“You say nothing will keep you from getting what you want. But it looks like a little security glass is managing to endure your wrath.” I stepped forward, distancing myself from the others. “And what did you say you would do to my friends? Burn them?”
“Every last one.” So smug. So sure of herself.
I’d wipe that look off her face.
“Like this?” I raised my hand, palm flat like I was saying stop. I stared at her boyfriend, and he glared back at me, lifting his own hand to flip me the bird. I blew him a kiss, then thought, Burn.
Just like at the castle, the flames engulfed him from the inside out. His face contorted in pain, and he coughed once, letting a cloud of black smoke escape his lips. He had enough time to glance down at his stomach before the fire ripped through him. Unlike what Genie had done to Morgan, though, his death was quick. He burned so fast I doubted he had time to know what was happening, let alone really experience the full extent of the pain.
“Anthony?” She’d barely gotten past the last vowel of his name when he became a pillar of gray ash. I stepped closer and blew out a long stream of breath, sending the motes of his body right into her face.
She sneezed back a cloud of Anthony.
“Burn them like that?” I asked.
Marcela stared in horror, looking at the crumbling wreckage of her former lover. She swung out, catching me off-guard, and clawed once at my face with her sharp nails. The cuts stung, and she probably drew blood, but when she went back for a second blow, I grabbed her wrist and squeezed.
At the height of my strength I would have easily been able to crush her bones with my bare hand. But Aubrey’s magic had taken its toll. My werewolf was gone, and my vampire strength was wilting away. She winced in pain as I squeezed, but I didn’t have the physical power to break her wrist.
“You bitch,” she snarled.
“I’ve been called worse.”
“I will take away everything you’ve ever loved. I will end you.”
“You and what army?” I glanced around us, and she followed my gaze. She struggled against me, and her power tingled under my skin. I could feel her trying to call forth the dead so she could show me her army. But the few scattered corpses left were easily dispatched before they made it through the door, and I could see her certainty fade as the seconds ticked away.
“What are you?” She wrestled herself free, and I had to let her go. I could only hold on for so long.
“As far as you’re concerned, I’m the end of your very, very long life.”
“I didn’t come this far to let someone like you ruin this for me.”
I pulled out my sword and leveled it at her. “I beg to differ.”
Marcela punched me in the face. My reflexes were slowing down since I didn’t see it coming and hadn’t moved to stop it. I recoiled from the pain, ready to cut her in half, but she grabbed me by the hair and dragged me towards the nearest window. She jammed her elbow into my arm, and I dropped my sword, lashing out at her with both hands. I got hold of her hair and retaliated with a good right hook across her face.
She spit blood at me.
“I’m immortal.” She cackled. “What are you?” She hurled us both into the window, and I wrapped my hand around her throat.
I looped my fingers around the chain she wore and tugged, snapping the clasp and ripping the necklace away. “I’m cunning.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
In one hand, I had a necklace that granted its wearer immortality, and in the other, I had a fistful of dark, wiry hair.
I groaned, the brutal agony of the fall swimming through me, reminding me with each breath I no longer healed at a supernatural rate. Glass littered the concrete pad around us, and when I staggered to my feet, it tinkled to the steps.
Marcela, who had also survived the drop, got up with the grace of a drunk, her hands flying up to her neck.
“Looking for this?” I held up the necklace, but this time I was ready for her. As she dove, I lifted my gun—grateful I’d kept it armed and my holster unfastened—and jammed it into her cheek.
Every move was painful, but I wasn’t the kind of girl to let some fractured ribs stop me from getting a job done. I pushed the gun harder into the soft tissue of her face until she yielded and stopped coming at me.
“How long have you been alive?” I asked.
“Seven hundred years. Give or take. Longer than you can imagine living.”