Blood of the White Witch (32 page)

Fiona quickly produced the box we had been
trying so hard to find, flipping it open and setting it next to
Vance on the altar.

To my surprise, Vance slowly lifted his head
up, and I could see that his eyes were flaming red now. I watched
in amazement as his teeth lengthened into uneven fangs, something I
hadn’t seen since his near conversion. It was also something we
assumed he had been cured of. Apparently the demon blood in him was
still running full and strong. Vance reached out with one hand,
grabbing Douglas around his neck. He whipped Douglas up against his
mouth, sinking the sharpened teeth into his exposed throat. Douglas
screamed as Vance began to drink heavily from him.

I could see the molten color seep into
Vance’s fingers, and Douglas’s flesh began searing beneath them. He
struggled desperately to rip them away from him, but Vance held him
firm.

Fiona then surprised me when she turned to
stab Douglas in the back with the knife. She pulled it out quickly,
and he arched backward, out of Vance’s grasp. She swung the knife
again in a wide arc, this time completely decapitating him, shoving
his lifeless body to the side. Quickly then, she turned toward
Vance, just as the moon began to move out of full eclipse.

A white light swirled up out of the box
toward the sky before drifting down toward Fiona, but began to go
into Vance instead since she had not yet consumed any of his
blood.

Vance weakly tried to push her away, while
attempting to roll onto his side to remove his blood-pouring wounds
from her reach.

She struggled to control him for a moment
before she raised her knife and stabbed him again, causing a fresh
onslaught of blood to burst forth, desperate to devour it.

“I love you, Portia,” I heard his voice seep
softly into my head. “I’m sorry.”

His features relaxed, and I saw his arms
drop loosely to his side and his head roll to the left, his body
going limp.

“NO!” I screamed, waking to the horror that
was happening in front of me. I snapped out of my stupor, quickly
regaining my footing and tore into the circle.

Several hooded demons moved to stop me from
entering.

Without even thinking, I shot ice shards out
of my hands at them, one after another, as if my hands were
automatic weapons. The demons quickly fell to the ground. I didn’t
bother to check and see if they were all dead, knowing the others
behind me would take care of them.

As soon as I crossed through the stones into
the circle, the Awakening immediately moved away from Vance and
shot across into my body. I paused for only a moment when the
initial shock hit me. It was strong but not painful. I could feel
the energy as it moved through me changing things inside, but I
couldn’t allow myself to slow down. I continued running to the
altar.

I was moving in machine mode now, and I came
up behind Fiona, yanking her away from Vance. I felt no mercy as I
slammed a large ice shard right through her back with my hand.

She arched back against me in a scream,
flailing with her arms into the air. I reached to grab her own
weapon, the athame she still gripped in one of her hands. I sank
the knife into her soft flesh, slitting her throat from side to
side, until I felt the athame hit bone. Then I threw her
blood-spraying body to the side, on top of Douglas. I hurriedly
climbed up onto the recumbent stone.

“Vance!” the scream tore from my very soul
as I looked into his dead eyes. “NO! NO! NO!” I said and I knelt
over his body, covering my mouth over his, trying to breathe life
back into his blood-slicked face.

I could hear the sounds of battle taking
place around me, fighting, grunting, calls for help. I could also
feel that the Awakening was still transferring into me from the
box, but I didn’t care about any of those things, only pounding on
his chest, trying to restart his heart.

I placed both of my hands over the gaping
wounds and tried to focus my magic to heal him. Nothing happened.
The wounds would not heal.

“It’s too late.” I heard my dad’s voice
beside me, and he dragged me off the altar.

“NO!” I screamed, sobbing when I felt
Grandma grab my other arm, and they pulled me kicking and screaming
out of the circle.

“Wait, Portia!” my dad yelled at me after we
passed through the stones.

I realized what they were doing then when
the Awakening instantly left me and reverted back to Vance.

I sank to my knees and watched as the
remainder of the power moved into his body. As soon as it had
stopped the transfer, I ran back into the circle, climbing over the
dead bodies and onto the altar.

