Page 45 of Of Flame and Fate

Which means she’s in more danger than me. I take a few breaths, building upon the torch expanding inside me, not enough for the snake to notice, I hope, just enough to expand my power.

Shayna’s penetrating blue eyes remain on her targets. “These aren’t normalweres,” she says. “And Johnny is worse than we thought. The moment you’re free, find him. All the help I need is on his way.”

I know who she means. Koda’s howl blasts as loud as a rumbling storm, gathering momentum and speed as he closes in. He’s not far, nor alone, my bond with Gemini alerting me he’s also near andreallypissed.

The hilt of Shayna’s sword elongates and thins out, forming another deadly blade. She spins, twirling her wrists, slicing the snout of one wolf and stabbing the one who lunges in the eye. Her sinfully quick reflexes force the others who try to advance back, just as Johnny’s magic starts to pull away.

He’s abandoned his hiding spot and moving fast.

Shayna feels his abrupt retreat. “You have to go, T,” she says, whirling her sword as she pivots away, creating more space between her and her attackers. “Can’t lose the bad guy now.”

She’s right, and like a flick of a lighter, I release my fire.

I expect the snake to jerk in agony. But he just looks at his crackling skin, watching it break away in colorful chunks when he tries to constrict.

A man cries out in pain behind the stage. I think it’s Johnny. I just can’t understand why he’s hurting.

The moment I’m free, I roll, away from the lingering flame and to my feet. My right arm extends out, shooting a long ray of lightning into a leaping wolf. He hits the giant flat screen as I swirl around and finish off the guitarist gunning for me.

Another wolf attacks Shayna, materializing from the deep shadows along the dark stage. I don’t know how many there are, I just know we have to keep fighting. These creatures are deadly, yet nothing close to mortal.

Instead of burning in my fire, or bleeding from Shayna’s strikes, the wolves simply stop being. They fall in shuddering, helpless heaps, breaking apart in colorful ash that floats into the air and drifts idly away. As much as they seem to hurt, none howl or bleat in agony, unlike those terrible cries resonating in the distant.

I lash out, the wolf who charges zipping out of the way so I only manage to torch his paw. His snarls cease and he stops moving, watching with curiosity as my fire eats away at his leg.

These aren’t real beings. They’re not real anythings.

The shimmer of their fur gives them a slight, animated look, if it weren’t for the force the guitarist used against me, and the way the snake coiled around my body, I could have easily mistaken them for visions.

“Shayna,” I say, edging closer when I sense more creatures lurking in the shadows. There are too many. We need to get the hell out of here.”

“Uh-uh,” she says, fear and determination warring in her features. “You need to get out and find Johnny.”

The wolves growl at the mention of Johnny’s name. “I mean it, T, this guy is bad news.”

The urgency in her tone scares me. She’s afraid of what Johnny is and what he can do. Shit. So am I.

Another menacing howl, this one closer and more familiar, calls near the entrance to the arena. Koda is almost here. This is my chance to find Johnny.

I back away, in the direction I felt him vanish. But as inhuman as his protectors are, they’re not blind or stupid.

The wolf targeting Shayna abandons her to trail me closely, his fangs peeling back and exposing a row of razor sharp teeth.

“Easy boy,” I tell him, keeping my firing arm out. As much as I’m willing to defend myself, something about them makes it hard to attack. There’s a misery that surrounds them, as gut-wrenching as the lyrics in Johnny’s song. Yet while I pity them to some extent, that pity isn’t mutual.

Without warning they attack, the wolf shadowing me thrusting his large body forward and clamping down on my arm.

My screams are inaudible over the deafening sound of cracking bone. The wolf who has me digs his fangs deep, the needle-length tips puncturing through the muscle and into the marrow.

I retaliate with a vengeance, and so does my arm, using our collective rage to fuel my fire. Blue and white flame reflect along the wolf’s dark eyes. There’s no fear, no soul, simply a mindless determination to stop me at all costs.

My fire intensifies, the pain I’m feeling receding as the flames eat through the wolf’s snout, breaking his face apart in a spray of bright color. Sweat cascades down my spine like rainfall from the singeing cocoon of energy my small frame has become, it consumes him, tearing him apart. And still there he stands. No pain. No regret. Nothing that constitutes thoughts beyond the need to protect.

The impact of his demise is like an atom bomb of paint, casting multi-colored rays of light across the battleground the stage has become. A wolf speeds toward Shayna. She spins out of the way, moving with a dancer’s grace and burying her sword into his neck.

A hard grunt escapes her mouth from the strength she uses. I expect the usual, a head rolling away, a heavy body slumping. But that’s not what comes.

She digs her heel in and yanks hard, trying to free her sword when it doesn’t finish breaking through. I rush toward her when another wolf closes in, only to be intercepted by another round of beasts.

---