Myka's Tail Ch. 06

On the surface of it, my dad was doing very well against a stronger enemy, but I was able to notice that strategically he was outclassed. He was trying to move the fight closer to the circle that he was trying to disrupt, but Mathias could see that too and was countering any move that my dad made in that direction. It was yet another stalemate, which was confusing until I realized that Mathias was waiting for something. The Betrayer had not yet entered the fight, but that was surely what he expected to happen, probably sooner rather than later.

I was still tied up with the mercs and what seemed like an unending number of shadow creatures, and I knew that if I didn't get to Mathias soon that all would be lost. My connection to the earth was pounding out its insistent beat in my head and in my heart, but I couldn't use it to turn the tide, and I was beginning to despair. Then, over the noise of the conflict going on around us, I heard a long, mournful howl that I knew was from Kita, and it was immediately joined by a chorus of howls, snarls, and barks as the wolf pack burst out of the darkness and began tearing the shadows and the mercs alike to shreds.

Within moments of the pack coming to our aid, Kita was by my side and with her help I was finally able to make some headway against my opponents. I took a few extra looks around now that some of the pressure was off, and the realization hit me that the wolves had truly pulled us out of the fire. Kelli's dad was doing what he could to protect our moms, and I knew that if Gina had left with them like we had planned, things would have gone very badly for us quite quickly. She was shielding Millicent and Kelli with earth and energy, aiding Mary in her desperate task.

Ali was still fighting, but was moving as if she had been injured. Without the pack to aid her, she would have fallen to the onslaught within just a few more minutes. She was finally able to regroup with her sisters, and she allowed the wolves to shoulder more of the burden of the fight, while turning to the defense of the others.

Three other wolves came to help Kita and me, and when they arrived it was only a matter of moments before we were able to break through the blockade and I was able to bolt as fast as I could towards Mathias. My dad was still standing, but had taken a beating, and I knew that in the morning he would be feeling the bruises and the stiffness from the fight.

"I got this dad," I cried out as I stepped between him and the object of my loathing, blocking and striking the moment I was there. "Do what you need to do."

I could see the rage building in Mathias' eyes as his plans started to fall apart around him once again, and the movements of the shadow creatures and his human pawns became more chaotic because of the loss of concentration. That his control was slipping through his fingers was a two edged sword, however. Everyone was fighting off the shadow creatures much easier, and I noticed that some of the mercenaries had regained enough control to decide that they didn't want to be there any longer. Mathias, on the other hand, started to fight with much more skill and ability than he had been before, and my skills and training were stressed to their limits.

"You think you can stop us, bitch," he seethed while attacking me with all the power he could muster. "You and the rest of these sniveling, whiny cunts don't deserve the kind of power you are trying to harness, and we are simply going to take it right from your hands, and there is not anything you can do about it."

"Listen, dick head," I replied, and I managed to land a series of strikes that probably cracked a rib or two. "We know what we're doing, and if we can't get this done then we will make it so that you can't either."

We continued to fight with each other, and Mathias was favoring his right side, so I knew my earlier strikes had hit home, but my glance at where my dad was telegraphed to him what I was thinking. Dad had finally made it to his feet after I had intervened with Mathias, and he was nearing one of the critical magic circles, ready to scrub a section of it out and end the ritual right then. Mathias was quick, and he attacked with a series of very fast punches that I narrowly avoided, but his real goal was the knee strike to my gut that managed to hit because my mind was focused on more than the fight.

"I don't think so, cunt," he cried out as the breath whooshed from my lungs and left me stunned for a couple of seconds.

That short moment was all he needed to lash out at my dad with a whip of darkness that was pretty much the opposite of Ali's whips of light. It wrapped around dad's leg and he pulled him back with a quick jerk, and dad was dragged across the ground towards us.

"You need to be a good boy, you little shit," Mathias taunted again as I moved back in to reengage. "The two Circle whores need to keep going so that she can finish what you all foolishly started."

