12.
The fireball hit the vampire so hard it was enough to fling the creature away from him.
Haymitch rolled on himself, picked up his sword and got back to his feet, glancing behind him to see Cinna had already moved on to other targets. The warlock was jogging toward the Hellmouth and the cloaked figure standing at the edge of the hole.
There was a hood on the witch's head and Haymitch couldn't see her face, could only see her hands outstretched to the sky as if in prayer…
He hoped Cinna could reason with her because Portia seemed willing enough to finish that dark ritual to him.
°O°O°O°O°
Peeta tossed the car behind Gale's stolen one and shot out before anyone could tell him to wait. He was surprised to find Gale right there, shooting arrow after arrow… He had half-expected the boy to have dismissed their instructions and charged ahead regardless of the plan.
"Get on the roof." Effie ordered, tossing her door open. "You will have more range."
Gale didn't need to be told twice, he climbed on the hood and then on the roof of Peeta's truck.
"I can't see shit!" Gale complained. "I lost sight of Katniss in there and my brother…"
It was total chaos.
Peeta glimpsed Haymitch locked in a sword fight against… It wasn't Gloss and it wasn't Enobaria but the vampire looked too charismatic to be a minion so he was ready to bet it was Brutus. It was just a glimpse. They were swallowed back by the crowd of children who were trying to run away and the vampires who chased after them to drag them to the Hellmouth… There was blood everywhere on the grass, dead small corpses littered the meadow…
It turned his stomach.
Effie stood on shaky feet, licking her lips. "We need to get the children to safety."
"The school bus." Madge said immediately.
"Yes." the witch approved, turning to Peeta. "Lead the children to the bus. Gale, you will have to cover him. I will…"
Whatever she was going to say, it was swallowed by the inhuman scream that came from the direction of the Hellmouth.
They all turned to see Cinna had fallen to his knees in front of the hooded witch.
Effie's face hardened. "Take care of the children. I need to have a woman-to-woman conversation with that witch."
°O°O°O°O°
Katniss whirled around and shot another arrow but it was becoming difficult.
Children and vampires were running in every direction, she couldn't be sure she wouldn't hit an innocent anymore and…
She caught a glimpse of Prim, her untucked shirt floating behind her like a tail…
"Prim!" she screamed.
Her sister turned in her direction, blond braids whipping in the air, their eyes met…
And a vampire grabbed her around the waist.
Katniss screamed a useless warning and notched an arrow only to immediately lower her bow. She had no visibility, no target… She shouldered back her weapon and started running, already slipping the stake out of her belt…
The vampire was dragging her sister away, toward the Hellmouth…
She didn't even cross half the distance between them.
It was like hitting a wall.
She fell flat on her back and when she looked up, Gloss was towering over her, a sneer on his face, his stupid ancient armor in the way of a stab through the heart.
"I was hoping you'd be a challenge." the Career spat.
Katniss growled.
°O°O°O°O°
Effie's head was beyond spinning.
The blood loss, the extensive use of magic, the earthquake, the fact that she had been hurled against a tombstone three days earlier… None of that helped but she soldiered on.
She hated leaving the children behind, hated the fact that Peeta would be alone with Gale and Madge for all backup when one was unreliable and the other not much of a fighter… But need must and duty came first.
If they didn't stop that witch, the Reaping would go through and that would be much worse than anything that could happen to any of them.
So she soldiered on.
She soldiered on, eyes locked on the Hellmouth, and she focused on putting one foot in front of the other, not certain how she was supposed to battle a powerful dark witch once she would get there.
A vampire snarled at her and jumped.
She lifted her hand and he was propelled back. He hit two others on his way down, a child around Prim's age managed to flee… She hoped Madge or Peeta would get to him in time.
Cinna was still on his knees, his head bowed in defeat…
The witch was still incanting.
She could make it.
She could do it.
°O°O°O°O°
Prim struggled, kicked her legs, kicked the vampire who was restraining her with her elbows, but it did nothing except piss him off. She was dragged toward the hole in the ground, close to where the grass was wet with blood, close to where all the corpses had been dumped…
Corpses of people she knew.
"Katniss!" she howled.
But her sister had disappeared, swallowed by the surrounding chaos.
I'm going to die.
The thought came, fleeting and terrifying in its certainty.
She was going to die.
Right then.
Right there.
Just because she had been stupid enough to get peeved by being sent to her room one time too many in the last few days.
Just because she hadn't listened to people who actually knew best.
Tears of fear and regret were streaming down her face but she kept struggling, she kept fighting because there was no way she was going down without a fight…
Katniss and Haymitch, Effie and Peeta…
They would have fought to the end so that was what she would do too.
°O°O°O°O°
Haymitch was in so much fucking troubles.
He met Brutus' powerful strike with a parry and then turned on himself to give his sword more momentum but the vampire was quick and far much too good a warrior to fall for that trick.
And he whirled that spear of his like he had been born with it in his hand…
The backslap across the face was almost enough to knock him off.
It was certainly enough to send him flying a few feet away, the hilt of his sword slipping from his fingers…
°O°O°O°O°
Effie's sight was tunneling when she finally was close enough to the Hellmouth to see what was going on.
Cinna wasn't just kneeling, he was crying, hunched over a dead body.
The woman had been beautiful but death had robbed her of much of that. And her death wasn't recent. A few hours at best. The body didn't look fresh.
"Cinna?" she called. Her tongue was heavy in her mouth, she felt dizzy. She flexed her fingers and her magic surged to answer the call but she wasn't sure…
There was an incredibly familiar sigh from the robbed figure standing two feet away and Effie dragged her eyes from the corpse and to the also incredibly familiar face that hid in the shadow of the purple hooded cloak.
"I told you to stay away, Euphemia, didn't I?" her mother snapped, her tone both disappointed and irritated.
