Getting Hotter

‘December 14th, 2017’

‘Lumen’

Eve

My eyes were locked on the man in all black standing by the door.

I didn’t recognize him, which made me all the more wary.

I tuned my hearing into him so I could listen to everything happening around him. My senses were on high alert. The first sign of danger, I’d be down there.

He took another few steps into the ballroom.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up straight. I had a bad feeling about this guy. And my feelings were never wrong.

But then Shade, the Millennium Wolves’ Gamma, appeared behind him.

He was dressed in a black tux, like most of the other men here, but his face was all business.

It seemed like I wasn’t the only one with a bad feeling.

“I’m gonna need you to come with me. Slowly back up ’til we’re out of the ballroom,” I heard Shade instruct the man.

“No.” The man responded in a thick accent. Something European. Italian, maybe.

I watched as Zachary and Omar closed in on the man. But he didn’t look intimidated, not one bit. Again, not a good sign.

The Millennium Wolves were usually more than enough to intimidate.

The man spun around so he was facing all three of them.

He smiled. ~“I’m here to kill you,”~ he said in Italian, leaving the Millennium Wolves squinting at him in confusion.

~Of course~ none of them spoke Italian. Useless.

~“I’m here to kill all of you. And you’re fools for not seeing it. But I am here for something else too,”~ the man continued, and immediately the feeling in my gut grew.

He was here for the Morgans; I was sure of it.

I jumped off the railing, landing on the dancefloor with a thud. The townspeople around me gasped, but I ignored them. I didn’t have time to be demure.

I was approaching the Italian man when I saw Shade pull out his pistol and aim it at him, but the man just laughed. And then he raised his palm.

In the span of a second, a fiery flame grew from his hand, and he threw it.

Right at Shade.

~Fuck.~ He wasn’t just a warrior; he was a vampire. Which was impossible. Only, it was true.

Shade ducked before the fireball could hit him, but the flame hit a tablecloth instead, causing the whole table to burn with fire.

Townspeople weren’t just gasping now. They were screaming, running out of the ballroom as fast as they could.

“Everyone stay calm! Move cautiously!” I heard Gabriel thunder from the stage. But my eyes were still locked on the Italian man, the one with fire coming out of his hands.

No wonder he hadn’t been scared of the Millennium Wolves.

He was no werewolf.

This man, he was one of my kind. And worse, he had a unique power, one I’d never seen before. He was a pyromancer.

As the Millennium Wolves tried to regain their composure, I walked right over to the man, speaking in perfect Italian.

~“We haven’t met,”~ I said, causing him to turn to me. He was clearly taken by the fact I’d come so close to him when everyone else was keeping their distance.

~“Who the fuck are you?”~ he spit back at me, a flame again growing in his palm.

I could feel the Millennium Wolves staring at me, thinking I was crazy for getting so close to a pyromancer.

There was nothing more dangerous than fire, after all.

Well. Except for me.

~“You might’ve heard of me. People like you, like us… they know me by a nickname. A nickname I haven’t used in a long time,”~ I stated.

~“What?”~ he snapped.

~“The Devil.”~

His face immediately went pale. ~“You’re not the Devil.”~

I smiled, and then I quickly scanned the room.

The townspeople were all gone. I saw Zachary, Shade, and Omar a few feet to my left, and behind them I saw Raphael.

He was watching me intently, a protective hand on Anya’s shoulder.

Beside Anya I saw Martin, Reyna, and Jed.

Everyone was okay. For now.

I turned back to the Italian man, who had gotten most of his confidence back. He was sneering at me. “Well then, let me show you,” I told him.

I lunged at him, my foot poised to kick him right in his gut, but he threw the fireball in his hand at me. I avoided it easily, lunging at him again, and this time, I made contact.

He dropped to the floor, holding his abdomen in pain.

I jumped onto him, my hands moving around his neck. ~“Who sent you?”~ I demanded, his face again growing pale.

“EVE!” I heard Raphael shout from where he was standing, and that was when I looked behind me, seeing the Italian man’s hands by his sides.

Each hand held fire.

But not just fire. Fireballs. Fireballs the size of me.

