Page 99 of Blood Sacrifice

Salvator

The recoil from the gun echoed up my arm and into my shoulder. We didn’t have the fancy blasters that Dominic and his team used, but we had designed weapons that held a lot more ammunition and were engraved with symbols that neutralised magical abilities and killed our enemies.

I hit a warlock in the knee, bringing him to the ground, but I knew his magic was gone and he was nothing more than an asshole with a bad attitude. “How much did it take to sell your soul?” I asked, standing over him.

“An animal can never understand true power,” he snapped, trying to drag himself backward.

Aisha nor the other witches knew about these engraved bullets. At a basic level, our wolves knew they were being manipulated and had rebelled, finding ways to segregate information.

I crouched beside him to look him dead in the eye. “Your magic is gone. Even in death my wolf is a part of me. I understand the meaning of true power.”

I watched as he tried to summon a spell without success, slowly standing over him to watch the fear in his eyes as the realisation of his situation sank in. There was a version of mewho would have walked away and left him to his fate as a human, but this was war.

“I remember you,” I said in a low voice. “They made us stand and watch while you took innocent lives, robbed children of the years they were to experience. I remember the face of every single one of the warlocks Balor used to slaughter them.”

His eyes widened and he tried to drag his leg in his attempt to escape. “They were a sacrifice to the gods.”

“They were a power hit for a sick bastard with an ego complex,” I replied. “He dragged you all along with promises of untold magical abilities and godlike status.”

“The rest of this chamber is cleared,” Jethro said, appearing beside me. “He’s the last one.”

I could almost feel Jethro analysing all of the guy’s features, knowing he never forgot a face.

“Isn’t he one of the goons who likes to torture little girls?” he asked, taking a step forward.

“Uh-huh,” I replied, nodding my head.

“Sick fucker,” Jethro muttered, his gunshot echoing around the chamber as the warlock slumped back with a hole in the centre of his forehead. “I hate every single one of them. I hate that they leashed us so we couldn’t help those kids. I hate everything that they stand for.”

The dead warlock proved what he was saying was true.

“We need to keep moving,” I replied.

“I have full access to their network,” Tarrack said in my ear. “I’m downloading onto a remote server to trawl through later. Interesting fact of the day is that they have a database of all their operatives and where they are in the world. They are still out there searching for something, and I’m not sure if it’s the priestesses.”

“Keep looking and get what you can before they lock you out,” I replied. An organisation didn’t last this long without having the best people they could find in the background.

“I’ve loaded a few of my viruses onto their mainframe to slow them down,” Tarrack said, and I imagined his fingers flying across his keyboard as he chewed the top of another innocent pen.

“Any information on where Luna was heading?” I asked, leaving my message vague in case anyone was listening.

“Negative. I’m still searching, but it seems that any information about that mission is dark or maybe only accessible to higher members,” Tarrack said. “I’ll keep updating on anything I find.”

My earpiece returned to silence as he closed his mic.

Jethro met my gaze, and we turned in unison toward the exit of this chamber. “I expected a greater resistance,” he said.

“They are amassing further into the network,” a voice said from above us.

I looked up to find Dominic clinging upside down to the ceiling. My back molars ground together and my claws dug into the palms of my hands.

“How do you know that?” I asked, already sure it was true since the crazy vampire had never once steered us in the wrong direction.

“I took the opportunity of you dispatching the last of the assholes to take a look ahead,” he replied. “They have a welcoming committee waiting two chambers down.”

I nodded once. “What about the next chamber?” I asked.

“Empty.”

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