I spoke to Eloise. “So, basically, this is what will happen: if you try to attack me while I deal with dear little Dana here, Dexter will deal with you. If you try to run, he’ll be on you before you can even retreat one step. That’s why snakes of this breed are called ‘Strikers’. So be a good girl and wait there nicely, and then you’ll have your turn.”

Dana snorted. “You don’t need to run, Eloise. I can handle her.”

“Now that you’re hyped up on hybrid energy, you mean? It doesn’t work like that. Your system’s not made to take it because you’re a Pagori, not a hybrid. That’s why your hands are shaking and you’re looking a little unsteady. I’d imagine you’ve got a killer headache as well.”

The pain etched into the lines of her forehead told me that I was right. “It doesn’t matter, freak. What matters is that you die. And now the end is near.”

“And so I face the final curtain,” I sang, daring her with my eyes to act.

Snarling, she charged toward me at vampire speed and swung the axe at my neck. She was fast and sharp, I’d give her that. But I’d pre-empted her. I slammed up my shield, watching in satisfaction as she collided into it and then bounced backwards, hitting the ground hard. I pursed my lips. “Not bad.”

I was kind of curious as to what she could do, about how in control of her gift she was. Feeders were extremely rare, so I hadn’t met many. Had the circumstances been different, we could have swapped notes. But considering that I was sure her high-pitched voice was capable of making my ears bleed, I doubted that we’d have spoken for long whatever the circumstances.

Hissing, she jumped to her feet. “Drop the shield. Or are you too scared to fight me?”

I chuckled. “Anyone who knows me would tell you that even if I was scared, I’d still challenge you – no one gets away with hurting my mate. You’re going to suffer. And I’m going to enjoy making you suffer.”

“Then let’s play. We both know our power level is even right now. This will be all about who has the best techniques.” She remoulded her axe into a spear and aimed it at my shield.

To my surprise, the spear actually pierced it enough to make the shield shrink like a balloon. I could have reinforced the shield, but I instead let it fade away. “Again, not bad.” Before she could attack again, I blew out a long breath of energy; an air blast powerful enough to send her crashing into the tree behind her.

Pagori speed had her in front of me in a blink, aiming a hard punch at my jaw. But having the Pagori speed that came with being a hybrid, I was just as fast. I caught her fist and yanked hard, dislocating her wrist. Then I grabbed her by the throat and slammed her onto the ground. Flat on her back, she inhaled sharply, and then went into a fit of coughing. I circled her body as she slowly gathered herself. Taking a moment to check on Eloise, I saw that she was frozen in place, wide-eyed. Dexter’s unblinking gaze was still locked on her.

Finally, Dana popped her wrist back into place and got to her feet. “You bitch!”

“Sorry, old habits die hard.”

“Kill her, Dana!” screeched Eloise. Ooh, bloodthirsty. Of course, she soon shut up when Dexter hissed at her again.

“I’m curious; can you tap into the natural elements?” I’d always been able to do it, but I’d found that controlling them wasn’t an easy feat. As an ice-cold wind whipped me up and flung me at a large piece of rubble, I cracked my head hard. “I’ll take that as a yes.” But the wind hadn’t been able to send me very far away, I noted. Even with my hybrid energy giving her gift a boost, she hadn’t coped too well with the natural elements.

Feeling the wound on my head instantly heal, I quickly got to my feet and strode towards Dana…who, I then noticed, was weirdly smirking at something behind me. I might have thought it was a trick to distract me, but I could hear footsteps in the grass.

“Looks like it’s about to become three against one.”

Rather than glance over my shoulder, I turned slightly, allowing me to keep my peripheral vision on both Dana and Eloise as I swiftly checked who was seemingly coming to join us. Well, f**k a duck. Joy. I didn’t move as she approached. I’d let them all think that I was scared, let them think that my death was a sure thing, and that I was ready to admit defeat. With Dexter as back-up, there were still pretty good odds that I’d come out of this alive.

