Page 102 of Blood from the Marrow
“Trying to get on top of me again?” Sayah grinned. “You’re just insatiable, huh? And here I thought this zoo of yours would keep you busy.”
Elena lunged again and this time she connected with Sayah’s arm. Biting into the flesh even if it wouldn’t be lethal, she tore out a mouthful while Sayah screamed.
“Rough it is,” Sayah growled and then there was no more grandstanding. It was only then that Elena realized that while she’d been fighting Sayah with every ounce of energy, Sayah had been holding back reserves.
The mistake caught Elena like Sayah’s fangs ripping into her chest and leaving gouges behind. Dazed, Elena refused to fall back, but she caught sight of the battlefield. Too many of her vampires had fallen. The sheer number of Sayah’s forces was taking its toll. For every one of Sayah’s vampires they took down,three more seemed to take their place. Bernice and Cordelia were fighting back-to-back with incredible skill, but they were being pushed back toward the house.
Sayah saw it too. She saw the tide turning. Any focus she’d lost was back now. Sayah drove her shoulder hard into Elena’s midsection before she could dodge it, lifting Elena off her feet and slamming her hard into the ground.
The impact was bone-jarring. For a split second, Elena’s head swam and she couldn’t hear the screams and death cries of battle. Sayah didn’t give her a moment to recover. She grabbed Elena by the hair, yanking her head back and exposing her throat.
“This is the end of your pathetic little reign,” Sayah hissed, her face inches from Elena’s. “What’s that move you like so much?” Her dark eyes were so filled with unhinged joy when her attention dropped to Elena’s throat. “You think your girlfriends will still like me if I showed them your brain stem?” She laughed.
Elena tried to rock herself back to her feet, but she couldn’t get the leverage with Sayah pinning her down. She reached up to go for Sayah’s eyes with her thumbs when a massive explosion propelled Sayah off of her. Ears ringing from the noise, Elena scrambled to her feet. Walls of blue flames encircled her. The heat was bone-melting and unbearable.
All around her, blue fire erupted like geysers from the ground. It took her several seconds to realize it was what the Salem witches had left for them. And then came the screaming. The fire spread so fast and appeared to consume everything it touched.
While Elena stood in shock, she watched a little glass jar whiz past her toward two of Sayah’s daughters. The only two that were left, Elena was vaguely aware of this fact, but she wasn’t sure how her brain was collecting or processing information. Shewas out of her body. The sight and smell and sound of people burning alive was too much to absorb.
She was vaguely aware of the sound of Zuri’s voice. And then the little jar ignited. It seemed impossible that so much damage could come from something so small. But Elena watched in frozen horror as the fire melted her would-be assailants while they screamed.
Sayah must have been watching too, but she crawled toward Elena. Somehow only half of her body had been burnt. She grabbed Elena’s ankle with the hand that wasn’t charred and whispered a faint, “Enough.”
Elena might’ve thought it was funny that she only wanted to put an end to the violence when it impacted her, but Elena had no desire to see any more horror. As it was, she would never forget what she’d already witnessed.
“Call out your surrender,” Elena croaked, barely managing to form coherent words.
Sayah cried as loudly as she could to “Fall back,” but it seemed like her vocal cords had been damaged. She wasn’t healing, Elena noticed. Wasn’t healing, just like Elena hadn’t healed after having been shot. Whatever the witches spelled into their potion, it was lethal.
It was a just end for everything Sayah had done, and yet, Elena didn’t feel an ounce of satisfaction. All she could see were the melting faces. The smell of burning flesh was making her sick.
“It’s over,” Elena called, disheartened by the crack in her own voice even if she wasn’t surprised. “This is over,” she repeated more forcefully.
Above her, the skies opened again and Zuri’s rain drenched the field. As soon as the fire died down to smolders, the white-winged Aglion charged toward the injured under the pouringrain. The Black Wings captured those who surrendered without harming them.
Elena was impressed with their restraint. Judith, one wing still damaged and hanging at an obviously painful angle, didn’t use any more force than necessary to corral the enemy into a corner of the garden. It took a moment for them to start separating the injured—not for execution, but for healing.
Looking at how many of Elena’s forces were hurt, it was going to be awhile before the Aglion got to them. But that wasn’t the point. Moments earlier the Black Wings would have torn these vampires limb from limb, but it had only been in defense. And they’d clearly taken no joy in it.
It took a long time to quell the fires and not nearly as long to count their dead. Nearly one hundred had fallen fending off Sayah. Not a single unit had been spared casualties. Candela was still unconscious after having been discovered as one of the sources of fire, and Clara wasn’t sure how long she’d been down before they reached her. The gash in her skull had been deep and they’d done what they could. Zuri and Avani were inconsolable, but Marisol didn’t stop moving. Didn’t pause her efforts to heal as many as she could. None of the healers stopped even for a moment.
And then there was Sayah to deal with. Kneeling between Sofia and Librada as best she could with her injuries, Sayah was hard to look at. None of her daughters had survived, and her surviving followers swore that they’d only taken up her cause under duress. She was broken and alone and had caused so much damage.
“Go on, Elena. Make a nice big show of killing me.” She looked up at her, much of her face mangled. All Elena could see was melting skin and the sound of anguished screaming. The sound of painful dying. “Or if your girlfriend heals me up, you can make me part of your harem.”
Elena forced herself to look at Sayah even if it triggered pity she didn’t deserve. “What was the point of all this?”
Sayah dropped her act. “What do you want from me? Some big fuckingwhy? I’m bored. I’m old. I’m tired of living the same fucking life. This cartel shit is bullshit. Thissecond lifeshit is bullshit. If I’m forced to keep living, then I want to live however the fuck I want.”
Elena had never considered herself selfless, but she couldn’t conceive of the selfishness that could lead someone to cause so much pain for reasons like that. “There must be more.” She shook her head. “A better reason to march your daughters to their deaths.”
Sayah’s dark blue eyes flashed with genuine pain before she dropped her gaze and then her head. Elena looked up. All around them people were crying either for themselves or someone they loved. No one would leave this night unscarred. Whoever they’d been when the sun rose that morning was dead. So much death and waste and pain—and for what?
Unsure what she was wrestling with, Elena watched Marisol closing a wound over one of the Veil witch’s eyes. Her wings had started out so strong, and now they barely flickered while she pushed herself to exhaustion.
“Elena, we should end this,” Librada said reasonably.
But Elena couldn’t bring herself to move. She found Zuri, who was still kneeling on the ground where Candela was lying in the grass because they hadn’t considered needing gurneys. She was running her hand through Candela’s hair and begging her to wake up.
