Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 1 (33 page)

“What do you want?”
Aradia asked.

“To kill you,” Dereck
said bluntly.

“Yeah, I got that.
Why?” asked Aradia. She was nearly at the staircase.

Dereck gave a short
barking laugh and said, “You have no idea, do you? I already had my
next sacrifice picked out. My next Vampire Murder.” He cut himself
off and cackled maniacally. He could not keep from laughing after
speaking “Vampire Murder.” He was frothing at the corner of his
mouth.

“Your next sacrifice?”
Aradia repeated.
This guy is the biggest
nutcase I’ve met yet…

“Mmmm,” he agreed. “But
we spoke, he and I. He had such an interesting story to tell, I
thought his time could wait.”

Oh God…

“Who was it?” she
asked, terrified of the answer.

“Oh you know already,
don’t you?” he asked. “I should really thank you for your role in
things. You practically sent him to me.”

Kaiser!

“Did you…” she could
not bring herself to ask it. She was no longer thinking about the
stairs.

“His role in the
Greatness has not yet come,” Dereck said. “He will be the fourth,
if necessary.”

“You are a serious
piece of work,” she muttered.

“And you are blind to
the truth if you oppose me.”

“No, I just don't like
seeing murderers go free!”

“History will regard me
as a visionary, anointed for a higher purpose.”

“If history remembers
you at all, it will be as nothing more than a murderer.”

Dereck gave Aradia a
look of pure hatred. “You know so little after all. And your friend
Kaiser held you in such high esteem. I never wanted to
kill.”

“Then why did you?”
Aradia cried out.

“I was given no choice.
It was necessary evil.”

His mood was erratic.
He was flipping between full blown manic rage and something
bordering on remorse. He seemed more indrawn now than he had at any
point so far, and Aradia thought it would be the best opportunity
she’d have to escape.

Aradia was still
holding the ice cream carton, and she slammed it against Dereck's
face. He sputtered as Aradia slid herself on top of the counter and
kicked him with both of her legs right into the old moth eaten
couch in front of the spare TV. Her mother had fumed when her
father had insisted they bring the old sofa with them cross
country. He’d been adamant, though. The couch collapsed entirely
under Dereck’s weight.
Sorry,
Dad!

Aradia had no idea when
her parents would be home, and she could not risk putting them in
danger. With all her might she bounded up the stairs, using all her
strength and agility to take the steps four at a time. She heard
him bounding along behind her. When she reached the top of the
stairs she slammed the door behind her, but before it had closed
she got a good look at her villain.

He grinned wickedly as
he pursued her. He flexed his hands which morphed into hideous
hairy paws. Halfway up the staircase he jumped and landed on all
fours. His teeth grew larger and longer and sharper, his eyes
darker, and his body hairier. His clothes ripped apart as his body
grew and expanded. His face elongated into a short snout with fangs
protruding over his lower lip like sabers. His eyes turned a
piercing yellow and were set murderously on her.

So, definitely a
werewolf,
Aradia confirmed as she
deadbolted the door behind her.
That
won’t hold him long.

Indeed it did not. She
earned herself an extra stride before the basement door exploded in
splinters behind her. She was out the front door as fast as she
could go, with wolf-form Dereck hot on her tail.

I’ve got to get him
out of the neighborhood,
she realized.
She wasn’t even thinking about him blowing the whole hidden secret.
She just didn’t want an innocent neighbor to get torn to shreds by
an irate werewolf.

She headed for the
woods. It was clear that she could not outrun him. She was running
fast, as fast as she’d ever gone, and he was keeping up. She knew
she couldn’t keep up that pace forever, or even for much
longer.

I’ll fight him in
the woods
, she decided. It was as close
to home terrain as she’d get, and she’d already bested one
werewolf. Something told her he’d be more challenging of an
opponent than Roy.

Morgan gasped and rose
sharply from her slumber. A smile came to her lips and she summoned
her staff and crystal. It grew cloudy, then clear, and she knew all
she needed to know.

With pleasure she
whispered, “The last witch.”

“My, my, my! Aren’t you
the difficult little bitch?” Dereck sneered at her as he stalked
her through the woods. So far she’d managed to evade him. She led
him into dense foliage where his greater size would be a
hindrance.

“You can talk as the
wolf?” she asked. She knew it was no time for such questions, but
she was so surprised she couldn’t help herself.
Well, I’ve only seen full moon werewolves so
far. I guess the rest of the time they can talk.
Weird.

In response, he showed
her he could laugh as the wolf also.

“You lost your
washcloth. The one you were going to use to knock me out,” Aradia
taunted as she ran. She considered climbing one of the trees, but
with those claws and bulging muscles she thought he’d probably be a
better climber than she was. “Along with your clothes. Gross, by
the way.”

“Shame,” he replied.
“Without the process you won’t pass for a Vampire Murder. I’ll have
to settle for just killing you. You won’t serve a role in my
Greatness after all.”

“Why knock your victims
unconscious?” she asked, hoping to keep him distracted by running
his mouth.

“The heart must be
pumping at the time of exsanguination for the effect to look
natural,” he replied.

“There is nothing
natural about what you do, Dereck.”

I could try running
onto the lake again,
she
considered.
He probably wouldn’t be able
to follow.
She rejected that option
too. Her powers didn’t work reliably. She got different kinds of
reactions when she tried things all the time. They were especially
erratic when she was under immediate stress like she was now. If
she attempted to freeze the water and run out onto it like she had
when Dax had seen her, she could just as well end up freezing
herself in a block of ice.