I leapt off him before the fire could touch me. I was crazy strong, sure, but I wasn’t immune to fire. The flames still hurt like hell.

The Italian jumped off the ground, too, and started rounding his hands behind him, like he was preparing for a good baseball pitch.

Now he was pissing me off.

As soon as he released the fireballs and they started to soar through the air, I focused on them.

I stopped them with my mind, mid-air, they started to float backwards.

I heard a chorus of gasps and shrieks from the spectators. The fireballs went all the way back to the man, forcing him to take them back into his skin.

Then I shifted my focus to him. I lifted the man into the air until he was suspended ten feet up, his limbs flailing. He was trapped in my telekinetic force.

I walked closer to him. My eyes were flashing purple with rage.

~Was a regular night so much to ask for?~

~“Now, are you ready to talk?”~ I asked him in Italian.

He was trying to move his limbs, his face overtaken by fear. ~“What’s happening? What’s holding me?!?!”~ he screamed.

~“Are you here for the Morgans?”~

He looked at me, his mouth a straight line. So I gave him a double dose of my telekinetic force, squeezing more pressure against him from every angle.

He probably felt like a butterfly trapped in a cocoon.

~“URRGGHHH!”~ he yelled in pain.

~“Don’t make me ask again.”~ I warned.

~“Yes… for the… the Morgans! The new queen!”~

I sighed.

He was here for Reyna. For her blood.

~“Who sent you?”~ I shouted.

~“No... no one.”~ he stuttered. But I didn’t believe him.

He might be a pyromancer, but this man wasn’t smart enough to work by himself. I was going to make him talk.

I took my silver ring off, the one on my left ring finger.

Then I threw it into the air so it flew right in front of him.

As everyone in the ballroom watched, the ring turned into a scythe, as tall as me with a pointed spear.

~“This is my scythe,”~ I said grandly. ~“It’s a special weapon. One that can pass through anything, even fire.”~

I grabbed the scythe that was still floating and stepped closer to him.

~“I don’t have time to play games with you. I’ll ask you one more time, before I start using this to remove parts of your body. I’ll start with the part you love most,”~ I said, looking right at his crotch. ~“Who sent you?”~

He shuddered. ~“The man, the evil man...”~

~“Who?”~

~“Barron Von Logia.”~

At the sound of his name, my heart stopped cold.

I could feel my mind spinning, my thoughts taking me back to a different time, to a more painful time, but no. I couldn’t think about that now.

I had to focus.

I stepped closer to the Italian, who was still hanging in mid-air.

~“Thank you for your honesty,”~ I said, and then I plunged my scythe deep into his heart.

I heard screams, but I didn’t look up. Not even when I heard Raphael’s voice yell, “Stay back!”

As soon as I removed the scythe from the man’s heart, he dropped to the floor. The scythe shifted back into a ring, and I slipped it onto my finger as blood started to pour out from his wound.

I crouched next to the man, pulling the glass vials from my purse.

I could feel my head pounding. Using that much power wasn’t easy. My vision was blurring, and my body felt like it’d just run across the globe and back.

I was exhausted. But I wasn’t done yet.

I sent a telepathic thank-you to Kimbringe for the vials and got to work.

I zeroed in on the blood flowing out of the dead man’s heart and, holding a vial in my hand, used every ounce of magical force inside of me to lift the blood up, through the air, and into the container.

Telekinetically moving solid objects, people, that wasn’t too hard for me. Exhausting, sure. But not difficult.

Moving liquid substances, or tiny things like sand, that took a whole lot more power.

My concentration was turned on high, and the blood soared through the air, filling the first vial. Then the second.

My vision was getting blurrier, my head pounding louder, but I kept my focus. I’d come this far. I wasn’t about to fail.

The third vial filled and then the fourth.

I watched more blood move through the air, leaving the man’s body and filling the glass.

My head was pounding so loudly it was like a drummer had started paying rent.

I heard people around me, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was like I was underwater. Running out of air.

My vision was darkening.

And the pounding…~my God, the pounding.~

And then, before I could see if the fifth vial was full, everything went black.