Arthur watched him through narrowed eyes, knowing at this moment Vance would be at his most unpredictable and dangerous, uneasy and unable to discern what his next move would be. Vance proved him right when he disappeared, reappearing suddenly behind Gwen.
Arthur shouted a warning just as Vance grabbed Gwen’s shoulder, shoving her back against him. He gave Arthur a satisfied smile as Gwen gave a soft gasp.
Arthur stared in horror at Vance’s sword protruding out through Gwen’s torso, a crimson pool of blood soaking through her shirt around the sharp blade. Gwen’s eyes widened with shock as she blinked down at the fatal wound, then back up at Arthur.
“I…love you.”
Her broken whisper carried to him in the deathly still air. No sound issued as if swallowed into a huge vacuum as Vance pulled the sword out from her back, and she fell in a boneless heap to the dirt, her eyes glazed as death prepared to wrap her in its black folds.
“
No
!” Denial bellowed out of him as his heart ripped from its moorings, tearing away at the soft muscle as his voice carried the sound of horror, loss, and grief so profound he knew he wouldn’t,
couldn’t
live through it. He didn’t want to. A world without Gwen? He would be only a shadow, a hollowed out shell. His heart would continue to beat, but his soul would be destroyed.
He
would be destroyed.
“I’ll leave you to say goodbye I have what I need, a life for a life. Morgan will be pleased with the witch I’m sure.”
Arthur didn’t hear Vance’s taunt or his manic laughter, his entire focus was on the figure laying so still, a small broken doll discarded in the dirt. He cradled Gwen to his chest, unaware he moved. Her flesh, still warm, would give him hope if he didn’t see her sightless gaze and the paleness of her skin. Her blood covered him as he pressed her to him with a gentle hand. He brushed her fiery red curls away from her face.
“I won’t live without you. Wait for me, love, I won’t be long,” he promised, brushing his lips over her cold ones.
Vance’s voice broke into his awareness as he spoke the spell in ancient Latin to bring Morgan back from the dead. One more duty to perform and he would be done. Right now, he had a monster to kill.
Arthur laid Gwen’s body down. His hand gently closed her eyes and arranged her to look like she was just sleeping, her arms at her sides. The sharp tang of her blood choked him as he rose to face her murderer. He welcomed the boiling rage that rose in him, wrath filled his veins with acid, burning from the inside out. His total focus on the ritual of blood—Gwen’s blood—to birth a monster worse than its spawn. He raised Excalibur high and, with a harsh animalistic roar, lunged.
Vance’s eyes grew wide. Unprepared for the sudden onslaught, he barely pulled his sword up to defend his throat as Excalibur came down with brutal force. Vance’s sword flew out of his hand, but Arthur refused to relent, his focus on the destruction of the man who left his life in ashes.
Arthur wielded Excalibur with vicious fury, his powerful swing cutting through flesh, muscle and bone with little resistance. The look of shock on Vance’s face would have been comical if not for all the pain he caused. Then slowly his head toppled as his body jerked, staggering back before falling beside his head.
The grey-green landscape dissipated, the soul eaters retreating back to their realm of nightmares as once again, the arena solidified around him. A pulsing light brought his attention to the overturned urn that held Morgan’s ashes. The glow built, gathering strength, before it burst through the entire arena, bathing it in a luminescent light.
With a sonic boom, the spell went supernova, blasting Arthur off his feet and hurtling him through the air to crash several feet away from the shinning outline of a woman.
Arthur shook his head to stop the ringing in his ears and gripped Excalibur tight in his hand. It looked like they were well and truly fucked.
Vance had won the war after all, and for the first time in his lives, he couldn’t seem to give a damn.
* * * *
Am I dead?
She tried to recall how she got here and came up empty. Like a dream fading, she knew something significant happened. She just didn’t remember what. The sense of leaving something important behind gnawed at her insides. Who or what was it? She huffed out a frustrated breath, so many questions with no answers. Not what she expected when one died. You were supposed to have all your questions known when you crossed over.