When Joy reached my side, she stopped, glaring hard. I expected an attack and inwardly braced myself for one, but instead she swerved to face the others and focused her gaze on Eloise. Joy’s irises were then glowing amber as pure hatred contorted her expression. She pointed at Eloise. “I want her.” Joy briefly glimpsed at me as she added, “I despise you, but it would be kind of…inconvenient if you died, because Jared would die with you. But her…she has to die. She made him betray me.”

Well, no, that wasn’t quite what had happened. Jared had never been her partner, and they had never been exclusive. But Joy had never been normal, so she saw the world a little differently. “You can have her…as long as you make it painful.”

Joy curled her upper lip at Eloise. “That I can do.” Then she morphed into a man twice her size and advanced on the bitch. Huh. I hadn’t seen that coming.

I shrugged at Dana. “Looks like it’s just you and me now. And it’s time for you to go home to Fraggle Rock.”

The axe was suddenly back in Dana’s hand and swinging forcefully at my head. I jerked back, wagging my finger. Conjuring my whip, I lashed it at her legs, leaving deep gouges in her flesh. Off balance, she stumbled and lost her grip on her axe, which winked out. Not giving her the chance to conjure it again, I held my hands up and sent flames shooting out of my palms. Her skin sizzled and blistered, and her high-pitched scream was piercing enough to crack windows. Honestly, I was surprised that my ear drums hadn’t burst. Tapping into the element of water, she did her best to put out the flames.

Hearing a cry of agony, I briefly glanced at Eloise and Joy – oh yeah, Joy was definitely putting her through some serious pain. I was pretty sure that I’d just heard Eloise’s spine snap. Crap, that had to hurt like f**k.

As Dana’s scream faded, I looked back to see that her flesh was half-healed and her gaze was dark and sparkling with fury. “You burned me! You f**king burned me!”

Well, yeah. Had she been expecting mercy or something? I blinked rapidly, baffled. “I thought I’d been pretty clear when I said that I’d make you suffer. Oh, you thought I was all talk?” I gave her a gentle, pitying smile. “No, luv. You’re not the first person I’ve hurt, and you won’t be the last.”

Seeming a mixture of incredulous and wary, she shook her head. “You’re crazy.”

“A little,” I allowed. “But mostly it’s just that I have a violent reaction to silly little bitches like you. And like I said, no one hurts my mate.” Then my whip was in my hand again and I slashed her face with it.

With a loud cry, she flinched away. To her credit, she recovered quickly, conjuring a large boulder to shield her. I simply sucked in the energy from the boulder, making it crumble to pieces. But apparently she’d been ready for that; her axe was back and she aimed for my legs this time. I jumped, barely dodging the weapon. She slammed her palm into my chest hard enough to send me zooming backwards. I hit a tree, making the breath whoosh out of me.

Dana smirked. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

It did, actually. Dusting off the pants of my brand new suit, which was torn, singed, and stained with blood – Fletcher was going to go ballistic – I got to my feet. Then, before the movement had time to register in her brain, I conjured a small energy ball and fired it at Dana. It caught her shoulder, and the impact knocked her to the ground once again. Of course I could have thrown an energy ball deadly enough to kill her as opposed to simply knock her down. But death by energy ball didn’t seem painful enough for someone who had hurt Jared. Death by Dexter’s venom, however…Yeah, that sounded much better. And he was clearly hoping to join the fun, because he was slithering around her, hissing. Eyeing him warily, she froze, obviously worried about making any sudden movements.

As I came to stand at her feet, Dexter moved his intelligent gaze to me. I knew he wanted permission to attack…so I gave it to him. At my nod, he immediately spat venom into her eyes. Crying out, she scrubbed madly at her eyes. That was when Dexter struck – in a movement that was a pure blur, he bit her upper arm. Again, she cried out, flinching away from him. But it made no difference – there was no dodging Dexter: he bit her again, this time on her leg.

“Dexter’s venom is pretty cool, you know,” I told her as he began to curl around my body once more. “A single bite can put a vampire through a truly ugly experience. Stage one is temporary blindness. Stage two is temporary mental disorientation. And stage three is temporary paralysis. Lucky for you, however, you’ll get to escape all that…because a second bite is fatal. Yep, it causes an all-consuming, agonising pain that’s swiftly followed by death. But I think you’re already coming to realise that, aren’t you?”

