Chapter 23

 

There’s nothing like the thrill of having a whole army at your flank as you charge headlong into battle. Joni and the wyrmriders on one side, Tressa and the zombie hammerheads on the other. I wasn’t sure how far inland we could make it if Kalfu and the Bokors fled—but we could certainly do some damage just along the shore. The Bokors would have no idea what hit them.

We broke the surface, Wyrmie’s long body curling through the air. I gripped my reins tightly and pulled. A barrage of magic flames struck the beach. The Bokors scattered.

Zombie sharks were diving out of the water, plowing onto the shore. I saw Mikah standing beside Kalfu, pacing back and forth. For whatever reason, Mikah couldn’t leave Kalfu’s side. Was he still bound by a bargain? Probably… Whatever that bargain was, he’d found a loophole or two. A loophole that required him to sacrifice Oggie in the process—but one that nonetheless had given us this chance, this opportunity.

Kalfu raised his hand—a tornado of red energies consumed him.

“What the fuck is he doing?” I said out loud as I tugged on Wyrmie’s reins and Beli unleashed a torrent of flames toward him. The flames fell around him, dispersed by Kalfu’s tornado of red magic.

Several of the Bokors had acquired different abilities. A load of flames shot out from one of them, charring the underbelly of Finn’s wyrm. His wyrm reared back, sending him flying back into the water.

The wyrm couldn’t fly. Not like dragons. But their bodies were long enough that they could still do a lot of damage near the shore where Kalfu’s Bokor camp had been set up.

Shelly and her wyrm charged the Bokor who’d taken out her brother, her wyrm’s massive jaws enveloping the Bokor in a single bite.

“Damn!” I shouted. “Nice one!”

Shelly looked back and gave me a thumbs-up.

We were kicking ass! But we still couldn’t get to Kalfu.

Mikah had stopped pacing and appeared frozen in place—it was like he couldn’t move against Kalfu, not directly. He looked up at us. He gave me a wink—a wink he probably intended for Isabelle. It was enough to confirm that he was on our side after all.

He’s still my Mikah!

I laughed out loud. “Sure enough.”

Kalfu was channeling more souls from the vessel into the Bokors as quickly as he could—but as many as he managed to fuse with souls, the wyrms or the sharks were taking them out, one by one.

Kalfu shouted to the rest, “Retreat up the hill!”

Enveloping the rest of the Bokors and the vessel that contained the souls in his massive red tornado, they all moved up the shoreline to the top of a hill that overlooked the beach.

They were just out of reach of our wyrms, and too far for the sharks to dive out of the water to get them. We’d have to go after them on foot.

Joni dismounted, quickly released some Fomorian magic, and gave herself some legs. I did the same, and Pauli followed suit behind me.

We were at a disadvantage without the wyrms and sharks beside us, but we’d taken out most of the Bokors who’d already been fused.

“Beli!” I shouted. The elemental dragon reformed as a crossbow in my hands. I had to take out the vessel.

But they were moving too quickly. The red tornado carried Kalfu, Mikah and the Bokors faster than I could run.

“Pauli, quick!”

I didn’t need to explain. Returning to snake form, Pauli wrapped himself around my body and teleported me to Kalfu’s position.

A mass of people were charging up the hill on the opposite side.

“More Bokors?” I asked.

No, Isabelle said. They don’t have living auras.

“Fuck!” I shouted. “Zombies! They’ve raised the bodies from Vilokan!”

I looked at Kalfu—but he didn’t show a look of confidence on his face. He clearly hadn’t expected this either…

“Holy shit,” I said, doing a double-take. “It’s Mercy!”

Vampires can animate the undead, provided they’re fused with the Baron’s essence. How many of Vilokan’s fallen had belonged to College Samedi? At least a fifth of them, maybe more. It was enough to amass a fairly sizable zombie army.

I spotted Mikah, who charged after the vessel. He summoned his earthen blade and tried to break it. It didn’t work. His blade didn’t have the power that mine did—he couldn’t dispatch objects to the land of the dead, to Guinee. Whatever bound him to Kalfu apparently didn’t prevent him from trying that, though. Instead, Mikah grabbed the vessel and, using his earthen elemental strength, hurled it into the air.

Kalfu’s tornado tried to hold it down, but the vessel flew just high enough that I was able to get a clean shot.

I fired Beli—the bolt of my crossbow shattered it.

“My pottery!” Pauli shouted, lamenting the loss of his childhood art project.

The souls of Vilokan poured out of the shattered vessel one by one—just as the souls I’d released before had done when I broke their vessels, when I completed the death rites.

But the souls didn’t go away… not all of them. Some of them bee-lined straight for the zombie bodies that Mercy was commanding.

They’re trying to go back to their bodies! Isabelle shouted. When they do…

“They’ll become vampires… fuck!”

Kalfu was laughing now. Still, these were vampires under Mercy’s control. At least I hoped they were. My stomach churned. She’d promised not to double-cross me. Could I trust that?

The souls reinhabited their bodies, their flesh immediately healing, their eyes glowing red.

Mercy’s eyes widened—in an instant her whole zombie army had become a massive clan of vampires.

I gripped my crossbow a second time and took a shot at Kalfu—the bolt flew away once it struck his tornado of energies.

“The curse of a broken bargain be on your soul!” Kalfu shouted as he struck Mikah with a jolt of his red magic.

Mikah flew backward, his body crashing into the ground.

“This is only a small share of the Bokors whom I command! Soon you will be mine!” Kalfu shouted, directing his vow toward Isabelle. A dozen or more Bokors joined Kalfu in his magical whirlwind. A second later they were all gone. They’d vanished. I wasn’t sure how, or where they went. But they were gone.

I ran toward Mikah—I released the reins and let Isabelle take over. This was a moment for her.

Isabelle placed our hand on Mikah, and the Seelsorgerin glowed and consumed him.

“Whatever he cursed you with,” Isabelle said. “It is gone.”

Mikah was in tears. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. Oggie knew. He knew all along. He told me this was how it was going to have to end.”

“But it’s not over. Not yet,” Isabelle said.

Then I felt Mikah’s lips press to mine—Isabelle kissed him back. We had Mikah back… and I supposed that I was going to have to put up with the unpleasantness of these kisses a lot more in the future. My stomach recoiled—not just from the kiss but because moments earlier I’d seen Mikah kill Oggie. I knew there was a reason, a plan. That didn’t make it any easier. Isabelle loved him—I’d have to deal with that. But I just couldn’t get the image of him killing Oggie—the man, or demigod, whom I loved—out of my mind. Swallowing that resentment was going to take time.

Joni came up beside us and placed her hand on our shoulder. “Good work, Isabelle. Both of you were amazing.”

“Who is that?” Mikah asked.

“That’s Joni,” Isabelle said.

“They call me La Sirene now,” Joni said.

Mikah nodded. “Thank you for your help.”

“The vampires,” Joni said. “Should we go after them? They were trying to charge us… me, Shelly and Finn. But one of them, the one who was a vampire from the start, somehow pulled them back.”

“That’s Mercy,” Isabelle said.

“That vampire’s a friend of yours?” Joni asked.

Isabelle huffed. “I wouldn’t call her a friend. Our interests align… since Kalfu hunts vampires. He acquires powers through their blood.”

Joni shook her head. “That’s not good. You realize what this means.”

“It means the souls we just saved—at least the ones who became vampires—they’re still vulnerable to Kalfu.”

Joni nodded. “And if he does really have a lot more Bokors at his disposal…”

“This war isn’t over,” Mikah said. “Not by a long shot.”

Might be true, I said in Isabelle’s mind. But we are together. And we live to fight another day.