Page 99 of Amethyst and Iron
Not just any cell. Not one that was still only just coming out of its dormant state.
No. It was one that was preparing to act. In catastrophic ways for all hybrids, the supernatural world as a whole, the Guardian Movement.
Remnant had informed me that The Shadowed had been keeping an eye on this cell for the last few weeks, and intel had come in that had confirmed several vampire clans were allying with these fuckers. Tonight was an epic meeting of over two hundred of these new recruits and the currentPuritasmembers of the cell. These clans joining wasn’t so much about their fanatical ideology ofcleansingthe world of hybrids. It wasPuritasoffering them magic-wielders at their disposal to increase their power base and standing in the supernatural world.
Those were the insidious movesPuritashad begun making now to increase its ranks.
Instead of bringing in even a small part of the force at his back in The Shadowed, Remnant come alone to handle it. Blackline Protocol had been activated by the Guardian Movement, the hum much more pronounced now we were above ground again, which was a risk, apparently, to his network. It didn’t just warn beings to get to safety and be cautious, it triggered every defense imaginable. And that was not conducive to a clandestine organization that operated in the shadows and very far off the radar. It risked exposure. Keeping a whole army, or even a unit, safe from detection was a lot more cumbersome than him going it alone. Especially with his extremely advanced capabilities factored in.
And as I watched, it was clear he’d prepared for everything.
This wasn’t recklessness. It was strategic, tactical.
It was predatory intent. The work of a mastermind with centuries of experience and know-how under his belt.
He ran his hand along the door until he stopped near the center. Then he called his talons and thrust them inside, somehow breaching the fucking titanium like it was nothing. I heard a faint whirr of the internal lock as he dug in, the metal shrieking as he crushed the core like foil. He pulled his fingers free, only to slam his hand forward, sending the entire slab of the door collapsing inward.
I swung my head to toward the open floor about two hundred feet from the entrance, a loud, raucous meeting taking place. Nobody even flinched. They hadn’t heard, too caught up in the hateful and despicable rhetoric they were spouting.
From my high vantage point, I watched as Remnant stepped across the threshold into the concrete corridor below. Through the torn-away roof, intact only in a few places, I could see two guards react the instant he appeared.
Magic-wielders.
They both thrust their palms forward, streaming their magic at him.
He didn’t attempt to dodge the blasts.
But he didn’t stop either.
In fact, I couldn’t fucking believe it, but the streams didn’t seem to impact him at all.
He powered into them, then shot out his hands, grasping the offenders’ throats.
In two synchronized motions, he jerked them to the sides, snapping their necks like twigs.
They fell like ragdolls, hitting the rough concrete in lifeless heaps.
A gasp escaped me and I saw him tense.
But then four vampires turned onto the corridor, coming at him, hissing and snarling, fully vamped out.
When they were just a foot out, about to slam into him, he burst to the side, his foot on the wall, half climbing up it, then using the momentum to propel himself behind them.
He shoved his hands through the backs of two of them and they jerked wildly, blood spewing from their mouths, a moment before he ripped his hands free—two hearts in either palm.
Holy shit.
He let them fall to the ground at his feet as the now dead vampires dropped, joining their missing organs.
Before the other two could even turn back around to see what had happened, or to face him, he whirled around them with a burst of speed that I couldn’t even track, until I saw their heads cleaved from their bodies with two slashes of his talons through their throats.
As the severed heads hit the floor with an odd combination of thuds and unsettling squelching, alongside their bodies, I noted movement from the two catwalks above just at the end of the corridor.
The instinct to warn him was right there, my fingers tapping on the railing in front of me.
But I needn’t have worried, because as I saw forty vampires, descending in staggered bursts, boots and talons scraping metal as they dropped down one by one to block his path, he looked right out at me and winked.
In the next second, as they rushed at him, he snagged the shirts of two, ripped their hearts out, then tossed their bodies up into the catwalks. They shot right through the hefty metal of the one beneath, up into the next one, and landed in heaps at the top.
