Jonas’s face was a twisted vestige of hate and horror. His casual handsomeness was all but buried under that look, and he recoiled away from the opening for a second. Then he pulled a gun and pointed it downward.
Shamira had no idea how she thought of the idea, but she grabbed Daniel’s gurgling corpse-to-be and turned over, using him as a shield as the first bullets hit. One bullet got through, but it didn’t stop Shamira. She was so far beyond a mortal concept of pain that this was just icing on the cake. From behind, she thrust her hand through Daniel’s back, causing it to emerge from the other side while holding the elf’s still-beating heart.
Jonas fell backwards as he saw his most important ally ripped apart before his very eyes. “It’s not fucking possible,” he mumbled, crawling away from the whole. There hadn’t been enough life in that sack of flesh to warrant still being called alive, but it had somehow just killed an elvish sorcerer and metal-smith in a matter of moments. Daniel was lost, so Jonas decided to cut his own losses and run. He could set up his operation again somewhere else.
Below, Shamira was rending her enemy limb from limb. She poured blood into her open mouth, consuming his power. But it was not enough, and she knew it. She had only bought herself a little more time, and it was time she had not even wanted. The door above her closed, and she knew that she was lost. This knowledge was hammered home a few moments later when she smelled smoke. Jonas was burning the garage to the ground with Shamira trapped in the basement. She lay down and waited for death to release her from what Daniel had done.
————— ————–
Not far away . . .
————— ————–
“Are you sure this was the road we were supposed to take?” Kristoff asked from the driver’s seat. Kristoff was one of Lord Pritchard’s friends from Huntsville, and he was a werewolf with a fine nose for tracking.
Renata growled as she checked the instructions again. “Yes, this was the road Sebastian said to take. He said that they’d run into an elf who warned them about local goings-on and that it was on . . . Jesus Christ!” she shouted as the car she and three other were’s were in screeched to a stop. Some young, half-naked teenaged boy who was bleeding from some cuts in his side raced across the road, looking like hell itself was on his heels.
Renata jumped out of the car and yelled after the boy, “Hey you! Stop! Are you okay?”
The boy didn’t stop, and the werejaguar was forced to run after him. She took a deep whiff as she hauled ass trying to catch him, and could tell that he was a were of some kind. Probably a young werebear if her nose was not lying to her. He was hurt and she was hyped up on adrenalin, so she overtook him quickly, jumping on his back and pinning him to the ground. She could feel him trying to shift, but the poor kid did not have the strength.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said, trying to sound calm. “My name is Renata and I work for Lord Stapleton –” She realized she had just said the right thing, because the boy stopped struggling so hard.
“You . . . you’re not with them? That elf and –”
“Elf? What elf?”
The boy started to gasp and cry. “I can’t go back there. Please, don’t take me back. That elf . . . he was going to bleed me and that woman –”
Renata rolled the young man over and locked his gaze while holding his jaw. “What . . . woman?”
“He . . . he was really angry at her. God, the things he did . . . somehow she helped me get out, but I couldn’t . . . I ran and I heard screaming but I just kept running –” The young man just started to cry uncontrollably.
“Renata!” shouted another one of the hunting party. “You might want to look at this.”
Renata turned her head and saw a plume of smoke rising in the distance. Her heart turned to lead even as she hauled the young were to his feet. “Is that where you came from?” she hissed. When the young man nodded, she hauled him back towards the car. “You’re coming with us. It’s not safe for you out here by yourself.”
“I can’t go –”
“You WILL go because MY friend is in trouble!” she shouted, making the boy cower, allowing himself to be put into the back seat of the car. Renata had not meant to scare him, but they were wasting precious time. It only took them a few minutes to get to the source of the smoke.
“Is this the place?” Kristoff was asking, but Renata was jumping out of the passenger side. She couldn’t smell anything but oily smoke, which was odd. She should smell a lot of stuff, meaning that this place was spelled. But Sebastian had said he’d seen wards, so that made sense.
“There’s a woman in there? Did she say her name?”
The boy was terrified, both of Renata and the fire before him. As a rule, weres didn’t like fire. “She barely said anything. She barely had a face left!” he screamed. “I just know she got me out!”
