Chapter 15
The ballroom, when they reached it, was cold and dark. It smelled of dust and old furniture, not even a lingering undertone of the rich, sweet fragrance that Maia remembered hung in the air. They crossed it in near silence, the clamoring sounds of battle growing louder and more urgent the closer they got to the double doors at its end. Maia's sense of urgency grew with it, her heart thudding in her chest with each step she took. Anxiety for Tamsin's well-being crept goose bumps along her arms, and her hands grew clammy and cold.
They stopped in front of the closed double doors. Maia turned sharply, a fierce-eyed Cyclops in the dim, grainy light.
"Vex, take Lauren and Kenzi straight to the car, okay?" uncertainty and traces of fear laced Maia's tone, but her expression was determined and hard, her jaw clenched tightly against the nerves that threatened to chatter her teeth and her fists clenched at either side of her.
"What are you going to do? Take another thorough thrashing from Duncan and his mates?" Vex smirked, not recognizing the hard edge in Maia's voice, "one wasn't enough for you then? You take them to the car. I'll help Succu-slut and the whinin' Thrall here take the room." Mockery and derision laced his tone. Vex had no respect for humans at all, and only some tolerance and affection for the one that leaned tiredly against Bo's side. Even he, bereft of his abilities, would be of more use to Tamsin and her crew in defeating the 'bad guy' than a puny, bruised up little girl, he thought.
"No. Take Lauren and Kenzi to the car." The command, issued between gritted teeth and with a glare to match Vex's own at being ordered about, was absolute, "and you'd better do it, because I won't."
Bo groaned at the stand-off and shoved her way between the quarreling pair, forcing them to break eye-contact and leaving Maia with the last word. Her hand, pulled reluctantly from Kenzi's, settled on the knob before Lauren pulled her around and into a tight, ardent embrace. Her lips found Bo's easily, as if they belonged there, and lingered for a long, heated moment before Lauren pulled away again.
"You come back to me. Like you always do. Okay?" Lauren's eyes were dark with nervous fervor, her fingers tight around Bo's arm. Bo couldn't help the tiny smile that ghosted across her swollen lips.
"What if she goes all 'Carrie at the prom' on us again?" Kenzi's light, clipped voice broke the moment, her periwinkle eyes darted from Bo, to Lauren and back again.
"Like a boyscout," Vex reached into his back pocket again and produced another syringe identical to the one Kenzi had used on Bo, "I always come prepared." He grinned, the glint in his dark eyes identical to the one that flashed across the shiny surface of the needle in his dirt encrusted hand. It disappeared almost instantly in Maia's grasping fingers.
"Good. Daylight's burning, let's go," impatience hurried Maia's words, she clapped her hand over Bo's, still held absently over the doorknob, and shoved the door open with her shoulder, ignoring the pain that flared across her bruised body.
The tooth-aching ring of steel on marble and the clamoring sounds of battle broke in an angry cacophony around them, escalating the instant the door fell open. They all tumbled inside together, and were met by the grim, bloody sight of combat. Dyson circled Duncan, searching for an in at the Redcap's vulnerable flesh and kept at bay by the box cutter he wielded in one hand and the spiked cast he brandished with the other. Tamsin darted under Dolph's flying fist, the daggers in her own hands tearing across the Shifter's naked flesh and sending a splatter of hot blood across the tainted marble floors. Hale grappled with another Redcap, lips pursed in a shrill whistle that didn't quite hit its intended target and instead sent a third Redcap careening to the ground with his hands clapped over his ears and the bat he'd carried clattering beside him. Vases were smashed and broken around the edges of the room, their clay and glass scattered in sharp shards across the floor, and water crept along from its sources. Flowers were strewn everywhere, the stems broken and petals crushed and smudged underfoot. The trash that littered the floor mingled with the mangled bodies of several Redcaps, and Walter lay mortally wounded and propped up against the furthest corner. Blood seeped from between the butler's fingers, staining his once pristine white shirt and pooling around his prone body.
Jack O'Meara stood solidly before them, his hands clasped over the hilt of a handsome one-and-a-half-handed sword. He still wore a suit, and his hair was slicked neatly over his head, unruffled by battle, his clothes and skin untarnished by the blood and gore that was painted across his once handsome, elegant foyer. His back was to them, and he had to turn his face to see as they stumbled in from the ballroom. His expression, thunderous for all of a minute, smoothed confidently as he swept around to greet them.