Her agonised cries told me that, yes, she was. Maybe I should have felt bad for her. Maybe I should have wanted to end her pain. But this person had thrown an energy ball at Jared and laughed at his pain. She had been part of the plan to take over The Hollow, and she had enjoyed every second of the pain that she had put me through. Furthermore, she would happily have killed me if she could have done. So there was simply no ounce of mercy in my system.

I turned away from her, and that was when I saw that Joy, now back in her own form, was standing over a pile of ashes. Eloise was dead. Fabulous. Realising that Joy was watching me rather intently, I tensed. Responding to that, Dexter – who was now twined around my waist – hissed warningly at her. Had she changed her mind about having a duel? I hoped not. A part of me felt a little sorry for her and I did kind of appreciate that she hadn’t joined the other two bitches in trying to kill me. Besides, what I most wanted right then was to get to Jared.

“You’re going to walk away from her?” asked Joy, sparing Dana the briefest glance. “You’re not going to make sure she’s dead before you go?”

“Oh she’ll soon be dead, don’t doubt that. Besides, if I kill her quickly, she can’t suffer.” And I’d promised Dana that she would. It was her fault that she hadn’t listened.

“You’re doing that for Jared, aren’t you? It’s your revenge for hurting him, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “I’m not going to give him up, Joy.” She needed to understand that, needed to finally accept it, because I’d really had enough of her bollocks.

Joy sighed. She looked…sad. “And he won’t give you up. For him, it’s only ever been you. I hate you for it.” But there was no heat or threat in her words.

“I know.” In her position, I wouldn’t have been having warm, fuzzy feelings about her.

“No matter what I did, I couldn’t make him leave you.” She swallowed hard. She still seemed sad, but now she also seemed resigned. “Take care of him for me.” Then, in a blink, she was gone. I supposed that was Joy’s version of a truce. Although, considering the emotional rollercoaster she was constantly riding, there was every chance that she’d change her mind about it tomorrow. But for now, I’d put it out of my mind. It was time to find Jared. Time to kill Covington. Time to end all this.

(Jared)

Thanks to the appearance of our allies, the number of Covington’s vampires had increasingly dwindled. Set on getting to Covington, the squad, Jude, Ava, Cristiano, and I had focused on getting through the nine circles of vampires guarding him while our allies took care of the others. Harvey and his telekinesis had been a huge help – which was exactly why a vampire with the ability to temporarily steal a gift had targeted him. Bollocks, as Sam would say.

At that point, we’d had to instead fight our way through them. The first six circles of vampires were now destroyed. If I could just manage to get through these other motherfuckers, I could get to the bastard. But said motherfuckers weren’t making it easy.

For example, there was the Keja who kept throwing balls of ice at me – and they hurt like f**k. Then there was another Keja who was creating cracks in the ground that were wide enough and deep enough for people to fall down. Unfortunately, some had. There was also the Pagori who was covered in beetles and was throwing them at everyone; beetles that happened to bite. Worse, we also had to deal with a chameleon who was creeping up on people and snapping their necks before they even realised someone was there. He really had to go.

As an idea suddenly came to mind, I spoke to Denny. I want you to find that chameleon for me. I doubt you’ll get your hands on him because the son of a bitch is fast. But spray him with that ooze of yours. Then we’ll be able to see him and get a clear shot.

Denny nodded. You got it.

I badly wanted to contact Sam, find out if she needed me. But I was conscious that doing so could distract her – that was the last thing she’d need while she was in the middle of a duel. But I repeatedly checked on her through our link, ready to teleport to her if need be.

As another ball of ice suddenly struck my shoulder, I cursed and stumbled. It was hard to get to the little shit responsible – who bore an uncanny resemblance to Professor Snape – because he was being shielded by someone with the gift to deflect. His gift was similar to Butch’s, which meant that I knew where its weaknesses lay. Of course such a gift was a substantial one, but its weakness lay in the simple fact that it didn’t encompass a person’s entire body. The shield would only stretch as far as the sides, leaving the person’s back vulnerable. Noticing that Chico was not far behind him, I ordered, Chico, shoot the Professor Snape lookalike.