Chapter Twenty One – Third Person
The Wizards of Waverly Place arrived in Phoenix, Arizona like something out of Star Trek. The team hit the ground running, casting their spells.
Juliet sighed for a moment, her eyes resting on the sun. She felt the warmth on her skin, feeling the treasured protection of the magic potion. But there was no time for that. She has her parents to eat.
Mason sniffed along the ground. Inside the armor was a full grown werewolf. His senses were heightened as he led the group forward in secret. After half a minute he pointed his blade at a house. "There. The Van Heusens are in there."
Justin laughed, and cast the Thin Man spell. He felt the weight of the golden charms on his neck and wrists, and he could not help but smile. Everything was going according to plan. Then his glasses flashed his first instructions.
"Alex, it's time."
Alex laughed, and closed her eyes. Alex cheats. She always cheats. And she had learned the true nature of her family's wizard competition. Would you expect any less of her than to sit down and plan exactly how to mess up her brothers when that moment finally came?
Alex exploded into a tornado. She fired down the street, her mind filled with a pure joy that few ever experience. It was like running. The most intense running you will ever feel. But combine that with an orgasm, your whole body feeling an orgasm. But better, because you're not distracted. You aren't lost in the moment. You are in control, even though it feels so good. It's so easy to direct this storm, to send yourself straight at the house of the monsters, ripping the entire house apart with a single thought.
Max waited invisible. He had his orders, and his own role to play. Max could wait.
Alucard raged. His home was destroyed, and he was under attack. The light blazed down on him. It was the light of the Unconquered Sun. It was his bane, his curse, his control. And Alucard called out to the creatures of the night, those beings that had no more love of the sun than he did.
A massive cloud of bats emerged from the shadows, rising up and blocking out the sun. And Alucard rose, ready to unleash his wrath on Alex Russo. And then the bullets struck him. Blessed ammunition tore into his flesh. Alucard staggered, but you do not become the Lord of Night and Shadows by letting the White God destroy you that easily. Alucard let loose a command, and a bat fell under his twisted power, smashing into the gun.
That is when Justin let loose a beam of pure concentrated sunlight from a charm around his wrist. Justin smiled as he levitated through his sister's destructive winds, making his way towards the vampire.
Meanwhile, Cindy, the Dread Lamia, was dealing with her own daughter. The two whirled about, far too fast for the human eye to see. As they battled they talked in their old language. It was older than they were. The language Justin had learned under the name "Alien."
"Oh, my poor whore of a daughter has come to eat me." Cindy laughed. "It would be an ironic end to my long legacy."
"That it would, Mother of Vampires. I have wanted to do this since I was a little girl." Juliet had a terrible grin on her face as she danced inches away from her mother. Neither one let the other touch her as both tried their damned hardest to inflict pain on the other.
The two Ladies of the Night were in battle form. Juliet had always favored the bat. She used the mass to shield herself and move through the air. Cindy's form was less animalistic. She extended her limbs, giving her vastly superior reach. Cindy's hands had become claws, letting her touch rend her daughter.
"You always go back to whoring. Cesar, Mordred, Mason, and now a Wizard Childe. You aren't exactly unpredictable." The Lamia cackled as she drew her daughter's blood.
"If I must be a whore, I will damn well whore myself to a hero." Juliet announced. Cindy was struck by the next round of ammunition. It had taken Mason only a second to clean his gun of guts and blood, but at the speeds vampires dance it had been an eternity. Juliet was bleeding from a dozen claw gashes that her mother had inflicted on her. Marks of her strategy of keeping Cindy within a clear shot of Mason's AK-47.
"A hero? What has the Childe done with his life besides clean up his sister's messes? It is Alex who will win that competition. You will be left nursing a bitter and dying wizard as his sister burns the world for us." Cindy moved through her daughter's mind. She tore at her fears, and she knew how to dodge Juliet's every strike. Cindy was suffering, though. She was in a metaphorical corner. In order to dodge Mason's blessed bullets she had to avoid his targeting area. Now Juliet's defensive strategy had paid off. Cindy could not get in a strike through Juliet's superior mobility and wings without being damaged by Mason's bullets.
In those seconds Justin had crossed the space between himself and Alucard. Justin unleashed another blast from the charm. Alucard could not have the Childe harm him so, and he unleashed his wrath. In a single strike Alucard struck Justin in the heart, running his hand into the boy.
And Alucard screamed, recoiling from the strike. Justin felt satisfied.
The Thin Man spell was an incredibly dangerous and complex piece of magic. The spell allowed Justin to manipulate his form as he wished, to a point. And Justin had buried a cross where his heart should be. It was a mere annoyance to him when Alucard struck, and the splinters of the holy wood were buried deep in Alucard's hand. He had lost all use of it. And while Alucard recoiled from the blow, Justin unleashed a third bolt of pure concentrated sunlight at the old beast.
Alucard unleashed a dozen blows. Justin was torn to shreds. His pieces fell about the room. Justin was pulling himself back together at once, levitating forth, kept from any real damage by the thin man spell. But Justin would be too late to save Alex from Alucard's wrath.
Alucard rose up into the tornado. Inside the tornado he suffered again. Pieces of blessed wood were inside Alex, too. Alucard screamed in rage as it struck him, tearing his flesh further. But Alucard made his way into the center of the tornado, into the eye. And he saw Alex's one weakness inside of it. Floating there was Alex's wand. It was the easiest thing in the world for Alucard to snap it in half.
