was the temperature he needed, even more than the flames. I believe I can, sívamet. Do not try to aid me. If Sergey is near, I do not want him to find you.
While he puzzled out what to do, the three of them went back-to-back to protect themselves from the onslaught of lethal teeth and claws.
“I am going to have to burn them. It is the only way to stop them from coming,” Isai informed the two men.
“Tell me what to do,” Mike said readily. He was bleeding from dozens of places, his breath coming in gasping pants.
“I’m in,” Josh agreed. “These mothers are going to eat us alive.”
Isai didn’t waste time with explanations. He called up to the weather, stirring the clouds, sending cold air to each cloud so the top was freezing, forming small ice chunks within it. Because he kept the clouds moving, the ice pieces bumped into one another repeatedly, causing electrical charges.
“Work your way behind me and cover your eyes. You do not want to go blind on top of everything else,” he cautioned.
He took the forefront, slicing through necks as the bats came at him in force. He called down the lightning, strike after strike, using the white-hot sparks as a laser, mowing down the swarm of bats. Flashes of light in the darkness lit up the sky so that it looked like a bizarre dance of dazzling whips. The air smelled of roasted meat and burnt flesh. The bats had a peculiar, putrid smell.
Wave after wave of bats kept coming, as if they had been programmed and couldn’t stop flinging themselves into harm’s way. Do you have any feel for these creatures? Who might be directing them? Does it feel like Sergey? Do you have his scent?
Every mage wielding magic had a particular scent or identifying marker. It was in the way they cast their spells. Wording, patterns, movement, stillness, all could identify a particular mage at work. Sergey wasn’t mage, but with the slivers of Xavier inside him, it was very possible he could cast the way Xavier did. He had access to those memories.
Not Sergey, Julija decided after a few moments. More like— She broke off abruptly.
Julija?
This feels like Barnabas, but just a little different. The same but older. Much older.
Isai searched his memories for one that felt the way the flow of mutant bats did. The ranks were thinning now, but some still crawled over the dead, charred bodies of those in their colony, using their wings to do so, staring with dark beady eyes.
There had been a student of Xavier’s. He’d been very close to the high mage, as close as any student could get. He was very much like Xavier, cruel and indifferent to those around him, yet brilliant and a very dedicated worker. He paid little attention to other students at the school and in truth, he seemed more of an aide than an actual student. Some thought him a companion of Xavier’s and there was plenty of sly speculation, although no one dared to ask him outright.
What name had he gone by then? It was so long ago, and Isai had long given up those memories. He worked to pull it from his mind. Barna. The mage had gone by the name of Barna, the Hungarian version of Barnabas. Could Julija’s Barnabas be the same Barna from long ago? If so, Isai couldn’t believe that he would be working for Sergey or anyone else to recover the book. He would want it for himself.
Julija, do you recall Barnabas taking your blood at any time?
He lashed at the last of the bats. There were a few still moving under the burned and charred bodies they would have to kill with machetes, but he felt as if the tide was stemmed. “Josh, Mike, you can open your eyes. If you wade through them to find any alive, watch yourselves that they do not bite you.”
That was his favorite thing to do. He felt her steeling herself to tell him. He took my blood often, and at night, when we were alone, sometimes he would tie me up and cover my mouth so I couldn’t call out and he would cut me and lick at the blood. He especially liked to do that when he was using my body for sex. She stumbled over the last, but she told him the truth.
Isai found more and more respect and admiration for his woman. She didn’t hold anything back, no matter