The black cloud started to abate and drift away, the silence broken only by Theodore’s ridiculous cackling. Then I heard someone struggling for breathe close by. Turning my head, I spotted Emilia still holding the string with one hand, she clutched her chest with the other.
Oh, crap. I knew a heart attack when I saw one.
She didn’t have the strength left to hold the string any longer. Weakly, she fell to the ground on her hands and knees. Immediately, I felt the magic sail right out of my body, and with it, the glamour that had been hiding us all from view. The line had been broken. I rushed to Emilia and started CPR, while at the same time Theodore wailed in outrage.
“What trickery is this?!”
I looked up from where I was pumping my hands into Emilia’s chest and saw Roman advancing on Theodore with a sword. I tried to focus on Emilia, but my gut sank when it became evident that there was nothing more I could do. She was dead. Roman’s magic must’ve been too much for her body to handle.
I brushed some hair away from her aged but still beautiful face and closed her eyelids. That was all the goodbyes I had time for because the others needed me now. Cristescu used his ultra-vampire speed to flash to Rita, pinning her arms behind her back as she struggled and kicked at him to let her go. She even tried to bite him, snapping her teeth like a feral dog.
“You need to let go of me! You need to let me go!” she screamed, but Cristescu didn’t budge an inch.
Gabriel was holding a can of petrol nearby, waiting for Roman to gain the upper hand with Theodore. Unfortunately, it looked like our hero was failing in that department. Theodore was throwing bolts of magic at him, easily keeping him far enough away so that there was no chance of him using the sword.
Pulling my bow from off my back, I shot an arrow at Theodore, clocking him right in the stomach. It didn’t even make him bleed. The arrow simply popped right out, and I got a blast of magic thrown my way in retaliation. It burned like acid seeping under my skin. The skin on my hand bubbled and spit, and I swore profusely with the pain.
Ira, who had shifted into his canine form, approached Theodore, who was distracted by Roman, from behind and clamped his fangs down into Theodore’s shin. The sorcerer showed minimal signs of discomfort when he winced at the bite. A moment later, he easily kicked Ira away and continued battling Roman.
What a fuckup this was turning out to be.
Theodore raised both his hands in front of him and purple light streamed out, blasting Roman full force and knocking him entirely unconscious. Then he pulled a vial of blood from his pocket and popped open the cork. Bringing it to his mouth, he downed the entire thing in one go.
Oh, gross.
He reached up into the sky, his magic still streaming from his hands. A loud tearing sound erupted as a hole was torn in the clouds. A gigantic, fiery rip was created, and I swore I almost pissed my pants when I saw dark, winged shapes hovering around the outskirts, waiting to come through.
I was willing to bet that was Rebecca’s blood he just drank, and the hole was a portal from hell. This time, though, nobody was being banished there. No, this time whatever was over there was coming here.
“Let. Me. Go!” Rita screeched before finally managing to free one of her hands from Cristescu’s hold. She smacked him hard in the face with magic, and he reeled back long enough for her to get away. I hadn’t noticed before, but she actually had a sword strapped across her shoulders underneath a plain black backpack. She whipped off the sword and went charging to the other side of the stage.
Roman had just now regained his consciousness and was advancing on Theodore, whose satisfied attention was on the ugly tear he created in the sky.
“Come on, my pretties, don’t be shy. There’s a whole world for you to feast on down here,” he sang to the shadowy creatures. I could almost feel them pushing against the thin membrane between our dimension and theirs.
I started to run, thinking I might be able to stop Rita before she got the chance to saw off Roman’s head. I wasn’t fast enough though, and she rushed easily by me. The sorcerer was our final hope and now he might as well be done for. The little witch leapt up into the air, the sword held high above her head. I could hardly look as the blade came within inches of Roman, but instead of swinging it his way, she changed direction and sliced right through Theodore’s neck.
We all froze, staring at Rita in shock and awe. Rita cut her father’s head clean off, and for a second, or maybe even a minute, my brain was too discombobulated to figure out what just happened.
Rita decapitated her father.
The second his head hit the stage floor, the tear in the sky closed, and the creatures that had almost broken through completely disappeared. White fluffy clouds filled the sky once more.
We all gaped at Rita, dumbfounded, as she let her sword fall to the ground and pulled off the backpack. She didn’t look at a single one of us as she zipped it open, took out a can of petrol, and began dousing Theodore’s head and body.
I heard the shake of a box of matches just before she whipped one out, struck it alight, and flung it at her father’s corpse. It caught fire instantly and went up in a mesmerising display of purple and black flames.
Tegan
Three hours earlier
I blinked my eyes, knowing I felt way too shitty to be dead—unless by some sick twist of fate I’d ended up in hell. I peered around myself and discovered that no, I wasn’t in hell. I was still lying flat down in the mud, my neck sore and swollen from almost being choked to death.
I heard sobbing coming from nearby. Weakly, I pulled myself up to a sitting position and spotted Rita a few feet away, her arms around her knees as she cradled them to her chest. She was quietly weeping, tears running down her face. The last thing I remembered was that same face looking at me with pure hatred. Now there was nothing left but sadness.
I shifted my body a fraction, and her eyes whipped to mine.
“Not another move, Tegan.”
“Rita … I …”
“I said, not another move.”
“Okay, I won’t move.”
She looked away from me then and wiped her eyes with the long sleeves of her dress. Both our clothes were completely destroyed with grass and dirt. I felt like I’d simultaneously been punched in the throat and swallowed a bag of sand.
“Why didn’t you finish me off?” I asked in a sore, raspy voice.
She didn’t answer me for a very long time, then all I got was, “I don’t know.”
“You must know. What made you stop?”
“I said I don’t fucking know. Now will you please just shut up?”
I reached up and rubbed at my bruised neck, which was when I noticed there was something wrong with my hand. The index finger was hanging limply, and I couldn’t seem to move it. My body must have gone into shock and blocked out the pain for a time because now my entire hand was screaming in agony. I sucked in a sharp, hissing breath and tried to focus through the pain.
“You broke my finger.”
“You got lucky then.”
“Rita, I know why you stopped. You stopped because you couldn’t bear to kill someone who’s your friend. No matter how much you try to convince yourself you’re evil, you know it’s not true. You know that Theodore is a madman, and I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but even though he’s your biological parent, you’re nothing like him.”