BROKEN BLADE (25 page)

Her breath shuddered out of her. “She has to be weakened, otherwise none of us stand a chance against her.”

* * * *

Back when I ran away from home, I lived on the streets. When I first came to the States, I spent a summer in the Midwest and it’s an experience I don’t ever want to repeat. I’d been living in an old barn and had done just fine for a while. Food was easy to find and the weather didn’t suck.

But then the storms started.

A tornado almost a quarter-mile wide ripped through the area where I was staying, and I cowered against the ground while that twister pummeled everything around me. I’d been convinced that would be my last night on the earth—I didn’t want to die, huddling in the dirt.

I hadn’t died.

When I finally crawled out of the pile of timber, hay and debris, I’d never been so glad to see a night end and I left the Midwest that very day, stealing a car from a dealership that had somehow managed to go mostly untouched a few towns over.

That was right before I landed in Orlando.

For a while, that tornado had haunted my dreams.

Wild, uncontrollable power that decimated everything around it.

I had a feeling tonight would surpass that night—power for raw power.

The witch who’d hauled me to the hall had disappeared inside to watch over the rest of her charges; her name was Serene. It didn’t seem to fit her, not at first glance. She was definitely a warrior through and through from the top of her violently red hair, cut in a short, spiked style, down to her battered leather boots. But her voice was low and soothing and her eyes were kind.

When I’d said I’d stand watch at the door, she’d eyed me with a look that said she wanted to just club me over the head and be done with it. I’d been braced to take whatever she had to dish out. It would
hurt
but I could take it.

It hadn’t been necessary. Tate had just sneered at the both of us. “Let the little dolly get her ass kicked if that’s what she wants.”

Serene had just sighed and disappeared inside.

Now the two of us stood and watched. Waited.

The wards were all but gone.

The roof was broken, bits and pieces of it missing. It might have given way altogether, but apparently Pandora had thought fire was the best way to do it and Tate thought otherwise. She could toss it around, and she could also kill it. Every time a fireball had exploded out of the night, Tate had lifted a hand; I could feel the heat coming off her as she sucked the magic inside her and the air around us was almost unbearably hot.

“How much of that can you take in before you have to let it out?”

Tate’s gaze slid my way. Her gaze burned like molten copper and a mean smile curved her lips even as she gave me an appraising look. 
Yeah, witch. I know how you work. The little dolly isn’t stupid
.

Tate looked like she wanted to laugh. Or fry my ass. But she only shrugged. “Plenty more. Of course, something is going to melt when I finally let all of this out.”

Witches couldn’t suck in that kind of magic indefinitely. Sooner or later, it had to come out or it would kill her. And probably anybody within a thirty foot radius of her when she went supernova.

“You want to take off running now?” Her eyes laughed at me.

“Nah. I figure Es wouldn’t have put you on guard if she didn’t trust you.” I crossed my arms over my chest, gripping the Eagle and staring up at the ruins of the roof for a long moment. My ears popped as the atmosphere did a weird little pitch and shift. Here we go again.

The ground rumbled under our feet. Bracing a hand against the wall, I squinted through the remnant magic, trying to see—

Something exploded through the night.

A hand closed around my arm. I swallowed back a gasp. Tate’s touch was hot as a brand. “You need to get ready to go through,” she said, all laughter gone from her voice. “That was the final ward. Whoever is at the door is coming in.”

I heard a low, soft laugh.

It drifted through the night. Wrapped around me.

Music and bells…

“Why are you doing this, witch?”

Pandora.

“Little fool.”

I tensed as her voice sounded in the back of my mind.

I tried to close my head against her, but it wasn’t as easy as it should be. Closing her out shouldn’t be that hard, but I felt like I was trying to slam a door against a coming flood—
impossible
.

“
There was no reason for this. All you had to do was find my vase. Just do your job…no questions asked
.” Pain, hot and burning, sliced through me, like it was trying to split me in two. But not
physically;
I felt like she was trying separate me, body and soul.

