“Causes that nasty venom of yours to crystallize, doesn’t it?” Andrew said. “In your veins. That sounds like some nasty shit.”
“Much… like desiccation… for vampires,” Vaxan rasped. “Something you’ll… both know the… agony of… soon.”
Andrew used his vampire speed to slam his foot into Vaxan’s ribs and pull it back without being scorched by the sun.
I grimaced as I heard a noticeable crack, even from a distance, and Vaxan spluttered.
“Know when you’re beaten, bitch,” Pierce said, laughing.
Andrew told him, “Now, unless you want more of that, hand over the crown. Then you’ll live to enjoy special treatment from the supernatural world for another day, like the rest of your fucking reptile brethren.”
“Special… treatment? Do you not… know your history?”
“What we know is you’re able to walk in the sun, but we can’t. And our clan means to rectify that by studying this crown of yours.”
“Fools,” Vaxan uttered, a moment before Andrew dealt him another brutal kick that wrenched him to his side for a secondand had one of the stakes tearing through the flesh of his right arm as it forced him to twist in response.
I hurried faster, calling my fuchsia magical flame to both my palms.
It wasn’t fast enough as I saw Pierce pull a vial of translucent liquid from his blazer pocket. “You know what this is?” he demanded of Vaxan.
Vaxan hissed at him.
“Don’t get that shit on me,” Andrew told him, easing back a little.
Pierce popped the cork. “Holy water. I heard it burns when it touches a Basilisk’s skin, just like it does a vampire’s. I wonder just how excruciating it’s gonna be if you continue to refuse handing over that crown and you push me to pouring this into those nasty arm wounds.”
Fucking hell.
Just as he went to move Vaxan closer so he could obviously do that, I was there.
I fired a bolt of my magic at Pierce.
Well, specifically at the vial of holy water.
It shattered the vial that was still out of range of Vaxan, and it sprayed all over Pierce instead.
He screamed like a little bitch-ass as it splattered his face, his neck, even getting in his hair and over his hand that had been holding it, smoke erupting all over those sites as it burned through his skin.
Poetic justice? Seemed about right.
I used Andrew’s shock against him before he could employ his vampiric speed against me, and swept my other hand in an arc, generating a lasso around his throat that seared the skin. I used my magic to soup up my strength, then yanked him toward me. “You’ve made a fatal fucking mistake,” I snarled in his face.
He tried to vamp-out, but he couldn’t in his agonized state.
And then I used my magical hold on him to shove him beyond the safety of the shielding area and out into the sun.
“Big fucking mistake,” I ground out. “You’re in for a world of horrific pain, fucker. You see, there’snolimit for me when I happen upon this sort of sickening shit, victimizing people, using their inborn weaknesses against them that they can’t fucking change and already fear living with in case assholes like you pull this despicable bullshit.”
Andrew was rapidly recovering, having now taken off his blazer and using it to wipe off the remnants of the holy water. His skin was still marred with third-degree burns, though. It would take longer to heal properly from that kind of damage.
I wasn’t taking any chances, so I used my free hand to pull out the stakes from Vaxan’s arms, then levitate them up, before sweeping my hand and making them drive into Andrew’s throat and gut.
He lurched and collapsed to his knees, fighting to pull out the stake in his throat that was making him splutter up a whole lot of blood, unable to utter a word.
With that dealt with as Pierce struggled against my magical hold, I shoved him back out into the sun, his shrieking rolling through me.
It was a demonstration.
