, and I crashed down onto the roof. He grabbed hold of me, but not before I snatched up my own pocketknife.
As he heaved me out of the car and into the drainage ditch, I jabbed my blade into his arm. The guy immediately let go of me and screamed, prying the knife out of his bicep.
“You like that?” I sneered, driving my heel right into his kneecap. He dropped to the ground and I clawed my way up the other side of the drainage ditch to the woodlands, but someone grabbed a hold of my legs.
I face planted as the brute yanked me down, and I was heaved up the hill back to the road.
“Somebody sedate her already,” grunted the guy holding me. He dragged me over to the pavement and hurtled me onto the asphalt as another member of the crew immediately plunged a needle into my neck before I could fight back.
I tried to peel myself up from the street, but my knees buckled and my vision swayed. A heaviness drew over my limbs, and I struggled to keep my eyes open. My body caved into the drug almost immediately, dropping to the ground in seconds. All I could see were the headlights reflecting off the dampened road as all the men headed down into the ditch to the Cutlass.
“He’s not dead, is he?” asked one of them as the car creaked.
“Nah,” confirmed another. “At least, not yet.”
Muffled laughs droned in my ears as everything went black.