Page 100 of Blood from the Marrow
“Each one has their three vampires,” Lib replied like she was also checking things off their list. “Prepared for either maneuver three or seventeen, depending on who gives the signal.”
The idea of assigning witches to a vampire cohort had been Hel’s idea, and a good one. Cannons were best kept behind protective walls. The hardest advice to heed was not assigning herself, Sofia, and Librada to Zuri. Her daughters were of better use elsewhere, but there was no way Elena was going to let Zuriand Marisol out of her sight. So she’d assigned her daughters other tasks, but accepted two soldiers, both from her own cartel, to be at her side during the fight.
“Aglion?” Elena asked.
The last piece on the board was the most complicated to position. Aglion were all so diverse in their skills, it had required a one-on-one assessment of where they’d be the most effective while minimizing their exposure to harm. The Black Wings, as Hel had started calling them, were the easiest to place. Despite all of them insisting on being on the front line, Hel convinced them that they were stronger if staggered. That they’d be needed to also protect the Storm Wings and healers positioned deeper in the courtyard.
Librada’s hesitation registered late. Without taking her eyes off the horizon, Elena cleared her throat. “What?”
“Judith refused to leave Sofia despite not being the most tactical use of her ability.”
Elena’s lip twitched into a momentary smile. “Refused a direct order?”
“Not exactly,” Lib replied. “More like she avoided me during the scramble, but she knew we wanted her further back and near the concentration of Veil witches.”
Elena willed her vision to sharpen, but the distance to the Hera dome was too far. Certainly someone as massive as Judith couldn’t balance on a tiny ledge the way Sofia could. Couldn’t crouch down to make herself tiny. Where the hell was she? Her curiosity died the moment lightning flashed in the cloudless sky.
The strike had come from the Circe dome on the corridor opposite Sofia’s perch. The signal, set off by the Storm Wing connected to Sofia by handheld radio, meant that Sayah was approaching from the southwest. It was several moments before Elena saw what Sofia had seen. A sea of black electric vans appeared with no running lights. So Sayah had consideredrousing human suspicion. Maybe she hadn’t become a complete nihilist.
“Zuri, open the fucking sky,” Elena instructed as her first act of war.
At the other end of the long balcony, Zuri and her coven sisters, joined by two Veil witches, started stomping their feet. A moment later, a wordless song rumbled in their throats.
The rhythm resonated in Elena’s chest like a primal call to arms. It warmed her blood, making her primed to run toward the invaders. She imagined herself traveling through time. A warrior picking up a sword. A marksman nocking an arrow. A lone hunter finding a sharp stick. The fight to protect her home and all its occupants was in her gritted teeth and lengthening fangs.
Clouds appeared thick and black a moment before the rain started. Not rain. A fucking monsoon. Stopping just outside their defensive walls, the downpour was so intense, it looked like a steel barrier around the estate. Following the plan exactly, the Storm Wings concentrated lightning strikes where the first bolt had marked the enemy’s location. The torrential rain made them just as blind as Sayah, but with the concentration of strikes, there was no way they weren’t cutting down Sayah’s advantage.
Between the noise of the rain and the constant thunder, Elena strained to hear. It was seconds before the first car crash sounded, and then another. The Storm Wings were hitting their targets, or Sayah’s forces were abandoning them to breach the walls blindly. Either way, Elena was ready.
When the first vampire appeared over the wall, he was immediately greeted by a lightning bolt straight to the chest. Until now, whether an Aglion bolt to the heart could kill a vampire was theoretical. Pure theory that it would be as fatal as removing the heart so that the brain would starve of oxygen before being able to regenerate the critical organ.
A minute passed and then two, but Elena looked away from the test dummy sprawled on his face in the grass when two more vampires leapt over the wall. Two more bolts took them down and they landed near their fallen comrade. Elena glanced at Zuri, looking for a sign that she was struggling to keep so much rain falling in sheets from the sky. But with her hands outstretched and her foot stomping and presumably humming her song, Zuri looked like she could hold that position for days.
And then there were more vampires and more strikes and more bodies dropping motionless into their courtyard. Elena’s heart soared. Like this, they’d kill all the vermin without losing a single one of their number.
It had been nearly ten minutes and over fifty sodden vampires were piled in front of the wall when the first vampire who’d leapt over twitched.Fuck.
Moving slowly, the vampire staggered up to his elbows, and Elena’s fear was realized. The bolt would stop the heart but not long enough that the brain couldn’t regenerate it. They’d planned for this contingency, but damn if they’d survive this night unscathed.
They still had the advantage of an initial period of weakness and disorientation. Her vampires stationed at the edge of the courtyard swooped in exactly as they’d practiced. With the efficient way she’d taught them, a dozen vampires moved like death incarnate, tearing out brainstems. They should have gone only for the vampires who were waking to conserve energy, but when the blood started flowing, thinking was harder to reach than instinct.
Elena looked away from a scene that was revoltingly gruesome, even to her, to check on Marisol. On the opposite side of the balcony from Zuri, Marisol was watching in open horror. Solid white wings outstretched behind her, she looked like she was considering running out to help the very people who’dhappily slit her throat. Elena could feel her restraint in her own body.
But Elena didn’t have time to linger on the emotional and psychological toll this night would take. As if they’d finally coordinated despite the flood coming from the sky, Sayah’s vampires vaulted over the wall seemingly all at once. The sight of them like ants swarming a dropped popsicle stick made Elena take a reflexive step backward.
From one end of the privacy wall to the other and coming over the sides, nearly a thousand vampires landed in the courtyard at once.Gods. The impact of seeing them all at once triggered Elena’s animalistic instinct to run. How could they stand up to this tide? How could they hope to survive?
It was only when Sayah appeared on the wall flanked by her daughters that Elena remembered who the fuck she was and what she was fighting for. She caught Sayah’s gaze between her teeth and had to resist running out to the field to meet her. They had plans, and she would not work against her rational mind by feeding her hatred.
“Stage two,” Elena called to Zuri without taking her attention off of Sayah, her black hair in the same twin braids she’d worn on the night she’d ambushed Elena in her home. This time would be different. This time they were both dressed for battle.
In seconds, Zuri stopped the rain as easily as closing a spigot. It signaled to everyone that they’d picked off as many as they could without hand-to-hand combat. But that didn’t mean Sayah’s soldiers were going to overrun them. All five Black Wings ran toward the vampires, Judith darting out from the side to take her place at the center of the formation.
Like a seismic wave, they sent the stunned vampires flying backward when they projected their protective force fields outward. And then Candela produced her first fireball. It was no bigger than a baseball when it left her hands and sailed throughthe air. But then Avani fed it oxygen and the Storm Wings brought down a line of lightning bolts, and Candela’s fire landed like a meteor.
Just a few feet to Sayah’s left, the massive fireball cratered the earth. A score of vampires caught fire, rolling around on the ground to suffocate it. But the barrage of lightning strikes was relentless. Whatever Hel had taught them about warfare, Elena wished she had a medal to award her.
Capitalizing on the shock of Sayah’s crew seeing massive black-winged beings running toward them while their compatriots were skewered with lightning and fire, another band of Elena’s vampires joined the field. Dodging the lightning and fire bombs was easy for them when they were landing in the coordinated strikes they’d planned in advance.
