Ivory continued to wade through the bats, running toward the small group, fighting to keep from being overpowered. The group refused to just dissolve and abandon Gary, their human friend. It would be nearly impossible to protect him from the air.
“Get the prince off the ground,” Ivory yelled above the din to Gregori. “The attack will come from under the ground. This is a diversion.”
Falcon jerked Gary off the ground, no questions asked, as Mikhail rose as well. The hordes of bats went crazy, flying at them with renewed frenzy.
“I lost sight of Xavier’s fragments,” Gregori warned. “They’re probably in the bats.”
Ivory thrust one of her light guns into Sara’s hands. “You have to sever them right at the neck or they really go psycho on you.” She pulled a strange-looking object, much like a grenade, from a loop on her belt, readying herself.
“Have you seen these mutations before?” Gregori asked, continuing to use the thin whip of lightning to incinerate the bats.
“I study everything the mage does,” Ivory answered. “There is a portal close. I must find it and close it or they will continue replicating. It is in the ground, not in a cave.”
“You’ve seen these creatures before?” Mikhail asked.
Ivory nodded, her gaze scanning the ground. It was rippling beneath them, undulating, like a wave in the sea. “They get away from Xavier sometimes and they would be a huge threat this close to the village. They are major carnivores and attack in a group.” She gripped the disc in her hand tighter as she saw dirt bubble up from the ground.
Gregori and Falcon were in constant motion, slamming white-hot energy through the mass with strike after strike. Mikhail slammed his fist hard, punching through one flying at Gary’s face. All of the Carpathians and Gary had numerous bite marks and scratches from the continual assault.
“Give me one of those weapons,” Razvan said. “You are not going alone.”
Ivory frowned, her eyes still scanning the ground. “Going inside their lair is worse than the worm. Stay here and help guard the prince.”
Now the ground bubbled ominously. Various sections sank several inches.
“Ivory.” He waited until she glanced up to read the determination on his face. Razvan was not a man to back down. “Give me a weapon.”
She tensed, seeing the ground shift in the sunken areas. One hand flicked to her waist and she tossed Razvan a duplicate of her grenade as she jumped, feet first, into the center of the spot where the sinking ground was the most active. Razvan followed her beneath the ground, shifting to vapor to go through the layers of dirt. The grenade shifted with his body, becoming nothing but molecules, telling him it was another of her homemade natural weapons. It had been oval-shaped and bumpy, not at all smooth.
A stench rose, a combination of fetid rotting meat, dead carcasses and sulfur. His stomach lurched, but he didn’t hesitate to follow her deeper into the tube. Bats rose from beneath and he had to resist the urge to strike out at them as he dropped onto the rockier ledges where the colony dwelled. He kept his mind firmly in hers, following her exact movements. She was a warrior, well versed in the ways of Xavier, determined to defeat him and the mutations he set loose on the world. He had firmly joined her war, and what better way to learn than from the expert.
He couldn’t help but admire her complete concentration and single-minded, no-nonsense purpose. There was no wasted talk, no wasted movements. Ivory was all business, flooding him with information as they dropped to the floor of the lair. The rock surrounding them was dotted with dark holes, the floor covered in bones, fur; old and new blood splattered the rocks and soaked the floor, pooling in thick puddles and hiding in crevices.
This is a slaughterhouse.
Once they escape Xavier’s command, they start this behavior, swarming and reproducing, killing everything around them. They’ll pick the bones from a horse clean in minutes.
I saw Xavier’s first experiments. He fed them human and mage alike
. Razvan tried not to remember the sounds of those dying in agony, but the hideous smells triggered the memories and his stomach lurched.
Once he threw one into my chamber. I was chained to the wall and it began to devour me from the feet up. I could feel every tooth as it tore into my flesh. I thought if it ate me, I would cease to exist, but I could not stand the agony after a while
.
He didn’t know why he felt compelled to make the admission, and was ashamed the moment he did. It had been long ago and he’d pushed those memories to the back of his mind until the stink of death and decay brought them crowding back.
