“Don’t do it. You aren’t always going to feel this way. If you do this, one day you’re not going to be grieving for your mother anymore and you’ll hate yourself for what you did. This feeling you’re having is only temporary.”
“It’s not temporary. I will never be the same again, and it’s all because of the vampires. They are going to pay for what they did.”
“They didn’t do anything. It was one vampire who killed Noreen. One, Rita. And Ethan killed him. If anything, you should be thanking Ethan instead of trying to kill the mother of his unborn child.”
“I’ll never thank him. They’re all the same, all heartless.”
For a second, I wondered if this was Rita talking, or if Theodore had somehow brainwashed her into thinking all vampires were evil. She started to advance on me quickly now, and out of instinct, I threw a blast of sparks at her as I backed up outside. She wailed in pain when they hit her body, but she quickly recovered and transformed it into anger.
“You’ll pay for that.”
“Hey! I didn’t mean to do it. You frightened me. Look, there’s no need for either of us to get hurt here. Roman could have killed Theodore already. You need to come home with me, Rita. We’d all welcome you back with open arms.”
“You talk a lot. Why don’t you just shut up for once and fight me?”
She crouched low to the ground, placing her hand to the earth, and suddenly the grass was exploding and balls of dirt were shooting up into the air like mini landmines. Instinctively, I raised my hand to my face and created a barrier of sparks around my body so that I didn’t get pelted. Rita let out a growl of annoyance when I defended myself, and I decided I couldn’t afford to stay passive anymore. I had to fight back.
Perhaps if I could show her that I was more powerful, then maybe she’d finally listen to me—not that I actually was more powerful than her. I just had to fake it. Rapidly, the All-Knowing Tome opened in my head, the pages flicking before landing on more information about my blood.
Okay, so I could pretty much add it to any magic and it’d be rendered ten times stronger.
I still had the blade Finn gifted me in my pocket, so I pulled it out and cut a small line into the tip of each finger on one hand. Immediately, it mixed with my sparks, and they started to pop and sizzle. They weren’t just glittery and white anymore. Now they were every colour of the rainbow.
Rita spotted what I’d done and started to move away, but she wasn’t fast enough. I shot a blast at her, and she screamed when my magic burned her worse this time. She put both hands over her ears because my magic was making a high-pitched squealing sound. I watched as it slithered over her face.
I closed my eyes and ordered it to stop because I didn’t actually want to send Rita crazy. She was already halfway there without any help from me. I just wanted to show her what I was capable of.
“I told you I had power,” I called to her.
She rose to her feet and swept her hand to the side, knocking me down with a gust of wind I hadn’t been expecting.
“You still talk too much. And your power is worthless without the knowledge of how to use it.”
“Oh, I’m learning.”
Before she could react, I threw enough sparks at her feet to knock her down. What could I say? I was sick of being the only one falling over all the time. Rita managed to get up quicker than me, and before I knew it, she was running at me full steam ahead. Without thinking, I pulled Ethan’s sword out of the holster on my back. Just as she was about to throw more magic at me, I slashed her hand, and she reeled back, staring in shock at the painful looking gash across her knuckles.
“Fuck!” she growled, clutching her bleeding hand to her chest. “You almost chopped off my finger,” she shrieked.
“You’re the one who came running at me. What did you expect me to do?”
“I expect you to … shit that hurts.” She was distracted by all the blood, so I got up slowly and walked toward her.
“I can help you to heal it,” I told her softly, and she peered at me, unsure. Then her dark eyes turned blank again.
“I don’t need your help! I need you to leave me alone.”
I got a shock when she leapt at me, pushing me down onto the muddy grass. I gulped and tried to breathe, but her hands were around my throat, squeezing.
“You see, Tegan, you’re not the only one who can use human means of inflicting pain,” she said hatefully.