Power (Soul Savers) (11 page)

I swallowed and nodded. My eyes studied Sonya, who stared at
me with nothing but terror in her face.
I
can do this. I’ve started it before and hopefully Charlotte will get here in
time.
I took a step to approach the bed.

My heart jumped at the sound of running footsteps echoing
behind me. Had I not locked the doors? Did the Daemoni find us already? I spun
around and moved into the hallway, hand up, ready to throw lightning.

“You’re worse than your mother, always getting into things
way over your head.” Char’s voice came out of the darkness before the rest of
her did.

A familiar face framed with long dark hair and topping a
tall, thin body came up right behind Charlotte.

“Sheree?” I asked with disbelief. She grinned, and I was
amazed at how much it lit up her face. The last time I saw her, she was lying on
death’s doorstep. She looked so radiant now.

“Rina thought you’d be happy to see her,” Char said to me.
“Sheree has turned out to be an excellent faith-healer. She’ll take over when
we’re done.”

Char pushed past me and into Sonya’s room, taking in the
scene of the tied up vampire with a bloom of crimson staining her top. The
warlock shook her head with obvious disapproval. “Looks like I got here just in
time.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. “I wasn’t sure what to do, but we
couldn’t abandon her.”

“Of course you couldn’t. So … let your training begin.” Charlotte
moved to the bed and wrapped her hand around one of Sonya’s and told me to do
the same.

“I’ll, um, show myself around,” Sheree whispered from the
doorway, and I sensed her slip out of the room.

“
Push your Amadis
power into her and remind her of love
,” Char silently instructed
.
“
Rina
uses her telepathy, and it helps a lot. Use yours to share images the patient
can relate to. Then you need to get her to state her desire to convert.
”

I started talking to Sonya in low, soothing tones, as Mom
and Rina had done with Sheree.

“Sonya,” I said, “I want you to think about Heather, okay?
Focus on Heather, your little sister. You love her, right? You still feel
that?”

Her mouth clamped with fear, Sonya blinked once, which I
took for a
yes
. I pushed an image of
Heather into her mind.

“She loves you, too,” I said. “She’s waiting for you, so you
can be together as sisters again.”

I didn’t think it possible but Sonya’s eyes widened even
more, white showing all the way around her irises. Her whole body trembled as
though she tried to fight Tristan’s paralyzing power.

“We can’t be sisters again! I’m a
monster
,” she yelled.

“Shh, calm down,” Char said soothingly. “Don’t worry about
that right now. Just think about how much you love her. How you would do
anything for her.”

The vampire’s body slackened.

“
One step at a time,
Alexis
,” Char thought to me. “
And
don’t forget the Amadis power.
”

Sonya’s reaction had caused me to slacken my power without
realizing it. I pushed it into her hard, and her body tensed again as she
screamed.

“Sonya, do you want this?” I asked.

“It hurts,” she shrieked.

“I understand. If you don’t want it, I can stop.” I eased
back on the power.

“No! Don’t.” She panted. “Please, don’t stop.”

“So you do want this?” I asked again.

“Yes. I want this.”

“You have to state it,” Char said.

“I want it. I … want … to be … Aaaaah.” She screamed again,
as if it hurt her to say the word. “I want … to be … Aaaamaaadis. I … don’t
want … to be … evil.”

Her eyes rolled up into her head, showing how much saying
those words had drained her.

“Why?” Char persisted, and I remembered Mom had asked Sheree
the same thing.

“Convince us,” I said, mimicking Mom’s next words.

Sonya whimpered. Her eyes refocused on us. “Because I love
my sister. And I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. I
… I … I made a big mistake. I should have never asked for this.”

Her last words were barely audible as her voice trailed off.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“
If you listen to her
thoughts, you’ll know if she’s sincere
,” Char told me, and I opened my mind
to allow her to hear Sonya as well.

“
I’m no better than
our father
.
Worse even.
” Her
regret and despair gripped me. Char nodded.

