Of Water and Madness (30 page)

“Goodbye, Times Square. It’s been fun.” Dante glanced around at the frightened looking humans as police sirens began to hauntingly sound in the distance.

And then the world went dark, and all they could hear were the screams.

In a finger
snap, the darkness vanished. For Liam, it was like opening his eyes for the first time, sensing light and shrinking away from the startling brightness of it.

The sudden absence of screaming echoed hollowly in his mind as he fought to grasp what had just happened.

He wasn’t alone. Rhiannon was still pressed against him, her breathing shallow and forced as her entire body shook in a violent shudder. But she wasn’t hurt.

His family was there around him, and they were all clutching their heads and groaning, trembling as if waking from a nightmare. From his own experience, he gauged that they were no longer under Vivica’s control, and were suffering from the aftereffects just as he had when he had broken free.

It was that thought that had him glancing around for Dante and Vivica, only to see them standing some yards away, arm-in-arm like proud parents overseeing their children playing in the yard. Disgust warred with confusion as he realized that they were standing in a grassy field in an enormously wide open valley. In the distance, mountains speared up toward the sky, snowcapped and majestic, shadowed by the sun that had begun to descend beyond their peaks. The wind whipped around them, flowing through the grass so it appeared as if they were standing in a sea of shimmering green waves.

Somehow, they had all been transported from Times Square to this location, wherever it was, and Liam had a sickening feeling that things were about to get worse…

“Are you okay?” he murmured to Rhiannon, tilting her chin up so he could see her face. She was pale and frightened, but she nodded.

“Yes.” She turned away from him, searching for her father. She spotted him collapsed against Brock, both men fighting to catch their breath. She hoped since they were no longer fighting that it meant Vivica had released them, along with everyone else.

Taking a deep breath, she linked her hand with Liam’s and looked at him again, meeting his eyes. Even without saying it, they understood each other. They would stand united, no matter what happened…

Thea and Sebastian surfaced from the haze of Vivica’s spell first, and they both stood tall and faced Dante, stone cold and furious.

Thea’s chin tilted up defensively as she sneered down her nose at him, livid at having been taken advantage of. Beside her, Sebastian glared with equal defiance.

“Alright, Dante. You’ve proven that in a crowd of innocent humans you have the upper hand on us. We shall see how you fare now, without them as leverage,” Thea bellowed, power flashing in her eyes as she seemed suddenly larger, somehow fiercer and more intense. Sebastian equally appeared to glow with an ethereal power, drawing in on the energy from the churning wind and cloudless sky above them.

Dante seemed less than impressed as he chuckled. “Thea, darling, having the humans around was only for fun. I just love to see the fear on their faces, to listen to their terrified screams as they run frightfully from what they do not understand.” His eyes darkened maliciously as he grinned toothily at Thea, all but licking his lips in hunger and delight. “But it’s time to up the ante. I think you’ll enjoy what I have planned for all of you…it’ll be the ultimate test in your allegiances to one another. Though if earlier is any indication, I’d say there’s far too much hostility and resentment within your own ranks for you to be successful.”

Behind Thea and Sebastian, the rest of the group recovered and gathered together, a strong and united front. They all unearthed the weapons they carried, aiming guns and brandishing swords that flashed in the dying light of the sun.

Liam and Rhiannon stood beside Capri and Rian, near Blythe and Jax, all of them staring mercilessly at Dante and Vivica. A collective anger and resentment resided over them all, each with their own reasons for wanting justice and revenge. Perhaps it was fitting that they were all together, here in what was surely meant to be a battleground, armed and ready to destroy him by any means necessary.

Thea glanced over her shoulder at all of them, her lips curving into a proud and fierce smile. “We are united, Dante. You will not win.”

“Oh, I beg to differ.” His eyes flashed to the open sky once before he glanced down at the watch he wore.

Liam watched Dante curiously, wondering how long they were going to chat with him before Thea gave the orders for them to fight. Surely it wouldn’t take much to take him and Vivica out; most of his family had either a pistol or a sword in their hands…

It was then that he remembered the monsters.

Fear raced down his spine in one swift jolt, but by the time he glanced around, searching for any sign of something dark and unnatural that Dante might use against them, there was a deep, resonating cracking sound that seemed to come impossibly from the sky above.

“It’s time.” Dante threw his arms out triumphantly as he watched them gape up at the sky, where the cracking sound only grew louder and harsher. His eyes flashed wickedly as he pulled Vivica against him, enjoying catching them off guard. They could not have expected this…oh no, this was to be his moment, the cherry on top of the sundae of destroying everything they were, bit by glorious bit.

Liam stared in the direction of where it seemed the sound came from, which was somewhere near the mountains that crested in the distance. But it wasn’t until he saw the seam that he knew exactly where it was…

A jagged crack had formed in the blue of the sky, splitting in a rough circular pattern, as if being sawed by something on the other side…and as he stared at it, the line seemed to widen and deepen, until the cracking sound boomed across the valley, shaking the ground as the piece of sky that had been cut suddenly began to tumble to Earth.

