Chapter 8

Sara stood surrounded by piles of bleeding, torn corpses. The blood and viscera of these tree-like monsters pooled around her in the forest, steaking her once brilliant now dirt dusted white fur with dark patches of brown and yellow. She was huffing and breathing heavily. She had killed at least the twenty monsters that she had originally seen advancing on her, but there were easily that many still left around her. How many did the Laricus send? How did he have so many monsters obeying the order of a shifter?

Another two monsters ran at her and she prepared herself to fight again, snapping at them with her power jaws the moment they came into range, but she was slowing down and they were learning her attack patterns, she managed to graze one of them with her teeth but didn’t connect to bite down on anything as it dodged out of the way of her.

She managed to pivot out of the way as the two monsters went to strike at her, finally feeling one of their clawed, root-like fingers graze her side. She let out a yelp of pain, then snarled at them, swiping with her forepaws, one after the other at the closest of the two.

It managed to dodge the first, but the second strike knocked it to the ground, her claws sinking deep into its stomach as it fell. But then the other lunged at her still extended leg, and as she pulled it back, managed to rake its claws along it, scoring deep gashes. Her fur quickly turned bright red as she hopped back away from the monster, holding that leg up and close to her body.

It was then, with her obviously weakened, that the rest of these monsters began closing in. They were going to swarm her and overwhelm her. It wouldn’t be difficult with how injured she was. She snapped at those that got close first, pivoting around and turning as fast as she could to keep them back, but fairly soon they were all around her and she had nowhere to run, no room to dodge either. She was looking around frantically, scared, thinking that this was the end.

But then a barrage of bloody darts slammed into a number of the monsters, throwing them off balance and sending their attention in the direction the attack came from, and running towards them was a healed Nymia, and much more confident looking Jeremiah.

Nymia suddenly became a blur as she raced down towards the with her vampiric speed, and using her momentum and strength, rammed her hands through two monster’s chests, ripping out their still beating hearts before vanishing again in another burst of speed and strength.

Jeremiah stopped before getting to the crowd of monsters and took a deep breath, the vision had given him something, instincts he never had before. He could do this, he could use his power to fight now.

He held a hand out and focused on a group of monsters blocking Sara from having an escape route and with a shout, tried to summon his magic. A bundle of thick, glowing wires and tendrils launched out of his hand like chains and flew towards the monsters…and right through them, anchoring into a boulder behind them.

The monsters noticed this instantly and snapped them out of the surprise Nymia had created with her hit and run attacks, a few of them breaking off to try and deal with Nymia, but the majority decided that the wolf was the currently the weakest, and to try to take out Sara first.

Jeremiah focused on the wires anchored in the boulder and with a loud groan, the anchors yanked the boulder suddenly from the ground and sent it rocketing towards the monsters he missed, plastering them across the ground, crushing them with its force.

He whipped the boulder around again and crushed another few of these monsters as Sara bolted past them, and in a drift of snow-like moonlight transformed into her humanoid shape, one of her arms sporting three terrible gashes started at about her hand and running up just passed her elbow.

She ran over to Jeremiah as the boulder and Nymia distracted and disoriented the remaining monsters. “What…” She panted and shook her head a bit “What took you so long!?”

“Well, the moon made me explain why Nymia should come back and then I–” He let out another grunt as he finally called those magic wires back to his hand, “had a vision about my heritage and my power, so I’m sorry for the delay Sara!” He said, launching another barrage of wires out, this time just missing entirely. “Think I need some practice…”

Sara’s eyes were wide at what he said, “You SPOKE to the Moon Goddess herself!?”

“Only briefly! Can we please focus on this though, guys?” Nymia shouted as she did a backflip over one of the monsters, landing on top of another with her feet on either side of its neck before squeezing them together, and spinning, snapping the creature's neck.

Jeremiah nodded “Sorry Nym, I’m just having trouble–” He brought his wires back “Aiming these things!” He sent them lancing back out, this time three of them made contact with three different monsters, while the others all impacted into the side of a tree.

Sara was slightly taken aback when she heard Jeremiah calling her Nym instead of her full name, thoughts started firing through her head about what could have happened in that Nexus and finally, she realized she felt jealousy. But she wasn’t jealous of Jeremiah being close to Nym, or vice versa, she was jealous they had gotten closer…without her.

“Right, uh, well I can’t transform but maybe I can help you.”

Jeremiah raised his eyebrow and was going to ask how when she put her hand on his back and began saying a soft prayer. He could feel as if this was helping him guide his magic, that he had a helping hand. He smiled at her and nodded before looking back, seeing the monsters he had snared struggling to pull the wires out of their bodies.

