Something Witchy This Way Comes: A Jolie Wilkins Novel (30 page)

“I have not finished,” he continued. “I have no regard for familial ties. As far as I am concerned, I am my Queen’s protector. I view you as nothing less than a threat to her well-being. If I see you so much as look at her askance, you are finished.”

Her hands fisted at her sides. “And as I said before, I understand English.” Then she shook her head as she mumbled, “Fucking vampires.”

Sinjin’s mouth lit up in an amused smile. He nodded, his eyes raking her in a lascivious way. Leave it to Sinjin to find time to ogle a beautiful woman, never mind the circumstances. “Lead the way,” he ordered.

Bryn was silent as she started forward, careful to remain in the shelter of the trees. She ran from one tree to the next, with me and Sinjin trailing behind her. When we reached the point where the line of trees ended, she turned to us both. “We need to get to the Jeeps,” she said. “It’s too far for us to go by foot.”

“Where are the Jeeps?” I asked, but Sinjin shook his head.

“Too risky,” he said.

Bryn glared at him. “Did you hear a word I just said?”

He returned the glare. “I did.” She opened her mouth as if to further lambaste him, but he interrupted her. “Where is the building located?”

She took a deep breath and glanced at the rise of the hill just ahead of us. “It’s about a mile or so beyond that hill. We’d have to get through … that,” she finished, pointing to a throng of people in the middle of the pasture. They were all engaged in battle, and blasts of light continued to brighten the sky.

“Can you materialize that far?” I asked Sinjin, knowing he was wondering the same thing. As a vampire, he could materialize and dematerialize from place to place, but he couldn’t go far, usually maxing out at around twenty feet.

“It will be a stretch,” he said solemnly.

“Where are the damned Daywalkers when you need one?” Bryn said, and glared at him. “They could easily handle that and then some.”

“Yeah, but the trouble with them is that they can’t even survive past drinking age,” I spat back, irritated that she was doubting Sinjin’s abilities.

“Ladies, ladies,” the debonair vampire said with a charming smile. Then he faced Bryn and with a practiced grin reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her into him none too gently.

She pushed away from his chest and frowned up at him. “Watch it,” she muttered.

“I am watching it and then some,” Sinjin responded, seeming to enjoy nothing more than taunting her.

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t wait for the day when you and your kind are extinct!”

“Enough!” I said, and shook my head, not wanting to deal with the two of them. We had much bigger issues at hand. “God, would you both give it a break?!”

Sinjin smiled down at me. “May I?” he asked, offering his other arm. I nodded and accepted it. “Very well, then,” he said, and I felt the wind whip against my face as he swept us through the air. It only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like we were flying. When I opened my eyes, the ground was solidly beneath my feet and we were on the other side of the hill.

But our new location also put us in the thick of battle, surrounded by Underworld creatures and Lurkers. Sinjin hadn’t been able to materialize far enough away. He pulled me into him as a were fell backward with a knife in his chest. Beside him, a Daywalker ended a vampire’s life. Bryn had already started clawing and pushing her way forward, pivoting to miss the claws of a werewolf who had ambushed her.

“It’s through here!” she screamed as she continued forward. Sinjin grabbed my arm and forced me on as he took hold of Bryn’s arm too. Then we were flying again—manipulating time as we flashed through the air. When we landed, another nondescript white boxy-looking structure rose up in front of us. I assumed it was Building 100 as soon as my eyes took in the two-story structure. And then I saw a blaze erupt to one side. The firestorm blew out chunks of cement and glass. I covered my head with my hands, and Sinjin
threw his body over mine, my guardian to the nth degree.

“Are you all right?” he asked in a breathless voice.

“I’m fine,” I said as I pushed him away from me and stood up, watching Bryn run for the building.

“No!” she screamed as she approached the blasted section, which appeared to be a kitchen area of some sort. A stove was still intact in the far corner of the room. The blast hadn’t been that huge, otherwise the whole building would have disintegrated. All it had done was take out one wall.