He gave the dark tendril another jerk and pulled my dad even further from the circle, and then faced me again while laughing at us all. He was angry, frustrated, and things were not necessarily going his way, but Mathias certainly didn't lack confidence in any measure. It was that more than anything else that caused me to snap. Up to that point I had kept my primal self on a tight leash, because I knew I needed to fight with a clear head. That was over, and while I didn't give full control to that part of me, I made sure that she could do almost anything she wanted.

Mathias could see the change in my eyes, and the instant it happened he tried to defend himself while making a hasty retreat. He let go of the magic powering the darkness that had been holding my dad, and focused completely on me while backing away. It didn't help at all.

My fists and feet moved faster than lightning, and they had the weight of the earth behind them as they found soft target after soft target. Mathias was barely able to block or avoid some of my strikes, but enough got through that his injuries began to compound on each other. I was able to smash my heel down on his instep, and his cry of pain would have shattered the night if I hadn't also caved in his nose with a reverse elbow strike. Three more rib cracking torso strikes followed by a sweep and axe kick to the gut, and Mathias could do nothing but lay there and groan.

I turned to see my dad stand up once again, and he moved to break the circle that would end the ritual and hopefully stop the assault, but between blinks she appeared and intercepted him before he could reach his goal. The Betrayer's flowing cloak moved enough that I could confirm that she was still naked underneath, but her hood stayed so still that her identity remained shrouded in mystery, and that strange dark mist I remembered from the dream world. She moved forward into the center of the stone circles, forcing my dad back with a flurry of attacks that even I would have had a hard time avoiding, and once there she called out something that I couldn't understand and a flash of that sickly green light I remembered from Scotland bathed Mathias' body.

A brief moment of hesitation on my part was all that it took, because when I went to help my dad Mathias was once again faced off with me. Whatever the Betrayer had done had completely revived him, and I could see no sign that I had even caused any injury at all. The two of us began our dance again, and did our very best to end the other as quickly as possible.

"You see now, bitch," he taunted, and held himself like they had already won. "There is nothing you can do to stop us, and once we take your locus of power I am going to make you watch while I destroy anyone and anything you have ever loved. And then you are going to dance for a long time at the end of my leash like the subservient Neko you should have been in the fucking first place."

"Yeah, yeah," I replied, tossing it back in his face with a sing song manner. "You're all talk, and you haven't taken anything yet, and we won't let you."

Ali and the wolves had established an open space that encompassed all of us by then, and she finally stepped forward to give me a hand with Mathias. She strode forward and called her whips of light to her hands, and moved in to take over so that I could help my dad. Mathias, however, allowed a few of my strikes to land so that he could reach into the inside of his loose shirt and then he threw something at Ali and spoke a word of power.

"You may be my blood," he hissed, and she stumbled as she began to bleed from several gashes that had appeared over her body before she collapsed, moaning in pain. "But don't think that I would hesitate for a moment to use that connection to kill you because you got in my way."

I wanted to go to Ali's side and help her if I could, but I knew that right now stopping Mathias and the Betrayer was the most important thing I would do that night. With that in mind I redoubled my assault and once again began to push him back in defense. I also glanced over at my dad to see if there was any way I might be able to help there as well, but I could see that, even though he had been injured pretty badly, he was allowing himself to be pushed back in a way that would bring him close enough to one of the inscribed circles. He was about to use their movements in a way that would end the threat right there.

The Betrayer realized this at almost the same moment I did and moved to counter my dad and block him from his goal. She had let him get too close, however, and he turned from her to leap the last few feet to the circle, and would use his sliding body to break the glowing magical pattern. The Betrayer, however, had the powers of a witch as well as the abilities of a Neko, even though she couldn't effectively use them at the same time.

