Post by Willow on Sept 4, 2009 13:14:29 GMT -5
www.reviewfuse.com/view/4234/
There's the link.
Here's the story. It's for a comptetion. ANYTHING you guys could suggest would be AWESOME. There is a three-thousand word limit on these stories, so like...do cut me some slack. I would have loved to describe every inch of all the characters, but as it were.....No go. D=
--
The trees were whispering to me, some trick of the wind, or maybe it was just a side effect of the magic. They seemed to know my intentions, and they didn’t like it at all. It should have been my first tip-off I was working with something extreme. Instead, I did my best to ignore them, dropping into a crouch to sketch a circle in the dirt, flaring power as I went. The circle wasn’t important, but it helped me if I had a visual. My power flicked out, filling the bubble. Dark magic immediately rose up, threatening to spill over.
"Riley, what exactly am I doing here?” I asked, prodding. “There’s a seal, can’t you just get the witch who did this to open it herself?”
Riley Parker was barely taller than my five four. He walked with a grace only the undead can manage. His white blonde hair fluttered to one side of his flawless face, blown by a breeze I couldn’t feel, the strands tinted silver by moonlight. A yard away, he stopped, frowning. His hazel eyes darkened with interest and confusion; he reached out, fingertips brushing the dome of power I’d built around me. I could feel it, little prickles of energy rushing along my skin, cold and dead. He let his hand drop to his side.
"The witch is dead,” Riley said coolly. I furrowed my brow but didn’t say anything. Riley had come to me, wanting to know if I could raise a century dead corpse. I didn’t know, honestly, I’d never tried; but I’d been willing to try. Riley was paying me enough money to at least try.
"In my bag." I raised my gaze from his hand to his face. "There’s a jar of cream. Bring it to me."
He waved at someone I couldn’t see, and then looked back at me. I tried to ignore his presence, dropping to my knees and pressing my palms against the grave dirt. Almost immediately, there was a disturbance to my right, someone approaching. I looked up, surprised.
"Wait-" I began.
The boy stopped, sunk up to his right elbow in my power, the jar clutched in his hand. The power should have thrown him back; but not only did he not seem to feel it, I couldn’t feel him. That bothered me. A lot. I caught a glimpse of pale, almost silver eyes through his shaggy black hair. His lack of expression bothered me, the stiff way he stood. I looked at Riley, who seemed as surprised as I was.
"He’s a very good zombie," I said, rising up to take the jar. Now I was confused. Riley had gotten a perfectly good zombie somewhere, why could he get someone else to do this? Then again, Riley shouldn’t have been surprised. He frowned, starting to reply.
"I’m not a zombie," the boy cut in, keeping his hold on the jar. He hadn’t been surprised at being able to enter the circle, or confused about my reaction. His lack of confusion told me he knew the rules. There was no life aura about him. Auras were a sort of life spark, how you knew something was alive. Yet even vampires had auras. He was a demon, or something I’d never heard of. Don’t ask me why demons don’t have life sparks, I don’t know. He believed he wasn’t a zombie, and vampires shouldn’t be able to step into my circle. This boy knew the rule, but he had also known how to enter the circle. Hesitantly, I reached out, trying to feel for his power. My breath caught in my throat as I found nothing.
He was blocking me; and that scared the hell out of me.
After a beat, he let go of the jar, then drew his arm back out of the circle. There was something else he was hiding. I took out the cream and smeared it on my cheeks, still watching him, my jeans stretching as I crouched. They were not made for animating in.
"You can stop it," I said coolly. He had the palest grey eyes I’d ever seen. They were just a few shades darker than the whites, full of intelligence. If he was a zombie, I’d eat my animating cream. I was ninety percent sure he was a vampire, but there was a little piece of me that worried. Worried he was something else. He just watched me, calculating, his eyes that of a predator’s.
"Stop what?" He said mildly. I just stared back.
"Shielding. You can drop it."
The bubble pulsated, taking the whiplash as he dropped his shield. I tried not to wince. Before, he had looked no more than seventeen. His age didn’t change, but his features were ravaged now, not the handsome young man he had been. They looked like claw marks. One of them had snagged the corner of his mouth, tearing it and giving him a permanent sneer. Another stopped just short of his left eye. In all, there were five of them, the skin looking almost seared instead of torn. His lip curled, wicked canines pressing into his lower lip.
