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SEBASTIAN
Call me a vindictive bastard, but finally being able to go after Lilian Beauchamp is the most satisfying thing I’ve experienced in twenty-five years. And knowing that me keeping her busy is giving Rune and the girls a chance to free Finn makes it taste even sweeter.
She knows what’s coming and raises her hands, chanting incantations that make the air crackle. I can taste the power she wields, and it fuels my darkest urges.
“You cannot win, Sebastian,” she hisses, as a surge of lunar energy blasts towards me.
I dodge, feeling the rush of the force pass by, leaving a trail of icy cold in its wake. Laughing, I close the distance between us, my movements swift, predatory. “But I love the challenge, dear Lilian!”
I release my hold on my human form, allowing my fingernails to grow into razor-sharp claws.
She counters with a swirl of her hands, a barrier of shimmering light forming around her.
I strike, my claws slicing through the magical protection with a satisfying hiss. Sparks fly, casting ghostly shadows on the walls. The sound of clashing energies fills the room, a symphony to my unhinged mind.
Lilian stumbles back, her barrier flickering. I can see the fear in her eyes, the realization she might not walk away from this.
My smile widens. “What’s wrong, Elder? Gotten rusty hiding away in the woods?”
Her expression hardens. “You are a blight, Sebastian. A monster!” With a dramatic sweep of her arms, she summons the power of the moon once more, and the air thickens with a palpable force.
But I am too fast, too driven by the darkness within. I lunge, feinting left, then slashing right, aiming at her heart.
Lilian parries, barely deflecting my attack. I don’t cause any damage to her, but the force of my hit knocks us both through the wall in a crash of wooden slats and dust.
Our battle is a blur of violence, a dance of death within the confines of the crumbling home. I revel in the destruction, in the primal contest of our wills.
Lilian fights with the desperation of one who knows what lurks in the shadows, but I fight with the freedom of one who embraces it.
I glance back and see Elara and Nadine working feverishly to free Finn from his golden prison. They need more time.
With a wild cry, I launch forward and grasp Lilian around the neck. I try to close my grip, but the spell she’s chanting is preventing me from crushing her windpipe.
“If you have no breath, you cannot cast. All I need to do is shut you up for a few seconds and you’ll be done.”
The room’s air thickens with desperation and dark delight. She claws at my hands, her nails scraping uselessly against my skin. Her wide eyes meet mine, and I wonder if she’ll plea for mercy.
It won’t matter if she does.
Mercy is a foreign concept to my unhinged nature.
“We’ve got company,” Rune says, racing out of the next bedroom. “Phi says Summer is pulling up outside the house.”
“Then go kill the bitch.”
“On it.”
Lilian’s power vibrates beneath my fingers, a testament to her strength as a Moon Witch elder. Still, there’s a thrill in feeling her power wane under my unrelenting pressure.
“Fight all you want, Lilian,” I hiss into her ear, my voice low. “Your end will be by my hands, witch, and it will be glorious.”
The air shimmers a moment before a shockwave of raw energy blasts the two of us apart. I’m thrown backward and slammed against the wall and she’s thrown out the open door and over the railing.
Dazed but energized, I chase my prey. She is proving to be a worthy opponent, and I don’t want the fun to end. I find the old girl dazed and struggling to get to get up, twelve feet below.
I wipe at the dust and old plaster thick in my mouth and shake off the disorientation. My vampire resilience is better than hers.
Lilian, gasping for breath, stands, her figure slightly stooped after the fall. She’s a tough old bird, I’ll give her that.