My gasp of surprise as she called on her magics to pull my dad back with an invisible force caused Mathias to pause and glance in their direction with a feral grin. I watched as time seemed to slow to a crawl as my dad and three wolves from the pack that had joined him, fought with the red cloaked woman, trying with all that they had to gain any sort of advantage. I was ready to bypass Mathias completely and risk being seriously hurt so that I could help them, but I was pushed back again by his fists and magic, and it was all I could do to remain standing.

With the help of the pack, I saw that my dad had finally managed to grab on to the Betrayer's cloak, and he was trying to use it to trip her up, and for a moment I thought he might actually remove her hood, and we would know who it was we actually faced. I heard her angry cry at the same time I saw the flash of silver in her blindingly fast hand, which was followed by the startled grunt of my dad who fell to his knees with the hilt of a blade protruding from his chest.

I heard the anguished wail of my mom as she realized what had just happened, and I saw Kelli's dad sprint towards the Betrayer only to be delayed by a pair of mercenaries that were still conscious and somehow still under Mathias' control. Dad was on all fours by then, and I could hear the wet rattle as he struggled for breath with a knife between his ribs, and his eyes squeezed shut in pain. And I registered the harsh bark of Mathias laugh as he struck out at me again and again, keeping me right where I was.

Then I began to see flashes of magic all around us as several witches who I didn't know appeared in our clearing and began working with the sisters of the Circle and the wolves, finally pushing back the shadows and human servants that had seemed unbeatable before. I also heard a rumbling sound that grated on the ears like stones being ground together, and I saw that the two golem that Penelope had prepared were beginning to move in defense of the stone circles.

The Betrayer spat some harsh words in an angry hiss, and that same sickly green light formed an arcane circle on the ground surrounding her, and she began to cast a spell that I could feel was in complete opposition to the one that Kelli and Millicent were still working. I could sense the ties that had started to form between the locus and myself being bent to the Betrayer's will, and I knew that in moments she would have complete control of the circle, and all of the power contained in it.

At the moment that the vile bleakness of defeat seemed assured, and the cold grasp of the darkest despair gripped my heart, I looked and saw that my dad had somehow stumbled to his feet. I was still fighting off Mathias, but I couldn't tear my eyes from the man who had raised me, loved me, and was my tower of strength in difficult times. There was a resolve in his look, as well as a deep sadness, and I gasped as he mouthed the words I Love You to me before turning.

"Finish the spell," he cried out with a gurgling shout as he launched himself in a blindside attack of the Betrayer who was completely concentrated on her magic.

Before she realized it, my dad had used the last of his strength to knock the Betrayer from her magical construct, which ceased to glow the moment he interrupted her spell. The cry of rage that came from under her hood chilled me to the bone, and I could do nothing as she recovered from my dad's attack and grabbed him by the hair as she yanked the blade from his chest and whipped its lethal edge across his throat. She let dad's body fall to the earth as the last few moments of his beating heart spilled his lifeblood onto the soil.

The pulse of power that occured in that instant nearly staggered everyone in the clearing, and I could feel the very rocks sing out in sadness. Kelli and Millicent's chanting became even more urgent, and I could feel the powers involved in their effort coming together in a crescendo of harmonies sung by the five elements. Those various melodies were tied together by a single note of unsurpassed purity that transcended everything as I was fully accepted by the locus as its guardian spirit.

"I guess you didn't see that coming," Mathias mocked, laughing as he continued to keep me occupied. They were the last words that I would ever hear him speak.

"Never again," I breathed, and I could see red creeping in from the corners of my vision. "You will never hurt anyone else again."

I noted the shock on Mathias' face as my eyes burst into the flaming red glow that meant that I was no longer in control, and then the shock became panic as I became a whirlwind of pain and rage. I lashed out and when he moved to defend I broke bones, and dislocated joints. I slammed my fist into his face each time he tried to scream, and I moved with such incredible speed as I shattered his knees, preventing him from ever walking again. I straddled his body where he had fallen, and I struck him in the gut, the chest, the arms, and again and again in his face, making sure that I caused as much hurt as possible so that I would be satisfied completely when I ripped out his throat.