"Daughter. I had a suspicion that leaving the human alive would be your undoing. I ought to have had one of your Thralls kill her when I had the chance," O'Meara's calm voice resounded over the sounds of the battle that raged before them.
"Woulda, coulda, shoulda, asshole," Maia snapped at him, her face twisted with anger and hatred.
Vex was momentarily stunned by the nerve and audacity of the powerless, trembling human in front of him, and almost missed the subtle nudge of the heel of her foot against the toe of his boots. Quickly, silently, he pulled Lauren and Kenzi along, out of sight of the distracted Fomor and along the outskirts of the skirmish. The door to the mansion slipped open and shut without a glance thrown in its direction by any of the remaining occupants.
Jack O'Meara threw his head back then, and laughed. It was deep, cruel, mirthless and booming. The combatants paused collectively, gathering a quick breath as the sound of his laughter shook them, before throwing themselves back into heated battle.
Bo threw herself into the fray to grapple the Redcap that darted around Dyson's unprotected back before he had a chance to batter his baseball bat at the Shifter's head. Hale slammed his fist down over his target's face, decorating the floor beneath with a fresh layer of snot and blood. Tamsin traded Dolph for Duncan, sliding under the Bear's lumbering swipes to meet Duncan's utility knife with her own edged weapon, and sending it clattering to the ground, while Dyson tackled the enormous Shifter headlong.
And then, abruptly, everything seemed to go downhill. The Redcap straddled underneath Hale grabbed the Siren by the ankles and pulled up, sending him tumbling literally head over heels, and twisting off-kilter to crash against the floor. They scrambled for a moment, until a blood-caked knuckle-duster cracked against the side of his skull and Hale was lost to a haze of disoriented pain.
Dolph tore the Wolf out of his tackle, and his fist connected with the corner of Dyson's chin, and a Redcap, lying dead beneath the Wolf's feet, managed to trip the thrown Shifter to the floor. Victory sparked in the Bear's amber eyes. He clambered up, and with a feral smile that was all sharp teeth covered in slick blood, he raised one foot and slammed it down onto Dyson's ankle, shattering the delicate bones with a sickening, shuddering crack.
His cry of pain, coupled with Maia's sudden shout for Tamsin to watch out, distracted the Valkyrie from the Redcap that danced and dodged with deceptive speed around her. Duncan darted in under the roof of her inward-pointing daggers and slid on slippery blood around her. His casted arm hooked around her belly, and he spun to throw the Valkyrie to the floor, face down, and toppled on top of her. An empty hand curled around Tamsin's neck, white to the knuckles with the force of his grip, and he leaned down with his full weight to crush her throat to the blood-soaked floor, effectively cutting off the supply of air from her lungs and choking her, before he straightened over her. Madness gleamed in his eyes, and Duncan pulled his spiked cast out from under Tamsin to thrash wildly at her waist, arm, shoulder and head.
A blood-curdling scream rent the air. Maia hurtled at the Redcap that had already beaten her to a pulped mass of broken skin and bone, and that was threatening to do the same, and more, to the woman that had saved it, protected it, from the Morrigan. With the last vestiges of her spent sense, Maia held her own casted arm between them as she crashed into Duncan, knocking him across the face with the hard plaster, and tearing him off Tamsin to roll across the floor.
They careened wildly, all arms and legs and shouts and clattering across the slick, glass-littered expanse of the lobby.
"STOP!" Bo's voice boomed and echoed around the high walls of the vestibule. Maia felt Duncan shudder, half beneath her, half over her, as Bo's power over him exerted itself. Dolph, with his massive leg raised again to collide bone-crushingly into Dyson's ribs, faltered, bright eyes blinking and his wild, wolfish grin wavering uncertainly, before his foot fell uselessly to the floor beneath him. The Redcap poised to slam his fist again into Hale's bruised, battered face stopped and raised his head, eyes bright in expectancy as they fastened onto Bo. And the Redcap whose arms were held in Bo's own, who hadn't even begun to struggle against his Mistress' firm grasp, who would never consider defying her, squirmed in confused delight and unease.
Slowly, the Redcaps and the Bear pulled away and backed off from their opponents. Bo's eyes flashed blue at them, and they collected uncertainly around Inari, who still milled unhappily beside the double doors to the ballroom. Jack watched with dark, amused eyes as they gathered, fully enthralled by the Succubus, unquestioningly obedient, even in their state of utter confusion.
