Ordained (24 page)

“What is it?” the Chancellor asked, worriedly.

“Is the protection barrier on the manor still in effect?” she urged.

“Always. Why do you ask?”

She and Noel were already rushing out the door. “Cause something found a way through.”

Noel and Abby split in different directions. Their ability to sense fear sometimes led them to different people, particularly when there were multiple victims. With each step she could hear more clearly, now a mixture of rumbling, screaming and the clanging of metal.

Her sixth sense led her to the arena balcony just in time to see a power ball full of flashing light and energy hit the floor before Emily and Darby. The ground broke, flinging them backwards. Emily’s face fell as she stood back up to face her enemy.

Abby counted a dozen demons, each different in physical appearance and abilities. The hunters were doing their best in battle. The advisors, although armed, were doing their best to avoid confrontation.

The demons had chosen Daniel as the greatest threat. The largest, most threatening demon was upon him, the Lixth. It was abnormally muscular and protected by thick leathered skin. It had coarse black hair that fell to the shoulders and a horn protruding from the forehead. Before Daniel could even swing his sword, he was sent flying across the room with a simple thrust of the demon’s arm. He lost his sword in the fall.

As he rushed to collect it, the Tenvin, from way across the arena, slammed his fist into the floor. A loud piercing noise caused Abby alone to keel over, covering her ear canals. Luckily, it stopped as quickly as it came. The ultrasonic wave cracked the floor and zig-zagged through the crowd, stopping directly behind Daniel’s back. The ground crumbled into a deep fissure and Daniel fell into it. He grasped desperately for the edge on the way down, losing his sword to the black abyss.

Abby climbed the railing, jumped and floated to the arena floor. She landed beside Constance’s dead body, pierced cleanly through the heart with what Abby could only have guessed was an oversized set of claws. After grabbing a double-sided battle ax from the wall, she came up behind the Vral and sliced his head off just as it turned to meet her. Its headless body thumped atop Constance.

Daniel continued to struggle as he dangled from the edge of the fissure. His attention was focused on the Glauntz as it closed in on him. Its short arms were not a threat but the three spiked tails that swung freely and easily around it were.

Abby had a few hunters in mind she didn’t want to lose in case she needed help down the line. Daniel was one of them. She tried her best to make her way to the side of the arena where he, Emily and Darby were.

Daniel failed to reach the nearest weapon. The Glauntz snapped its spiked tails towards his hand. He pulled away before impact, slipping further down the fissure. He dangled by one arm as the demon pulled the tails back and prepared to swing again. Abby felt a jolt down her spine as his face lit up in fear and desperation. But before the demon could swing again, one of the tails was sliced off by Emily’s blade. A high-pitched screech bawled from its mouth, and while distracted by its pain, Emily quickly swung at the two remaining tails before the Glauntz could swing them away. She managed to cut the very tips bearing the largest spikes, splattering herself with the slick color of blue. The demon’s short arms were all that was left and useless in combat. Emily pierced its chest with her sword. Its body folded in, crunched over and fell to the ground in spasms.

Another sound wave reverberated though Abby’s ears and deafened her somewhat. The ground behind Emily rumbled and the fissure widened more, loosening Daniel’s grip.

Panicking, he cried out, “Emily!”

Emily dropped her weapon and dove for Daniel, grabbing his hand as it slipped. She held on but was unable to pull him up; the constant shaking made it difficult to stand her ground.

Abby neared Darby and Mira as they fought the Lixth. No matter how many times they pierced the oversized demon it continued to stand. It picked up Mira and threw her across the room. Abby came up from behind, forcefully kicked the backside of its knee and knocked it to the ground. She pulled the dagger from her backside, reached around its head and roughly sliced the horn off its forehead. The demon roared, but weakened. Copious liters of blood spurted out the hole and sprayed Darby. It continued to struggle, but lay on the floor helpless.

