He might not even have seen me—surely he knew I was here. But he didn’t look at me, not even a glance. Didn’t acknowledge me. He was busy, after all.
She hissed and kept thrashing, as if it would do some good. “I’ll not repent. I will not repent!”
“I wasn’t asking,” he said. “But, you know, if you wanted to, I’d listen.”
“Traitor! You’re a traitor twice over!”
“I was never subject to the will of your Master.”
“He made you! He made you all!”
“And we owe him nothing for that, thank God. But you—you chose your allegiance a long time ago, didn’t you? You fell with him, you’ll sink with him.”
With a great wrenching heave of her arm, she pulled at one of the cables—and snapped the stake out of the ground. One of Rick’s companions jumped to grab hold of the wire and hauled back to steady it before she could yank out any others.
Meanwhile, Rick spoke, reciting something epic in Latin, a prayer or a curse. An exorcism.
Ashtoreth shouted back at him, spitting as she did. I couldn’t understand her, but it sounded like yet another language. Not Latin, but obviously something filled with hate and expletives. Rick didn’t acknowledge her again. He was on a script. The two other vampires pulled back on the cords that held her, keeping her immobile, locked in place.
The battle of words continued. It was not simple, and it was not easy. Rick braced himself, booted feet dug into the earth, and the two vampires at the lines and stakes were struggling to keep the monster they’d caught at bay. Seconds ticked by.
Then Rick raised the golden harpoon and struck, pulling back over his shoulder and stabbing up into her chest.
Every other time we’d attacked or immobilized her, whether with weapons or magic, she’d escaped before we could do any damage. She called a wind, opened some kind of vortex to whatever world she came from, and vanished, just like that. She had some kind of teleporting ability, and if you could just zap yourself away from anywhere, why wouldn’t you, when you were about to lose a fight? But that didn’t happen this time.
The harpoon struck, sinking through her leather armor and her chest, like a knife through butter. Ashtoreth threw her head back and screamed, a thunderous, echoing noise that rattled through the woods and across the lake. The harpoon blazed gold, and the light engulfed the demon. She kept screaming, and I pressed my hands over my ears to stop the noise. Heat came off her, the heat from the sun on a bright summer’s day. This was sunlight in the darkest night. It was glorious.
Covered and protected in their cloaks and hoods, Rick and his companions ducked away, and I did, too. There was a boom, then stillness.
I looked, and she was gone. Not even ash remained. The hooks, cords, and stakes were gone. The harpoon was gone, even. The ground where she’d stood was scuffed up, that was all. I couldn’t smell a whiff of brimstone, and the air was amazingly still.
“Rick?” I said, my voice taut, and ran out of the shelter of the trees.
“Kitty!” He actually smiled.
I jumped at him, and he had enough wherewithal to catch me and return the hug I gave him. I had my friend back.
We separated, still gripping each other’s arms. My mouth opened, but I had nothing to say. Or too much to say. This had taken too long, it had already taken too long. I might already be too late.
His companions joined us after brushing themselves off and retrieving their staves. They’d pulled back their hoods, revealing their faces. The first was a woman, tall and well muscled, strong and supple, with ebony skin and close-cropped hair. Her expression was calm and stern. The second was a man who might have been Arabic, his skin cinnamon colored, his black hair tied in a ponytail. He smiled crookedly, wryly. They stood together, lined up next to Rick. They were a team, and I wondered what he’d been doing for the last year.
“This is your Regina Luporum?” the vampire with the ponytail said. His accent was Middle Eastern, musical.
“Oh, she isn’t mine,” Rick said. “She is all her own.”
Too many questions. So I just stood there.
“Speechless?” Rick asked, clearly amused.
“What are you doing here?”
“We’ve been tracking you all night, but you hardly slowed down for us to catch up. Until now.”
“You killed her,” I breathed. “Finally.”
“No, I don’t think I did,” he said, and sighed. “She’s not dead. But she won’t be coming back anytime soon.”
“What did it take—that spear, blessed by the pope?”