“Vance!” I cried, and I shook him, not
looking up when I heard the others approaching us. “Vance!” I
screamed at him again. “Wake up!”

I could hear Dad and Grandma on the other
side of the altar checking on Krista, but I didn’t care about
anything except him.

“Vance Mangum, you wake up this instant, do
you hear me?” I whispered through gritted teeth into his ear.

Nothing.

I started pumping on his chest again not
knowing what else to do. One, two, three, four, five, I counted,
not sure if I was even doing it right. I leaned over and blew into
his mouth twice. I repeated the action, tears rolling down my
face.

“Wake up. Wake up. Wake up,” I said through
clenched teeth, continuing to pump against him.

I could hear Shelly whimpering beside me,
and Brad climbed up next to me to help. He took over the
compressions while I continued the rescue breathing.

The minutes wore on, but I couldn’t
stop.

After several minutes had passed, Brad
finally sat back on his haunches, looking at me with a haunted
expression.

“I’m sorry, Portia. I think it’s too late.”
He slowly slid down off the stone.

“Don’t you dare stop!” I screamed at him,
and I continued pumping on Vance’s chest.

Over and over again I worked on him while
the tears rolled down my face, falling onto his open chest wounds.
I could feel the sweat dripping from my forehead and the exhaustion
beginning to seep into my limbs.

After several more minutes, I felt my dad’s
hands cover mine, stopping them with a firm grip.

“Pumpkin, you need to stop now. He isn’t
with us anymore, honey. He’s gone,” he said softly, his voice
barely loud enough for me to hear.

I looked over at him in confusion, seeing
the tears that ran down his face and his trembling lips.

“No!” I said shaking my head in disbelief
while I watched him. “It isn’t possible. Not Vance!”

He struggled to hold his composure before he
could speak again.

“Honey, look at him. He has bled out.
There’s nothing left to save,” he tried to explain so I could
understand. “Come down, and let’s get him off the altar now.”

“NO!” I screamed, sobs wracking my body. I
reached down and gathered Vance’s limp form up against me, crying
into his hair. “You promised!” I yelled at him. “You promised you
wouldn’t leave me!”

I rocked his body back and forth in my
arms.

“You promised. You promised. You promised,”
I whispered against him over and over again.

I could see Shelly sobbing into Brad’s
chest, as my mom and Grandma held each other, letting the tears
flow freely down their faces, Krista lying unconscious and
unknowing at their feet.

“WE WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT HIM!” I
screamed at the top of my lungs while I looked at all of them
staring at me. “DOES THIS LOOK LIKE PROTECTION TO YOU?”

I clenched my teeth together and threw my
head back, screaming into the night air, and the sobs threatened to
overtake me.

“Please take me with you,” I said, and I
kissed his dark wavy hair, my voice shuddering. “I can’t live
without you.”

“Come on, Portia,” my dad called out to me
again, and he held his arms out to me. “Let’s take him home.”

I held him to my chest, and I looked up to
the heavens and shouted, “Can anyone hear me up there? Please God,
I beg you, don’t take him. Not yet! Please don’t take my life from
me!”

There was no answer from the star-filled sky
as I sat rocking Vance against my body.

I held him for a few more minutes before I
gently laid him back onto the stone altar, laying my head against
his bloody chest. As I wiped at my swollen eyes, I spied the box
that had caused all this misery still lying open on the altar.

I snatched it up, jumped off the stone and
threw it in the fire. I watched it burn until there was nothing
left of it.

“There!” I said turning to face the rest of
the group. “Now this will never happen to anyone else.”

I felt the rage flowing through me, and I
stalked around the circle, in my blood-soaked clothes, glaring at
the dead bodies that were lying there. I began picking up each
demon body by myself, dragging it over to the fire, and throwing
them one by one into the flames.

My family just watched me, not helping me,
knowing somehow that I needed to do this.

I put all of my frustration into the task
until I finally came to the last demon body. It was Fiona’s. When I
reached out to pick up Fiona’s body, another set of hands came to
join mine.

