“Go,” I told her. “Help Ruby and the others get the women and children out. You don’t have to see this.”
The pain, confusion, and trauma I saw pass behind her eyes made me slightly sick. Knowing that your entire life was a lie was almost too much to bear, but if Liv and I could get through it, then I knew she could too.
With a nod, she pulled the other House of Rose hunters into the pizza shop, leaving just Luka and his men to fight Maz.
“Problem,” Liv said from behind me, and I turned. A group of local vampire and fey stepped out of the shadows. “She killed the king!” one of them shouted, and then they all rushed forward.
Crap.
Luka and Maz were locked in battle, so Liv and I had no choice but to fight off this horde together and give him time.
She looked at me, pulling the razor wire from her bra and grinning maniacally. “Happy hunting.”
I chuckled. Just like old times.
“I’ll take the fey,” I shouted, indicating the three pointy-eared folks advancing with arms outstretched.
She nodded and jogged toward the two vampires. I felt for the weird magic that got ignited when I was angry. It felt dark and mysterious, and quite frankly it scared me a little. It was there, just below the surface. I grabbed hold of it and then pushed. A shockwave of invisible hot gasses or whatever shot from my hands and plowed into the three fey. They flew back, and the glass from the surrounding buildings blew outward, shattering.
Oops. A bit of overkill.
“A little help!” Liv barked, and I spun just in time to see her take a vampire’s head. But another was barreling down on her. Meanwhile, Luka arced through the air and landed in a heap. His men were fighting a second horde of locals that had come from another alley.
It was complete chaos.
‘You okay?’I asked Luka as I attacked the vamp on Liv’s back.
‘Yep.’He launched upward and dealt a blow to the side of Maz’s head.
Once Liv and I had taken care of the vamps, we shifted our attention to the main fight. Maz was attacking Luka with everything she had, but he was a beast, tearing through her defenses like they were nothing. It looked like he had wrested her fey blade from her and was lashing out with it. When they clashed together this time, I saw the glint of steel in Luka’s hand. I froze, unmoving, as I watched him seemingly in slow motion as he rammed the blade into her neck.
Maz opened her mouth, letting out a roar, throwing black sparks from her hands in a hopeless attempt at survival. The sparks shot out like bullets and then died completely as Luka took her head clean off.
My chest ached as I watched my beloved mentor of so many years meet her end.
“Aspen…?” Liv’s distressed voice called to me.
I turned to face my best friend, expecting that she sounded so upset over seeing Maz die. But a strangled cry ripped from my lips.
Liv was holding her stomach. Black veins were growing outward across her skin. She’d been … infected? Cursed? I didn’t know, but whatever it was looked bad, and was moving fast.
“Luka!” I screamed, rushing to catch Liv as she collapsed into my arms.
Her lips turned black and I stared in shock as whatever Maz had thrown at her took hold.
“Shit.” Luka grabbed her from me and shook her, as if that mere act would stop the progression or whatever was happening.
“What is it!?” I sobbed, watching as the blackness took over the whites of her eyes.
Luka swallowed hard. “I think … it’s a curse of some sort. We have to hurry.”
I didn’t need to hear that twice. Whatever he was planning in order to save Liv, I was down.
We rushed through the noisy pizza shop, and then into a hallway that would lead to Los Angeles. There was a witch crumpled up against the wall; the door that led to a store full of fabric was open. One lone man wearing headphones sat behind a sewing machine in the corner and paid us no attention. Luka handed Liv to me the second we stepped into the shop and pulled out his phone.
“I need Astra,” he said, and then, “Good.”
“What’s going on?” I started to sob because Liv’s head lolled against mine as she lost consciousness. She didn’t look like my Liv anymore. She was starting to look …like a Munai. Her eyes rolled back in her head, completely dark. Her hair was turning dark too. What the frick?