Down it fell, like a puzzle piece shaken free of its proper place in the picture, leaving a gaping hole that opened to nothing but cavernous blackness. When the piece of sky smashed into the field roughly a mile away, it sent a rumbling tremor through the ground that nearly knocked him to his knees. All he could do was clutch Rhiannon and stare uneasily at the hole in the sky. What the hell was going to come out of it?

“Get ready for it, Thea.” Dante clapped his hands giddily, his excitement mounting. “You’ll enjoy this.”

Thea glared at him before turning back to the gaping hole, anxiously linking her hand with Sebastian’s. Beside her, he was trembling with fury and disgust. How dare Dante damage his beautiful sky this way? The man would pay for it, and dearly.

But when three dark figures descended from the opening, something akin to pure horror could be felt resonating in the air. Something wicked and unnatural had come through, and as the creatures flew straight toward them, Thea’s eyes widened and she whirled around to face Dante.

“
Damn you!
” she shouted fiercely, her hands clenched tightly at her sides as her face flushed with violent anger. Her wild dark curls spun in the air around her as the magnitude of what Dante had done hit her in waves.

Dante stepped toward her, laughing boldly and clasping his hands together merrily. “Ah yes, you remember the harpies, don’t you?”

Thea gritted her teeth and whirled around when a shrieking cry echoed across the field, resounding through the swirling wind and sending shivers down to her bones. Her eyes followed the three creatures as they flew overhead, circling like vultures craving a dead carcass.

At first glance, the harpies looked like dark haired women with enormous raven wings and steel gray scales covering their bodies. But when one of them extended their legs and launched itself down upon them, its fierce hawk-like talons flashed in the sunlight, wickedly sharp and deadly.

It swooped down and nearly clipped Brock, who shot a fireball at it, catching its wing. But it flapped away and resumed circling with its sisters, screeching in outrage.

“It’s been quite some time since they’ve seen the light of day…centuries really, so I expect they’re pretty hungry,” Dante quipped, beaming up at them. “And they are probably not too pleased that you locked them up in that dingy, remote castle in Slovakia, either. Oh, look, I think they remember you.”

The three harpies were staring at Thea, crying out threateningly as they began spiraling downward toward her. When they were close enough, their vivid orange eyes flashed and they dove straight for her.

Sebastian leaped and shoved her to the ground, covering her body with his as the shrieking creatures swooped down upon them. She heard his sharp intake of breath as one of them managed to scrape his back with its claws before they soared back into the sky. Tears of guilt and rage brimmed in her eyes, knowing he had taken the brunt of the attack for her.

She rolled over and sat up, cupping his face in her hands as he panted, wincing against the shock of pain. Pressing her forehead against his, she shut her eyes tight so the tears would not fall, not wanting to show weakness, not now. “I’m so sorry, my love…” she whispered, pressing her lips briefly to his before rising to her feet and helping him up, noting he was pale from the pain, but not mortally hurt. He nodded to her determinedly, clenching his jaw fiercely as he glared at Dante.

“Just what are you trying to prove by releasing these creatures, Dante?” Sebastian asked, suddenly throwing his hand out toward the sky where the harpies were circling. The wind that had been blowing around suddenly seemed to curve up and aim directly for the creatures, knocking all three of them into a spiraling cyclone. Their frightened shrieks rang out with the howl of the wind, and when Sebastian brought his hand down swiftly, the wind carried the creatures straight into the ground. They smacked violently into the grass, cutting off their shrieks instantly as they lay writhing in agony some yards away.

Everyone stared wide eyed from the creatures and back to Sebastian, who slipped his arm around Thea and turned his attention back to Dante.

“Well?”

Dante looked toxically furious for one flickering moment, but then he brushed off the incident with a sneering laugh. “So you took down the first batch, that’s fine. They were only the warm up, anyway.”

He glanced down at his watch once more, and grinned. “Our timing is quite impeccable today…”

The ground suddenly began to violently shake, and the Earth below them split into a gaping crack, dividing them. Liam grabbed Rhiannon and dragged her back from the hole, even as Capri, Rian, Blythe and Jax ended up on the other side. Liam’s eyes shot briefly to meet Blythe’s, and for a moment she almost looked as though she was going to jump over the crack to get to him. But before she could, Jax caught her and yanked her back at the exact moment something black leapt out of the dark hole, its howl piercing the air.

What looked like an oversized black dog landed gracefully some yards away, accompanied by a sweeping black fog that seemed to follow its every movement and swirl menacingly in the air around it. The dog growled at them, baring its sharp teeth in a maniacal snarl. Its muscles were bunched with strength and ferocity as it stared them down, red eyes glowing with malice and hunger.

“My personal favorite!” Vivica gushed as she nodded to Thea. “Don’t you remember the Black Dog, Thea?”

Thea turned from the dog to Vivica, her eyes as hard as agate and her temper sparking. “You used it to strike fear into the hearts of men as they went into battle, or as they lay dying from the wars you created. It was one of the many reasons why I banished you and locked the creature up in the remote English countryside, where it belonged. I never thought you would have the power to release it.”