Hellfire

Interval Fifteen

Lucius had known he had seconds to move. He could sense Susan near him, her fire still on the edge of snatching her from him. His bats tracked her, his mind distracted with the wounds she carried, his instincts roaring to just take her home. She was slower, burnt, cut, but safe, he told himself. Dealing with Murray was the way to protect her right now. Murray knew and Murray would spread the word like wildfire. He wouldn't need to attack Lucius again. All he needed to do was sit back and watch as the Courts descend upon his House, his young.

Susan was safe, he reminded himself again. She was safe.

Until she wasn't.

Lucius flicked his cold eyes open, pulling away from the scattered shards of Whelan's obliterated mind, and cast his attention to the dwindling numbers of werewolves. He saw Samantha and Oliver. He saw Arnold. He saw the dead and the werewolves that were twisted monstrosities as they sunk deeper into Murray's broken state.

But not Susan.

And not the witch.

Whelan surged with renewed ferocity, snapping some of his blood-threads as his great mountainous body welled up like an unstoppable force of nature. Lucius leaned more power into controlling the wulver, his teeth lengthening as Murray sensed his unease and tried to take advantage of it. The sense of danger clawed at him, a desperate need to find Susan. His bats reacted hunting her down, his demands for Samantha to protect Susan thundering from them. She fled instantly, hurrying as he demanded. He set to crippling Whelan. He had heartbeats to get to her.

Then he heard it. A crack of a witch-gun. The sort that dulled everything around him as the darkness in him rose, the pure-blood rattling with winter rage. Whelan tried to take advantage to slip from his control. He surged forward, his jaw snapping an inch from Lucius' face. The rush of hot breath rolled, rotten teeth glimmering.

'I smell her blood.' Whelan gurgled with laughter.

Lucius clenched his teeth, his frosted bats seeking Susan, feeling for her desperately. He couldn't feel her. Not her heat. Nothing. The beast in him strained, the old blood spreading its oily tendrils throughout his soul. Where was she? Where was Susan?

Out of the ash of the burnt woods, a white viper struck, snatching at Whelan's nose with her needle teeth and petrifying poison. With a shudder and dust muddying Whelan's blood-clogged fur, Cynthia took control and turned his muscles and bones into stone.

'Go to her!' Arnold roared out in the midst of a sea of blood, wounded himself but still fighting. 'Cynthia won't last!'

Lucius whirled, releasing what werewolves he had under his control and just about seeing them fling themselves towards Arnold's hulking shape and Oliver's dead puppets. He barely noticed it, as if it was a distant concern. All he could think about was Susan and the lack of heat he felt.

Lucius flourished some paces from where he'd last sensed her, a vast pond long abandoned and caged in by overgrown shrubs and grubby stone. He stilled. Something dangerous was clawing in his chest; greater than fury, greater than any pain he'd felt, fear or hatred. That beast in him rose its head, making him blind and instinctive, a roar of winter beginning to howl about him and drag the sense of summer away from the world.

Samantha had Susan cradled close to her chest, tears slipping over her blood-spattered cheeks as she tried time and time again to heal. His witch wasn't moving. Not a whisper of flame was uttered in the air. And all he could smell was blood. It didn't rile him like it normally would, the sort of scent that rose the male in him, slid his teeth free and heated his blood with a need for her throat. Death stained the usual spice and heat of her blood, clinging to it like rot.