“I can do this myself!” I shouted, looking
up into the face of the offending individual.

My dad looked at me with sad eyes before he
released the body and stepped backward.

I dragged Fiona over to the fire, not using
any magic, choosing to exert myself physically as much as possible.
I tossed her unceremoniously into the flames, watching without
emotion while they licked up and devoured her corpse. The air
filled with the acrid smell of burning flesh.

I stood like a statue, in complete silence,
and waited until every figure in the inferno disappeared, leaving
no visible trace behind.

My dad and Grandma came forward then and
began using some of their magic to extinguish the flames. When the
fire was out, they cast a spell out over the ground, making it
appear completely untouched in the moonlight. One would never know
there had been a fire here.

I felt someone’s hands on my shoulders and
turned to see Shelly’s sympathetic eyes staring back at me. I
looked away from her and up into the sky at the bright full moon
that shone down upon us, before I turned back toward the recumbent
stone altar.

“I’m going to take Krista down to the car
now, and then I’ll come back for Vance,” I heard my dad’s voice
say.

I nodded slightly in acknowledgment.

“Why don’t you all go help him?” I added
woodenly to the rest of the group. “I’d like a minute here alone
before we move Vance.”

No one answered me, but I saw that they
slowly trickled out of the circle after Dad.

When they were all gone, I climbed back up
onto the stone and knelt next to Vance’s body.

Even in death, he still looked beautiful to
me. I wiped at some of the blood that was smeared across his face,
but it had dried too much already for me to remove it. I gently
slid my hands beneath him and lifted his head to cradle it in my
lap.

I slowly ran my fingers over his eyelids,
closing them over the now-empty blue eyes that stared back at me.
There were no traces of the demon face I had seen earlier when he
had been fighting for his life.

As I ran my fingers through his hair
repeatedly, I wondered if this would be the last time I would ever
be able to do this.

“I love you,” I whispered softly to him.
“Wherever you are, I hope you can still hear me. I will never stop
loving you. If I live to be a thousand years old, your name will
still be on the first breath I take in the morning, and it will be
the last thing I say at night.” I paused for a moment, tracing my
fingers over his masculine features. “Please forgive me for not
being able to save you,” I said and I reached down to intertwine my
fingers with his, lifting his hand to my mouth to lightly kiss each
one of his fingertips.

When I was done, I gently laid my cheek
against the back of his hand, trying to memorize the feel of it
there. I stayed that way in silence for several long moments before
my dad’s voice finally interrupted me.

“Are you ready, Portia?” he asked from
beside me.

“Yes,” I replied, slowly nodding my
head.

I gently moved out from under Vance’s head
and slid back down to the ground. I stood back while Dad reached up
and pulled Vance’s limp form into his arms. I couldn’t help the
little gasp that escaped my lips when his unsupported head fell
backwards.

Grandma appeared next to me then, stepping
up to the stone and reciting something over it. Instantly Vance’s
blood that stained the rock began to disappear. She turned then and
placed an arm around my shoulders.

Without a word we followed Dad together,
making our way out of the circle and down the path to where the
vehicles were waiting.

Dad carried Vance over to where he had
parked his car just a short time earlier, the door still standing
wide open the way he had left it.

“Put him in the backseat with me,” I
instructed, and Dad nodded his head in agreement.

I climbed into the seat from the driver’s
side and scooted over so Dad could lay the body inside. Once again
I cradled Vance’s head in my lap.

Dad got in behind the wheel, and Grandma got
in the front passenger seat.

“We decided to go back to the keep tonight.
We’ll have more privacy there than at the hotel,” Dad
explained.

“Okay,” I replied, feeling numb.

“Do you feel comfortable enough for such a
long trip?” Grandma asked me with a concerned look.

“I’m fine,” I said, staring at the body
lying next to me. “Let’s go.”

I was actually glad that I was going to have
the extra time to just be with him. I wasn’t ready to let go just
yet. I reached out to place his hand in mine, and I could feel the
coolness beginning to creep into his limbs now.