“I’m just finishing some old business,” hissed Lucien. “I couldn’t care less about your kinsmen, although now that you mention it, it might be fun to hold a little revenant barbecue once I kill Kate and bring your head back to use as kindling.”
“It’s the ‘kill Kate’ part that I think you might find difficult,” I heard myself say, as I ran at him, feeling a strength coursing through my body that was several times my own. Lucien held up his sword to meet me, but I arrived faster than he could react.
“This is for all the innocents you betrayed to their death,” I said, and cut deeply into his already wounded right side.
His sword went clattering to the floor, and he howled, lurching toward the fire. Blood dripped into the fire as he leaned over it, falling to his knees to grab the dagger he had set next to the fireplace. Then, with incredible speed, he jumped to his feet and threw the knife at my head. I jumped out of the way, but not quickly enough, and the blade sliced cleanly into my right shoulder.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t have time to. Transferring the sword to my right hand, I took my left and pulled the knife out of my shoulder. Then, without hesitating, I threw it back at him with superhuman force, knocking him back a step as the blade lodged deeply through his left eye into his brain. “And that’s for all my kindred you destroyed,” I heard myself say. Lucien’s remaining eye rolled upward, and with mouth hanging open, he stumbled toward me, as if in slow motion.
I turned and leaped onto the coffee table. Holding the sword in both hands, I swung it high into the air and brought it down toward his neck with a powerful horizontal sweep. I felt the blade slice cleanly through, sending his head flying off in a bloody arc.
The headless body held its position for a couple of seconds before collapsing to the floor in a heap. “Burn in hell,” Vincent said as I picked up the head by its hair and strode with it to the fireplace.
Just then the door flew open, and Ambrose burst through, yelling like a madman and swinging a battle-ax in one hand. His other arm was torn by a mean gash, and his shredded clothes were stained crimson. A rivulet of blood ran down his face from a scalp wound.
His crazed eyes fixed on Lucien’s decapitated body and then swung toward Vincent’s body, lying in a heap next to the fireplace. He looked at me, standing a few feet away, holding an enormous sword effortlessly in one hand and Lucien’s head in the other. He nodded silently, and I nodded back. Turning to the roaring fire, I tossed the grotesque head into the flames.
“The body,” I said, and grabbing Lucien’s corpse by the arms and legs, Ambrose and I carried it to the fire, swinging it slightly backward before heaving it on top of the burning logs.
“Vincent, that you in there?” Ambrose said, stepping away and looking at me. My head nodded. “Well, it better be, because if that’s you alone, Katie-Lou, I am officially afraid.” I smiled at him, and he shook his head in disbelief.
“Come out of there, Vin, you’re freaking me out,” he said.
Ready? Vincent asked me.
“Yes,” I replied, and immediately felt the whoosh of energy leaving through the back of my head. My body felt like a balloon deflating, and Ambrose stepped forward to catch me as I fell. He set me carefully on the ground.
Kate! Are you okay? came Vincent’s words immediately.
I nodded. “I’m fine.”
Your mind. No confusion? Panic?
“Vincent, I’m no different from before, except I don’t think I’ll be able to budge for a week, I’m so exhausted.”
Amazing.
“Gaspard’s body’s outside,” I said, turning to Ambrose.
“We saw. Jean-Baptiste’s got him. He’ll be okay.”
“What about everyone else?” I asked, staring at the blood on his shirt.
He nodded. “We all made it back.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “And Charles?”
“We got his body,” Ambrose responded, and then, gesturing toward the bed, asked, “What’s your sister doing here?”
“Oh my God, Georgia!” I cried, and looked over at my sister. I used the last bit of my strength to crawl over to her and touch her bloodless face.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“I think so. It just hurts to move,” she replied, her voice weak.
“She needs help,” I said urgently to Ambrose. “She might have a concussion—she really slammed her head hard and was unconscious for a while. And I’m pretty sure her hand is broken too.”
Ambrose crouched over her and, being careful not to move her neck, pulled her out of her crumpled position and laid her flat on the ground.
“We need to get her to the hospital,” I said.
“She’s not the only one needing medical attention,” Ambrose replied, pointing at my shoulder.
I looked down to see my shirt soaked in blood. Although I hadn’t felt it before, a burning pain now raced through my arm, exploding as it reached the open gash. I grabbed my shoulder, and then just as quickly, wincing in pain, dropped my hand.
Hearing running footsteps in the hallway, I looked over to the door just as Jules burst through. “Kate?” he asked, panic in his voice.