“But you haven’t crossed over, yet.”
She jumped, turning to the sound of a woman’s soft words. Contentment eased into her as she looked for the author of such a pure voice, yet nothing but white met her eyes.
“Where am I?”
“At the crossroads, you have a choice to make. To go back or continue onto the other side.”
“A choice, why?” Gwen frowned. “You do know it’s very disconcerting, talking to someone who isn’t there. Who
are
you?”
The sweet tones of laughter swirled around her, a spellbinding symphony of notes holding her in thrall.
“I am the one you call to when you are in need, the one who gives you strength in times of battle. I nurture you when you are lost. You are my child whom I love unconditionally.”
Shock and awe squeezed the air from her lungs and only a faint whisper escaped her lips, “Hecate.”
The white shifted, forming around two glowing blue eyes. Sleek muscles under thick white fur formed as a massive wolf emerged and pinned her with its penetrating stare.
“Yes, my child, and you have a choice to make.”
The words came into her mind as she held the wolf’s gaze, snared by the intelligence in their sparkling blue depths.
“How, why?”
“A dark and vengeful spell was created, but two lives were sacrificed giving you this choice, but heed me well, you will be required to fight for the right to live.”
Hecate’s words brought a memory on the fringes on her brain, but no matter how hard she tried to grasp it, it would not crystallize. “Who will I need to fight?”
“Morgan le Fay. The sorceress is ready to grasp the chance to command the world you left. You must be vigilant against her and her magic. She will tempt you with lies and try to destroy you with her black powers.”
Loss gripped her in a steel vise, the suddenness of it taking her by surprise. She left behind someone. The knowledge rang loud and urgent, a klaxon bell rattling inside her head. This someone mattered more to her than her own life. A face filled her vision. Dark, amber flecked eyes filled with love. A face of pure male beauty etched in angles sharp and clear. She clearly pictured a broad forehead, the straight aristocratic nose and cheekbones jutting high and proud. His lips were full and generous as they curled up at the ends in a sinful smile.
Arthur!
How could she forget? He owned her heart, body and soul, always and forever. For him, she would meet Morgan head on. For the chance of a life with him, there was little she wouldn’t sacrifice.
“Yes, little one, for your true love you need to fight and fight well. I will always be there for you, my most favored child, yet I cannot interfere with what is to be.”
“I know the old saying, nothing worth having comes without a price. I get that, but did it have to be with the mother of all badasses?”
Laughter again wrapped her up with a sense of euphoria. “Do not sell yourself short. You need all your confidence for to doubt yourself is to lose your chance at life.”
Her words of warning filled the space, a harbinger of the evil to follow. The wolf dissolved into a churning landscape of shadows devouring the white, leaving behind the icy touch of evil as it swelled and boiled over, swallowing her whole into a dark twilight where evil dwelled and thrived.
She grasped Hecate’s parting words to her, a lifeline of hope among the hopeless and damned.
To doubt yourself is to lose your chance
repeated like a mantra in her mind, a prayer set to the quickening of her pulse.
A form took shape, separating from the shadows, to glide toward her. Hair, black as a raven’s wing, whipped around a strikingly beautiful face, pale as cream blood red lips parted in a smile which didn’t reach her hard obsidian eyes. A grey sheer swath of fabric wrapped around her long lithe form. Energy, dark and twisted, pulsed around her, throwing a purple aura around her, which crackled with menace. The horrendous beauty of Morgan le Fey struck Gwen with a cold knot of fear, thickening her blood to sludge as her heart labored to push it through her body.
Those emotionless black eyes bored into her, making her flesh cringe, seeking a way to peel off her bones and flee. Her brain screamed for her to move yet her feet remained stuck to the spot, unable to move from the malevolence feeding on her fear.
“How dare you think to deny me life?” Morgan seethed, the sound as brittle as dead leaves brushing against each other.