"Gabriel," Riley muttered. The vampire, for that was what he had to be, looked around, eyes flickering with amusement at my horror. "We need her. Stop it."
Gabriel stepped away, and his power pushed off of mine. I didn’t understand why he could enter the circle, but at the moment I didn’t care. I had a zombie to raise. There was a flicker as Gabriel did…something. It hadn’t seemed to affect me, so I ignored it. I could not, however, ignore Riley probing at the bubble.
"Can you back up?" I asked, glancing up from the dirt. It was like trying to draw while somebody jiggled their leg against your chair. You could work around it, but it was easier and less irritating to have no disturbance at all. Riley back up, I waved at him to keep going, and he sighed.
"How far?" he called out. I glanced behind him.
"Maybe like….the trees?"
Scowling, Riley did as I asked. Gabriel had disappeared, standing among the handful of vampires Riley had brought with him. It was impossible to pick out who was who from fifteen yards away, and I didn’t try. The magic grew thicker the deeper I went, and then there was a distinct wall. I frowned, seeing nothing but the earth and the threads of magic. Our corpse was sealed into its grave, but I was getting paid enough to at least try and work around the wall.
Riley saw them before I did. On my knees, feeling for the spark that would bring our corpse to this world, I was lost to the living world. His shout cut into my fog, and I could feel the dirt against my hands again.
"Alyssa!"
I flinched. There was a crack like thunder, and I dropped the bubble away. Bullets don’t give a crap about auras. Letting my bubble drop was a mistake. Almost immediately, something large and very deadly looking barreled into me. I held up an arm to protect my face, and powerful jaws locked around my wrist, a snarl filling my ears. We both went down. It took me a moment to place a name with the monster over me, but I finally recognized the big cat as a leopard. There was a gleam of human intelligence among the bloodlust; a shape shifter.
"Tell your boys to get back, Riley!" someone shouted. "Or I let Luca taste necromancer flesh."
The leopard growled. I had a knife in my boot, but it wasn’t doing me any good down there. His teeth hadn’t punctured skin, but I could feel his strength, enough to pop my bones out of the skin if he wanted to. A paw the size of a saucer had pinned me at the shoulder. Heart pounding, I wondered if they’d just let me leave. Riley wasn’t paying me enough to get killed. Besides, money didn’t spend if you were dead.
"Back off, guys," Riley said hoarsely. I couldn’t see him, most of my vision taken up by teeth, gold fur and emerald eyes. Luca, the voice had called him. The fall had knocked the air out of me, but once I had drawn breath back into me, I shouted to my employer.
"What’s going on Riley?" I shouted. I needed concentration to evoke power, and it’s hard to concentrate when teeth are pressing into your wrist. Still, I tried. Luca’s growl increased in volume, claws digging into my shoulder. That voice, powerful, full of authority.
"Luca, bring her to me."
The leopard let go of my arm, stepping aside to let me sit up. The voice came again. "Stand up, Miss Connor."
Hesitantly, I got to my feet, and Luca grabbed at my wrist to tow me along. I tried to snatch my hand away.
"I can walk on my own," I snapped. Somebody laughed. I glanced back at the Riley and the others. Smirking, Gabriel was suddenly just there, walking beside us. I hadn’t seen him move. It was like I’d missed a few seconds of a film. He had replaced the illusion of his perfect face, his face unbroken. My mouth went dry. "How old are you?"
"My gravestone says 1856. Give or take a few years," Gabriel replied. Luca released my wrist, and I hugged the arm to my chest. The leopard made a peculiar coughing sound; laughter. I ignored him, adding in my head. Geez. Not even two hundred, and he could pull some scary-ass rabbits out of his hat.
"Gabe?" It was Riley, sounding faint, a little scared. He had lost Gabriel, and that scared him. Gabriel ignored him, flanking me all the way to the group across the clearing. Only then did he look back at Riley, and his power flared briefly before dimming, the illusion dropping away. His hands came to his collar, unclasping buttons. I watch in silence. The shirt crumpled at his feet, and I caught a glimpse of his back as he turned away from Riley. I tried not to gasp.
