A Sanguinary Rose

The Taste of Iron: Part 2

CASPIAN ARCHED HIS EYEBROWS. His gaze landed on the watch, vibrating where it lay, ringing, its glass dome cracked. The noise distracted him so much he held the sword at his side, leaving Anja wheezing and bleeding on her knees.

The Knight went to pick it up, holding it from the chain at arm's length.

Caspian looked to Mandala for answers. "What does it mean?"

I perked up to listen. Anja was smiling weakly at me.

The warlock stepped over the bodies. "It's his catalyst. He must have charmed it."

"I'm sorry you had to see all of that..." Anja said in the softest whisper I could barely hear. She grimaced from the pain. "When we go home... we'll celebrate... chips, pop, a movie, my bed..." Her smile took on a lascivious hint while biting her lower lip.

I drew an involuntary gasp when she vanished into thin air, literally—no wormhole involved this time. She went from kneeling and bleeding, to not being there, to not having ever been there at all. Desperate for answers, I looked up to Mandala and realized the bodies of my friends were no longer there either.

I had grown used to the heat of the bonfires consuming half the camp warming my body, and to the reek of smoke poisoning my nostrils. Suddenly, that was all gone too. Their abrupt disappearance was so jarring I spun all around me. The air was clean and there was no remnant of smoke I could smell. There was no heat but the everlasting cold of Limbo. No fires burned anymore. In fact, nothing had burned anywhere at all. The tents that had crumpled in their rage and during the fight were now back on their feet, intact. Previously dead vampire thralls now ambled aimlessly along their aisles.

You're not tethered, she had yelled at me. Even if nothing ever truly happened, everything I'd suffered up to now, physically and emotionally, was here to stay with me forever, though.

Mandala was also surveying the scene, crunching his lips in anger. "The old bat's playing with our timeline."

Caspian rushed to where Anja had been kneeling, slashing his sword at the air madly. He shouted: "Where did the cat go? Where the hell is she?"

Then his mouth hung open, his white eyes opening wide with astonishment, sucking in a large mouthful of air as he attempted to scream, but no sound came of that. The sword dropped from his hand in a loud clang. He keeled over on his fours, struggling for breath. A large survival knife stuck out on the square center of his back. The scent of iron kicked my taste buds into overdrive.

Anja stepped back from him in her human form, shaking, but unharmed. "That's for ruining Halloween."

I also tried catching my breath. "Anja... how?"

Mandala raised a fist towards her, clenching it. Before he could do anything with it, he was interrupted.

A flash of red hit his eyes, and he blinked. The wormhole roared open under his feet, a gale of wind riffling his clothes. Before he could react, lance of light bolted from within it, spearing through his torso, and Alan emerged sinking it in, his cold, calculating eyes staring into the warlock's stunned ones. The hulking man gripped the hard light to try to pull it out, bellowing in pain, face contorted in agony and fury. The angel pursed his lips and buried it deeper.

There was an explosion of heat, a wave of blistering incandescence rolling over us. There it was again, along with sharp stench of smoke worming into my nostrils. Oliver's raging inferno rampaged through the camp, consuming everything in its wake, torching all vampire thralls that might have jumped us from behind.

Mr. Royce strode past me, his watch pointed firmly at Mandala, uttering sorcery, and threw him into a stasis spell while transfixed to Alan's hard light.