Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) (43 page)

When I peered closer, I
recognized a few faces among the Normans on each screen: Chandra in
India, Minh’s second-in-command in front of the Sydney Opera
House, and there were Trevor, Sundae, and their whole pack of Amadis
werewolves in a crowd of Normans with Stone Mountain, Georgia, in the
background. My heart leapt into my already tight throat.

The weirdest part of
the whole situation, though, was what brought Vanessa to this room: A
few dozen men, dressed in various styles of clothes from jeans and
t-shirts to thousand-dollar suits, standing in perfectly lined rows
and staring glassy-eyed at the front of the room. They all appeared
to be in their early to mid-twenties, most with various shades of
brown and reddish-brown hair, although a few blonds were mixed in,
many with dark eyes and olive-toned skin. Enough shared features to
show that they were not only related to each other and Noah, but also
to me.

We’d found the
Summoned and their offspring.

Vanessa stepped farther
into the room and snapped her fingers in front of the face of the man
closest to us. He showed no reaction. I’d expected them to
attack us on Lucas’s orders the instant we arrived, but they
only stood there, still as statues. Would this really be so easy? I
doubted it.

As if in response to my
silent inquiry, a man’s head turned toward me, and he gave me a
creepy grin that didn’t reach his glazed eyes. Then he looked
forward again while his lips moved, as though he spoke, but no sound
came. Suddenly, gunfire erupted on a monitor close to him. My eyes to
flew to it. The people on the screen screamed and some tried to run,
but they were all gunned down, eventually falling into a bloody mass
of bodies.

I clamped my hand over
my mouth before I screamed, too.

“Thought you’d
like that little demonstration,” a familiar female voice said
from between two of the Summoned where she’d appeared from thin
air.

The two men didn’t
move as Jeana, dressed in her dominatrix costume, pushed her way past
them. A moment later, Merrick showed himself, too. Sasha jumped from
my jacket and grew to stand nearly a foot taller than me before her
paws even hit the ground. Her wings sprouted from her back, her
stripes came out, and her upper lip curled away from her fangs.

“Oh, good. She’s
exactly why we brought you here,” Jeana said as she appraised
the lykora.

“Shit,” we
all muttered under our collective breath. This had all been a trap
for Sasha?

“Yes, shit for
you, but not for us,” Jeana sing-songed as she swaggered back
and forth in front of Sasha, as though inspecting the lykora like she
planned to make an offer of purchase. Except Jeana wouldn’t
bother with an offer. That wasn’t who she was. She would simply
take.

“So you finally
pulled your two brain cells together and figured out Lucas’s
secret sauce?” I asked, trying to mask my fear for the
lykora—and the world—behind snark.

Jeana laughed. “Oh,
child, we’ve always known his secret. Do you really think we’re
as stupid as Kali and tried to overtake Lucas? He’s our master.
He’ll soon be our Lord. That whole interrogation skit was a
ruse. What we really needed to know then was the extent of the
connection between the lykora and the Norman soldiers, and we learned
when she was shot how they all felt her pain. That’s a weakness
as long as we don’t have possession of the mutt. So thank you
for making this special delivery. Maybe if you’d played London
a little smarter and handed the lykora over then, the last
matriarch-whore’s vampire mate would still be around.”

At the mention of Rina
and Solomon, anger blossomed within me, and I lunged at her. She
dropped her arms to her sides, splayed out her hands, and I froze in
place as intense power jolted through me. Only for a moment, though,
before it began streaming the other way. She’d created a
connection that sucked the electrical energy from my body and
straight into hers, locking my muscles up. I tried to push her off
with a shove of my Amadis power, but she easily dismissed it with a
wave of her hand. Tristan moved between us to block her access to me,
severing the connection, and he lifted his hand, raising Jeana up
with it. But Merrick shot a spell at Tristan, blasting him into the
wall. Cracks splintered across the plaster, and a screen fell and
shattered on the floor. Several of the Summoned sons suddenly sprang
into action, and chaos erupted.