The flesh of Gabriel’s back had been split multiple times, tiger-striped, and there was a nasty bite mark on his right shoulder. He turned to look Riley in the face no, snarling. "Your games nearly cost me my life. Never again."
Riley growled back. "A leopard did that to you, and now you walk with one."
"A leopard. Not all leopards. I loath a leopard, and you who influenced. Jasper offered to kill you. I declined."
So now I had a name to go with the face. He was definitely a vampire. His hair, short and cut close to the face, had the texture and color of spun gold. Even as I watched, his eyes changed. I doubted it was just a trick of the moonlight. He had been quiet during the display, and as he met my eyes, he took a step towards me.
"What exactly was Riley paying me to wake up?" I whispered. Riley made a few protesting noises, and Jasper held up at hand to cut him off.
"He wanted to raise a revenant vampire. It has been sealed underground for years. Awake, it would have slaughtered you and as many humans as it could get to," Jasper said with a trace of a snarl, eyes glittering with anger. "Riley is very fond of bloodbaths."
"Humans need a wake-up call," Riley spat. At this rate I was going to have a stroke. I’d been about two seconds away from waking up a blood-crazed, mindless vampire.
Riley’s crew was growing restless, inching away from the large, half-transformed werewolf. The beast was crouched over Riley’s girlfriend, Katherine, and she was better than I was at ignoring teeth. I bit my lip.
"Let me wake it up," I said. Jasper frowned, waiting for me to explain my suicidal decision. I looked away from the wolf. "I’ll try to control it. The rest of you can jump it, rip it apart. If Riley can find this thing, someone else will. I want it dead, where the others can’t get it."
Jasper and Gabriel were both utterly expressionless. I was tired of looking at stone walls, so I looked down at Luca. A purr rumbling in his throat, eyes glittering. "Where did you get my name?" I asked Jasper.
"I keep tabs, Miss Connor. This is my city." Jasper waved at one of his crew. His city; it took me a minute to realize what he was talking about. The humans might rule the country, but the vampires still had territory. Masters all had their own little territory, theirs to protect.
Riley growled, taking a few steps towards us, but Luca cut him off. I hadn’t seen the shifter move. The werewolf started to drag Katherine towards me. I could feel Jasper’s eyes on me. "Can you use another being’s blood for this?”
"If you kill her, Jasper, I swear-" Riley was snarling at us from about ten yards away.
"You’re in no position to make threats, Riley Parker," Jasper snapped. Katherine didn’t seem particularly worried; she just looked pissed, glowering at us through strands of ink black hair.
"Yeah. I’ve done it before." I paused. "You don’t need to kill her. I don’t need that much."
Luca was now pacing, a silent, animated boundary between Riley’s group and Jasper’s. The golden boy stepped back, leaving me with the wolf and a squirming Katherine. Someone let a knife rolled towards us. Things had changed, quickly, but I was adaptable. It was crazy. But Jasper was the good guy.
"If you let this thing get away, I will come after you," I growled. Jasper laughed.
"I promise you, my little necromancer, he will not leave this clearing,” he replied.
I hesitated, then stepped back into the circle. It needed blood to close, and my source came with me, held under the arms by the wolf-beast. Normally my sacrifice wasn’t human, or at least not humanoid. Sure, I’d used my own blood on short notice, but this was different. The wolf stared at the knife, then chuckled darkly. There was a flash of fangs, and Katherine shook violently.
The pair of them remained in the circle long enough for the blood to pool, then joined Jasper and the others by the trees. With Katherine gone, I could rebuild my bubble. The circle closed, and I let my power drop through the earth, press against the seal. I knew when the revenant was awake, felt the shiver of power against mine. It could smell the blood. I found a crack in the seal and strove to widen it.
"Got it," I said, hearing my own voice through a fog. Zombies don’t dig their way to the surface; they wade. The revenant was eager to find the source of the blood, and he broke so suddenly it scared me. It clawed at the dirt, still sunk in dirt at mid-torso, screaming. "Kill it!"
There was a whoosh of air, an explosive snarl. I didn’t want to watch, but terrified fascination drew my attention. Luca, still blocking Riley and his gang, watched hungrily. What got me was the corpse didn’t bleed. It wasn’t just a revenant, it was a full vampire. Only half-bloods, like Katherine, bled. Jasper was twisting off an arm, and that was when I had to look away.
