I ran him over.
When there were no more bad guys to run over, I sat idling in the buggy, and watched with the rest of the staff as Draven took hit after hit from his opponent. Although, he got in some hits on Alessandro as well. They seemed to be equal in fighting abilities, and that was not a good thing to my way of thinking.
Rhys hopped into the seat next to me, covered in blood and dirt, and I let him know with my eyes how grateful I was that he was okay. Then I turned back to Draven with my heart in my throat.
“Alessandro is a brother of sorts to Draven. They were created by the same sire,” Rhys said quietly. His eyes flicked to mine. “It turns out their sire is the king of the vampires.”
I whipped toward Rhys in shock. My eyes wide. He nodded. “Alessandro said that their sire is finally fading. He’s eliminating all of his competition for the throne.”
I puzzled through all of this as quickly as I could. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rhys throw a dagger with unerring accuracy, and a panther shifter went down.
“We can’t physically help. It’s part of their succession laws.” His eyes were trying to tell me something, and I blinked at him in confusion for a few seconds, replaying what he’d just said in mind again, trying to find the clue.
Duh.
Physically. Can’t help physically.
I turned back to the fight, determined, and clutched for Rhys’ hand, threading my fingers through his. I needed to borrow his stability for a bit. His emotions were heightened but curiously very stable, while mine were all over the place. The skin to skin contact would help me stay calm.
Rhys nodded, his eyes continuously scanning around us. Mesmer had taken his gargoyles down and was standing near my driver’s side door with his arms folded over his chest. The rest of the guards were surrounding the buggy behind us in a half circle, waiting and watching.
I focused on Draven, and tried to figure out how I could help him from a distance, without it being obvious that I was helping. I couldn’t use the more obvious weather magic because it would be visible, and I didn’t know of any way to use my empathic ability at a distance. I didn’t even think Icoulduse it offensively. It was more just an insight type of magic.
Grrrrr.
I focused on Draven with my heart in my throat. He was taking more hits as his reflexes got slower and slower. I couldn’t lose him. I’d justfoundhim, and it was for galloping gargoyles sure I wasn’t going to lose him now.
I growled, my brain frantically trying to come up with a solution.
Don’t you dare give up, Draven.
For an instant, his eyes shot to me in shock, and I blinked in surprise. Had he heard me? No…that wasn’t possible. Draven threw himself back into the fight.
Huh, he was moving quicker than he had been.
I would ponder that later.
I needed a solutionnow!
The only thing that was sneaky enough that I could think of was an article I’d once read on barometric pressure. In the article, it had said that when people claimed they could predict bad weather because of their joints, they were likely right because a drop in barometric pressure led to expanding tissues within our bodies. The expanding tissues put pressure on our joints and caused pain.
But I had two problems with this. One, I didn’t know how I could drop barometric pressure in an isolated bubble just outside the other vampire. I couldn’t let the drop in pressure hit Draven as well, so it would have to be somehowinsidethe other vampire. And two, I didn’t know if that was at all possible. And if it was, I didn’t know if it was enough to help. At most, I thought it would make the other vampire incredibly uncomfortable, and that didn’t seem like it would help all that much. But, it was all I had at the moment.
I focused my weather magic on the vampire and tried to imagine in my mind his body slowly filling with the atmospheric pressure surrounding him. I imagined it leaking like a slow sieve into his system through the pores of his skin. Then, I focused on making that pressure inside of him lower in steady increments. I knew our bodies maintained atmospheric pressure normally so that the outside air pressure didn’t hurt us, so I had no idea what would happen here. I just knew that it wasn’t traceable, and it was the only thing I could think of on the fly.
I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn’t at first feel Rhys squeezing my hand in a death grip. When he about took my hand off, I blinked and my awareness was outside of myself again and on the fight. The other vampire was noticeably slower now and looked like he was in a considerable amount of pain.
My heart in my throat again, I watched as the other vampire’s attacks grew more vicious, in desperation now to win the fight, and no longer sure that he would. His cocky smirk gone, the vampire flipped Draven over him, and stabbed him in the side with the long dagger in his hand. I gasped, but Draven didn’t let the dagger in his side stop him as he reached behind him with both hands and—
I scrunched my eyes shut quickly, then opened them when everyone around me started cheering. I jumped over the dune buggy door and ran for Draven, hitting his chest at a dead run. Heoomphedas I hit him, and I winced and pulled back quickly.
“Sorry, so sorry. You’re alive!” And then I grabbed his shirt and shook him a little. “Don’t dothat again! Seriously, I think I had 7 coronaries.” And then I stopped shaking him and slid my arms around him, trying to avoid the dagger in his side as I held him close to me and just relished in the fact that my favorite person in the known world was not dead.
Virion, most helpfully, came up beside us andyankedthe dagger out with no warning, making Draven wince, and thensmackedhis hand down onto the wound, healing it.
I couldn’t tell if Draven wanted to smash his fist into Virion’s face after that, or give him a bro hug. My money was on the face smashing, but Draven surprised me by pulling Virion into a hug instead. A hug in which Virion did not reciprocate. He stiffened, as if he had no clue what to do with either a vampire hugging him, or the hug in general, I couldn’t tell.
For that matter, I leaped toward him and wrapped my arms around him in a hug as well. Both of us kind of squishing him in between us in an embarrassing display of gratitude. Also, I might have laid it on extra thick because I knew how uncomfortable Virion was with our display, and I was evil like that.
