‹ Prequel: To Bleed for Him

As She Fades

Waters Rising

"Water is rising, coming to wash it all away.
There's no denying we were so wrong.
Water is rising, coming to wash the filth away.
There's no denying we are so…lost.

Staring down the end of time, every fear is realized.
Crying out, it's much too late; there's nothing we can do to save,
For the time has come."
- Alter Bridge

Light flashed over the sharp edge of her machete as Torryn swung the blade through the air, but to her surprise, it made contact with nothing but the cold wind that pressed against it. One minute, Emmeline's neck had been right in her path. The next, the woman was gone.

Torryn smelled the scent of the vampire's light floral perfume before she even sensed her presence, and she ducked beneath a slash of the woman's own dagger before she rammed her foot back and into her stomach, quick, desperate to catch her before she vanished again. She made contact. A rush of air left the vampire's painted lips. But when Torryn let her blade cut through the air, she once again met no resistance but the breeze.

Sensing the vampire at her side, she shifted the machete in her grip and stabbed to her left, but Emmeline danced out of the way before promptly diving back into range, her knife hissing through the air as she began to swing wildly. She continued forward while Torryn dipped and dodged the attempted strikes, slowly being forced backward by the vampire's never-ending approach. She spotted a small opening and lifted her machete to guard her throat. The woman's smaller dagger clanked against the larger knife, and with a hard thrust of the machete, Torryn managed to fling the dagger from Emmeline's grip and far across the street they now brawled in.

She was hefting her weapon in preparation for a final, fatal attack when the vampire slammed her foot into Torryn's stomach, and the breath left her lungs in a painful rush, the wind whistling around her ears as she sailed backward over the asphalt and the clang of metal ringing out as her machete fell from her fingers and crashed to the asphalt below. Two broad-shouldered, familiar figures stepped in to take her place, standing just where she'd stood in front of Emmeline only an instant ago. As she neared the end of her aerial journey, warm fingers wrapped around her arms to stop her travel, and her back thudded against a well-muscled chest. She knew without looking who it was. She knew it even before the faint scent of wolf reached her nose, before a deep bass rumbled through her back.

Raphael.

"You're okay," he murmured, and she let herself relax just barely against him as the heat of his healing fingers seeped into her and swam through the entirety of her form. "I'm glad. Why do you always have to worry me like this?"

She recognized the faintest hint of teasing in his ever-serious tone, and she cracked a smile in spite of the battle that loomed before her. "I'm just good like that, I guess. Thank you for coming. Thank you for healing me." She wished she could offer a better thank-you, but she didn't now how to put into words the euphoric sensation of no longer having broken ribs and bloodied knuckles and exhausted muscles after struggling with them for so long.

He gave her arms a gentle squeeze, and the warmth tingling through her intensified — but not with healing. She felt herself flush, resting her hands over his on her arms and hoping that he knew what he meant to her. He cared. And she loved him for it.

Metal clanged and scraped as Emmeline's overturned car suddenly jolted into the air, the two unconscious vampires in the front seat only now jerking awake, but Torryn's eyes were drawn past Skylar's still form and to Antony, blurring with vampiric speed as he and Emmeline went toe to toe. The woman's weapon once again glinted in the light of the street lamp as she swung with wicked quickness, but Antony dodged smoothly enough that he made it look easy and even managed to land a few blows of his own. He had only fists and feet, elbows and knees, but that seemed to be more than enough for him. Blood gushed from the half-healed lacerations along her face that he'd managed to rip open again, and both vampires bared their teeth in vicious snarls as they brawled. And still, out of the corner of her eye, Torryn could see the totaled car, bobbing and swaying in the air, and Skylar's hands clenching and unclenching as he watched, plotted, waited for an opening — waited for Antony to get out of the way this time.

She couldn't help but remember the first time Antony and Skylar had seen battle together — against each other — back when she'd been a big enough wreck to just blurt to Skylar in passing that she'd cheated on him with Antony, back when she'd known Skylar as a mere human boy and not a high-level telekinetic, back when Antony had been alive. He'd lifted Antony's Ferrari — the one she'd wrecked in a fit of emotion — and gone toe to toe with the vampire himself.

She'd been a jerk. Skylar had been a jerk. Antony had been a jerk. They'd all been jerks.

And really, not much had changed.