"Somebody get me a fire!" Jasper bellowed.
There was a high, pained howl. I looked back around. The revenant had the werewolf’s left arm in one hand, only the arm wasn’t attached. My mouth went dry. Blood spattered the ground, and I realized Gabriel was holding his jaw together. The revenant was out of the ground now, wounded but still ready. It had somehow managed to get away from Jasper, and its right arm was limp. Probably dislocated, I thought, staring. Katherine lay on the ground with her throat torn out, and Riley crouching at her side.
Luca, no longer bothering to watch Riley’s crew, dove at the revenant. A cry of warning rose in my throat, but I tried to swallow it. He knew what he was doing. I hoped. The revenant bellowed, literally throwing Luca away. A true feline, the big cat landed on his feet, a deep gash across his shoulder.
It took me a few seconds to realize the thing had changed direction and was rushing a new target; Me. Gabriel appeared to my left. Bloody and baring his fangs, I wasn’t sure whether I was glad to see him or not. I quickly confirmed that yes; Gabriel was one of the good guys. I didn’t remember drawing my knife, it was just there. Fortunately I didn’t have to use it. Gabriel and the revenant dropped to the ground. Behind me, there was a whoosh of warmth, and sparks shot skyward. I gagged as blood scent and scorched flesh overwhelmed me.
Gabriel shifted back away, his face already healing. He looked at me, a grin rising on his face. I pressed my lips into a thin line.
“Try,” he said quietly. I frowned. He grinned wider, flashing fang. “Try for my aura.”
Reluctantly, I let my power trickle out, felt around him. My breath caught in my throat; our powers were almost identical. Alive, Gabriel had been a necromancer. That was something I’d never heard before.
“Did you animate yourself into a vampire?” I asked. A low chuckle rumbled in his throat.
“No. I was never that powerful,” Gabriel replied. He glanced skyward, at the tree branches crisscrossing overhead. They shuddered with the wind, but long after the wind stopped, they were still moving. Moonlight was dappled on the ground, through the interweaving branches. Something clattered to the ground behind us; a tree branch. Gabriel laughed again. “Irritable tonight, aren’t they?”
If the trees say something to you, you better pay attention. It’s probably important.
There's the link.
Here's the story. It's for a comptetion. ANYTHING you guys could suggest would be AWESOME. There is a three-thousand word limit on these stories, so like...do cut me some slack. I would have loved to describe every inch of all the characters, but as it were.....No go. D=
--
The trees were whispering to me, some trick of the wind, or maybe it was just a side effect of the magic. They seemed to know my intentions, and they didn’t like it at all. It should have been my first tip-off I was working with something extreme. Instead, I did my best to ignore them, dropping into a crouch to sketch a circle in the dirt, flaring power as I went. The circle wasn’t important, but it helped me if I had a visual. My power flicked out, filling the bubble. Dark magic immediately rose up, threatening to spill over.
"Riley, what exactly am I doing here?” I asked, prodding. “There’s a seal, can’t you just get the witch who did this to open it herself?”
Riley Parker was barely taller than my five four. He walked with a grace only the undead can manage. His white blonde hair fluttered to one side of his flawless face, blown by a breeze I couldn’t feel, the strands tinted silver by moonlight. A yard away, he stopped, frowning. His hazel eyes darkened with interest and confusion; he reached out, fingertips brushing the dome of power I’d built around me. I could feel it, little prickles of energy rushing along my skin, cold and dead. He let his hand drop to his side.
"The witch is dead,” Riley said coolly. I furrowed my brow but didn’t say anything. Riley had come to me, wanting to know if I could raise a century dead corpse. I didn’t know, honestly, I’d never tried; but I’d been willing to try. Riley was paying me enough money to at least try.
"In my bag." I raised my gaze from his hand to his face. "There’s a jar of cream. Bring it to me."
He waved at someone I couldn’t see, and then looked back at me. I tried to ignore his presence, dropping to my knees and pressing my palms against the grave dirt. Almost immediately, there was a disturbance to my right, someone approaching. I looked up, surprised.
"Wait-" I began.
The boy stopped, sunk up to his right elbow in my power, the jar clutched in his hand. The power should have thrown him back; but not only did he not seem to feel it, I couldn’t feel him. That bothered me. A lot. I caught a glimpse of pale, almost silver eyes through his shaggy black hair. His lack of expression bothered me, the stiff way he stood. I looked at Riley, who seemed as surprised as I was.
