And I did hit something. Whatever it was rose a clear six feet off the ground and sailed across the swamp, striking the trunk of a tree with a loud thump and falling to the ground. Heart thrumming, head pounding, I straightened up and checked the area where the thing had fallen, but there was nothing on the there.
A black mass suddenly passed in front of me, as fast as a bullet and darker than the night itself. I jumped, ready to defend myself again, but when I looked around, I could see no one and nothing—only the imp, equally as alarmed as I was, its floppy ears now upright and arched back, like a cat’s.
Another shade zipped around behind me, creating a sound like a whisper. I was beginning to think there was more than one person out here, and that they were playing with me. Was it Tamara? No, I doubted it was. Why dump me in the swamp just to toy with me? She could have done that back at her house. This was something else—someone else—and I had a feeling I knew who.
“Who’s there?” I yelled, my voice filling the swamp. From between two trees, a shade began to creep out, moving as slowly and as implacably as mist. Human in shape, tall, dark, and slender, I couldn’t see what the person looked like, but knew from the way her hair flowed and her eyes shone that it was Marie Boucher.
Immediately, my hands balled into fists. “Stay behind me,” I said to the imp, whose breathing was even more ragged than mine.
“Hello, Madison,” she said, in her smooth, silken voice. “I suppose it’s time we introduced ourselves.”
“I know your name, Marie Boucher.”
She smiled, sweetly. “I see you’ve been speaking to Jean Luc. I haven’t gone by the name of Marie Boucher in many, many decades, but I’ll allow you to use it if you like.”
“Just tell me what you want.”
“You know what we want. We want you.”
A cold chill ran through me then, rooting me to the spot. “Who called you here?”
“Oh, I think you know the answer to that, too.”
“Tamara.”
“She promised us the life of another witch in return for our continued service.”
More figures had entered my view, distinguishable from the darkness by the way their bodies seemed to at once be a part of it, and also stand apart from it.
“You realize, if you kill me now, the witches will root you out and drag you into the sunlight.”
“Is that a threat?”
“I’m not threatening you; I just think you underestimate the witches of this city and their power a little too much.”
“And you underestimate our capacity for brutality, little girl,” she said.
“No… I know what you can do. I know how you kill with impunity. But you look like you’ve been around the block enough times to know people like Tamara. If you kill me tonight, she’ll pin my death on you, and then the witches will come for you. In force. And you’re fighting on their turf. You’ll end up burned, and Tamara will get everything she wants.”
“Who says we aren’t going to kill her, too?”
“I think if you could, you would have already.”
Marie flashed a wicked grin, and lightning-quick, she came at me with her mouth wide and fangs gleaming. My hands came up instinctively, wrapping Eliza’s shield around my body at the speed of thought. When Marie’s hands touched the shield, it was as if she had touched a red-hot wall of steel. She hissed and cradled her arm.
“Kill her!” she said, and the other six vampires attacked, each taking turns throwing themselves at the shield I was already struggling to hold up. I turned my eyes on the imp for only a split second and urged it to get behind me. The imp did as it was told. When the vampires ceased their attacks, I let the shield fall.
“So, this is how you’ll do it?” I asked, “Six of you corner a single witch out in the swamp and kill her, and that makes you, what… the great redeemers of your kind?”
“History is told by the victor,” Marie said, and she lashed out again, throwing herself at me a second time. Again, I threw my hands up and summoned Eliza’s shield, and Marie struck the invisible barrier hard enough to cause an almost deafening whumph to ring out through the night.
She moved away again, allowing me a chance to breathe, this time deep, gasping breaths. My arms were tired, and the effort of holding the shield had brought me down to one knee, but I held my head up and stared at Marie and her cronies.
“That’s a powerful shield,” Marie said, “But I can hear your heartbeat racing, I can smell your fear, your exhaustion. I wonder, how long can you keep it up before you collapse into yourself like a house of cards?”
I wiped the back of my hand across my forehead and returned it to my side, fist clenched so tight my knuckles turned white. I could have tried to run. Maybe I would make it a couple hundred yards before getting caught. I knew the imps had some kind of teleportation magick they used to get around quickly, but I didn’t think the little thing clutching my leg would be able to create a spell powerful enough to carry us both out of this mess. I also wasn’t sure I would survive his kind’s mode of magickal transportation.
My choices were run and die, or fight and die.
“How about you try again and find out?” I asked.
Marie sneered, the tips of her fangs gleaming against the dim light still emanating from my right hand. She gestured with her head, and the vampires standing beside her started to draw near. Before they could get close, I clenched my fists, made an X with them in front of my head, and pulled my magick shield up once more, this time holding it as steadily as I could, focusing on not spending my energy too quickly. The vampires were circling, but I knew they wouldn’t get too close to the shimmering bubble now that they knew it could burn them.
But they knew they didn’t have to get too close too quickly. My magick would eventually expend itself, and then they would be free to do with me what they wanted. Slowly, inevitably, their radius around me began to shrink. They were like sharks about to kill a weakened prey, getting closer and closer to it, but doing so slowly, taking their time.
An hour passed. Two hours. I had no way of knowing with any certainty, but my instincts told me I wasn’t far off the mark. All this time, I held up a shield I was only accustomed to summoning for a matter of seconds at a time, let alone minutes, or even hours. But my arms were getting tired, and my chest was tightening.
A cry of anger and fear peeled out of my throat as I struggled to keep the shield up, the only thing saving my life. But I could feel the magick slipping as my own energy reserves reached their limit, the magick buckling like a car running on fumes. Hot tears ran down my cheeks as the shield began to flicker.
This was it. Marie was only inches away from my face, reaching with her slender, pale fingers, getting ready to plunge her long, sharp nails into the soft flesh of my neck.