Walk Into The Light - Shadows of the Night 6

Chapter 20

Hi,

I haven't been very active on wattpad this past week, and I'm really sorry about this. I got many great comments on the last chapter, and I wanted to thank you all for reading and for letting me know what you think about this story. This will be a short chapter, but: know that I will make it up to you, as soon as I can, I promise! :-)

Oh, and please listen to the song: Brand X music – "Night of the Sorcerer"!

Lara

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Chapter 20

ANNA

I swallowed and tasted something akin to bile and copper – small reminders of what I'd gone through in that darkness. I'd broken out of Vladislav's throne room, freed myself from the clutches of his power only to careen into the next cataclysm.

I'd gotten out, but not for this. This was not why I did what I did in that throne room. I licked my lips, shutting out the rising wave of panic.

A sheen of sweat coated the back of my neck, inviting cold night air to conjure up a small line of goosebumps down my back. I pressed my eyes shut for a small moment, drawing in a deep breath, and my surroundings sharpened into focus.

Dirt-littered street. Deep shadows infesting the quarter. Auras that turned the gray environment of second sight into pitch black darkness. The vampires' presence alone was enough to make me want to run, pressing in with the power of the grave and dead eyes that pounded on the doors to my mind.

Dark Death had moved out with a noiseless, century-old gait. The rest of the vampires had circled us as we took up positions – a bunch of deadly onlookers squatting around a fire. Many of them just nameless shadows that wouldn't care whether I won or lost, less whether I died or lived.

Alexander was somewhere behind me, his aura unique in the sea of dark masses.

What did all these vamps see? A 24-year-old witch, dressed in a long, too-big black leather coat and worn jeans, facing a Hungarian witch that moved like an experienced warrior, and looked the part.

A fierce opponent dressed in black gear that belonged to a true combatant on one end of the street. A lost, disheveled looking witch in a stolen black leather coat on the other.

The frigid expression on Heléna Bathoryn's face and the tight set of her mouth spoke in tongues of pain and death alone. Her frosty blue eyes, rimmed with wide thick brows, lacked anything that hinted at warm human emotions.

Last time, when I was facing her at Red Night's Eve in Italy, I expected she would be playing by rules the whole witch community agreed on. Even Raphael Medici had had the courtesy to bow before the one magical duel we had, honoring a ritual witches had followed for centuries.

Not so Heléna Bathoryn. With her all bets were off. In this street and in this duel there were going to be no rules I could depend on.

She was watching me, looking at the way I stood, feet parted, arms loose at my sides. Her red-painted lips lifted into a smile, revealing the full extent of an exotic, cruel beauty.

How many years had she served Vladislav? And what had she lost that she became who she was now?

My attention spiked, snapped tight like a rubber band contracting with a crack.

She lifted her hand, lightning fast. A ball of fire shot out, parting the air between us with the velocity of a bullet train.

This time I was prepared. My wall of air snapped into place and I lifted my hand, ridding the space in front of me of air and oxygen, removing and pushing particles until I had formed an almost-perfect vacuum.

The ball raced into it, its flames hissing as they died in the space of non-matter. I looked up and there was the next ball of fire, followed by another.

I lifted both hands, palms up facing her and called magic to me. A wall of air shot up into the night sky. I plunged invisible hands into it and rid it of oxygen. The first ball of fire hit and disintegrated, followed by the second, equally lost in the nether-space of the vacuum.

Followed by another, and another. Each seemed bigger, each ball of fire burning stronger.

I grit my teeth and shoved my palms up, working the space in front of me. Apparently she was going to try to make me use up all magic I had, striking when I was too exhausted to defend myself.

Not going to work, Heléna.

I lifted my eyes, ready for the next fire ball – in time to see Bathoryn's lips moving, shaping magic with a spell. That was when I felt it. A breeze of hot air right behind me, as if someone was breathing down my neck.