"He’s a very good zombie," I said, rising up to take the jar. Now I was confused. Riley had gotten a perfectly good zombie somewhere, why could he get someone else to do this? Then again, Riley shouldn’t have been surprised. He frowned, starting to reply.
"I’m not a zombie," the boy cut in, keeping his hold on the jar. He hadn’t been surprised at being able to enter the circle, or confused about my reaction. His lack of confusion told me he knew the rules. There was no life aura about him. Auras were a sort of life spark, how you knew something was alive. Yet even vampires had auras. He was a demon, or something I’d never heard of. Don’t ask me why demons don’t have life sparks, I don’t know. He believed he wasn’t a zombie, and vampires shouldn’t be able to step into my circle. This boy knew the rule, but he had also known how to enter the circle. Hesitantly, I reached out, trying to feel for his power. My breath caught in my throat as I found nothing.
He was blocking me; and that scared the hell out of me.
After a beat, he let go of the jar, then drew his arm back out of the circle. There was something else he was hiding. I took out the cream and smeared it on my cheeks, still watching him, my jeans stretching as I crouched. They were not made for animating in.
"You can stop it," I said coolly. He had the palest grey eyes I’d ever seen. They were just a few shades darker than the whites, full of intelligence. If he was a zombie, I’d eat my animating cream. I was ninety percent sure he was a vampire, but there was a little piece of me that worried. Worried he was something else. He just watched me, calculating, his eyes that of a predator’s.
"Stop what?" He said mildly. I just stared back.
"Shielding. You can drop it."
The bubble pulsated, taking the whiplash as he dropped his shield. I tried not to wince. Before, he had looked no more than seventeen. His age didn’t change, but his features were ravaged now, not the handsome young man he had been. They looked like claw marks. One of them had snagged the corner of his mouth, tearing it and giving him a permanent sneer. Another stopped just short of his left eye. In all, there were five of them, the skin looking almost seared instead of torn. His lip curled, wicked canines pressing into his lower lip.
"Gabriel," Riley muttered. The vampire, for that was what he had to be, looked around, eyes flickering with amusement at my horror. "We need her. Stop it."
Gabriel stepped away, and his power pushed off of mine. I didn’t understand why he could enter the circle, but at the moment I didn’t care. I had a zombie to raise. There was a flicker as Gabriel did…something. It hadn’t seemed to affect me, so I ignored it. I could not, however, ignore Riley probing at the bubble.
"Can you back up?" I asked, glancing up from the dirt. It was like trying to draw while somebody jiggled their leg against your chair. You could work around it, but it was easier and less irritating to have no disturbance at all. Riley back up, I waved at him to keep going, and he sighed.
"How far?" he called out. I glanced behind him.
"Maybe like….the trees?"
Scowling, Riley did as I asked. Gabriel had disappeared, standing among the handful of vampires Riley had brought with him. It was impossible to pick out who was who from fifteen yards away, and I didn’t try. The magic grew thicker the deeper I went, and then there was a distinct wall. I frowned, seeing nothing but the earth and the threads of magic. Our corpse was sealed into its grave, but I was getting paid enough to at least try and work around the wall.
Riley saw them before I did. On my knees, feeling for the spark that would bring our corpse to this world, I was lost to the living world. His shout cut into my fog, and I could feel the dirt against my hands again.
"Alyssa!"
I flinched. There was a crack like thunder, and I dropped the bubble away. Bullets don’t give a crap about auras. Letting my bubble drop was a mistake. Almost immediately, something large and very deadly looking barreled into me. I held up an arm to protect my face, and powerful jaws locked around my wrist, a snarl filling my ears. We both went down. It took me a moment to place a name with the monster over me, but I finally recognized the big cat as a leopard. There was a gleam of human intelligence among the bloodlust; a shape shifter.
"Tell your boys to get back, Riley!" someone shouted. "Or I let Luca taste necromancer flesh."
