My vision returned, and my jaw
dropped. She was still. Fucking. ALIVE!?
Oh, she was hurt, that much was
obvious. She was on her knees, and her right arm and most of the right side of
her torso were just gone. Her jaw had been vaporized or blown off, and the
right side of her face was a disgusting mess of black burn and exposed red
flesh, here and there with bits of bone sticking through. Her chest cavity was
wide open, the ribs blasted away completely on the right side. The damage even
extended a ways past the spine, though her heart seemed undamaged, pulsing away
hanging in the open air, exposed front, back, and right. And she was already
healing, flesh knitting itself back together, bones regrouping.
Her one eye glared at me with a look
that made it completely obvious what order she was giving her thralls: a single
thought, the mental equivalent of a howl of rage: Kill.
Iason plunged his sword straight
through her heart from behind. She arched her back, screaming, vocal chords or
no, scrabbling desperately behind herself with her remaining arm in an effort
to grab and dislodge the blade. Energy crackled around her, flowing into the
sword, which glowed first dull red, then bright, and finally white.
Iason grimaced in pain as he tried
to hold onto it, keep it in her, but she twisted with fantastic strength and
sent him and sword both flying.
As soon as she did, though, Iola was
on her, leaping onto Brea’s chest and knocking her to the ground. Iola plunged
a stake into the hole Iason’s sword had made when its tip emerged through the
front of Brea’s heart, and Brea screamed again and flung her off.
And at this point, you’re probably
all going, “What the fuck? Why are Iason and Iola attacking Brea? Didn’t
she have control of them?”
And you’re right. She did. She just
wasn’t the only one.
Flash back to that first day, when
we were prepping weapons against Brea. I told you there were some other things
I prepped, right? One of them–well, two, really–was Iason and Iola. Iola had
been reluctant–extremely reluctant–to do it, and after what happened
with Brinksmoor and nearly happened with Hragulf, I couldn’t blame her. But it
had to be done, and eventually Iason and I convinced her of that. Brea was
strangely reluctant to enthrall me, but we had no way of knowing if that
reluctance would extend to them. In case it didn’t, we needed some kind of
countermeasure.
The stone turned out to be easy
enough to use–it’d have to be for Hragulf to figure it out, right?–and before
long Iola and Iason were staring into it, mouths drooping open, eyes glazed. It
was simple enough to give them a rule, like the ones Hragulf had given me:
“When you hear me say ‘Suck it, bitch,’ you will attack Brea with the best
weapons at your disposal.”
There’d been some discussion about
the phrase. I wanted something I wouldn’t normally say, to avoid accidents, but
easy to remember. “It should be badass,” I’d said. “Something
really cool to say after scoring a blow on a vampire.”
“Which is exactly why it should
be anything other than ‘suck it, bitch,” Iason said, which is when
made a clear and cogent point which settled the argument, to whit, I kicked him
in the shin.
The only part I hadn’t been sure
about was whether my command with the stone could override her control. Even if
it could, I was sure once I’d triggered it, she’d make sure it didn’t work
again. That meant I had to use it at the right time–and once I saw how little
even Iason’s sword did to her, I knew it would have to wait until she was
vulnerable. If I could find a way to make her vulnerable.
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