Chapter 141 - The Light Of Day

I sucked in a short breath, somehow shocked and yet entirely not surprised to hear a statement like this from Captain. My teeth grit together in sudden anger at the narrow-minded people who so easily put people into categories and then disposed them in batches.

"This is a fucking…" I didn't even know how to call it at first, before the words hit me. "This is a fucking war crime!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Captain barked at me, and this was the only reaction I got.

It wasn't impossible to hit only Christina. It was only a matter of waiting for an opening, a moment when the two fighters paused to exchange quips and take a breather. I had little trust that Captain was going to wait.

While most of my attention was on him and the piece of magic he held in his hands—Captain's well was small enough that I could see the entire topaz clearly—part of me watched JJ's battle. Only through the auras, but it was enough to give me the right impression.

It was vicious, again. Both vampires pulsed with rage. JJ's was cooler, more of frustration mixed with regret and despair. Christina blazed with fury hotter than Hell and similar frustration mixed with absurd delight. The emotions left trails thick enough to make it hard to see the rest. The pain and the rush of the fight, the pieces being torn into and cut off.

Next to me, the sunlight in the topaz shifted. The spell was fast. I should've expected it to be fast, but somehow, I wasn't ready. Captain didn't channel the sunlight itself—instead, he pulled at the seams of the seal that contained it.

The seam didn't break entirely. Instead, a window appeared in it, and from it like from a flashlight, a wide cone of light flew, as bright as in a sunniest day or more. As swift as only light could be, swift enough to catch both JJ and Christina in the middle of their battle.

The time seemed to slow down. The events of a second felt like they took an eternity. JJ and Christina hissed in unison, but didn't stop. Christina tried to protect herself with her wings, tried to jump away, but JJ held her by her wrist in the light even as his skin turned a dangerous boiled red. Her fingers caught fire—just like wood; so did JJ's hair.

I only thought, somehow absurdly, about how awful it'd be if he burned his hair into nothing again right after it finally grew back, and jumped at the topaz in a mad attempt to take it away.

"Stop it!" I shouted, but instead of following my command/plea, Captain just threw me back by my shoulder, making me stumble and almost fall on my butt.

In this moment, something clicked in me. There was no more of that thin line between my 'normal' senses and the one that my well gave me. I didn't have to concentrate on one or the other, just like I didn't need to concentrate so hard to reach for an aspect and channel it. When I reached for the sunlight in that damn topaz, it was as natural as reaching for it with my hand.

I grabbed at it sharply and held it in me, safely away from everyone. With a brutal kick to JJ's stomach, Christina tore herself out of his grasp and patted on her flaming hand with her flaming fingers. JJ didn't bother himself with the same as he followed, but in the next moment, the wind of their motions extinguished the fire, anyway.

"What are you doing?!" Captain and Ghost asked at the same time, but their questions were aimed at different people. "I will report that too when we return to the headquarters!" Captain swore at me.

"You can't just burn people left and right!" Ghost exclaimed, pointing at Captain with a disbelieving expression. "What are you, Inquisition?"

I had a full well worth of sunlight, and the chuckle that tore out of me almost made me let it out before I was ready. Holding the inappropriate laughter in, I pushed the aspects I caught deep into the ground under my feet, where it was several layers of asphalt away from harming anyone.

"Captain, I won't let you attack blindly," I said, giving the man a grim but determined look. At this point, I only called him Captain because I forgot his actual name. "Report all you like."

"You think you can do anything because you an arch-witch?" Captain's face was red with emotion. A vein pulsed on his forehead, looking dangerously close to bursting. "This squad's mission was to protect you, and this is how you repay the coven? Elder Elena made a mistake accepting you in!"

He just only not frothed from the mouth, but at this point I barely paid him any mind. I didn't even look at him with more than a corner of my eye.

I thought JJ almost won by now. The fights between vampires were drawn out by their supernatural endurance, but shortened by the speed with which they depleted it. The sunlight damaged them all, but I saw even now how JJ's skin regained its previous pale colour. Christina was younger, and her resistance was less.

They exchanged blow after blow, swing after swing. Even in the flashes in which they appeared to my eyes, I saw the viciousness of their fight, but after everything I've seen today, the violence didn't feel as scary anymore. The only thing I was worried about was that, by some chance, by some luck on Christina's side, JJ could lose.

And then, just as if I invited the danger by thinking about it, Christina went for what looked like a suicidal move. She impaled herself through the stomach on JJ's sword. But of course, for a vampire, this was just a flesh wound. A small sacrifice that brought her close enough to him to embrace, to kiss…

To sink her claws into his chest.