“Protect your friend,” she ordered as she continued on her way. Though disgusted at the yellow blood covering her body, Darby rushed off to Mira.

Emily was still struggling to raise Daniel. His attempt to crawl up her body failed when he began pulling her towards him.

“Behind you!” he cried. The Orcux was nearing. Emily twisted her body and gave a swift kick to its knee. The movement inadvertently shifted Emily’s body weight toward Daniel. As if in slow-motion, Daniel’s weight pulled her farther and farther into the fissure. They slowly disappeared into the black abyss.

Abby’s heart stopped. Or at least it would have if it actually beat. “NO!”

She could hear their screams echo down the fissure. From above, Noel jumped down, slicing the Orcux‘s body in half. He rushed to the fissure and leaned in. He must have thought she had called for him when screaming out. She hadn’t even realized he was in the arena.

“Emily!” he yelled down the hole. A few seconds later he waved Abby to go on. Confident he would protect them, she turned away.

The Fanter demon was currently slinging Me-Ling across the arena. She was stunned upon landing. With the jerk of its wrist, a shard flew out and traveled across the room. Brit cried out and dove for his huntress, knocking her over. Abby knew if either was hit with the poisonous tip, they were done for.

The Firnst threw Calley up against the wall and spit poison onto her neck. The sticky material acted like acid and her skin bubbled and melted. She choked on tears and blood as she bawled in pain in the monster’s grasp. The exposed muscles and blood vessels continued to liquefy.

Abby came up from behind and grasped the Firnst’s head, covering the gills on the back of its neck, suffocating it. The demon struggled and released Calley to the floor. Its claws dug deep into Abby’s arms, trying to pull her off its only source of oxygen. The demon weakened and fell lifeless to the ground. Calley lay dead beside it.

Unbeknownst to the Fanter demon, it was being backed into Abby by Me-Ling, who was swinging constantly at its chest. Me-Ling had become hip to the demon’s shooting darts and protected herself with a large shield. The Fantor had yet to get in a clean shot. Abby picked up a trident next to Calley’s body, stepped in behind the demon and pierced its heart through the back. It seized briefly, then fell forward.

Me-Ling nodded her thanks and ran to help more of her friends.

Abby scanned the room. The hunters and advisors had ganged up on the remaining demons four to one and were finishing them off. The greatest threat was the Singion, or fire-thrower, that had caused some damage in the area Christoph and a few advisors were still fighting. There were none left that required a particular method of dying. All would succumb to the hunters’ weapons.

Moments later, all were breathless and in shock. Valerie appeared at the balcony and visually assessed the damage. Abby didn’t bother to measure the damage from where she was, but according to Valerie’s reaction, the aerial view was devastating.

Abby rushed to Noel’s side and stared into the darkness of the fissure. “Emily!” she called out.

Her quiet voice responded weakly, “We’re fine. I think.”

Abby figured from Emily’s voice that the fissure was only about fifteen feet deep. Not enough to kill, but definitely deep enough to cause some bodily damage.

Within minutes, the advisors had retrieved a ladder long enough to lower down the fissure. Emily climbed up and out, cradling her left arm. Michael and Ethan went down to aid Daniel. Emily had apparently landed atop Daniel and broken one of his legs. He was unable to climb up the ladder on his own.

Obviously in pain, Mira and Darby tried to comfort Emily but she pushed them aside as she gawked at the sight before her. For the first time Abby did as well. There were a lot of bodies, demons and humans alike.

Number-wise the hunters did quite well - a loss of three versus twelve. Abby was actually surprised the demons attacked with so few. Certainly they realized the hunters would have a home court advantage. She knew all too well it could’ve been far worse, had the hunters not been grouped together training at the time of attack.

Apparently, Emily disagreed. Whether from stress, pain or finally fed up, she yelled across the arena to the advisors, paying particular attention to the Chancellor. “Is this what you wanted?! Are you
ever
gonna do something that actually benefits us hunters? You raise us, train us and send us out into the world ready to fight nothing but vampires. Do you see any vampires here today? Right now? In this very school?”