The shock was such that she swayed on her feet, reaching for Cinna's shoulder to stabilize herself. The warlock didn't even react. He was openly sobbing now, clutching the dead woman to his chest…
"No…" she whispered, shaking her head as much to clear it as to deny the reality of what was happening. "It can't be. You were…"
"Oh, please." Elindra scoffed. "You called me with news of a Reaping, did you truly expect me not to take an interest? I popped in yesterday to see if they could use the service of a proper dark witch. Business is business, darling. And, truly, they should have come to me first instead of going after an Italian nobody. America is my territory."
The battle was still raging around and she was acutely aware that there was no time to waste, that she could perhaps still salvage this but…
"Portia…" she argued, looking down at the dead witch.
Elindra waved her hand dismissively. "They had an unwilling witch, I was in need of more power."
It didn't make sense. No sense at all.
"She siphoned her dry." Cinna declared, his voice hard as ice. He lovingly put Portia down on the ground and then finally looked up at her mother. His eyes were entirely black and he was exuding so much power it only made Effie feel sicker. "What we felt last night… The dark magic… It was her murdering my Portia. She siphoned her magic."
Elindra didn't even try to deny it.
"Now, now, Cinna, dear…" Her mother clucked her tongue. "If she had cooperated, they might not have traded her for my services. But she was always stupidly loyal to you, that woman… Ridiculous for someone that powerful."
In a flash, Cinna was on his feet. He raised one hand to the sky, something that looked terrifyingly like a thunderbolt ran down his fingers and then he outstretched his arm toward Elindra and they were all bathed in a purple light as lightning struck, passing through his body like a conductor…
Effie felt the singe of it but her magic protected her from the blunt of the blast. She closed her eyes, unable to sustain the flash of light…
She immediately blinked, expecting to see her mother's charred corpse because, surely, nothing could survive that, but Elindra stood there as if nothing had happened. Something had happened though.
Her hood had fallen back, her red hair was electrified and she looked every way the crazy dark witch.
"Mother…" Effie begged. "We can still…"
"No." Cinna growled. "We cannot."
And then he attacked again.
°O°O°O°O°
There was a flash of lightning and behind Prim the vampire grunted, as blinded as she was.
Then, suddenly, he tripped and went down.
She lost no time wiggling out of his grip, instinctively screaming when someone else grabbed her arm…
"It's me! It's me!" Rory said, his eyes wide, the telescope he had used to hit the vampire still in his right hand.
She tossed her arms around his neck and briefly squeezed tight.
Then the vampire got back to his feet, there were two more behind them and she didn't see how they were going to get out of there…
°O°O°O°O°
Katniss did her best to stay out of reach of Gloss' sword even though it involved a lot of twisting, jumping and dancing around the blade.
"I think I'll save you for the master." the vampire snarled. "I think he'd like a little pick-me-up after being trapped in hell for so long and I hear Slayer blood is the best."
He overreached with his next strike and she glided along the blade, used that to her advantage to grab his wrist with one hand and elbow him in the throat with her other arm…
It was enough to make him loosen his grip on the sword.
It was enough of a leeway that she managed to get away and lose herself in the chaos.
She should have killed him but she didn't want to waste precious minutes.
Not when it could mean the difference between Prim being alive and Prim being dead.
°O°O°O°O°
Elindra was sneering. "Do you think your lightning tricks will work on me, warlock? I am full of your little girlfriend's power. You cannot stop me. Nothing can stop me now."
All that was missing, Effie mused, was the evil laughter and the mustache twirling.
"I will kill you." Cinna promised, following that with a spell that looked nasty.
Her mother deflected it, easy as you pleased. "I do not think so."
If Effie's magic was gold, her mother's magic was pitch black. It rose in a foggy cloud around her and, then, so quickly she could do nothing to help, it enveloped Cinna and dragged him away.
"Don't kill him!" Effie screamed.
Elindra pursed her lips in distaste. "I could not even if I tried. I am more powerful right now but he is still a warlock. It would take some preparations to get rid of him. Still, this will keep him busy." Her blue eyes darted back to her. "Now, Effie darling, this battle is lost. I know you care about your little friends so you better call them back and run while you can."
Effie shook her head, camping her feet apart in a fighting stance, glad to have had the presence of mind to change into something more battle-friendly. "I can still stop you."
Elindra sighed and looked at her with nothing but pity on her face. "No, you cannot. Do not make me fight you, Euphemia, you know I loathe corporal punishment."
It would have been easy to fall into despair because if she was certain of one thing it was that she was, in fact, no match for her mother but she heard the sounds of fighting behind her and if the rest of her team was still trying…
She took a deep breath, gathered her magic…
"Euphemia." Elindra warned.
She didn't give her time to say anything else, she summoned a whirlpool of fire and aimed it straight at her.
Water engulfed the flames, leaving nothing but smoke between them.
Effie used that to her advantage.
Her nose was bleeding again and she was shaking too much. She knew another spell might be her downfall so she rushed through the smoke, slipping free the emergency knife she kept hidden at the small of her back.
Would she have stabbed her mother?
Would she have found the strength?
She would never have to know because a gull of dark magic swept her off her feet and hurled her back just as the smoke cleared. She rolled away, automatically wrapping her arms around her head to protect herself…
Her body landed just at the edge of the hole that hid the Hellmouth.
So, naturally, that was when it finally opened feets below her…
Ooopsie another cliffhanger... Did you see that witch twist coming? Are we keeping Rory? There's a lot of galeness in him but he also looks a touch more useful ;) Well, I say are we keeping him but... Are we even keeping Prim? Is anyone safe anymore? Haymitch is in major trouble... Katniss is going in blind... Effie is... not in the greatest spot...
Any prediction? Last part of Season 1 next week!