Cindy had been forced out into street as Mason Greyback had joined the fight. Juliet and Mason had managed to wedge her first, and then Mason had charged. Cindy could not afford to let Mason's claws scratch her flesh, so she ceded ground to the pair. Cindy knew Mason's strategies. She had survived his tactics before. And the Lamia was older than either of them, and has spent far more of her life fighting than Juliet had. Cindy was not worried.
But neither Cindy nor Alucard had factored in Max. Why should they? They had barely even met Max. He had been a child in the background, running around clad in pumpkin guts. They hardly realized that another powerful wizard lived among the Russos. Now Cindy was in the open, and Alucard stood proud among his bats as Alex's tornado collapsed. And Max Russo cast his spell, banishing the bats to Paris, Texas.
The light of the sun shone brightly on Alucard and Cindy at once. The two screamed together, and their screams mixed as one in their destroyed house. Juliet smashed her body into her mother while Mason flung himself in between Alucard and the basement, the closest shelter from the merciless sun.
Cindy made it. She carried half of Juliet's face with her into the basement, and Juliet screamed from the pain, and from losing the enchanted sun block on that piece of her skin. Juliet's face burned terribly until she cast her long hair over it, extinguishing the danger, though not the agony.
Alucard did not make it. He was engulfed in flame as the Purebred werewolf struck him. Alucard did manage to blow past him, but he did not manage to avoid Mason's claws, or a terrible blow from his sword.
Alucard smashed into the basement. He was dying. Truly dying as his life bled back into him from Mason's claws, and out of him through his wounds. Cindy took a look at her mate of 2000 years, let out an anguished howl, and dug her teeth into his neck. She drank deeply, consuming her husband, letting his strength flow into her damaged and weakened flesh. It only took a second. Alucard had no soul, but he had power. And that is what she needed right now.
Cindy looked out at her ruined home, and her enemies. Mason was still fresh and strong. Justin was rapidly recombining, and Max hadn't suffered so much as a bug bite.
Alex was in worse condition. She had no wand, and no power that could harm a beast of the Lamia's strength. Juliet was in somewhat better condition, but she was missing her depth perception and in horrible pain.
Words flashed in Justin's glasses as soon as he reassembled, a mere instant later. 'Send TJ to save Alex. Everyone else, destroy Alucard.'
Justin muttered a curse. A real one, he threw it at Cindy before waving his hands. Everyone else attacked the Mother of Vampires, while Justin attended his damaged sister.
Max was down nearly at once. Cindy threw a bench at him, causing him to go down. He was up seconds later, but by then the fight was over.
The strength of the Lamia would not have been enough to break Mason's armor. But it was no longer just the strength of Cindy Van Heusen. She had her husband's strength inside her. And she had pulled a sword from a rack in her basement, one made of silver. She crossed blades with Mason as Juliet attacked in a lop sided gate, throwing herself into the unstable fray.
Cindy laughed as Juliet attacked. What a silly girl, she would be Mason's doom. Cindy grabbed Juliet's hand in a swift motion, and wrapped Juliet's hand about the sword, bending it backwards. The bones snapped as Cindy smashed the silver sword through Mason's armor, into his heart. Only silver wielded by someone who loves you can kill a Purebred werewolf.
Juliet didn't have enough of a face left to smile as she waved her remaining hand. It was a simple thing, really. She couldn't have let it be in the unshielded minds of her friends. She had needed to bury it deep to keep her mother from noticing. But she had Justin's blood inside her. And through Justin's blood, a trace of Justin's magic.
She didn't need much. They were already locked in an embrace. Cindy couldn't escape the simple push of Mason's claws into her skin.
She struggled of course, trying to push the claws into Juliet, struggling to bite through Mason's armor, but her powers were fading, and Juliet had more powers than those of a mere vampire. Juliet overcame her, pushing her against the wall of the basement. And Juliet smelled the blood, and did what she had come there to do.
Juliet bit into her mother's neck, and feasted on the power of her mother and father, all mixed into one. In her act of matricide she ate all that her mother was. A monster, a monster who had done the same act to her own children, a creature who had killed and eaten children for millennia with a license granted by the goddess of marriage.
Juliet felt her mother go still, and let her go. She licked her lips, feeling the last traces of the salty blood wash down her throat.
Justin walked besides Max, their sun amulet arms outstretched, as they entered the basement. They looked around. Mason was lying on the ground, a sword in his chest. Alucard and Cindy were dead. And Juliet looked every inch a monster.
Juliet sighed, and crossed the basement to Mason she looked down at him. And she pulled the sword out of his chest.
The bewildered Mason looked up at her, unbelieving.
"Mason, I don't love you, at all." Juliet whispered down to him. And she beckoned towards the brothers. "It's safe. They're dead."
Justin and Max advanced, and Alex stalked in behind them, looking just as beaten as you would expect from a girl who had unleashed incredible magic and survived a twenty foot fall.
"Is it over?" Alex asked, sounding much smaller than she intended to.
"Yes, it is over Alex." Justin laughed. He whooped. Soon the whole destroyed basement was full of celebration. They entered into a group hug, and collapsed in a heap of wizard and werewolf and vampire and armor and magic and blood.
"Can we go home now?" Max asked. Justin nodded.
"Yes, we can go home." They teleported back through the I.P.P.
And a face full of absolute righteous fury was waiting for them.
"WHAT THE HELL GOING ON!" Jerry shouted.