Long ago, I had wolves gnaw on me, on my leg bone. Fortunately, they helped bury me
.
Her voice was so matter-of-fact, he almost didn’t understand what she’d said. She kept talking as if she hadn’t revealed anything of importance at all.
What we are going to do is change the composition of air using our homemade grenades. The fire down here will burn hotter than anything you’ve ever felt, so remember, you cannot draw this chemical into your lungs and you have to protect yourself from the intense heat, even in this form. You will want to panic and go toward the surface, but the fire will race upward and we must wait until the chemical disperses. When you materialize to activate the grenade, they will swarm on us. The feeling is utterly horrifying. You felt one. Imagine hundreds
.
Let’s do it
. The stench was getting to him, and the idea of exposing himself to hundreds, maybe thousands of the demonic creatures would be terrifying if he let himself think about it.
We do it on three. Materialize, pull the pin and count, and then throw it into the center of their lair. You have to hang on for five seconds. It will be a lifetime, believe me. Immediately resume this form and stay out away from rocks, but keep away from the center. Do not breathe, whatever you do, and do not attempt to surface, no matter how hot you get
.
Razvan positioned himself to face her, hoping to block her face and the front of her body from the oncoming attack.
One. Two. Three
.
Razvan took his solid form. At once his boots sank into the decayed, rotting bodies and, even as he pulled the pin on the chemical grenade and began counting, his arm swinging back for the throw, the bats swarmed over them, hundreds of them, the weight nearly driving them to the floor, teeth sinking deep and tearing at their flesh.
He heard the wolves roar, teeth snapping in return, protecting Ivory’s back. The five seconds seemed an eternity as the gas hissed into the air. The bats continuously issued a high-pitched shriek that reverberated through his skull, a call for more to join the frenzied feast. He felt the chunks of flesh being torn from his back and legs. He stepped closer to Ivory, shielding her with his body while her wolves protected her back.
They both lobbed the grenades at the same time and simultaneously shifted. The flash was deafening in the small confines of the rocky cavern, shaking the earth. The light was so bright, even without his body the intensity burned his eyes. The blast blew Razvan back and he had to hastily right himself to keep himself away from the walls.
In purging the lair of every occupant, they changed the composition of the air to gas, igniting it in a raging fire that rocketed up the walls. The rocks glowed orange-red, flames licking greedily inside every hole and tunnel. The extreme pressure hurt every molecule of his body. The noise was terrifying, the crack of the splitting rocks as great fiery chunks gave way, and the death screams of the bats as their furry bodies heated from the inside out and either burst or exploded. Some erupted into flames.
For a few minutes it was worse than any hell he could have ever imagined. Every instinct urged him to take Ivory and surface, but the fire was moving upward, ahead of them, purging every cranny and nook, every single hole and tunnel the creatures had constructed. It felt interminable, as if they were trapped in the center of a volcano. He fought the urge to take a breath while his body was still molecules.
Hovering protectively, he tried to surround her body with his to shield her from the worst of the heat, although the temperatures were so hot he doubted it mattered. The rock still glowed but the flames died down before Ivory began her rise to the surface.
Emerge as close to the others as possible. I will warn them and we will attack the creatures on the surface. It would not have done any good to kill them first without taking out the lair
.
He had never admired someone so much in his life. She did what had to be done with no thought for her own safety. She was matter-of-fact about emerging into another storm of flesh-eating bats after her body had been torn up by the creatures. He couldn’t feel the least reluctance in her, and something inside him opened and embraced his true destiny. He was meant for this woman. He was a match for her—her other half. He was born Dragonseeker, a warrior, not the evil monster Xavier had tried to shape.
Elation burst through him as he tore through the blackened ring of dirt, emerging into the midst of snapping teeth and fire raining from the sky. He had never felt so alive or free. He caught a bat in each hand and knocked their heads together, flinging them aside, and he was attacked from all sides, the sheer weight of bodies trying to knock him over as they did their best to eat him alive.
