Daughters of the Moon Pt. 01

The baker nodded, still smiling, "Why don't you come with us so we can talk about it. Oh and bring your notes."

"That sounds great," said Lucy and took a step towards the baker.

Carla screamed in her own mind, pushing against the crippling chains that were suffocating her. The ocean of terror she was drowning in. At the sight of Lucy taking that step the shroud tore and vanished. Unraveling around her as her mind came flooding back. In front of her the butcher vampire gasped as he felt her influence shatter.

Carla stepped forward in front of Lucy. She felt like she should be scared or angry. But she wasn't. She just felt very confident and very sure, "You're not taking her."

The baker turned to the butcher and smirked, "I thought you had her."

The butcher was staring at Carla with a look of pure rage, "Just give me a fucking second."

The butcher locked eyes with Carla, "If you move you die."

Carla heard the magic in his voice. The butcher's eyes grew in her mind, pushing the world away, until there was only him and the black pit at his center. She felt the certainty settling onto her, a fact she was unable to ignore. If she moved she would cease to be in an instant. She would die in agony. But the certainty only lasted a moment, less than a moment. In less than an eyeblink it ran against a greater certainty, an absolute belief that she was not going to let these monsters hurt her sister. The butcher's compulsion slammed into that certainty and broke apart like a ship on a rocky shoal.

"Go fuck yourself," said Carla.

Then she raised her hands and hurled fire at the butcher.

It streaked toward him and set him ablaze in a gout of flame. His shriek was a sound no human could make. It was like the yowl of an angry cat grown huge and deep and horrible. The butcher collapsed and started rolling around on the ground. Yowling in agony as the flames devoured him.

Carla turned to her sister. Lucy was blinking and Carla saw self awareness return to her eyes, "Carla?"

"Go. Out the back," said Carla.

"Carla I'm not..."

"GO!" screamed Carla. She watched just long enough to make sure Lucy turned and ran.

She turned back and scanned the room desperately. The baker was all the way on the right side of the room. As far away from her burning companion as she could get. Her eyes were wide and shocked. Then her expression went flat as she stared at Carla intently. Carla was low on magic. She felt the exhaustion creeping into her bones. She had hurled that fireball with no preparation, no somatic aids to shore up and reinforce the spell in her mind. It had been a very basic mental casting that she had to pour magic into to keep stable. She was almost spent but she didn't have time to speak the words of a spell so she tried another silent, quick cast. She dug up her last reserves of magic and felt blood drip out of her nose as she scoured her own life force to draw more. Even with that she didn't have enough left for another fireball so she used a fire fighting spell to grab flames from the burning vampire on the floor and shove them at the baker.

By the time the flames reached the baker she wasn't there anymore. She was right in front of Carla. Carla didn't see her move. To her eye she simply disappeared and reappeared at arm's length. Carla had just enough time to take in the baker's wide green eyes when a shock ran through her body. The baker had struck her so fast she just felt the impact as she fell to the floor, barely catching herself with her hands. Woozy. She tried to shake the fog off of her mind as her head began to throb. But before she could move there was another jar to the back of her head and everything went dark.