Abby and Noel’s eyes met in utter astonishment. Emily had never snapped before. Their awe and silence was matched throughout the arena. The hunters appeared dumbfounded, the advisors anxious. From the looks on their faces, Abby was quite certain no hunter under their watch had ever been this vocal.

“How in the hell were we supposed to get close enough to that fire-thrower to stop him?”

Quite a few eyes lingered towards Abby after that remark.

“And show me how a stake through the heart of this demon,” she sassed, kicking the Lixth at her feet, “would have injured it, let alone killed it? I see he’s missing a chunk of forehead. Perhaps it has something to do with that?”

Emily’s venting was put on hold as she and everyone else turned to watch Michael and Ethan lift Daniel up between them on the ladder. Noel rushed over to help pull him out. Daniel grunted in pain as his leg was jostled.

Frustrated, Emily walked aimlessly for a few seconds, shaking her head in disbelief. The pain from her broken bone seemed to be getting to her, too.

She ended her walk as she neared the Chancellor. “You send us out into the world, not as a group, but by ourselves to different cities in countries all over the world. Did you seriously expect us to be able to kill vampires without running into anything else? The world is full of monsters. Hell, we’ve got about twelve different ones right here.”

Abby noticed as the hunters looked back and forth at one another, appearing to agree with Emily through facial expressions.

“Abby?” Emily called out, refusing to break her line of sight aimed at the Chancellor. “How many of these demons required special ways to finish them off?”

There was no need for Abby to scan the room. She knew the answer without looking. “Three.”

“And of those three, how many did you and Noel kill for us?”

Abby had killed two of them. She assumed Noel took care of the third, for no other here would have known to kill the Razunu by piercing the spine at the back of the neck between the cervical and thoracic vertebras, which was the only soft spot in the scale-protected body.

“Three.”

“And just out of curiosity, how many of these twelve did you two end up killing?” She glared at the Chancellor. Surprisingly, he did not back away from her eyes.

Abby hesitantly looked toward Noel. She could tell he didn’t like where this was going. He slowly and quietly raised three fingers. “Seven.”

“Seven?” she huffed. “Wow. Two of them, seven demons. Well, I’m glad the twenty of us could help you out with the other five,” she ranted sarcastically.

“All right, that’s enough!” the Chancellor bellowed. Reddened, he added, “We’re all upset by this attack. None of you would be alive right now if you hadn’t been given the training you received during your school years.”

Most of the hunters looked away due to an upbringing of intimidation. Emily, however, looked him straight in the eye, dumbfounded by his words.

“You’re delusional!” she stressed. “These demons kicked our ass! Abby and Noel are the reason the rest of us are still alive. Your training only kept us alive long enough for them to sort out the mess!”

“Emily!” yelled Ethan, stamping forward. “You will stop this right now!”

“I’m not taking orders from you anymore!” she yelled back. “Any of you!”

Ethan approached Emily with fury in his eyes. With only four steps, Abby put herself directly in his path and caused him to stop abruptly.

“Emily,” Noel said in a calm manner across the arena.

She obediently turned her attention to him.

“We need to set your arm before it swells any further.” He motioned for her to join him as he headed for the main entrance doors. She followed without hesitation.

The room was left in silence. Abby approached the Chancellor for a private conversation but made no attempt to lower her voice.

“I suggest you start the induction process for Emily’s replacement. I guarantee you, when this is over, she’ll have no intention of following your orders anymore.”

“You did this,” he said coolly. “You turned her against us.”

“I didn’t do a damn thing. Your words, your actions, or lack thereof, is the reason this is happening. If you hadn’t sent her out there to face Eraticus alone and unprepared she wouldn’t have known you were worth hating. You had to know that if any of these guys,” she motioned to the hunters who were listening to her every word, “had lived through that ambush, they would’ve been pissed off too.”