It Never Rhines but It Pours (33 page)

My eyes wide with fear, I finally pulled the trigger. The loud report half deafened me and I kept squeezing and squeezing the trigger until I realized that the gun was clicking on emptiness. Pravus straightened, brushing bits of metal off his shirt. He smiled at me, completely unharmed. I knew I had hit him. It just hadn’t mattered.

“My turn,” he smiled and casually turned and hit Sarah with a bolt of fire. She had been charging him, barstool raised over her head, ready to clobber him. The fire knocked her to her butt and she slid backwards across the floor.

The sight of her singed shirt enraged me and I leapt back into the fray. Cecily had pried herself out of the wall and was moving with lightning speed towards her sword. Pravus flicked his fingers and it was like she ran into an invisible brick wall. She rebounded off nothing and the force split her skin down her forehead. I tackled him around the knees and we both went down. He rolled quickly away and was free. I felt like he was playing with me.

I have never so badly wanted to inflict physical harm on another person. I was ready to gouge his eyes out and I couldn’t even land a punch. I felt frustrated and afraid. My kids were safe, but they needed their mommy, and, unless things started to change, there was a good chance I wasn’t walking out of this house.

I dove for Pravus again, but he neatly sidestepped me and I tumbled into the counter. Cecily was staggering to her feet when Pravus caught her again with a blast of energy. He began to laugh.

“I don’t know what they were so worried about,” he chuckled. “You are pitiful! To think that I was concerned about you!” He waved his hand to the side and Sarah was flattened against the wall. She struggled but remained pinned and unmoving.

Cecily was picking herself up again, murder in her eyes. I hoped I would never see a vampire coming for me with that look in her eyes. I’d probably die of fright before I was even harmed. I felt the icy grip of fear squeezing the life out of my soul. The witch couldn’t be beaten. He was just too powerful. He’d murdered those kids just to get to me. It was almost like I had killed them myself.

Cecily made a dash for her sword again and again was picked up in the air, this time to be smashed against the ceiling. I froze in the middle of the kitchen. Sister on one side, friend on the other, and unstoppable evil facing me.

Pravus cocked his head to one side. “This is getting dull,” he said. “Tell you what, to make things more interesting. Take that sword and cut off your little bloodsucking friend’s head. She’s dead anyway. Do that and I’ll let you and your sister walk out of here alive.”

I glanced over at Sarah. She was still pinned to the wall, blood trickling down from her nose. She looked at me in mute appeal. Pravus moved his hand and Cecily slid down from the ceiling to stand frozen on the ground.

“Come on,” Pravus coaxed. “I’m going to kill all of you. Then I’m going to drain your blood and use it to power my magic when I go after your family. They won’t know why they are in pain and dying, but I’ll be sure to let them know it’s all your fault.”

“You … bastard!” I cursed. “You stay away from my family!”

He grinned. “I will. On one condition. Kill the vampire. She’d rather that you were the one to take her life. You’d be doing her a favor. No sense in all of you dying. Kill her and I will let you go.”

Cecily struggled to speak. “He’s right, Piper. Save your family. It’s okay.”

Visions of Mark being tortured, skinned alive, dismembered, screaming in pain, flashed across my eyesight. Megan and Cassidy were crying, alone, afraid. My parents were running for their lives in terror. I could prevent all of it.

“No,” I whispered.

“No,” Pravus asked. “Is that your final answer? Think carefully, human. I’m only going to offer this once. I might even keep you alive long enough to see your family suffer.”

Before I knew it, I had taken a step towards the fallen Sword of Justice. I couldn’t breathe. The same visions of horror flickered across my sight. My heart broke as I heard Megan and Cassidy screaming for me. I took another step towards the sword.

“It’s okay, Piper,” Cecily gasped. “I understand.”

I bent and picked up the sword. The hilt was cold in my palm.

“Good, good,” Pravus encouraged. “You know it’s the right choice. Kill the bloodsucker. She’s already dead. It’s only logical.”

I got a two handed grip on the handle and turned to face them. Cecily closed her eyes, still unable to move, but accepting her fate. A tear rolled down my face. She was my friend. She had saved my life more times than I could remember. Either way I was dooming her to die.

I felt a wave of despair so strong that I almost fell to my knees. That was what finally did it. It was too much. I remembered this feeling. The helplessness, the fear, the self-loathing, and the wanting to end it all. I lowered my head so that Pravus couldn’t see my face. Hopefully he would think I was overwhelmed by emotion. These were the same feelings I had felt at the abortion clinic when I had almost slit my wrists. Stupid witches. Messing with my brain.

I shoved all emotions aside. “Logical” my round rear end! If I murdered Cecily I could spend the rest of my life in human prison. That is, if the Synod didn’t decide to send the Guardians after me anyways. There was only one death that would protect my family, and it wasn’t Cecily’s.

I took a step towards Pravus and Cecily, pretending to be shaky and broken. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to Cecily.

She nodded. “Don’t worry, Piper,” she assured me.

I took another step.

“It will all be over soon,” Pravus crooned. I felt another wave of emotion batter against my mind, but I was shut down. Completely cold and emotionless.

I took another step, this time veering towards Pravus. His eyes got big and after a shocked second he started to laugh.

“You’re going to try to kill me!” he choked he was laughing so hard. “You’re ludicrous! You couldn’t kill me the first time! You don’t have it in you. You are a weak, pathetic, puny human. You’re nothing! You don’t have the guts to do anything! You couldn’t even pull the trigger of your useless pistol!” He laughed and laughed, bending over to place his hands on his knees.

I took another step towards him while he wasn’t looking and raised the sword. Could I do it? Could I really cut off someone’s head? Could I believe in what I was doing strong enough to put force behind the blow to sever his neck? For a moment I doubted. Maybe I should just kill Cecily. She wouldn’t fight back. She didn’t mind. It was really the smartest thing to do.

