Screaming, screaming, screaming.
My fingertips touched Shiloh’s. From my little finger, a thin strand of blue trailed out, so pure it was nearly white. Straining against the demon energies powering the circle.
Willim raised the hilt of his longsword, blade pointed down. At my brother. His lips moved. He laughed.
Multiple gunshots sounded. Willim staggered, but caught his balance. His eyes glowed the bright green of sprites.
My voice broke. My scream cut off.
Walter threw himself between EJ and Willim’s blade. Hard. Fast. His shortsword knocking the blade to the side. Willim’s longsword swept around and clanged against Walter’s. What should take fractions of seconds, too fast to see, took seeming seconds with my magic opened.
Shiloh’s talons cut through the shield. Fingertips meeting, our power struck together. A million lights of energies. She was so much more than she claimed. Fractured lightning, armies clashing, roaring storms. Wolves howling in a blizzard-cloaked night.
Walter’s sword led Willim away from EJ. Cage of death, blades circling. But Walter was injured, one leg blood-drenched. He tipped. Fell forward. His wounded leg collapsed.
As he fell, he lifted the point of his long blade.
Pierced Willim mid-chest. A hair below his sternum. He rammed the longsword home. Deep. The blade cut through and out Willim’s back.
The thin shining strands of my magic twined through Shiloh’s magic of wildly patterned lights.
Willim punched his shortsword deep inside Walter. Cutting. Carving down.
Their eyes met. Held.
His own shortsword rising, withdrawing, Walter stepped closer to his former owner. Sliding his own body along Willim’s blade, deeper into his own chest. They fell. Landed in a heap, Walter half straddling Willim. Their longswords buried in each other.
Walter slashed across his abuser’s throat. Again. Again. Blood gushing from them both. Drenching them both.
His hand slipped in the blood. Walter regripped his shortsword. Cut. Cut. Sawing through Willim’s neck.
Willim’s blade carved through Walter’s chest. Slow motion, to me. But vamp-fast.
I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t speak. My voice broken.
EJ twitched. Took a breath.
Willim’s head rolled. Blood surged.
Walter slid to the side, his body sluggish, his injured leg across Willim’s torso.
For an instant, Walter’s brand glowed red hot. The smell of burned vamp flesh mixed into the stench of death and brimstone and filth.
His former owner’s head rolled away.
Shiloh’s power accepted mine. Electrocuted me, and battered my hand like a sledgehammer, all at once. I sobbed silently, tears streaking my face.
EJ took a second breath. Valuable seconds stolen to break the barrier.
Mybattlemagics seized Shiloh’s power.
More gunshots sounded, slow roars. The ululation of a vampire dying.
Walter raised up, sliding Willim’s sword out of his own body. Sat down hard. Crossed his legs, one knee touching Willim’s arm. The floor beneath them was soaked with blood. He grabbed Willim’s head by the hair and settled it in front of his crossed legs, upright on the stub of its neck. The vamp’s eyes were glazed open.
Walter was still holding the bloody shortsword. A small gobbet of Willim’s flesh rested on the tip.
Walter dropped the blade to the cement floor with a faintclatter and wiped his hand on Willim’s hair. The head tilted and rocked before settling. With slightly cleaner fingers, Walter withdrew a short-bladed throwing knife from his armor and with his other hand he gripped his own brand, pinching it between his thumb and index finger.