“Bryn, no!” I started after her, afraid she might be running toward her death. Granted, she was a Lurker, but she was also my sister and I couldn’t deny my connection to her. I got to her and grabbed her arm as another eruption sounded, this time on the opposite side of the building. She turned to face me, her eyes wide and her face pale. “What’s happening?” I screamed, shielding my ears against the blast.

Bryn shook her head as she pushed away from me. “All of the buildings are self-destructing, but the children could still be in there!”

She started running forward again, and I turned to Sinjin. “I will go,” he said simply. He pushed me toward the crest of a small hill, indicating that I should take cover below it. “You stay put,” he said, his expression warning me not to argue with him.

I watched as he turned in Bryn’s direction and followed her. They both disappeared into the building, and I was struck with the thought that it might explode with both of them inside. And what was more, it was doing absolutely no one any good for me to be
hiding there like an idiot. I stood up and took a deep breath, knowing what I needed to do.

I took the ten or so steps separating me from the building and jumped over the rubble of the kitchen wall. Once inside, the cloud of dust and debris from the initial explosion was almost too much for me to bear. I covered my mouth with my upper arm, finding it difficult to breathe.

I heard the cries and screams of children and felt myself go into autopilot as I lurched forward, up a rickety staircase. The previous explosion had compromised the entire structure and now it groaned and creaked under its own weight. At the top of the stairs, I could make out Bryn at the end of the hall. She was surrounded by about eight children of various ages. She was carrying a crying toddler in her arms and ushering all the children toward the staircase I’d just come up. Sinjin suddenly burst through a door directly before me, a child over each of his shoulders and three more holding on to the back of his shirt.

“Are there more in there?” I yelled to him.

Seeing me, he frowned and seemed about to reprimand me, or worse. His focus was entirely on my safety. I shook my head emphatically. I wouldn’t allow him to think of me, not now.

“Are there more in there?” I screamed at him, and he nodded. Not wasting any time, I threw myself past him, into a bedroom. It was so dark, it was almost impossible to see. I closed my eyes and charmed myself into clearer vision—the equivalent of night goggles.

I saw the two small children huddling in the corner
of the room. In front of them, a large beam had fallen from the ceiling.

“Come on!” I screamed to them, holding my arms open wide. “I’ll carry you!”

Neither of them moved forward, so I pushed through the debris, stepping over a destroyed desk, only to narrowly avoid walking into another beam that was hanging from the dilapidated ceiling. When I reached them, the look of fear on their faces crushed me. I wanted nothing more than to gather them in my arms and promise that nothing was going to happen to them, that they would be safe.

Another blast suddenly shook the whole building, and I had to stabilize myself against the wall. One of the children screamed as the beam came crashing down, with the other child directly in its path. I held up my hands, imagining a deflection globe surrounding the child. The beam bounced off the orb and slid to a rest just beside the child.

“Nicely done,” Bryn said, appearing beside me. I glanced at her and smiled, then climbed over the beam and leaned down, reaching for the child closest to me. She wrapped her arms around me as I lifted her out, and then reached for the other child. The boy said nothing, but his wide eyes told me he was scared to death. The sound of the ceiling creaking grabbed my attention and Bryn’s.

“It’s not going to hold much longer,” she said, motioning for me to hurry the hell up. I quickened my pace over the rubble in the room, holding on to the little girl in my arms as tightly as I could. I could hear Bryn just behind me when a sudden blast knocked me
off my feet. I hit the ground hard, the little girl falling on top of me. She shrieked and started crying again.

“It’s okay!” I screamed, and pushed to my feet, leaning over to check on Bryn, who had also fallen. “Come on!” I shouted at her as more explosions sounded from outside.

“My foot is stuck!” she yelled back and pushed the little boy forward. “Get the kids out of here!” Bryn turned to try to free her leg, which appeared to be wedged between two beams and the wall. She held her hands together as if to use her magic, but another rumbling quake interrupted her, forcing her to use her hands to protect her face against an onslaught of debris coming from the ceiling.