Renata knew that she had little evidence to support it, but she believed in her heart that it was Shamira. Rescuing the boy . . . staying behind. It was just what Shamira would do. Tears and anger and fear all found a place in her ordinarily heart-breaking face as she stormed towards the building, before turning around. “Where was she?”
“In the buh-basement,” the kid stuttered. Then something inside him turned from jelly to steel, and he got out of the car on his own. The woman in the basement had freed him while asking nothing of him. He had to try and help her. “I got out through a window . . . over here,” he said, pointing at a small opening that the flame was rapidly approaching.
Renata stared at the whole as the other weres gathered around. “You’ll never squeeze through that,” Kristoff told her. “There’s got to be another –” He was cut off as Renata rushed towards the front of the building where a tow-truck was parked. Renata jumped in, noticed the keys were in the ignition, then started it up. “Renata, do you know what . . . yikes!”
The werejaguar piloted the bulky vehicle like it was an intoxicated bison, rolling around and then backing up to the opening. Braving the increasing heat, she jumped out and latched the hook to the window frame. Kristoff took the cue and activated the wench, yanking the window out and enlarging the opening significantly. Renata saw that the flames were spreading rapidly, and she knew she had little time before the building was completely engulfed.
“Renata, what the hell –” Kristoff started, watching the Brazilian beauty dive headfirst through the opening and into a burning building.
Renata rolled and hit the dark and putrid floor of the basement, pulling a gun out of instinct. She smelled blood . . . so much blood. Most of it was old, caked into every crack and crevice, but some was new. Near a ladder leading up to the burning floor of the main structure was a pool of dark liquid surround a pile of . . . meat. Renata couldn’t even identify what it used to be, at least not with her eyes. She took a whiff and smelled, identifying it as some kind of fae, most likely that elf everyone had been talking about. Her eyes scanned the darkness, finally spotting a huddled mass in one corner.
“Sweet Goddess,” she whispered, tears flowing freely from her eyes. She smelled Shamira, but the creature before her bore little resemblance to her friend. “Shamira?” she added, her voice choking up her throat.
“Ruh . . . Ruh-nata?” whispered a voice so empty of life that Renata thought she might have imagined it. “Cuh-ant ‘ee ‘ou.”
“It’s me,” Renata said, approaching Shamira’s pathetic form. “I’m here to –”
Shamira screamed and held up her clawed hands. “‘O away! Don’ ‘ook at muh-ee!” She tried to crawl further away, but she was out of space.
Renata’s heart continued to break as she watched how Shamira moved. ‘She’s so broken,’ the werejaguar thought. ‘What did they do to her?’ However the elf had died, it could not have been painful enough. “Shamira, I’m going to get you out of here. “I need you to put those claws away,” she said, wondering where THOSE had come from. But this was Shamira, woman of a thousand surprises. “I need you to let me help –” She stopped for a moment.
Shamira was crying, drops of blood trickling from her eyes. Renata knew she could not afford to cry now. A crying vampire meant a vampire was losing blood, and Shamira did not appear to have much to spare. Renata put her gun away and crawled forward. She could feel the heat intensifying above her, but she could not afford to spook Shamira. The woman was hanging onto sanity by a thread. “Shamira, let me help you. I’ll take you back home and we’ll undo what they did and then we’ll get everyone responsible.”
‘How do you “undo” someone breaking your soul,’ Shamira thought as she sunk to the ground. She felt Renata gently lifting her, apparently realizing that something was wrong with her back. No one could put her back together again. But at least, while she died, she had a friend’s arms around her. Shamira felt horrible about how she had treated Renata before. “Ah’m suh-orry,” she muttered.
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Renata said through her own tears. She knew that Shamira would only be apologizing now if she were giving up, and Renata was not going to let her. She hoisted the broken vampire and carried her to the window. Someone had lowered the tow rope again, so Renata grabbed it and screamed to be pulled up. She turned so that her own back was scratched up as they were hauled to safety, but she barely felt the pain. All she could think of was the pain she was going to cause others. She would find everyone even remotely responsible for this and mete out a horrible vengeance.
“Good grief,” Kristoff said when he saw what Renata was holding. “Is she –”
“She’s alive, and we’re damn sure going to keep her that way.”