Suddenly, returning to the present, she remembered what a damaged mess both of the men had been only half an hour earlier, nearly dead then but vibrant and powerful and battle ready now, and her eyes widened in unabashed awe. "You're a miracle worker, Raphael," she said as she twisted in his arms to look back at him.

He smiled, wicked and playful and ever confident. "I don't like to brag, but…"

"Thank you." She curled her fingers around his on her arms, and though he held her hands back, the healing heat never ceased. Even though he thought that Antony would be better off dead, he'd healed the vampire back into perfect fighting shape. God, she hoped he knew how much he meant to her. She hoped he knew how truly incredible he was, as a healer and a person. "Thank you so much. You're amazing. I…just…Thank you."

When the brutal crash of a car hitting asphalt echoed down the empty street, she turned from the werewolf to focus her attention on the fight before her. Antony had jumped free of the battle to avoid being crushed, but so had Emmeline, and so had her two cronies in the car leaped from the vehicle just before its unfortunate meeting with the ground. They stood now, brushing the dust from their suits, and Emmeline's cackling laughter once again rang out high on the air.

"Be careful," Torryn said as she slipped free of Raphael's hold, the warmth dissipating instantly to leave her cold and sore, only half healed. "Be safe." And with that, she stepped back onto the battlefield, her eyes focused solely on Emmeline.

-?-

"Two of my strongest," Emmeline declared brightly with a gesture to the pair of well-dressed vampires that now stood to either side of her. Blood stained their suits, matted their hair, and sat caked upon their faces, but they had no wounds to speak of. They healed just as quickly as Emmeline did, apparently. "Only mere steps below myself in the vampiric food chain."

Skylar twitched his fingers unconsciously as he contemplated his first strike against these men. Throw the car again? No, it was heavy, heavy enough that lifting it with telekinesis was nearly as draining as it would've been to try to lift it in person even with the strength of an undead vampire. Go straight for the bodies? See about physically maneuvering them to their deaths? No, no. Vampires and other nonhumans were notoriously hard to manipulate, and even a human would've worn him down through that method of attack. Dive right in for the fist fight? Sure, if he wanted to die. There were street signs, trees, parts of the car to wield. There had to be something reasonable…

But then, Emmeline was speaking again, and she squeaked out a simple "Good luck!" before two burly vampires were rushing forward, one toward Skylar and one toward Torryn, and he had to think fast.

With another twitch of his fingers, the car lurched from the ground with astounding speed, and Skylar did his best not to cringe at the cool tingle laced with pain that danced through him, the surge of energy the lift required. This was his last heavy lift of the day. Any more, and he'd be dealing with the consequences.

He was just about to send the massive lump of twisted metal sailing through the air at the man who rushed toward him when the vampire suddenly blurred and vanished from view, and Skylar barely managed to catch the car as it lurched forward, holding it steady in the air as his senses desperately searched for the missing vampire. A foot to the back alerted him to the bloodsucker's presence, and he growled as he fell forward to sprawl on the asphalt, the pavement and loose gravel tearing at his palms as he tried to catch himself. Why the fuck did he have to be just a human? Why the fuck didn't he have the instincts Torryn and Antony constantly flaunted and threw in his face?

But he didn't let his annoyance distract him, leaping to his feet almost as soon as he'd fallen, and he faced the vampire just in time to see a ghostly pale fist flying toward his face at breakneck speed. Barely, just barely, Skylar managed to throw himself into a crouch to evade the punch, nearly knocking himself off balance in the process, and he let what little battle instinct he had kick into gear. With another twitch of his fingers, unconscious and unnecessary and entirely unnoticed by him, he sent the car shooting through the air even faster than the vampire's fist. The man sensed the vehicle's approach, but he had no chance of moving, though he tried desperately to throw himself backward and out of the car's path. In a split second, with the sound of metal scraping against asphalt echoing down the street with all the agony of nails on a chalkboard, the vampire disappeared from view and Skylar was left with only an eyeful of flashing sparks, deformed metal, and a smear of blood along the pavement — and then, thankfully, ash.

The car came to a stop, and Skylar sagged where he stood, doing his best not to collapse as he panted and scanned the two separate battles that raged on right in front of him. He barely spared a glance in Antony's direction, barely registered that he was going head to head with Emmeline and holding his own, as he found himself drawn to Torryn's battle. She was having trouble.