While Merrick and Jeana
plastered themselves against the wall and controlled some of the men
to move in front of them in a protective half-circle, they apparently
ordered others to divvy up and attack us. They didn’t use any
powers, only fists and feet as they punched and kicked. Tristan had
anticipated this, although we’d expected Lucas to be the one
controlling them, and we’d agreed that we didn’t want to
hurt the Summoned. They’d hopefully be on our side soon. So I
only fought back enough to minimize the blows that landed on my body.

Jeana and Merrick were
our real targets.

I couldn’t use my
electric power, though, because they’d only latch onto it and
charge their own magic with the energy. So while swinging my arms and
legs to parry the Summoned’s attacks, I gathered my Amadis
power within me and created a bubble of energy, letting it expand
within my body. And then I pushed it outward in an explosion of
power. The wave hit the Summoned closest to me, knocking them off
their feet. The ones in front of Merrick and Jeana fell, too.

Owen took the
opportunity and shot a spell at Merrick, but the sorcerer shoved it
back at him, sending Owen flying into one of the Summoned. Spells and
powers started flying, most deflected into the floor and walls.
Another screen exploded with impact. With no real powers but her
body, Vanessa launched herself at Merrick, but he already flew for
Sasha. The lykora snapped and bit at him, crunching her jaw around
his arm. He blasted a spell that not only sent her flying, but
everyone else in the room, too. I crashed into the wall, and my head
banged against the corner of a screen, but the gash that it left
healed up right away.

Merrick and Jeana stood
in the center of the room. Everyone else jumped to their feet. The
Summoned sprang at us, but Tristan, Owen, and I swished our hands all
at the same time, throwing them back, away from us, as we advanced on
the sorcerers. My glare remained on Jeana, specifically. I drew my
dagger, still concealed, and lifted it for the throw. The sorceress
twisted her hands in front of her and pulled them to her hip, as
though yanking on a rope. My energy flowed like a river out to her,
bringing me to my knees in a nanosecond. Tristan twisted his hand,
and the sorceress flew back several feet, but she stopped herself in
midair with her own magic, her hold on me never loosening. Using the
bit of strength I could hold onto, I threw the dagger, thumbing the
amethyst at the last moment to reveal the blade before it arced
end-over-end in the air and drove into Jeana’s shoulder right
above her heart. She fell to the floor on her ass.

The energy drain
stopped, and my mind exploded, clearing out what felt like cotton
stuffing clogging my brain. I hadn’t noticed the filling in my
head until everyone’s thoughts came loud and clear, the
onslaught momentarily blacking out my physical surroundings. Hundreds
of dots of mind signatures in the distance filled my head, but when I
tried to latch onto most of those in the room, their thoughts came up
blank. But I had no problem hearing Jeana’s and Merrick’s,
which I shared with Tristan, Owen, and Vanessa.

Owen and Merrick had
continued trading spells back and forth, Owen holding his own, but
Merrick was about to let one go that aimed for me rather than the
warlock. Owen shot a spell at him first, while Tristan full on
charged at him like a pissed off bull.

I did my own charging,
right toward Jeana who tried once again to pull on my energy. The
silver blade still protruding from her shoulder weakened her, though.
At the same time she tried to suck me dry, she ordered the Summoned
to attack again. Focused solely on Jeana, I absently punched at the
men who lunged at me, knocking them away, as I pushed my other powers
against Jeana, blocking her pull as I ran for her. Vanessa blurred
over to the sorceress, looped her arm around Jeana’s neck, and
locked her in a chokehold for me. I plowed into the bitch with my
left palm lifted and shoved Amadis power into her as hard as I could.
Her body arched and convulsed against Vanessa, and she screamed
obscenities at me, yelling over the sounds of Tristan and Owen
fighting with Merrick and the Summoned.

Then Jeana fell
suddenly silent, and she gave me an agony-filled grin before looking
up to the Summoned standing closest to her and giving him a slight
nod. I picked up on no exchange of thoughts, but she somehow
communicated with him.

Gunfire erupted on the
screen right behind her. Normans and Amadis slumped to the ground.

“Stop!” I
shouted, and everyone in the room froze, presumably under Tristan’s
power.

“You
can’t
stop them,” Merrick said, his voice full of glee, and another
Summoned’s lips moved, followed by more shooting and Normans
and Amadis dropping execution style. I shared a thought with Vanessa,
her fangs slid fully out, and she pierced them into Jeana’s
throat, drawing a trickle of blood. Merrick let out a sound of
disinterest. “Even if you kill us, Lucas will take over.”