“Bryn!” I called out, and knowing she could die in here, hesitated.

“Go!” she yelled. “I’ll use my magic to free myself!” Realizing I had to get the children to safety, I grabbed them, and once they were nestled in my arms, the little boy shielding his eyes against my shoulder, I bolted for the door.

Sinjin met me. “Where is she?” he demanded.

“She’s stuck!” I said in a panicked voice.

He instantly dematerialized. I had to hope he was helping Bryn, because I needed to get the children outside and away from the building, which was about to crumble into nothing. I turned to face them. “Hold onto each other and don’t let go. I’m going to get us out of here!” Then I started down the rickety staircase, praying it would hold up long enough. At the bottom, I glanced behind me, pleased to see that they were following me. Once we hit the ground floor, I started jogging for the door, glancing behind me to
make sure they were still there. When we made it through the rubble and out into the night air, I felt relief flash through me until I realized that Sinjin and Bryn were still inside.

Another explosion hit the kitchen area again, and I forced the children as far from the building as possible, huddling over them as they shrieked in terror. I watched in shock as the entire structure seemed to wobble and then cave in on itself. The second floor fell into the first in a billowing cloud of dust and debris.

“Sinjin!” I screamed, feeling sick to my stomach.

In a split second, Sinjin appeared just outside the collapsed structure, Bryn in his arms. Her foot was bloodied where the beam had pinned her, but other than that, they both looked okay. I glanced at the children and back at Bryn again.

“Is this all of them?” I shouted to her.

She nodded, but there was still worry on her face.

“What about the storage facility?” I asked, wondering if it was safe to take the children there, whether it might self-destruct too.

Bryn shook her head and there was panic in her gaze. “It’s not safe either. Nothing is. This whole place is going to blow!”

“What?” I shrieked. If the whole camp blew up, it would take all my soldiers with it, us included and … Rand. I shook my head against the prospect. I could not let that happen! “There has to be a way to stop it!” I screamed. “How do we stop it?”

But Bryn shook her head as if it were out of her control. She was quiet as she seemed to struggle with what to do. “It’s Luce!” she yelled just as another
building adjacent to the children’s building exploded into a mass of shrapnel.

We huddled over the children but luckily were far enough away that no one was injured. I glanced up at Bryn again, frowning. “Luce? Why would he do this?”

She shook her head. “If the compound is threatened, it’s better to destroy it than give up our secrets.”

“And all your people?” I asked.

She shook her head again. “I don’t know.”

I didn’t have time to consider why Luce was planning to blow the whole camp up. All I knew was that I had to get to Rand and Mercedes. Somehow we had to stop him.

Moments of utter terror and panic can be strange. It’s almost as if your mind goes on hiatus—it can’t process everything that’s going on around it, so it enters a strange dreamscape where everything is slowed down to a snail’s pace.

As I stood there, I took in the battle raging around me. I was still far enough away that I was safe from the chaos. Behind me was empty forest—the skeletal outline of the trees seeming to offer shelter from the storm of the battle. I swallowed hard as I watched what appeared to be hundreds of our legion meeting hundreds of our enemies. It looked like two different-colored blankets of soldiers meeting together as one, only to end up a patchwork of Lurkers and Underworlders.

The night was a chaos of screams, clanking metal, explosions, and bursts of magic. At the sound of hollering, I turned and watched two of my weres drop to their knees, their clothes shredding and falling off their shifting frames. Their muscles rippled as their skin turned into fur and their rib cages expanded, the sound of fracturing bones splintering the air. To my
right I could see a Daywalker bracing himself for their attack. The weres leapt at the Daywalker and managed to wrestle him to the ground, descending on him like rabid dogs. The Daywalker gripped one wolf by the throat and threw him, the wolf landing with a yelp about fifty feet away. The other one wasn’t quite as lucky. The Daywalker ripped into the wolf’s throat with his bare hands and separated his windpipe from his neck. I glanced away from the gruesome attack, unable to witness any more.