Torryn.

The half-Progeny.

Known for her endurance and skill at clawing her way out of any fight, no matter how harrowing.

She was having trouble.

Skylar could hardly wrap his head around it as he looked on, watching her clumsily duck beneath oncoming punches and skip back from powerful kicks, her chest rising and falling rapidly with her gasps for breath. She swung; he blocked her. She tried to dash around to his back; he faced her before she could even raise her fist to strike. He hadn't managed to hit her once from what Skylar could see, but still, she struggled, the bruises and gashes covering her form weighing her down along with her painfully obvious exhaustion.

Hadn't Raphael healed her?

Well, of course he had — tried to, anyway. Skylar couldn't see him ever leaving that woman to suffer if he didn't have to. But he could also see Torryn twisting away from him to rush headlong back into battle.

Because that's what she did. And what Skylar did. And what Antony did.

They all ran blind into everything they did, and that's why they were in this mess now.

"God damn it," Skylar growled to himself, and without hesitating to think this through, just as he did everything else, he pushed down the weakness that gripped his own limbs like a vice and sprinted straight at the back of Torryn's wickedly quick opponent.

He bent down to swipe Torryn's fallen machete from the ground as he passed it, and with the Progeny still successfully distracting the vampire and evading every too-quick movement, Skylar had no trouble at all sneaking up behind him, but though he had raised the weapon to strike, he suddenly found himself unable to swing it. A haze fell over his vision, clouded his mind, gripped his every muscle in soothing claw-tipped fingers. He heard her calling in the distance, the Queen, a gentle voice echoing in his mind though he heard nothing in the street — but she didn't call for him.

She called for Torryn.

A yelp from Torryn suddenly jerked Skylar from the mist, and he found himself resuming the action he'd been so rudely interrupted in the middle of, cutting straight through the second sidekick's neck. Skylar cringed as blood spattered Torryn's face, but she only squinted against the rain of red, and as the dust of ash washed over her, she just brushed it away, unconcerned. Her chest still rose and fell in those rapid gasps for air, her face tense with strain, her brow beaded with sweat, and he knew she had much more important matters to think about. Like surviving.

That heavy miasma overpowered his senses once more, and as that silky voice ghosted through his mind, he vaguely felt the machete slipping from his fingers, distantly heard it clang against the asphalt. "Is this what it always feels like?" he asked, breathless, and he tried to look toward Torryn but saw only the features of the master vampire who cooed to them, her purple lips curved in a divine smile, her green eyes bright like Heaven. "When a vampire forces those pheromones into you?" He knew what it felt like to be surrounded in a cloud of invisible little particles demanding that you bend to their every whim, but he'd never felt it like…this. The compulsions had never been so strong. He'd never been so lost yet so found. "Is this…Is this how strong Emmeline really is?" Only a master could produce this much of an effect in someone as mentally tolerant as a telekinetic. That had to be it.

"Yes." Torryn's voice and harsh breathing sounded faint in his mind, miles and miles away, though he knew she stood only inches from his side. "She's stepping up her game. She's…She's calling me to fight for her against Antony."

Skylar turned his attention toward the source of his agonizing bliss, surprised to find that Antony was still holding his own against the vampire queen but pleased to find him fading fast.

He blinked, furrowing his brow. 'Pleased'? 'The vampire queen'? What the hell? No. Wrong.

No.

"She's not healing so fast anymore," came Torryn's far-away voice again. "Antony's managing to hurt her, too. Badly. We might have a chance."

"Should we…" He trailed off and swallowed, hard, longing to rid his voice of its airy scratchiness. It half worked. "Should we help him?"

"Ye—" But she stopped abruptly, and he looked over just in time to watch her stand straighter, her every muscle tight, her body impossibly tense, yet her eyes were both too intent and too empty. What…?

Raphael cried out in obvious shock and pain somewhere behind Skylar, and he turned to watch the man hit the asphalt, unconscious. Someone else was there. Several someones. Flanking the wolf and the group. But before he could take in their faces, their forms, before he could figure out any of the details, an overwhelming warmth tingled through his limbs as a soft, velvety voice to rival even the silk of Emmeline's murmured, "Well, hello, Emmeline."

And Skylar lost himself completely to the haze.