The leopard growled. I had a knife in my boot, but it wasn’t doing me any good down there. His teeth hadn’t punctured skin, but I could feel his strength, enough to pop my bones out of the skin if he wanted to. A paw the size of a saucer had pinned me at the shoulder. Heart pounding, I wondered if they’d just let me leave. Riley wasn’t paying me enough to get killed. Besides, money didn’t spend if you were dead.
"Back off, guys," Riley said hoarsely. I couldn’t see him, most of my vision taken up by teeth, gold fur and emerald eyes. Luca, the voice had called him. The fall had knocked the air out of me, but once I had drawn breath back into me, I shouted to my employer.
"What’s going on Riley?" I shouted. I needed concentration to evoke power, and it’s hard to concentrate when teeth are pressing into your wrist. Still, I tried. Luca’s growl increased in volume, claws digging into my shoulder. That voice, powerful, full of authority.
"Luca, bring her to me."
The leopard let go of my arm, stepping aside to let me sit up. The voice came again. "Stand up, Miss Connor."
Hesitantly, I got to my feet, and Luca grabbed at my wrist to tow me along. I tried to snatch my hand away.
"I can walk on my own," I snapped. Somebody laughed. I glanced back at the Riley and the others. Smirking, Gabriel was suddenly just there, walking beside us. I hadn’t seen him move. It was like I’d missed a few seconds of a film. He had replaced the illusion of his perfect face, his face unbroken. My mouth went dry. "How old are you?"
"My gravestone says 1856. Give or take a few years," Gabriel replied. Luca released my wrist, and I hugged the arm to my chest. The leopard made a peculiar coughing sound; laughter. I ignored him, adding in my head. Geez. Not even two hundred, and he could pull some scary-ass rabbits out of his hat.
"Gabe?" It was Riley, sounding faint, a little scared. He had lost Gabriel, and that scared him. Gabriel ignored him, flanking me all the way to the group across the clearing. Only then did he look back at Riley, and his power flared briefly before dimming, the illusion dropping away. His hands came to his collar, unclasping buttons. I watch in silence. The shirt crumpled at his feet, and I caught a glimpse of his back as he turned away from Riley. I tried not to gasp.
The flesh of Gabriel’s back had been split multiple times, tiger-striped, and there was a nasty bite mark on his right shoulder. He turned to look Riley in the face no, snarling. "Your games nearly cost me my life. Never again."
Riley growled back. "A leopard did that to you, and now you walk with one."
"A leopard. Not all leopards. I loath a leopard, and you who influenced. Jasper offered to kill you. I declined."
So now I had a name to go with the face. He was definitely a vampire. His hair, short and cut close to the face, had the texture and color of spun gold. Even as I watched, his eyes changed. I doubted it was just a trick of the moonlight. He had been quiet during the display, and as he met my eyes, he took a step towards me.
"What exactly was Riley paying me to wake up?" I whispered. Riley made a few protesting noises, and Jasper held up at hand to cut him off.
"He wanted to raise a revenant vampire. It has been sealed underground for years. Awake, it would have slaughtered you and as many humans as it could get to," Jasper said with a trace of a snarl, eyes glittering with anger. "Riley is very fond of bloodbaths."
"Humans need a wake-up call," Riley spat. At this rate I was going to have a stroke. I’d been about two seconds away from waking up a blood-crazed, mindless vampire.
Riley’s crew was growing restless, inching away from the large, half-transformed werewolf. The beast was crouched over Riley’s girlfriend, Katherine, and she was better than I was at ignoring teeth. I bit my lip.
"Let me wake it up," I said. Jasper frowned, waiting for me to explain my suicidal decision. I looked away from the wolf. "I’ll try to control it. The rest of you can jump it, rip it apart. If Riley can find this thing, someone else will. I want it dead, where the others can’t get it."
Jasper and Gabriel were both utterly expressionless. I was tired of looking at stone walls, so I looked down at Luca. A purr rumbling in his throat, eyes glittering. "Where did you get my name?" I asked Jasper.
"I keep tabs, Miss Connor. This is my city." Jasper waved at one of his crew. His city; it took me a minute to realize what he was talking about. The humans might rule the country, but the vampires still had territory. Masters all had their own little territory, theirs to protect.
Riley growled, taking a few steps towards us, but Luca cut him off. I hadn’t seen the shifter move. The werewolf started to drag Katherine towards me. I could feel Jasper’s eyes on me. "Can you use another being’s blood for this?”