More gunfire. My
stomach lurched as another group was mowed down by the Norman
super-soldiers. My eyes stung as my gaze bounced between the three
screens showing piles of dead bodies and soldiers standing there,
just staring, with no understanding or awareness of what they’d
done to their fellow humans. About thirty or so more monitors still
displayed small crowds begging for their lives. Jeana and Merrick—and
if not them, Lucas—would keep going until they’d all been
executed, or we gave them Sasha. And probably our own lives, too. We
needed to stop them. But how?

“You could kill
the controllers here,” Jeana suggested, her tone snide as she
guessed at my thoughts. I certainly wasn’t sharing them with
her. She flicked her hand toward the Summoned and their offspring.
“But I imagine there’s still
hope
for some of
them. Isn’t that what you’re always looking for?”

“Not that it
would matter much,” Merrick added. “With the lykora’s
blood in them, Lucas still has those soldiers’ loyalty.”

I wasn’t so sure
about that. The soldiers seemed to be more loyal to Sasha than Lucas,
which could be our advantage when the time came. But first, we had to
address the Summoned and their offspring. And killing them wasn’t
an option. We weren’t here just to save the Normans, but to
save the Summoned, as well. Not only did we plan to protect their
souls from damnation when we figured out how to break the curse, but
we also hoped they would fight with us, helping us to win this war.

“Of course, you
could kill Sasha,” Jeana purred, and my heart immediately
recoiled at the thought. I glared at her with pure hatred. “That’s
the name Dorian gave the mutt, right? If you kill her, the soldiers
will immediately go down, too.”

I narrowed my eyes at
her.

“Like we said
before, she’s their weakness,” Merrick said. “But
can
you do it? That’s the question.”

Jeana stared at me with
a smirk on her lips and excitement alight in her dark eyes, igniting
the red glow of the Daemoni. I didn’t think it possible, but
this little bitch held more evil in her soul than Kali ever dreamed
of. It pulsed out of her in waves that rippled over me … into
me. If she couldn’t drain me of my power, she would fill me
with her own black energy.

“Those are your
options, poppet,” she said, her voice dark and gravelly. “What
ever are you going to do?”

I stared at her for a
long moment before returning her smirk as my mind ran through all the
things I’d wanted to do to her from the moment she dared to
touch my son. I
did
share those thoughts with her.

“
Those are not
our only options
,” Tristan mind-spoke to me. I nodded,
knowing he was right, and Jeana’s brows furrowed. I closed off
my mind from hers at the same time Norman soldiers shot down another
group.

Let’s end
this
, I growled into my team’s heads
. Before anyone else
dies. Jeana’s and Merrick’s souls are black. There is no
hope. Vanessa and Owen, put the controllers to sleep. Tristan, you
can have Merrick, but I get this bitch.

Vanessa released the
sorceress and blurred around the room, and before they could react,
the Summoned and their offspring fell unconscious as Owen raced to
catch them and lay them on the floor. Jeana’s mouth fell open
with shock at first, and then her eyes filled with panic. I didn’t
pay attention to what Tristan did to Merrick, but based on the sounds
of the sorcerer’s wails, I knew he suffered terrifically. I had
my own evil wretch to take care of.

I narrowed my eyes,
lifted one corner of my mouth in a half-smile, and lunged at Jeana’s
paralyzed body. She cried out when I yanked my dagger out of her
shoulder and tried to mumble a spell at me, but I swung around and
kicked her in the face. Her head snapped to the side and her teeth
smashed together, shutting her up. Before she could try another
spell, I threw myself at her again, my dagger pointed at her heart.
But I didn’t stab her with it. Instead, I fisted the hilt and
drew the sharp tip through her skin, gritting my teeth against her
siren screams of pain as I twisted and pulled artfully. Blood filled
the lines between the flesh and spilled over the edges, leaving a
trail over the curve of her breasts and into her blouse. When I
finished my etching, I paused for a brief moment to admire my
artwork. Unfortunately, too much blood flowed through my crude
rendition of the Amadis symbol carved into her chest.