The Best Medicine Ch. 03

Christopher Knight took a shot at Trina, catching her jacket as she dodge behind the pilot, but he did not do any real damage. Abraham rushed the elf as well, but she jumped up and used his head as a springboard, doing a perfect back-flip and landing on her feet several yards away. She fired three bullets at the wounded werewolf, but his body armor and supernatural toughness allowed him to mostly ignore the damage.

"I can hear her listening," said a woman's voice, emanating from the silent space in the concert that was Trina's battle space. "Her blood is pumping, her heart . . . oh, it sounds delicious."

Trina barely had a chance to react as the female vampire crossed the frozen ground effortlessly and caught her with a massively powerful backhand. It caught the battle-dancer in the shoulder rather than the neck, which would have ended the fight right then and there. As it was, Trina's shoulder was dislocated, screaming in pain and throwing off the elf's rhythm. Her brain could barely hold a thought together, much less a tune.

"I want her," the vampire whispered, her soft voice carrying over the din of war.

Abraham looked in the direction that the Princess had gone, and his ears picked up that infernal laughing bark of the werehyenas. "We don't have time!" he shouted, then headed towards the rendezvous point where the getaway vehicles were waiting.

"I said, I . . . want . . . her," Natasha replied. She did not look back, because all she could see was the beauty.

"Go with him," Christopher yelled at the dazed pilot. He then pulled a second pistol and pointed both of his weapons at the pesky elf. They may not get the Princess on this pass, but taking out her bodyguard would be a major boon on the next try.

Trina spent the next minute playing keep away, dodging bullets and a lightning-quick vampiress in equal measures. She was tired, her lungs burned, and her heart was beating like an African drum. But she fought on, because every moment she delayed them increased Vanesse's chances of survival.

A new set of sounds entered into her lyrical consciousness. It was like the pattering of cymbals, played by an overanxious grade-schooler. A second later, Jack appeared, with a highly injured and barely conscious Farmer in human form being half dragged along with him.

"Well, this is fortuitous," Christopher Knight said, his excitement almost palpable. He dropped a clip into his pocket and replaced it with one loaded with silver, all in less time than it took to blink. Taking out the alpha were of the werehyenas would break the pack, and the Princess would be easy pickings.

Trina saw the thought process going through the man's mind. Her gaze fell on Farmer, who looked mad as hell despite her injuries. She had been good to the elves. She had been good to Vanesse. And Jack . . . Jack was all right. The battle-dancer heard the hammer on the pistol being drawn back, and she lunged. Then, Trina heard the bell.

Every battle-dancer knew from their first day of training what that meant. The long, slow, methodical resonance always signified the Coda . . . the end of the song.

Jack was staring into Trina's eyes when the bullets bit into her back and tore through her chest. Blood gushed from her mouth and from the exit wounds, and the beautiful dancer fell to her knees. Trina's eyes were wide, but they were unseeing. Some part of Jack's impossibly jovial nature died in that brief moment as a silence intruded on his thoughts. He started to move across the field, hearing the sounds of his pack mates approaching from behind. But he had too much ground to cover, and there was a being in the clearing much faster than he. He watched helplessly as one of the armored figures ripped her helmet off, showing an angel's face with the devil's eyes.

The vampire bared her fangs, grabbed the dying elf by her hair, and plunged her fangs into Trina's neck.

"No!" Jack barked, feeling like his was moving in slow motion. The man who had shot the battle-dancer was turning to fleeing, shouting at his blood-sucking companion to follow. The vampire looked up, saw Jack's eyes, then released Trina's bloodied neck long enough to smile. Then, with a quick turn of her hands, she snapped her victim's neck. And she fled into the woods, leaving a trail of maniacal laughter in her wake.

Farmer screamed at her people to pursue, not that they needed the encouragement. She and Jack both knelt beside the fallen dancer, but even the most desperate of hopes died in their thoughts as they saw what remained in the drift of bloodied snow.

Jack jumped to his feet and charged into the woods, bound and determined to wreak an unholy vengeance on those who had done this. Farmer touched Trina's lifeless face. She wanted to close the beautiful elf's eyes . . . she wanted to make her look less afraid. She had been so brave in life, that for her to die in terror was a mockery of all that was decent.

But Farmer was distracted from her task by the sound of a scream. She turned her head and saw Vanesse. The Princess had slipped from Doreen's grasp and had hurried back to help her friend. Vanesse's eyes were flooding with tears as she stumbled and even crawled through the snow.

"No!" she shouted. Vanesse did not think she or her heart could survive this. "Don't die! You can't die!" she screeched, all thoughts of royal decorum distant and pointless memories. She put her hands on her friend's chest and began to pour every ounce of energy she had into the unmoving body of her friend.

"Vanesse, stop!" Farmer said, reaching out to pull the Princess away. "It's too late. She's --"

"She's not gone! She can't be gone! I can save her!"

But Farmer knew that was not true. A necromancer could cheat death, but not deny it. One could not heal death. "She's dead," Farmer said, her own voice betraying both her sorrow and her rage.

"I can bring her back," Vanesse whimpered, preparing to perform a Major Work.

"As a zombie? A ghoul? You would create a mockery of Trina?"

"I can't do this without her!" Vanesse said, her eyes glowing. "Bring me one of the wolves. I'll use every last drop of blood they have!"

Farmer shook her head. "Is that the path Trina would have wanted for you to take? To bleed an unwilling sacrifice so that you could turn her into a shadow of what she used to be? Is that really what Trina --"

"Trina's dead!" the Princess screamed, then her voice and her rage gave out, both replaced by empty, numbing cold. "She's dead," she whispered again. It had finally sunk in what this really meant. The tears came in rivers, and she pointed her face to the sky and screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

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To be continued . . .