The agony ripped through me and I slammed the butt of my gun against my temple. Flesh ripped and blood dripped down my skin.

I heard a rush of voice. Felt that scorching touch that was Tate’s hands on me. She was grabbing my face, shouting at me.

Stupid little dolly
—

Yeah. Stupid—

“Get out of my head…”

“You’ll do your job,”
Pandora whispered. I felt another one of those jabs and something inside me splintered. Sensory memory, sharp and clear, exploded and I felt her laugh as a ghostly touch feathered over the skin of my neck, tracing the lines of my tattoos.
“I’d wondered about these. Do you know what I do to those who disobey me, Kit? I’ll take you into the dark. And you’ll relive all your worst fears…
”

Panic crowded inside my chest and blackness whirled around me. It threatened to drag me under as she poked, prodded at another memory. Whether it was desperation or terror, I don’t know, but this time, when she tried to slide past the barrier of my memories, I shoved back, and I shoved hard.

I felt her surprise as I managed to take my mind back and before she could push her way inside again, I bolstered my shields, terror and adrenaline lending me much needed strength.

I didn’t have time for anything else before hands closed over my arms.

“Now.” The voice, the command, didn’t register. “Tate, do it.”

The
heat
did.

Heat, magic, the very world seemed to explode as I fell backward. Pandora struck out at me again, trying to shove inside my mind, but I managed to keep her out once more.

Over the explosion of power, I heard her scream.

Chapter Nineteen

There was nothing left.

And even though I couldn’t see any sign of the battle that had waged over the past hour, I knew Es was gone.

Near where the door had once stood, there was a small crater maybe six feet across and I crouched there, smoothed my hand across it. 
Why, Es?

But there weren’t any answers. Looking around, I blinked back the tears rising inside and stared at the witches milling around like lost children. They’d just now come out of the healing hall. In a few minutes, they’d find their center and focus, but just then, I imagined they were even more shell-shocked than I was.

Es had been their everything.

And she was dead because of a monster I’d led to their door.

Standing in the remains of what had been the door, I stared at the lone room that had survived the destruction. The healing hall. The outer walls probably looked like a bunker would, had it come through a battle. Fire-scorched, battered. But whole. The spells Es had laid on it all those years ago had protected it, just as she’d said they would. Everybody inside that hall had survived. Had she been readying for just this moment? Had she spent her entire life preparing for just this?

I swallowed the ache in my throat and looked away from the healing hall, staring at the devastation outside.

Beyond the hall, nothing, and nobody, had made it. The home itself was charred bits of wood and melted metal. Colorful bits of glass, also melted, broke under my boots as I moved through the destruction.

Tate stood at the far edge, staring over it all with an unreadable look on her face.

“She’s gone.”

I stopped and looked over at Serene.

There was no point in asking who she was talking about. Averting my gaze, I stared out at my car, felt the urge to run to it, take off…disappear. If I ran, maybe Pandora would follow me.

If I ran, maybe I could escape all of this.

I never should have stayed here.

If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had that first run-in with Jude.

I wouldn’t have met Es, so I couldn’t have endangered her.

Pandora would have never been able to seek me out.

All of this could have been avoided.

Hindsight was such a bitch.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I focused on the charred ground and said, “I shouldn’t have come down here.”

“Don’t.”

Serene’s voice was gentle and sad. And…oddly, Es-like.

It made the ache in my chest spread.

“She’s dead because I came here.” Shaking my head, I strode away.

Serene followed.

“She’s dead because some ancient bitch with a grudge decided to come knocking,” she said, her voice flat. “An ancient bitch who decides to make an appearance every few centuries and when she does, a whole bunch of mortals die. When
that
happens, your kind and mine gets jerked around, the weres get all primitive-like and regress for a century or two and the vamps get even more cold-blooded. She tries to send us all back to the dark ages where everybody jumped at shadows and where
we
were supposed to play exterminator, something that was driving us insane. Es did the same damn thing any of us would do—she stood up to her. And you want to play martyr? Fuck that.”