Maia scrambled to Tamsin's side, anxiety filled her eyes as surely as the blood that flowed openly from the cut over her eyebrow and the scrapes left by the shards of glass that glinted against the marble floors.
"Maia," Bo's commanding voice brought a sharp, frustrated grunt of acknowledgement from the curly-haired brunette. Tamsin stirred in response to the tentative hands Maia laid on her shoulder and back, groaning, injured, but alive and aware. "Clear the floor."
Indecision flitted across Maia's bloodied features. She tore her intent gaze from Tamsin's shifting body to Bo's face, and found the Succubus' attention focused entirely on Jack. The Fomor was smiling in bemusement, the pride that seemed a fixture in his expression was tainted with disappointment.
Maia bit her lip, but complied. She hooked her arms under Tamsin's and carefully, gently, pulled the struggling Valkyrie to lean against the wall. Her dark eyes never left Bo's as she crept between the Succubus and the Fomor to lend Dyson her arm as a crutch, and half-carried the grunting, limping Shifter to rest beside his Dark Fae partner, and she almost ran to curl her trembling arms under Hale's armpits and drag the half-conscious Siren back to join his friends.
Bo knelt slowly to pick up one of Tamsin's lost daggers. She tugged her own from the top of her thigh-high boots. Her smoldering glare never left her father's. The Fomor grinned at her, his teeth white and straight and his suit and skin pristinely clean – an immaculate image stark against the gore and the chaos strewn at his feet. Maia stumbled around the room, her breath catching in her throat and disgust burning her esophagus as she pulled and yanked and dragged the lifeless, mangled bodies of the Redcaps Tamsin, Dyson and Hale had felled.
Eventually, the floor was cleared. Only broken clay, shattered glass and smeared blood dirtied the marbled floors of the foyer. Maia crept to Tamsin's side, body trembling with exhaustion, pain, and panic. The Valkyrie lifted an arm and draped it across her human's slumped shoulders reassuringly.
Bo raised her weapons in front of her protectively, the angry curl of her lip and the violence flashing in her eyes a clear indication of her intentions. Jack smirked calmly at her, then settled the fingers of one hand around the handle of his sword. They fell into place, and he raised the weapon with an ease and familiarity that was both beautiful and terrible at once.
Dyson growled and struggled to pull himself up against the wall. Even as badly injured as he was, with his ankle shattered and his skin sliced and bleeding over his arms and waist, he would stand beside Bo, to protect her, to fight for her, to die by her side.
"No." Bo's eyes never left Jack's, but no one in the room had question as to whom her words were directed to. Dyson's nostrils flared and his fierce blue eyes burned with the intensity of his instincts to protect his mate.
"This is between me and you, old man," Bo spoke to O'Meara, but her order was clear. She never took her eyes off the warrior that slid easily into his fighting stance; her mouth was set into a grim line, the muscles in her whole body were tense and taut.
Dyson seemed to struggle for a moment with indecision. He loved Bo, would give his life for hers, if he could. She was his mate, his one, regardless of whether she knew, of how she felt about him, and regardless of how she felt about Lauren. Her recently-turned platonic feelings toward him did not define what he felt for her, nor would not change the strength of his love, or the resolve of his commitment to her.
But his blind, though noble, actions in the past were exactly what brought them to that point. Slowly, his throat still humming with the growl that could not cease, even if he'd willed it to, he lowered himself back down to the floor. His behavior in the past, his complete lack of faith in both Bo's abilities and the incredible strength he had fallen in love with, needed to change. Finally, he was willing to accept that, in spite of the fear and unease that plagued him.
Jack's movements were precise, balanced, methodical, as he began to slowly circle around Bo. In times past, he may have carried a buckler, or a shield of some design, on his left arm. He wore none now, but still held his arm out defensively, with his sword arm raised and leveled, his elbow up and his wrist straight and steady. The point of his weapon shone against the blood-washed half-light of the room, what little morning sun that pierced through the clouds tainted a hot crimson through the blood that splattered the windows and drapes. Bo leaned into her own crouch and imitated his movements, keeping them perfectly even and parallel to Jack's to keep their circle balanced, though slowly closing.
"We could have done great things, Child. We can still do those great things," he spoke slowly, evenly, his dark eyes dancing over every possible opening in Bo's posture and disregarding them all, "I thought you hated the struggle between Light and Dark… the hypocrisy they practice, the brutality with which they rule."