Then I felt my emotional connection to my dad began to fade, and felt the pull that the earth now had on his spilled blood. The very essence of what and who he was became part of the flow of power racing through the stones of the locus. It had been my blood on the markers that allowed the ritual to begin, but it was dad's blood that finally brought everything together, and sealed this sacred place to me, and for the use of good, until the end of time.

The change in the air distracted my primal side from killing Mathias, and I was dimly aware that Kelli and Millicent had finished and were now silent. Another shriek of rage from the Betrayer drew my attention, and I was somehow able to understand that we had succeeded in keeping her from taking a power that was never hers in the first place. I also watched, unable to move from my position over Mathias ruined body, as she used magic to transport herself away before the gathered witches, the golem, and the power of the locus itself prevented her from escaping.

Once again, we had managed to defy all odds and triumph where we should have failed. And once again, the cost of victory was too high to be worth paying. It hadn't hit me yet, other than the rage and anger, but I was numb to other things going on around me. Kelli's mom and dad were doing their best to keep my mom on the other side of the circle from dad's body, while Mary and two of the witches that came to aid us were frantically tending to Ali and her many wounds. And while I couldn't vent my towering anger on the woman who had shattered my whole world, I had at my feet the worthless insect that had helped her, and he would have to do.

I wrapped my hand around Mathias' throat and lifted him until his feet were just barely touching the ground and I started to squeeze. His eyes were only half open, and the raspy gurgle that he made as he tried to breathe made my mouth twitch upward in a feral grin. My primal side was completely in control, and for the first time, my human half did not care about what I was about to do. My other hand was balled into a fist, and I knew that I was going to pound on Mathias' worthless face until it had caved in on itself and he was nothing but a dead sack of meat.

I could hear voices behind me, shouting and pleading for me to stop what I was about to do. Somewhere in the back of my mind I could feel Kelli's horror at the pure hatred I had for the miserable worm in my hand, which seemed to be the only emotion that I was sending over our bond. It had shocked her so much that she wasn't even able to voice a command that could have stopped me in my tracks. Mathias was going to die at my hand, and there was nothing that any of those witches or humans present could do to stop me.

"Myka! You will let him go this instant," Millicent cried out in a voice that seemed to shake the very sky above. "He is mine to deal with and I will see that he receives justice, but you will drop him now."

When she spoke to me, I could feel the terrible weight of Millicent's words sink into my soul, and as much as the part of me that held the greatest respect for her power and her feelings for Kelli and I, wanted to obey her command, all I did was turn and hiss, staring at her with my glowing eyes. Millicent did not have the power to compel me that Kelli did, but as she met my feral gaze without blinking, the side that was in control of my actions recognized a power and an anger in her very soul that even in my rage it could not match. A few more moments of hissing and hesitation was all that it took for my primal side to let the alpha in her have her claim, and I let the body of the broken man fall from my grasp as I backed away and collapsed into Kelli's lap.

Millicent walked forward, and Mathias was gripped by some invisible force that she had conjured causing him to be dragged along behind her. When I looked around at everyone there in the clearing, I could see the shock on their faces at feeling the amount of sheer power that she possessed and was no longer taking the trouble to hide. Once she had moved several feet beyond the altar, she twitched her wrist and Mathias was laid out in a crumpled heap at her feet. She muttered a few arcane words, and a brilliant orange circle filled with more mystic symbols than I could count came into existence around his groaning form.

"Mathias, you are a vile human and an even worse warlock," Millicent spat, and her anger seemed to crackle around her like lightning. "You have spent decades seeking a power that was never yours to begin with, and you have destroyed thousands of lives to do so. You are a man completely devoid of compassion and you have absolutely no sense of remorse. For just your actions tonight, I would be well within my rights to end your life and lock your very soul away forever, and the universe would probably call out in joy if I did."