Taran’s screaming interrupted my reprimand. “Celia!”
More than twenty cages lined the wall. In one of them, a poor village girl had just given birth to a demon child. The thing had busted through her stomach and splattered her organs against the metal bars. I’d witnessed this too many times, but it didn’t make the moment any less horrifying. The newborn jumped through the cage toward Taran. I snatched him out of the air with my claws. His leathery wings slapped against my knuckles and his incensed screeches pained my sensitive ears. The warm slick blood slathering his reptilian body made him hard to hold. He bit into my wrist and licked my skin eagerly. I slammed him into the muddy ground and stomped on him. Bones snapped beneath my sneaker and yet the little bugger still wouldn’t die. Worst of all, he spoke in a dark psycho voice, “Celia Wird.”
I immediately cracked his head off like a Kewpie doll, not wanting to hear him say my name again. Maria approached me as his insides scurried away to dry beneath a rusted wheelbarrow filled with bones. “Hmm, you must have left quite an impression in hell if dey know you already.”
Perhaps she’d meant it as a compliment. I’d never been popular in high school, but knowing I was up for homecoming queen in Hades did nothing to lift my self-esteem.
More demons charged us. I turned my fear and trepidation inward and morphed them into anger and hate. My claws dug into chests to stab hearts, and punctured through eyes and into brains. If I let my human side think through my actions, I’d hurl from the brutality. So I called forth my beast to guide my hands. She could hunt, she could maim, she could protect, and she could push me forward. Her eyes replaced mine as I stalked through the mounds of slithering innards, ignoring the reeking scent of old blood, rotting flesh, and the mingling of defecation and sweat. Taran didn’t have a tigress to strengthen her and the gore became too much. She collapsed on her hands and knees, puking.
My tigress compelled me to the cages, to those we couldn’t allow to escape. The naked women inside cackled hysterically or drooped on their sides, staring expressionless ahead. All of them were pregnant. Some twitched with prebirth seizures.
My tigress drove me to kill them, knowing what slithered beneath their protruding bellies. My human side couldn’t, and wrestled to find a more merciful solution. I yanked Taran to her feet. Black strands of her hair stuck to her pale, sweat-soaked face.
“Taran, you have to draw up some magic-born sunlight.” Her lids peeled back and she wrenched herself loose from my grasp.
“Hell. No! It’s a pure light. It’ll kill the vamps and demons, but it will also toast these women like bread!”
I gave her a hard stare. “I know, Taran.”
“Goddamn it, Celia—I’m not killing innocents!”
“Taran, they’re only vessels for the creatures. They’re suffering. The only way to help them is to free their souls.” She seemed torn. “Do it, Taran.” More women fell to the filthy floor, seizing, their bellies vibrating from the demon children restless to get out. “Do it now!”
Emme stumbled to my side, her face the color of chalk. She wiped the perspiration from her eyes. “Wh-what about Misha’s family?”
“I’ll take care of them. Taran, go. Emme, you protect her.” The air charged and cracked around us as Taran drew from the magic surrounding the forest. I tore the head off a weremonkey trying to stumble to his feet and tossed it loudly against a steel drum used for fire. “SPF fifty!” I screamed.
At the sound of my oh so clever secret code words, Misha’s vamps abandoned their targets and scrambled for cover. Their adversaries paused. One lifted his fist in the air and screamed in victory. Boy, was he in for a letdown.
A sapphire and twirling white mist permeated into the cages and put the women to sleep just as Taran levitated in the air. Her irises blanched to clear and scorching heat built around her small figure. I shielded my eyes against the giant explosion of light that cut through the air like the snap of a whip.
I blinked my eyes to clear the spots as the torrent of light faded. What remained of the women, opposing vamps, and demon children were mere ashes. I caught Taran as she fell. She would no longer be able to fight. The magic she had performed had drained her completely. I cradled her in my arms. “Look, Taran,” I said as I held her up. “You did it.”
From the cages, glittering wisps of light bounded up to the sky. I prayed Saint Peter was welcoming the battered and tortured souls into heaven. Taran smiled and tears brimmed in her eyes briefly before she wiped them away and swore under her breath. I helped her to her feet and released her when Emme grasped her arm.
Misha’s vampires trailed the remaining weres, which were busting through the wooden fencing in an effort to escape. I thought to give chase and force a Tribesman to reveal the whereabouts of his master. It seemed I didn’t need to. A horrible roaring erupted from a large structure composed of a tin roof and cinder-block walls.
“Liz, Maria, get over here!” They scrambled to my side as if jolted by live wire.
Liz glanced nervously toward the building. “What, Celia?”
“Take Taran and Emme back to that hotel we spotted on our way into the village. If we’re not back within the hour, get on the plane and back to Tahoe.”
“No,” Maria protested. “De master says we are to stay by your side and keep you safe.”
“Misha is safe at home getting it on with his harem of hussies. I’m in charge, and I’m ordering you to keep my sisters safe!”
“I don’t want to leave you, Celia,” Emme said.