To doubt yourself is to lose your chance. Doubt and all is lost, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt no doubt no doubt…
the chant ran over and over in her brain, stilling her panic and clearing her thoughts enough to think. She would fight and win against the repulsive ugliness masked in a façade of seduction and beauty. She would fight to keep this vileness from spilling over into her world, battle for the right to have a life with Arthur, a family and love. These were dreams worth fighting for, stronger than anything Morgan could dredge up in her black heart.
A soothing calm settled over her, lifting the last vestiges of fear from her soul and filling her with calm determination. “Game on, bitch.”
With a hiss of outrage, Morgan raised her hands. A sudden wind whipped her hair around her head like a nest of angry vipers. Shadows boiled, growing blacker as they circled her. A deep purple glow formed in her hands as her perfect lips twisted into a sneer. “I promise you a slow painful death, witch.”
Gwen dug down deep, knowing without her crystals she would need to channel pure power through her as the conduit, something she never did before. She cut the thought off abruptly. She would do this, nothing else was acceptable. Her body shook as she brought the magic to her by will alone, filling and expanding until her hands shimmered with a brilliant incandescent light.
Morgan hurtled her magic toward her, a purple ball of crackling energy. She shielded instinctively, watching as the ball morphed, elongating and gaining mass. A long snout pushed through the sphere, massive jaws filled with jagged teeth. The head formed, horns sprouting along its forehead to curve back along its jawbone. Leathery wings burst from the purple-scaled skin. Claws, sharp and curved, angled toward her, its tail slashed through the air a deadly spike on the end, sweeping close to where she stood.
She held her ground against the shadow dragon, knowing to take even one small step back would give Morgan the advantage she wanted. Instead, she formed her own beast, as white as Morgan’s was dark, her dragon burst from her hands, growing huge as it towered in front of her, its white scales pearlescent in the light of her magic, yet no less deadly with its sharp fangs and claws.
With an ear-splitting roar, the shadow dragon attacked, belching out a stream of fire. The white dragon countered with ice, leaving sulfur-ridden smoke in its stead. With another roar, the shadow dragon closed the distance between them, its tail lashing forward, and gained purchase in the white dragon’s hide.
Blood dripped from between its scales and with a growl of rage, the white reared back, using claws to rip at the shadow’s vulnerable stomach. Giving no quarter, the white surged forward, his jaws closing over the shadow’s neck in a fatal strike.
The dragons dissolved into vapor, swirling together, light and dark, until it faded into the grey landscape of their surroundings. Morgan screamed her rage at Gwen’s easy victory, firing a volley of fireballs at Gwen, who easily deflected them with a swipe of her hand.
“Is that all you got? I would have thought someone touted to be the most powerful sorceress ever born would give me more of a fight,” Gwen taunted.
She was rewarded as Morgan screeched like a banshee, her body lighting up with a deep purple glow. Gwen could feel the tug of the magic, dark and oily, as Morgan pulled her power, no doubt ready to incinerate her on the spot.
Well, she had a surprise of her own for the dark sorceress as she wove her magic into a perfect weapon. She weaved her magic as one would make chain mail, interlocking the webs with one clear cut directive.
Her body shuddered and beads of perspiration formed on her brow. Gwen felt the erratic beat of
ka-thump, ka…ka-thump, thump.
Soon her organs would start to fail, shutting down one at a time. No human could channel so much magic without a conduit and live.
And that was the gamble. She may have been human, but dying put her on an equal playing field with Morgan, more or less. Placed on the defensive, all her reactions so far were in the knee-jerk category. Not a very well thought out plan for sure, but she needed to think on her feet, no luxury of time and preparation to be had.
Gwen finished her spell, her breath sawing in and out as if she just ran a marathon. She didn’t have time to send up a quick prayer to Hecate as Morgan let loose the powers of hell on her, surrounding her in a noxious purple cloud of black magic. An electric shock sizzled down her spine, threating to fry her synapses to ash.