The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [140]
“Which is precisely what Salvatia has in store for you!” Camelia had reminded her. “The Magdalene is plotting to destroy Andrew and his household and condemn you to eternal misery. Steal Andrew away from his house, at the right moment,to the playground across the street. When the Magdalene is inside the house and confounded, we will cause our Everborn to meet and to clash. Ralston, belligerent as he is, will cause a commotion she will surely sense. She hasn’t caught on to my presence yet, nor Ralston’s. We, Bari, can ambush her, both of us like sisters defending our sons. Regardless of what the Magdalene can do, together we have the advantage. If we prevail, we can manipulate the facts of the aftermath in the minds of our ‘Born and in the law should any human become involved, which is our blessed forte, we will have this encounter with the Magdalene in the bag. Until the next time.”
Bari would’ve done the same thing for Camelia.
***
Bari spoke in stern retort to Salvatia’s intimidations. “Don’t underestimate us, Salvatia. We’re prepared for you. Be gone, Magdalene!”
Salvatia withdrew further as she turned from one Watchmaid to the other, her expression stricken more with the efforts to shroud her fear than the pressure to fight both of them at once. She inadvertently backstepped into the jungle gym, then resumed her ground. Her Dreg had vanished, retreating perhaps in cowardice or in anguish by his newfound sentiment, but he wasn’t far enough away yet for Salvatia to dematerialize.
There was still time to get to Erlandson.
In militant readiness for each other, the transparent bed of air currents upon which each hovered blazed as of white-hot fire, as a thumb and forefinger to the knob of a welder’s torch, like manifested adrenaline.
Not to be outdone, Salvatia’s stubborn instincts to have the last word bellowed forth like a war cry, “You will not stand between me and my destiny!”
Salvatia went for Camelia with no further hesitation, diving into her, her piercing black fingernails lashing, her mouth an unnaturally widened apocalypse of misshapen teeth, her hair a legion of poised strands like Medusa’s snakes readied to strike.
Neither Camelia nor Bari considered Salvatia’s own advantage…centuries of the fervent quest for a backdoor exit from a land of purgatory and for revenge. This was Salvatia’s moment to go for the gold.
Salvatia took Camelia down and with astonishing strength.
The two beasts toppled to the grass like giants just short of Andrew. With furious determination Salvatia wrestled her way toward him and a wide-eyed Andrew with fright-white skin squirmed deeper into the frozen-with-fear snapshot still of Ralston.
Salvatia’s claws reached in labored stretches mere inches from Andrew’s sweat pants as Camelia devoted every might of her being into pinning her away. Bari came upon Salvatia from behind, backhanding her own coppery arms beneath Salvatia’s for a deathlock shoulder hold. Together, they forced Salvatia back towards and into the metal bars of the jungle gym.
Salvatia lashed out again, grasped Camelia’s throat, dug with her claws, drew forth black blood gushing like an eruption of hot oil upon Salvatia’s hands. Transparent hands.
Simon was somewhere else now, roaming farther away from the scene, beyond the playground. And Salvatia’s power was diminishing slowly into nothingness.
Camelia tumbled to the grass, fatally injured.
Salvatia, without any utterance nor recognizable gesture, faded and retaliated, beyond their reach, beyond her reach. She had ultimately failed and within seconds her presence was no longer with them, no longer at the school playground, in the opposite direction of her Dreg. She was defeated, this time and retired to lick her wounds some place far away.
To return to a place and time equally far away.
For as long as she existed in this state, she