“
Now we get serious
,”
the warlock said
.
“
Push. Hard.
”

I gathered all the Amadis power I’d been building inside of
me for the last month or so and pushed the ribbon of energy down my arm and out
my palm into Sonya. Char’s eyebrows pulled together and her eyes tightened as
she did the same. Sonya started shaking and convulsing against Tristan’s power.

“Let go, Tristan,” Char said through gritted teeth. “We need
her loose. Alexis and I can handle her.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tristan give Charlotte a
doubtful glance, but he eventually lowered his hand. Sonya whipped about for a
few minutes, but I was physically stronger than I’d been with Sheree and could
hold her down. Eventually the convulsions stopped, and her body went limp.

And then I felt the evil energy building inside her.
Memories of the last time we did this and the consequences flooded my brain.

“Get out, Tristan,” I ordered.

He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’m not leaving
you.”

“Get out!” I nearly yelled this time. “I’m not letting you
take it again.”

I wouldn’t risk the chance of the evil power leaving Sonya’s
body only to find a new home in him as it had done before. Granted, freshly
escaped from the Daemoni’s clutches for over seven years and implanted with
dark magic, he’d been what Rina had called an open vessel at the time. He had
practically welcomed the evil energy inside of him. But no way would I
jeopardize that happening again. He’d been acting too weird lately as it was,
especially when we were around the Daemoni.

“Go,” Char said, backing me up. “You’re not helping, and
Sheree can use you. She’ll need help gathering supplies.”

Tristan wrapped his arms around me and pressed his lips
against the top of my head for a long moment. The full strength of his love
finally flowed out of him while awake, boosting my power.
Maybe he
could
help.
I let
the thought pass, though, not wanting to have to go through again what we did
last year.

“Call me if you need me,” he murmured.

“I don’t know what that was about, but you can’t waste your
energy arguing,” Charlotte said after Tristan left.

“When I tried to do this with Sheree, I took in her Daemoni
energy, and Tristan took it from me because it almost consumed me.”

“That was before your
Ang’dora
,
right?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “You and your power should be strong
enough now to eradicate the Daemoni energy. There should be no transfer this
time. Unless—oh, bloody hell. Here we go.”

Just as the words came out of her mouth, I sensed what she
did. Sonya felt as though she might literally explode with the dark energy
building inside her. The color in Charlotte’s face drained, and the muscles and
tendons in her neck pulled taut as she strained against the power. I tightened
my grip on Sonya’s hand and pushed goodness into her with every bit of force I
could muster.

A shriek of pain pierced my ears. Sonya’s body bucked and
writhed, and it was all I could do with my full strength to keep the vampire on
the bed. A long string of profanities flew out of her mouth punctuated with
more screams as visions of her life as a vampire flashed through her mind.

Then all at once, she fell calm again. Seemingly
unconscious.

Char rubbed her forehead against her arm, mopping off the
sweat. “That was the first wave.”

“How many waves will there be?” The evil energy still
swirled within Sonya, perhaps not as strong, but definitely still there.

“As many as it takes until the evil power is gone.
Everyone’s different.”

“So we’re in for an all-nighter.”

“Yep. Probably longer.

“I’m so glad you’re here. I have no idea what would’ve
happened if I’d tried this by myself.”

“You’ll be able to do it solo once you learn the basics.
Number one rule: don’t let yourself wear out. That’s where trouble comes in.”

“That’s what you were about to say before? There should be
no transfer of energy unless …?”

“Unless you’re drained. But don’t worry. It shouldn’t happen
with you.” She rested her head against her shoulder as her hands remained
stretched out to grip Sonya’s forearms, maintaining skin-to-skin contact. “You
have more Amadis power than any of us, including Rina. You just need to know
what you’re doing. Are you seeing the visions?”

“Of her past and her victims? Yeah. I hate them. All that
death and evil.” I shuddered. “Do you ever get used to them?”

“Me?” Charlotte chuckled. “I don’t see them. Only Rina can,
so I assumed you could, too.”

“Really? Huh.” I thought about this for a moment. “I could
share them if you want.”

“Ugh. No, thanks. I see enough of what they do in real time.”

