Page 61 of Blood from the Marrow (Lilith’s Legacy #2)

Chapter Forty-One

After having imagined the moment so many times, after having run through every variation of the confrontation with Sayah in her mind.

After having planned and prepared and practiced, Sayah’s impending arrival didn’t feel like Elena thought it would.

More precisely, Elena didn’t feel the way she expected.

She’d imagined being full of vengeful rage, running out to the street to meet Sayah before allowing her to step into the courtyard like they planned.

To sprint for her, fangs out, and teach every onlooker what happened to anyone who challenged her.

But as evening fell, as dusk crept toward them like a choking fog, Elena was calm.

Her mind was at ease and her hands were still.

Sayah was approaching by the front rather than by sea.

Probably because she guessed that Elena would have expected her to breach their land from the weakest point.

But they’d accounted for Sayah not caring how a swarm of vampires looked to any humans who noticed the congregation.

No one had said it aloud, but Sayah would not stop if she destroyed the cartel system.

If Sayah emerged victorious, who would stop her from outing their kind to humans?

From resurrecting the dead notion that vampires were superior and humans nothing but a subservient food source.

“The witches are in the tunnel,” Librada reported when she joined Elena on the second-floor balcony facing the courtyard below and the street beyond. “I told them to run as soon as they heard the fighting begin. They understood that we could not spare a vampire guard.”

Elena nodded, eyes on what would soon be a battlefield.

The stillness in her didn’t stop her from regretting that the soft green grass was going to be drenched in blood.

That the rows of rose bushes the Aglion kept packed with blooms would be splattered with death.

If Elena had any reason to believe that Sayah would spare the souls assembled in Narine’s fortress in exchange for her surrender, she’d do it.

But she had no reason to believe Sayah would keep her word.

She was the kind of person who lured in a guest to attack them unawares. She had no honor.

“Sofia?” Elena asked.

“Stationed at Hera,” Lib replied.

Elena’s attention traveled to the furthest domed structure from the house.

Of the two long breezeways connected to the house and creating a smaller quad within the courtyard, Sofia was positioned atop the northernmost dome.

There were seven domes along the exterior corridors, each one bearing a mosaic tribute to one of Lilith’s Daughters.

Hera, the first, offered Sofia the clearest view of Sayah’s approach.

However she’d concealed herself, Elena couldn’t see her from the balcony.

“The witches?” Elena asked.

“Each one has their three vampires,” Lib replied like she was also checking things off their list. “Prepared for either maneuver three or seventeen, depending on who gives the signal.”

The idea of assigning witches to a vampire cohort had been Hel’s idea, and a good one.

Cannons were best kept behind protective walls.

The hardest advice to heed was not assigning herself, Sofia, and Librada to Zuri.

Her daughters were of better use elsewhere, but there was no way Elena was going to let Zuri and Marisol out of her sight.

So she’d assigned her daughters other tasks, but accepted two soldiers, both from her own cartel, to be at her side during the fight.

“Aglion?” Elena asked.

The last piece on the board was the most complicated to position.

Aglion were all so diverse in their skills, it had required a one-on-one assessment of where they’d be the most effective while minimizing their exposure to harm.

The Black Wings, as Hel had started calling them, were the easiest to place.

Despite all of them insisting on being on the front line, Hel convinced them that they were stronger if staggered.

That they’d be needed to also protect the Storm Wings and healers positioned deeper in the courtyard.

Librada’s hesitation registered late. Without taking her eyes off the horizon, Elena cleared her throat. “What?”

“Judith refused to leave Sofia despite not being the most tactical use of her ability.”

Elena’s lip twitched into a momentary smile. “Refused a direct order?”

“Not exactly,” Lib replied. “More like she avoided me during the scramble, but she knew we wanted her further back and near the concentration of Veil witches.”

Elena willed her vision to sharpen, but the distance to the Hera dome was too far.

Certainly someone as massive as Judith couldn’t balance on a tiny ledge the way Sofia could.

Couldn’t crouch down to make herself tiny.

Where the hell was she? Her curiosity died the moment lightning flashed in the cloudless sky.