I glared at her. “You think I want to play martyr?”

“I think you want to bury your head in the sand and feel bad—I don’t blame you.
I
would feel bad—hell, I
do
feel bad. I was her guard. I was the one who was supposed to take the hits for her, but I was also charged with keeping her house safe.” Serene scrubbed her hands over her face and then abruptly, she sank down onto the ground, looping her arms around her long legs, staring at the house. “I can’t protect the house if I’m dead next to her. And the bottom line is this—none of us were going to survive this fight. Not today.”

Tired, grieving, furious, I sat down next to her. “I can’t believe that Es was just
supposed
to die, Serene.”

With one hand fisted in her hair, Serene stared at the house. Her voice came in slow, uneasy, broken bits as she said, “But sometimes that’s how it is. Things happen…because they were meant to.” With a jerky nod, she looked at Tate. “Like her. That mouthy, mean bitch. Sometimes I hate her, you know. And we aren’t supposed to hate. But I do. I hate her. But her ability for fire is almost unmatched. I felt the fire that bitch was casting around. If she’d been slamming that full force into the healing hall from the get-go, she might have managed to break through. Tate was the only one who could have neutralized that much fire coming at us. Not even Es could have taken that kind of heat in her.”

I slid a look toward the witch in question.

Tate was still standing in the exact same spot she’d occupied earlier, her expression stony, her gold eyes glittering.

“And…” Serene closed her eyes and a spasm wracked her body. Then she looked over at me and her eyes were glassy. “Es’s protection over this house passed to me on her death. I’m the mother now. It works that way. I was keyed into what was happening as she passed and I was witness to what was going on as that…thing…picked herself up off the floor and dragged her sorry ass off. She’s hurt now. Between what Es did to her, and the damage she took when Tate’s fire tore through her, she’s hurt. And pissed…and maybe a little worried, because she knows she can
be
hurt.”

Licking my lips, I picked through those words. Serene. She was the mother now. A warrior of the house? Okay, that’s not the important piece. She’d witnessed Es’s passing—my heart broke a little more and if I could have, I would have tried to comfort her. But I was too broken myself.

“Pan—”

“No.” Serene’s hand, quick as a blink and strong as the earth itself, shot out, closing over my wrist. “Don’t say the name. There’s power in a name. You know this. Don’t speak it.”

I curled my lip. “
Not
speaking a name feeds fear.”

“This isn’t a demon, Kit. She might
love
that you’re afraid, but your fear or lack of it doesn’t change her power in any way.” Serene shook her head. “If she’d been forgotten, her name lost in the sands of time, perhaps we wouldn’t be dealing with this plague now.”

Crossing my legs in front of me, I shook my head. “No. A creature like her doesn’t cease to exist just because she’s forgotten.”

“That’s a debate for a different time.” Serene sighed and rose to her feet. “I have to gather my house. Prepare for Es’s wake. And you…” She held out a hand.

Although I didn’t need it, I accepted it and let her pull me to my feet.

Our eyes met and I felt that oddly familiar calm settle around me. Yes. Warrior or not, I could see her as mother to this house. “You have a job to finish.”

I don’t think I’m equipped to handle this job…not the one I’d taken on from Pandora and not the one that both Es and Serene seemed to think I was taking on now.

“There’s nobody else who
can
,” Serene said quietly. “She’s too much like a witch for any of us to confront. She’s like…umber-primeval witch, or something. But she knows magic. What she
doesn’t
know is weapons. She doesn’t know
you
, or your kind or how you think. You already know vamps and weres are going to be useless against her. So who is going to step up? Your useless family? Humans?”

Clenching my jaw, I looked past her to the ruin around us.

“The time to stop her is
now
…before she takes over that new body. Before she kills a child. Not just because of those two innocent lives, either.”