BloodRose

19.2. Hecate

*Present, Garret*

I prepare to release my resentment in one motion. A loud splintering sound makes me hesitate just long enough.

*Present, Calliope*

I stand back from the door as Kyle slams his shoulder into it again.

"We. Have. To get. In. There." His words are accented by loud thumps.

I huff out a sigh, my tone coming out more harshly than I mean, "I know, but we can't make it budge, even with our strength." His frown stops me.

I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. A familiar spark nudges at the edge of my mind. I feel the anger grow in my chest, burning and raging like some unstoppable blaze. I have to save him. I have to get him away from The Augur.

My eyes fly open and with a wave of my hand, the door splits down the middle. I pull back and the two heavy planks fly past me down the hallway. I barely have time to realize what I'm doing before I blast The Augur into the back wall as Alias and Hannah duck away. The power is feeding me, more than food did in my life, more than blood has since my death, more enticing than either. I revel in it and use it to force the weasel to stand.

We're eye to eye. This strength is more intoxicating than anything I've ever known.

"Please," he says, "please." Two flimsy words against the torrent of justice sweeping down on him. How dare he? He thinks he can be allowed to carry on as if he hasn't taken so many innocent lives?

Panic suddenly jolts through me. That voice is not my own. My concentration breaks and his feet hit the floor sharply. His cool calculus returns and he plunges the knife under my ribs. I vaguely wonder why he doesn't kill me. He could have. His face is inches from mine. I can see the pale gashes in his otherwise flawless brown irises.

"This isn't over warlock," he hisses, his voice far from the velvety baritone he employed as The Augur.

He whirls away, his cloak billowing out behind him, as my friends all rush to me. Part of me is touched by their concern. The other part of me is screaming internally for them to "go after him"! When he is sure Hannah and I are alright, Alias turns to pursue our enemy.

At that moment, no less than a sixty Ambrogio acolytes fill the room.

I close my eyes and call out to my friends, "Stand behind me!" I face the way we came in and let the desperation build in me again even as the spark dims. I thrust my hands out into the open air and feel all hope die as nothing happens.

"Uh, Cal?" Kyle asks, "Was something supposed to-?"

I cut him off, my face beet red, "Yes. Sorry. Fight now, figure out strange powers later?"

"Yeah, good call," he says.

The acolytes, who had hesitated when I'd started to put on my little show, now rush at all of us. We lash out in every direction we can, our backs facing each other in a circle. I hear Kyle cry out and turn to see him fall to the ground. We close the circle around him, but then I trip over his arm and I am falling too. They have us. Alias and Hannah can barely look our way before they are overrun. No! This is over too quickly! We're the good guys, we're supposed to- A pain at the base of my skull makes black stars fill my vision. When another hit comes, I remember nothing else.

"You have got to be kidding me!"

I think I hear someone pounding on a wall until I realize it's only another massive headache. I keep my eyes closed, in no hurry to examine the horrible situation we're in. Instead, I imagine I am at the farmhouse, warm underneath my covers, sleeping late on a Saturday morning. I can smell the bagged blood as Alias opens it. The birds are chirping right outside my window. Kyle's voice breaks into my daydream.