Then he was in front of
her.

“I’m going to kill you
now, baby.”

“Don't call me baby!”
Aradia snapped.

“It doesn't matter what
I call you. All you are now is so much dead meat.”

The time to fight had
come. While she’d been running, she’d found a good, fist sized rock
with a sharp edge. She waited for Dereck to lunge at her, planning
to jump to the side and conk him in the head.

The plan didn’t work
quite as well as she had hoped. Dereck lunged, but he outmaneuvered
her. She jumped to her right, but instead of continuing on his
original trajectory, he shifted his weight and came around from her
other side.

He’s so
fast.

Now he was on her right
side, and if she swung at him she’d have no power behind
it.

With her left hand she
summoned a fireball. She was too scared, though, too distracted.
The flames sputtered into nothing as quickly as they
came.

Dereck gave her no time
to try another tactic. While she was distracted, he lunged again
and landed on top of her, pinning her to the ground. His muzzle was
open, and he was drooling on her.

His breath was so foul
that it caused Aradia to call out, “If you were planning to eat me,
the least you could have done is brush your teeth!”

“What do you mean
‘were’?” Dereck growled.

She bunched up both of
her knees and kicked with all her might into his chest. He flew
several feet upwards from the sheer force. Aradia rolled on the
ground away from him and sprung up as quickly as she could. He
landed on his feet, rose on his hind haunches, and the two of them
circled each other.

After a few feints back
and forth, Dereck finally scored a blow on Aradia, sinking his
teeth into her arm, the same arm Roy had bitten.

“Awghf!” she
cried.

This isn’t what getting hurt is
supposed to feel like.
When the hero in a movie gets stabbed or
shot, he can grit his teeth and get through it. It almost makes him
tougher. Aradia did not feel tougher. She didn’t feel very tough at
all.

Her sense of hearing fell away. At first
it was like she was hearing noises muffled by a heavy, damp
blanket. Then she heard nothing at all. She didn’t feel movement
herself, but had a vague sense of activity around her. Her vision
sparkled as it, too, failed her. She had a sense of gushing blood,
but she couldn’t quite feel it. She wondered if she was dying.
This is definitely not what getting hurt is supposed to feel
like
.

She was about to pass
out. She knew if that happened, she’d never wake up again. She
fought with all her will against that. She forced the stars out of
her vision, and she started seeing again. She extended herself into
her surroundings and her hearing returned. She could hear the
growling werewolf gnawing on her arm. She could feel the blood
coursing from her arteries onto his face and mouth.

He was confident. She
used his attack as an opportunity.

She quickly ripped off
her jacket with her uninjured arm and spun. His teeth tore at her
flesh, and she cried in the heightened pain, but she kept her wits
about her and got her arm free. She jumped on his back while
wrapping the jacket around his neck. She squeezed.

For all her strength,
she did not think head on close combat was so wise after all. While
gasping for air he reached back behind him and tore at her with his
claws, lacerating her all over her back and arms. She bled
profusely, soaking her clothes.

Just a little
longer!
she urged herself. If she could
knock him out, this would all be over, all of it.

She couldn’t do it
though. Her strength gave out, and she let go. He gulped air in
greedily as he spun around to face her for her death
blow.

Then he stopped. His
ears perked up and he turned to peer into the woods. Even in his
wolf form, he gave a weird shrug and growled, “Until another time,
baby!”

He was gone.

She reached for her
phone. She needed to call someone. Her parents or 911.

Her phone was
gone.

Roy
, she realized. After her call
with him, she’d plugged her phone in to charge on her bedside
table.

She tried to stand. She
made it to her feet, but then collapsed into someone’s gentle
arms.

“Wha?” she mumbled.
She’d thought she was alone. Her vision was failing again and all
she saw were stars. This time she couldn’t find the will to fight
it.

This person must be
what scared Dereck away
. Aradia willed
herself to heal, but she couldn’t feel it working.

“Aradia! Oh, bloody
hell, Aradia!”

The voice sounded so
very familiar. “Who…?” she tried to ask.

“Shhh, love,” he said.
Dax took off his own jacket and wrapped her in it as well as he
could. Carrying her as gingerly as possible, he ran for his
car.

“Dax,” she finally
whispered. Even with his heightened hearing, Dax could barely make
out her voice. “Dax… help me…”

“I will, Aradia,” Dax
said, ignoring the nearly irresistible smell of so much warm, fresh
blood. He leaned her head against his shoulder as he opened the
rear driver’s side door of his car. “I swear it.”

It took them twelve
minutes to get to the Dayton manor. Dax hit the horn twice as he
pulled up the driveway. By the time he made it to the front door,
Xan was there swinging it open.

Xan saw Aradia bleeding
and lying limply in Dax’s arms. He chuckled and said, “Wow, Dax, I
didn't know you did home deliveries!”

“Just get Dad!” he
snapped as he shot past his brother and into the living room where
he laid Aradia on the couch.

He raced to the
kitchen, got a bowl of water and bandages and returned to her. He
dipped a clean cloth into the bowl, held out her arm, and gently
cleaned the area to get a sense of the wound. As he went he saw
that the bite wound on her arm and the gashes all over her were
already closing. The flow of blood had nearly stopped on its
own.

No werewolf victim's
wounds heal that quickly
,
Dax thought to himself,
at least not until after they turn. Not even
hiddens
. He looked down at her with an
impressed smile slowly curving on his lips. For the first moment
since he’d found her bleeding, he started to think she might
survive the attack.