Wave after wave crashed over Sonya, each hit weakening both
her and us. Tristan sat with me in between, sharing his love to boost my power before
each round. But I always made him leave when I felt a new wave coming on. In
case I wasn’t powerful enough. Once morning came and brought the sun, Sonya’s
energy diminished considerably, and we began to make true progress.

“They’re weaker during the day, especially the young ones,”
Charlotte said as Sheree wiped a cool, wet cloth across the warlock’s forehead
and the nape of her neck. “It’s always better to try to start this in the early
morning. Unfortunately, since the Daemoni prefer to come out at night, that’s
usually not possible.”

When the room began darkening again with dusk, Charlotte’s
cell phone rang. Sonya’s body had given up its fight a long time ago, so Char
had no problem leaving me alone with her, pumping Amadis power into the
vampire’s depleted veins, while she took the call.

“I need to go to Galveston,” she said, reappearing only a
few minutes later.

Her tone rang my alarms. “What happened?”

“Daemoni went on a rampage. Our people were able to take in some
of the bitten and turned, but too many for them to handle alone.”

“Anything I can do?” I asked, though I already knew the
answer. Still too much of a novice, I was pretty useless.

“Hmph. Some day soon, it’ll be your job to take care of
these things, but for now, it’s mine. You just worry about Sonya here.” She ran
her hands over our patient’s arm and then her forehead. “You feel that?”

I nodded. “There’s still a trace of Daemoni power.”

“Right, and there will be for a while, probably months,
maybe longer. It takes time and faith-healing to eradicate it all.”

“And she won’t be completely good until then, right?”

Charlotte cocked her head, her sapphire eyes piercing into
me. “Alexis, after last fall, you know as well as anyone that not anybody’s
completely good, including the Amadis. We’re all basically human, after all. We
all have good and bad within us. Has Owen ever told you the Legend of Uri and
Duff?”

I shook my head.

“Well, I don’t have time to give you the children’s version
I used to tell Owen. I’ll have to keep this short, and then I need to go.” She returned
to her chair by Sonya’s bed, and leaned toward me on the other side. “According
to history, a few generations after the Ancients created the sorcerers and
sorceresses, one of the younger mages decided she wanted to experience sex with
a human, so she seduced one and became pregnant. The child obviously didn’t
have the same amount of magic as she did, but he was still quite powerful.
Other members of the youngest generation saw opportunity in this child—they
could create a whole new race that could serve them while never being powerful
enough to overcome them. Power breeds paranoia, and the mages were extremely
paranoid, especially when the Ancients created the vampires. The mages decided their
new race needed to be physically strong and fearless, even against the vampires
if ever needed, so they agreed they would only mate with the stoutest, toughest
and meanest human warriors.”

“The race they created was the warlocks,” I said.

“That’s right. With powerful magic and the bodies and
aggressiveness of warriors, we were bred to fight, although at the time, there
wasn’t much fighting going on except with each other or to pick on Normans. So,
I guess in their boredom, the warlocks mated with humans and over time the
weaker witches and wizards became a third mage sub-race.

“Anyway, Cassandra came along and created the Amadis, and
now we get into the Legend of Uri and Duff. Cassandra and her group had
stumbled upon Uri and Duff in the bluffs of Scotland, arguing with each other.
They had been seeking out the Amadis to be converted, but only Uri was
completely committed. Duff was tired of being a slave to the sorcerers, but he wasn’t
quite sold on going over to the other side. After all, he said, the Amadis were
created to fight the Daemoni, and if he converted, he would lose many of those
qualities that made him a strong fighter—such as anger, aggression, and
bravery. He thought becoming Amadis would make him weaker.

“Cassandra tried to convince him otherwise, but Duff
wouldn’t believe her. So she said to him, ‘Fight one of my warlocks, and we
shall see who is weak.’ And he said, ‘I do not know the strength of your
warlocks, so this may not be a fair test. Uri here is an equal match to me, so
after you convert him, I will fight him and prove that I am right.’ Duff hung
around during Uri’s conversion—he really didn’t want to go back to the
Daemoni—and a few months later, Uri was ready for the match.