Pravus looked up. “You can’t even do this right, Piper,” he said sadly. “I gave you a chance to save your children, and you couldn’t even do that.”

All the emotions that I had been holding back crashed in. They blended together to become rage. Pravus turned from me with an expression of disgust. He raised a hand to begin another spell and I screamed.

Swinging the sword with all my might I connected with his spine. The blade sliced through his neck with no resistance. One second he was opening his mouth to speak, the next, the light had gone from his eyes. There was no one home anymore. His head went flying off, spraying blood around the room.

Once, against my better judgment, I had watched
Kill Bill
with Mark. At the end of the movie there is a fight scene with hundreds of people getting dismembered by swords and blood fountaining out of their body parts like water out of fire hose. I had thought it excessively gory and ridiculous. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

It might not be a fire hose of blood, but it was close enough. Within seconds the entire kitchen had been baptized in blood. The head landed on the ground and rolled to bump against Sarah’s feet. She was just beginning to move, and I could feel Cecily moving behind me.

Sarah stared down at Pravus’ head. His eyes were still wide with shock, and his mouth was open. Sarah poked the head with a toe. I fought back the urge to vomit.

She started laughing. Giggling at first, then belly bursting hysteria. Cecily and I stood, not sure what to do next.

Sarah gasped for breath, leaning against the wall as her sides shook with laughter.

“Want to let us in on the joke?” Cecily spoke.

Sarah tried to speak, kept laughing, tried again, then finally got control enough to be understood. “Life’s a
witch
,” she giggled.

I felt my mouth twitch in a grim. “And then you fly,” I finished.

Chapter Thirty-three:

Laying Things to Rest

We were standing there in the kitchen, covered in gore, watching the pool of blood spread across the floor, when the Guardians burst in. It was a witch/werewolf team and they had come expecting a fight. They both staggered to a halt as they burst into the house and realized what they were looking at.

“Pravus!” the witch woman shrieked. She was dowdy and overweight, dressed in Birkenstocks, a long-tiered skirt, and a flowery blouse. It would have been hard to take her seriously if it wasn’t for the crackling blue fire that she held in each hand.

She wiped her fingers back to normal and knelt by the body, heedless of the blood that soaked instantly into her skirt. “What happened?” she asked, disbelief clear on her face.

Cecily took a step forward, “Your services are not required here,” she said stiffly. “Piper Cavanaugh’s team has completed their assignment. The guilty party is dead. Everything is covered up and handled.”

The were was a short, stocky man, clean shaven and going bald, which surprised me. I thought all werewolves were overly hairy. I guess not. At first I had thought he was human, but then I realized, duh, Sarah and I were the only human members of the USB. The snarling wolf tattoo on his arm had clued me into his “wereness.” That and something about how he sniffed the air and dropped into a fighting stance the instant he entered the room. Seeing no immediate threat, he slowly eased into a more relaxed stance. “This is the witch, Pravus?” he asked in a low rumble.

“Yes,” I said, stepping forward. If it was “my” team, I should take some responsibility.

He eyed the body distastefully, “We had received a report that you had failed in your task and were refusing to comply with orders.” He looked pointedly at his witch partner. It wasn’t hard to guess
where
he had heard that from.

I gave them a forced smile. “As you can see, you heard wrong. Our job was to execute Pravus and we have done so.”

The were shrugged and turned to go. The witch stood up, fury on her face. “This is not right!” she shrieked.

I squared off in front of her. “You’re darn right!” I snapped. “Pravus wasn’t working alone. It seems that he had the support of the WAND in his attempt to eliminate an
entire species
from the USB. I’m going to have some charges of my own to press here, very soon.”

She glared at me and I glared right back. No way was I letting them get away with this. I knew I had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting any kind of serious repercussions for the WAND, but I could try.

The were man stepped back towards us. “Is this true?” he asked his partner.

She spluttered and sputtered and looked completely guilty.

The man gave her a look of disgust. “Would you like her life?” he asked seriously.

“What?” I squeaked.

“It is within your rights to take her life. I will vouch that your actions were justified.”

What kind of freak show was this? No, I didn’t want to kill her! What good would that do? These people were nuts.

“Piper,” Sarah stepped up behind me, “What about Mom?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I want the curse lifted from my mother.”

The witch looked puzzled. “But Pravus is dead!” she said.

I didn’t see how that changed anything. I still wanted my mom’s sanity back.

Cecily explained. “Most spells only last for the lifetime of the caster. Your mom should have been freed with his death.”

Oh. Well. Had I known that I might have been a little less hesitant in pulling the trigger earlier. Okay then. I could come up with some other demands.

“I want the WAND to promise to leave us alone,” I said.

“Or else what?” the witch sneered.

“Or else I take this whole mess to the Synod and say that the WAND threatened to expose all of the USB to the human world by kidnapping humans in an attempt to blackmail a member species. And they
failed.
How do you think
that
will go over?”

From the look on her face it was apparent that she didn’t think it would go over very well at all. “Fine,” she spat. “I will talk to my people.”

“And,” I added, not done, “I want a real spell, cast on a real billboard in Orlando. The one that Pravus promised me.”

“Done,” she said. “But nothing else.”

I looked at Cecily. She nodded once. It was the best deal we were going to get at the moment. “All right then,” I said. “You keep your end of the deal and I won’t report this whole fiasco to the Synod.”

The witch and the were nodded and then disappeared into the night. Leaving, unfortunately, a huge mess for us to clean up. I sighed and looked around the room. “I’ve got to go check on my kids first,” I said. “Sarah, I’ll need your help fixing Carolyn’s memories at least, and if you can help the girls, that would be great.”