The strike had come from the Circe dome on the corridor opposite Sofia’s perch.

The signal, set off by the Storm Wing connected to Sofia by handheld radio, meant that Sayah was approaching from the southwest. It was several moments before Elena saw what Sofia had seen.

A sea of black electric vans appeared with no running lights.

So Sayah had considered rousing human suspicion.

Maybe she hadn’t become a complete nihilist.

“Zuri, open the fucking sky,” Elena instructed as her first act of war.

At the other end of the long balcony, Zuri and her coven sisters, joined by two Veil witches, started stomping their feet. A moment later, a wordless song rumbled in their throats.

The rhythm resonated in Elena’s chest like a primal call to arms. It warmed her blood, making her primed to run toward the invaders.

She imagined herself traveling through time.

A warrior picking up a sword. A marksman nocking an arrow.

A lone hunter finding a sharp stick. The fight to protect her home and all its occupants was in her gritted teeth and lengthening fangs.

Clouds appeared thick and black a moment before the rain started.

Not rain. A fucking monsoon. Stopping just outside their defensive walls, the downpour was so intense, it looked like a steel barrier around the estate.

Following the plan exactly, the Storm Wings concentrated lightning strikes where the first bolt had marked the enemy’s location.

The torrential rain made them just as blind as Sayah, but with the concentration of strikes, there was no way they weren’t cutting down Sayah’s advantage.

Between the noise of the rain and the constant thunder, Elena strained to hear. It was seconds before the first car crash sounded, and then another. The Storm Wings were hitting their targets, or Sayah’s forces were abandoning them to breach the walls blindly. Either way, Elena was ready.

When the first vampire appeared over the wall, he was immediately greeted by a lightning bolt straight to the chest. Until now, whether an Aglion bolt to the heart could kill a vampire was theoretical.

Pure theory that it would be as fatal as removing the heart so that the brain would starve of oxygen before being able to regenerate the critical organ.

A minute passed and then two, but Elena looked away from the test dummy sprawled on his face in the grass when two more vampires leapt over the wall.

Two more bolts took them down and they landed near their fallen comrade.

Elena glanced at Zuri, looking for a sign that she was struggling to keep so much rain falling in sheets from the sky.

But with her hands outstretched and her foot stomping and presumably humming her song, Zuri looked like she could hold that position for days.

And then there were more vampires and more strikes and more bodies dropping motionless into their courtyard. Elena’s heart soared. Like this, they’d kill all the vermin without losing a single one of their number.

It had been nearly ten minutes and over fifty sodden vampires were piled in front of the wall when the first vampire who’d leapt over twitched. Fuck.

Moving slowly, the vampire staggered up to his elbows, and Elena’s fear was realized. The bolt would stop the heart but not long enough that the brain couldn’t regenerate it. They’d planned for this contingency, but damn if they’d survive this night unscathed.

They still had the advantage of an initial period of weakness and disorientation.

Her vampires stationed at the edge of the courtyard swooped in exactly as they’d practiced.

With the efficient way she’d taught them, a dozen vampires moved like death incarnate, tearing out brainstems. They should have gone only for the vampires who were waking to conserve energy, but when the blood started flowing, thinking was harder to reach than instinct.

Elena looked away from a scene that was revoltingly gruesome, even to her, to check on Marisol.

On the opposite side of the balcony from Zuri, Marisol was watching in open horror.

Solid white wings outstretched behind her, she looked like she was considering running out to help the very people who’d happily slit her throat.

Elena could feel her restraint in her own body.

But Elena didn’t have time to linger on the emotional and psychological toll this night would take.

As if they’d finally coordinated despite the flood coming from the sky, Sayah’s vampires vaulted over the wall seemingly all at once.

The sight of them like ants swarming a dropped popsicle stick made Elena take a reflexive step backward.

From one end of the privacy wall to the other and coming over the sides, nearly a thousand vampires landed in the courtyard at once. Gods. The impact of seeing them all at once triggered Elena’s animalistic instinct to run. How could they stand up to this tide? How could they hope to survive?