Chapter 424
The Children of Shadows came in a wave of black. There was nowhere to go, so Katelina dropped into a defensive stance and raised her sword. One of the vampires ran toward her and she closed her eyes and swung with all her might. She felt the impact, and gasped as the shock of it reverberated up her arm. The vampire stumbled back, and looked down to find nothing; no blood, no cut.
He grinned in relief and lunged at her. She thrust the sword point first, and rammed it through his stomach.
He gurgled out a mouth full of blood and stared down at the hilt pressed against his stomach. With a savage cry he lifted his arm to hack at her, then let out a scream. His hand, sword still clutched tightly, dropped to the floor in a spray of blood.
"Man, you suck," Loren called as he spun away to face another enemy.
He was right. She didn't know anything about fighting, except how to duck, and the bleeding line on her shoulder reminded her she wasn't even good at that.
She blinked away tears of terror and frustration and forced the bleeding, screaming vampire off of her sword. She raised her weapon to charge him again when one of the Algojo hacked him with a giant axe. He crumpled to the ground, and the Algojo swung twice more leaving his chest little more than crimson pulp.
Ronnell was in front of her, his glove shiny with blood. He disappeared and a burning slash tore across her back. She spun, but he was gone. Though she couldn't see him, she could follow his movements by the cries, and then even that faded into the chaos.
Katelina moved behind a pile of rubble and tried to catch her breath. She wiped sweat and dirt from her face with shaking hands and looked for Jorick again. He threw another vampire off of the floor above, and Sorino intercepted it and finished the foe off with his thin black knife. They were all so calm, so collected, why couldn't she be that way?
Because this is insane.
The Children of Shadows seemed to be everywhere, and she understood the original description of their attack:
"The army moved like a wave, crushing everything in their path."
That was just what they were doing.
She said a prayer for salvation and, as if in answer, another surge of vampires poured through the broken walls. Instead of the white seal of Memnon, they bore ornate handheld sickles.
The Black Vigil was finally there.
They tore into the ranks of the Children of Shadows. Katelina stepped back and something wet splashed up her leg. She looked down to see a pool of dirty, crimson tinted water, rushing from what was left of the fountain.
The west wall exploded. The force of it threw Katelina into the air. She was vaguely conscious of things flying around her, over her, past her, and then she slammed into the floor. She gasped for air, and choked on the burning smoke that filled her lungs.
When she could breathe again she blinked the dust from her eyes. Where the floor had been to her right was now a gaping hole with bits of metal and twisted wire sticking out around the edges. Her head throbbed and her ears rang. It was like the battle at The Guild, except the ringing stopped faster.
Her head was still foggy, and her legs wouldn't move. She flexed her toes to make sure they still worked and looked to see a large chunk of stone pinning her down. She pried at the edge, but it was heavy and she was still too breathless.
She fell back to lay amidst the rock and looked across the field of destruction. A lone figure stood tall and angry atop the pile of stone that had been the west wall. Silhouetted against the street lights and the smoke, she could see a slender curving sabre in his hand. He moved and the light shone on his long red hair and his pale face. It was Cyprus.
"Wolfe!" he roared. "Where are you?"
The Scharfrichter stepped forward from the shadows, dusting himself off, his weapon still in his hand. He stopped at the foot of Cyrus' rubble mountain. "All this to settle a feud over a woman who doesn't want you."
"She did," Cyprus snarled. "Only she never got the chance to say so." He raised the sword and raced down the mound toward Wolfe. The Scharfrichter tensed, his smaller weapon held as if to deflect the blow.
Craziness.
Katelina shook her head and the world started to make sense again, though only barely. Cyprus was almost to Wolfe when the Scharfrichter threw his weapon. It sliced through the air and embedded itself in the redhead's face.
The impact knocked Cyprus off balance and he fell and rolled down the rest of the way to land in a heap. He was on his feet before Wolfe could get to him, and savagely yanked the blades from his face with a cry. Katelina could see where it had punctured him under the eye and torn part of his cheek, leaving the skin flapping and running blood down his face.
He threw the weapon aside and brandished the sabre. Wolfe grabbed a piece of twisted metal from the ground and rushed the redhead. Cyprus swung and the sword and metal clashed. The impact knocked both of them back a step, and they came at one another again. Cyprus' face was twisted with furious hatred, but Wolfe's was as cold as the surface of a frozen lake.
"She didn't want you," Wolfe repeated.
"Then she should have! I'd have lived for her. Instead she died for you!"
Wolfe feinted left, then swung the piece of metal two handed and slammed Cyprus in the knees. The redhead reeled from it and Wolfe managed to slam his weapon into his opponent's stomach and, with a third flashing blow, into his already wounded face.
Cyprus stumbled backwards, then lunged. Wolfe dodged, but at the last second so did Cyprus and caught the Scharfrichter in the stomach with the sabre. The wound wasn't deep, but Wolfe fell back, and Cyprus pulled the bloody blade free to fall on his enemy again. Wolfe barely blocked the blow. They pushed off of one another, and Cyprus was back like lightning, his lighter sword faster than Wolfe's chunk of metal. They locked weapons again, only this time Cyprus whipped out a dagger and shoved it between Wolfe's ribs with a furious cry.
"And do you even mourn her? Not you, with your duty and your honor. It's work as usual. Did you cry when they burned her body at the base of the mountains, or did you bother to watch?"
Wolfe grunted with the effort to push Cyprus off of him. "You think you can see things, but you're stupid." Free, he jerked the dagger out and threw it to the ground, then pressed a hand to the wound. "You're not accomplished enough to use your powers the way you think you are."
"You think I didn't see it?" Cyprus shouted, waving his sword for emphasis. "I saw the funeral, I saw the flames, I saw you erase her name from the books, and not once did you bat an eye. If she'd known how cold you were do you think she'd still have chosen you?"
Wolfe stalked toward him, lifting his hand from his bleeding stomach to grip the twisted piece of metal with both hands. "You see bits and pieces, but never a full picture, if you did then you'd have known long ago that she belonged to me."
Cyprus charged and Wolfe swung the metal like a baseball bat. The redhead dodged, and as he spun back to skewer Wolfe a chunk of rock flew through the air and slammed into him. He stumbled and looked up, snarling in fury as he sought his attacker.
Sadihra pulled herself from beneath a heap of rubble. Most of her hair had fallen around her shoulders in a golden shower. Her coat was torn and she was streaked with dirt. She held one hand up, ready to throw something else. "Cyprus, stop this."
The change that came over the redhead was instant. His eyes bulged and his face turned white. His whole stance loosened, as if in his shock he'd forgotten he was fighting. "Meine Allerliebste- How? What trick is this?" He spun back to Wolfe and the longing joy in his eyes turned to bitter hatred. "Where's the illusionist?"
"There isn't one." Wolfe slowly stood, a discarded scimitar in his hand. "I told you. You saw, but you didn't understand."
"No!" He looked back wildly to Sadihra as she approached. "I saw her die! I saw him kill her; the monster they woke in the cave. I was there!"
"No," Sadihra said. "I was only injured. The funeral you saw was Neil's, never mine."
She stopped in front of him and he raised a trembling hand to touch her face. At the contact he closed his eyes and for a moment Katelina felt something tighten in her chest. She knew that look; she'd seen it before on Jorick's face in Uzbekistan when he'd thought she was missing and had found her.
Just as Cyprus had found Sadihra.