“Cover Gary. Cocoon yourselves in an airtight, heat-resistant bubble,” Ivory said, then flipped a grenade to Razvan.
There was something very satisfying in being her partner. She hadn’t included the other hunters or the prince in her fight. He was her lifemate, her partner, and although he didn’t have their experience, she trusted him far more than she did the others, and it was the first time since he had been apart from his sister that anyone had ever given him trust.
“Warn any coming to your aid to stay away. This is the only way I know to kill a colony.” She knew they had seen the plume of fire bursting from the ground and probably even felt the heat. “This will be like nothing ever felt.” Her gaze leapt to Gary in the midst of the melee. Gary was valiantly fighting. It was obvious he had been around the Carpathians, and even the wicked creatures did little to shake his faith in his friends.
“She is getting torn apart,” Razvan snapped. “Do as she says
now
.”
The sight of her with the bats slicing through her arms and legs was more painful than he expected. He fought his way to her side and faced her. “Pull the pin and count.”
“Cover them, Gregori,” Ivory reiterated. “No one breathe. You will have to do that for Gary. If you can, get any wildlife away from here.”
“Do it,” Mikhail commanded.
They pulled the pins and the gas hissed into the air. Razvan didn’t look at the others, only at Ivory with her brave, calm face and the wolves fighting from her back. He didn’t even feel the teeth slicing deep or see the bloody carnage the bats were leaving on the snow, he only saw and felt her. She gave him a half-smile, her eyes soft as they counted and lobbed the grenades into the center of the writhing mass and both dissolved.
He knew what to expect, but still, the explosion seemed worse now that it wasn’t contained in a hole in the ground. A mushroom cloud of orange rocketed into the sky. The blast rocked both of them, the force blowing them back and away. The pressure raced through their bodies, feeling like great stones weighing on their chests.
There was a feel of power to shifting, an enormous rush to battle when one was in control of one’s own body. Nothing dimmed that elation, not even the exploding trees or the masses of incinerated bats raining from the sky or the stench of foul flesh burning. For the first time in his life, he really felt as if he had done something that made a difference. Because of her—
Ivory
. He waited while the heat streamed around them, cooking everything in its path, his mind occupied with the woman who knew so much about Xavier.
Was it possible that she might be the key to ridding the world of such a monster? Was there actually a chance? The world around him was on fire, and yet for the first time in centuries, he felt hope. The roar of the flames and the snapping and crackling of the inferno mingled with the last gasping shrieks of the hideous creatures, and he could only hear her soft whisper in his head.
Life can have unexpected high moments
.
A sharing. He recognized her willingness to share a small piece of who she was with him. Her love of battle. She
loved
the fight, the careful study of the enemy, the planning and preparation, the rush of adrenaline when her well-trained body and brain responded like a ballet dancer performing precise, complicated steps and emerging victorious. The feelings flowed from her into him, filling him with her, with her sense of purpose, with the realization that no other knew this complicated, talented woman the way she was letting him.
That realization humbled him, yet bolstered him at the same time. He had never felt as if he could measure up. He hadn’t been strong enough to defeat Xavier, or even to get away or to save his child or his aunts. This woman, his lifemate, strong and enduring, offered him, at the very least, friendship.
You are right about those unexpected moments
. It was definitely an unexpected high moment. While wind generated from the blaze roared around him, while heat blasted through his body and the world went up in flames, purging the last of the mutated bats, he felt at peace. He felt whole. And he was happy.
He felt her small, shared smile and held it to him, secreting it away in his heart—the heart she had given back to him.
When you go back to your natural form, I will be singing the revealing spell. The four splinters that were removed from you will need a host, and the bats are dead. He will have fled their bodies
, Ivory cautioned.
He will be looking for another host. Warn Gregori to watch the rest of them
.
Of course
. Vigilance was everything now. This was a chance to destroy a small part of Xavier. Even if it took one piece at a time to rid the world of him, it would be well worth it.