"And this is so very different?" Bo's brows were drawn into a concentrated line. Her eyes watched his as they circled around, her peripheral vision picking up on every tiny movement he made.
He struck like lightening, dancing with a flash of metallic light into Bo's space, the sharp edge of his sword streaked down to swipe at Bo's unprotected, leather-clad legs. It met nothing but air, Bo leapt up, pulling her knees into her chest to clear them of the weapon's bite, and darted in at his unprotected side as she landed, just a blink faster than his speedy recovery.
She brushed past him as he swung around to meet her, his left elbow raised to connect with Bo's face. Hot pressure burst along Bo's cheek, and a numbness crept into the space below her eye, but as Jack stumbled back and away from her, she could see that her own attack had connected far better than his. Blood dripped, sticky and hot, down the Fomor's side, through his fancy jacket and his pristine white shirt. The shorn cloth hung at an odd angle, Jack ducked his head and twisted it to get a good look at the wound. Red crept quickly around it, staining his ruined suit and bringing a low, derisively rueful chuckle to the old Fomor's lips.
"First blood. I'd be proud if it weren't my own," Jack barely gave himself time to finish speaking before he pressed back in, keeping enough distance between himself and Bo to prevent her shorter blades from catching him, but swinging his weapon around in a wild, elegant, controlled attack to throw her off balance.
He had been a warrior for centuries, feared and fearless, undefeated, and conquering. Every blow pushed Bo back, dug into her defenses, yanked and shoved against her careful balance. Steel rang against steel, and the clamoring echo of his furious flurries rang and crashed painfully against the marble walls and floor of the vestibule, deafening to the spectators that cringed with every assault.
Soon, Bo found herself pressed against the wall, glass and clay crunched under her feet, her arms raised above her head, crossing her daggers against Jack's heavy sword that threatened to shear her from above. The warrior swept one foot under hers, and what little balance she'd maintained up until this point was lost. Her breath left her as she crashed to the floor, and only her flailing, screaming sense of self-preservation brought her tearing between Jack's splayed legs. Like a swimmer at the end of her lap, she'd curled her legs into her belly and shoved her feet against the wall. Her momentum saw her sliding across the floor, glass and clay shards biting at the exposed skin along her shoulders, chest and arms, and only fast enough to escape the full brunt of Jack's final, life-ending stab down with his sword.
She scrambled back up onto her feet, panting heavily and raising her blades again in front of her. Fire streaked across the calf of one leg, the edge of Jack's blade had bitten deep into her skin, and her muscles trembled weakly under her weight. Wet heat dripped down from the inflicted wound, warming her ankle where it trickled under her boot and leaving little round droplets on the marble floor where it escaped the soft leather.
Jack turned slowly, dark eyes burning with mad pleasure and an intense desire to control, to conquer, to kill. A smile curled his lips, his sword lowered slowly to his side, and he raised his free hand, palm up and fingers curling inward. His hand was trembling both with the debilitating pain of the wound under his armpit and with the Fae power that flowed like fire through his veins.
Confusion twisted into agonized pain in Bo's face, her lips parted in a silent gasp for breath before the mangled cry grudgingly tore itself from her throat. The deep slash across her leg began to bubble and ooze, the blood that dripped out clouded from bright red to a dark, opaque brown, and the skin around it crusted black and a repulsive shade of green. Bo didn't need a medical degree to understand that the throbbing gash across her leg was festering, and quickly. Cold numbness, preceded by a scorching, unremitting heat, began to seep through her, reaching its jagged fingers down to her toes and up through her knee to her thigh.
With a final, crazed crow of triumph, Jack charged in for the kill. He swung his sword up in both hands, point down, and Bo could see the glint of hysterical madness in his dark eyes as she fell to her knees.
Time slowed infinitesimally. Jack's mouth was wide in a roar that Bo could not hear. His face was twisted in rage and ecstasy. His whole body stretched, arms raised above his head, as he fell upon her. His sword, beautiful, sharp, elegant, gleamed in the weak, tainted light. Her blood shone against its edge, a droplet fell, round and shivering in the hot, muggy air, and splattered to the ground. She was rooted in place, could not move, could not shout, could not react. She never heard the cry that tore itself from the lips of the spectators, lined around the edges of the room, unified despite their differences in their singular desire for Bo's survival.