"If you kill her, Jasper, I swear-" Riley was snarling at us from about ten yards away.
"You’re in no position to make threats, Riley Parker," Jasper snapped. Katherine didn’t seem particularly worried; she just looked pissed, glowering at us through strands of ink black hair.
"Yeah. I’ve done it before." I paused. "You don’t need to kill her. I don’t need that much."
Luca was now pacing, a silent, animated boundary between Riley’s group and Jasper’s. The golden boy stepped back, leaving me with the wolf and a squirming Katherine. Someone let a knife rolled towards us. Things had changed, quickly, but I was adaptable. It was crazy. But Jasper was the good guy.
"If you let this thing get away, I will come after you," I growled. Jasper laughed.
"I promise you, my little necromancer, he will not leave this clearing,” he replied.
I hesitated, then stepped back into the circle. It needed blood to close, and my source came with me, held under the arms by the wolf-beast. Normally my sacrifice wasn’t human, or at least not humanoid. Sure, I’d used my own blood on short notice, but this was different. The wolf stared at the knife, then chuckled darkly. There was a flash of fangs, and Katherine shook violently.
The pair of them remained in the circle long enough for the blood to pool, then joined Jasper and the others by the trees. With Katherine gone, I could rebuild my bubble. The circle closed, and I let my power drop through the earth, press against the seal. I knew when the revenant was awake, felt the shiver of power against mine. It could smell the blood. I found a crack in the seal and strove to widen it.
"Got it," I said, hearing my own voice through a fog. Zombies don’t dig their way to the surface; they wade. The revenant was eager to find the source of the blood, and he broke so suddenly it scared me. It clawed at the dirt, still sunk in dirt at mid-torso, screaming. "Kill it!"
There was a whoosh of air, an explosive snarl. I didn’t want to watch, but terrified fascination drew my attention. Luca, still blocking Riley and his gang, watched hungrily. What got me was the corpse didn’t bleed. It wasn’t just a revenant, it was a full vampire. Only half-bloods, like Katherine, bled. Jasper was twisting off an arm, and that was when I had to look away.
"Somebody get me a fire!" Jasper bellowed.
There was a high, pained howl. I looked back around. The revenant had the werewolf’s left arm in one hand, only the arm wasn’t attached. My mouth went dry. Blood spattered the ground, and I realized Gabriel was holding his jaw together. The revenant was out of the ground now, wounded but still ready. It had somehow managed to get away from Jasper, and its right arm was limp. Probably dislocated, I thought, staring. Katherine lay on the ground with her throat torn out, and Riley crouching at her side.
Luca, no longer bothering to watch Riley’s crew, dove at the revenant. A cry of warning rose in my throat, but I tried to swallow it. He knew what he was doing. I hoped. The revenant bellowed, literally throwing Luca away. A true feline, the big cat landed on his feet, a deep gash across his shoulder.
It took me a few seconds to realize the thing had changed direction and was rushing a new target; Me. Gabriel appeared to my left. Bloody and baring his fangs, I wasn’t sure whether I was glad to see him or not. I quickly confirmed that yes; Gabriel was one of the good guys. I didn’t remember drawing my knife, it was just there. Fortunately I didn’t have to use it. Gabriel and the revenant dropped to the ground. Behind me, there was a whoosh of warmth, and sparks shot skyward. I gagged as blood scent and scorched flesh overwhelmed me.
Gabriel shifted back away, his face already healing. He looked at me, a grin rising on his face. I pressed my lips into a thin line.
“Try,” he said quietly. I frowned. He grinned wider, flashing fang. “Try for my aura.”
Reluctantly, I let my power trickle out, felt around him. My breath caught in my throat; our powers were almost identical. Alive, Gabriel had been a necromancer. That was something I’d never heard before.
“Did you animate yourself into a vampire?” I asked. A low chuckle rumbled in his throat.
“No. I was never that powerful,” Gabriel replied. He glanced skyward, at the tree branches crisscrossing overhead. They shuddered with the wind, but long after the wind stopped, they were still moving. Moonlight was dappled on the ground, through the interweaving branches. Something clattered to the ground behind us; a tree branch. Gabriel laughed again. “Irritable tonight, aren’t they?”
If the trees say something to you, you better pay attention. It’s probably important.