He pulled so the three of them slammed into each other, right in front of the tree the other wires had hit, before pulling on those wires in the tree. With a moment of exertion, the tree began to whine and crack as its trunk snapped and the top half of it came crashing down onto those monsters, killing them on impact as Jeremiah recalled his magic.

Nymia had to leap out of the way of the very top of the tree as it whacked and battered the remaining few monsters. She looked towards Jeremiah and Sara and threw her hands up “Be careful using the trees as clubs when I AM RIGHT HERE!” She shouted, with a look of annoyance and a bit of now diminishing panic as she avoided being flattened.

“Sorry!” Jeremiah called out with a bit of a grimace before focusing on the remaining monsters, most of them disoriented and getting back up after being knocked over by the tree, but two were currently fighting Nymia, though she was handling them fine.

This time, his focus along with Sara’s help was enough to make sure his attack flew true, and he ensnared each of the remaining monsters, pinning them to the ground. Nymia took advantage of this and sliced the head off one of the two she was engaged with, with her bare hand acting as the blade, then brought her leg up high before kicking straight down onto the head of the other, caving in its skull.

With the other few remaining pinned down Jeremiah glanced at Sara, “Should I just leave them tied up or what?”

Sara shook her head “They could find a way free and come after us, and they aren’t a very talkative bunch. I know it feels different to kill them when they're restrained like that, but it’s the only option I think we have.”

He sighed with a nod and focused on the wires of power, sending shockwaves of magic down each one. As each wave of magic impacted a monster, bones cracked and their skin lacerated, killing them instantly. He jumped a bit when he saw what his power did and grimaced, that was more than he’d intended.

Nymia looked over and smiled wide as the wires retreated back to Jeremiah and vanished, she gave him a thumbs up and laughed “You need to work on your aim, but wow that was badass!” But the smile fairly quickly faded as she noticed the wound on Sara’s arm. She rushed over and looked at it closely. “Oh, that is really not good, Sara…let me heal it.”

Sara shook her head, her cheeks darkening “Nope, no, I’m good, we can clean it and wrap it in the car.”

Nymia rolled her eyes “Sara, please, I know you hate it but come on!”

Jeremiah looked confused as Sara protested “If she can heal you why don’t you let her, you’re hurt.”

Sara stuttered a bit “You don’t know how vampires heal wounds, Jeremiah, it’s embarrassing and awkward!”

Nymia sighed “Vampires are made to be stealth predators, right? So, when we bite someone, we can then lick the wound, and it heals. So, to heal people’s wounds, we can lick them.”

Jeremiah nodded a bit “Oh…” His eyes got a bit wider “Oh! Oh, wow ok, sure I can see how that’s a bit-”

“Sexy?” Nymia spoke over him with a giggle. “Especially since the bite feels good too, helps with the whole blending in thing.”

Sara gasped “Nym! That makes it so much more awkward!” She groaned a little and sighed “Fine, but please make it quick.” She said, resigned to this fate.

Nymia chuckled and took her arm and nodded “I will go as fast as I can, while making sure I do it right. Can’t rush it.” She leaned in to where the wound started and with a look at Sara, then a very quick glance in Jeremiah’s direction, she began slowly dragging her tongue up her arm, tracing the edges of the wound. The world began closing and healing as her tongue moved up, slowly along her arm.

Sara had closed her eyes and was looking away, her cheeks were such a darker shade of brown now. Jeremiah found himself staring after a few moments and was about to look away when he heard a small gasp come from Sara. His eyes went a bit wide, and he couldn’t help but watch this weirdly sensual scene in front of him. This was creating some very interesting feelings inside of him, he noted.

After a few moments more Nym let Sara’s arm go and licked her lips slowly, to savor the blood or to tease Jeremiah, probably both. “Alright Sara you’re good. And Jeremiah you can snap out of it now.” She said with a laugh.

Sara shuddered a little and wiped her arm, “Thanks…”

Jeremiah nodded at Nym and chuckled a bit softly when she laughed and followed the two of them as they began leaving the forest and going back towards the parking area. Sara had just gotten hurt fairly badly, so he was thankful that Nymia was able to fix those wounds. Nymia, who he had just helped bring back from the dead. They were in so much danger because they were helping him, and he was truly realizing just how much he hated that. He needed to protect them both, and there was one way to ensure they wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire, he knew that he might not make it out of this, that this Laricus person obviously had monsters and wolves at his disposal and who knows what else.

“Hey guys…” He began, “We need to talk, I don’t know if you two should help me anymore once we get back to the city.”