“WAKE UP.”
Thorn tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “Is that you I hear yelling, Salem?” It’s faint, but I can hear something.”
Pressing back against the gurney, Salem reached out and grabbed her mother’s arm, sinking her nails in as deeply as they would go.
“I don’t want to fight you. I want to love you as a father should.”
“Fathers don’t have dreams of impregnating their daughters,” Salem spit back.
“Oh, I bet that Craig would disagree. I’m sure he looked at you and had some impure thoughts. What man wouldn’t? You are a ravishing creature.”
“Craig was more of a father to me than you will ever be. “Salem felt her mother’s muscles tense under her grip, so she loosened it and moved her hand down to Raven’s wrist, where she felt the pulse grow stronger.”
“What can I do as a show of good faith?” Thorn asked, taking a step closer to Salem.
“Let me talk to Terry.”
The billionaire turned to look at the torn body that used to be Drake and smiled, flashing a set of fanged teeth that glistened with poison at the tips.
“You did that to him? There is more of me in you than you think. I’m sure you already know that talking to Terry is out of the question.”
Raven’s pulse quickened some more.
“When is it all enough?” Salem asked.
“What do you mean, daughter?”
“You have money, power, everything that most people can only dream of, yet still you drain the blood and ask for more,” Salem said, nodding at the needles still stuck in Thorn’s arms.
With a glance at the glass container, which was about one-third full, he ripped the tubes out of his arms and let them fall, the blood dripping and pooling around his hooves. “If you join me, it will be enough.
Salem smiled demurely and walked towards her father, trying to keep his focus off of Raven, who was now beginning to sit up on the gurney. She needn’t have worried, as Thorn only had eyes for her.
“You see what we can be together, child. Come to me.”
Moving in close, Salem placed her hands on his bare chest and moved them slowly down to his abdomen. Thorn moaned and went to pull her in close, which was when Salem struck him in the belly with the palm of her hand, sending Thorn flying across the room, a look of surprise on his face.
Snatching up the dripping tubes, Salem pulled Raven’s gurney in close and said, “Drink.”
“What?” Raven asked, her voice slurred.
“Stronger together, remember?”
Without giving it another thought, Raven grabbed the tubes and shoved them into her open mouth, sucking down the contents of the glass container in a matter of seconds.
“What are you doing? “Thorn raged, picking up one of the passed-out guards and snapping his spine over his knee.” He threw the body across the room and roared in frustration as Salem swatted it away with little effort.
“You are going to need to do better than that,” Raven said as she hopped off the gurney. “It’s two against one now.”
Thorn scuffed his right hoof on the ground and leaned over, getting ready to charge. “You forget that I am many, all in one. I cannot be stopped.”
Salem made to step forward, every muscle in her body coiled tight like a spring. A hand on her arm stopped her.
“This one is mine. You should leave,” Raven said.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Thorn charged, tossing aside medical equipment with a wave of his hand, clearing a path to the witches.
“Together then. I’ll fight, you slice.”
Raven sprang forward and grabbed Thorn by the throat, covering the gills and leaving him fighting for breath.
He grabbed the witch by the arm and raked his claws along her skin, tearing open ragged wounds that healed as quickly as they opened.
As Raven continued to squeeze, Salem moved her hands as though performing karate moves, each movement through the air applying razor cuts to Thorn’s flesh.
Thorn stopped scratching and instead grabbed Raven’s arms, bending them backwards with a sickening crack that sent bones out though her forearms.
With a scream of pain, Raven removed her hands from around Thorn’s neck and drove the jagged bones from her compound fractures into the open wounds that Salem created on his chest.
Panicked, Thorn concentrated on healing the wounds, but Salem simply moved faster, slicing at every part of his body. When she reached the Achilles on his right leg and tore it open, he went down on one knee with a howl of agony.
“Put your hands on me,” Raven yelled.
Salem moved towards her mother but was lifted from her feet and sent flying by Thorn, who pointed at the guards and brought them awake. He opened his mouth wide and sent his barbed tongue flying out and into Raven’s shoulder, holding her in place as she removed the bones from his chest and began to heal.
“Shoot this fucking bitch,” he demanded.
The guards opened fire. The bullets that reached Raven bounced off her as she smiled in Thorn’s face. A few that missed tore through his tongue, tearing it off, leaving a wriggling stump in Raven’s shoulder.
Gouts of black blood spurted from the wound as Thorn flailed and tried to make it stop. The man had all the power in the world, but he was at a loss on how to best use it. He tried to heal his wounds, but the blood loss made him weak. The scales on one side of his face began to flake off and the reptilian eye on that side turned milky white.
Salem ran to her mother, pausing only to disarm the guards with a flick of her wrist. She watched as the men bolted, the fight going out of them as they took full stock of their surroundings.
Feeling her daughter’s hands on her shoulder, Raven said, “Heat.”
The women closed their eyes and slowly began to raise their body temperature, warming the blood in their veins and that which ran through Thorn. As they did so, Salem continued to slice.
Blood flowed freely from Thorn and boiled his flesh as it streamed down his body. Blisters showed up on his skin, popping freely and sending little geysers of blood flying into the air, each drop bubbling and fizzing as it hit the ground.
“Enough,” Raven said, as she stood and pulled her daughter away. “Maybe one more cut.”
Holding out her arm, Salem slowly drew it across Thorn’s body, opening a wound across his abdomen, spilling entrails that flopped onto the floor.
Thorn grabbed at his innards, trying to push them back inside his body, but his talons tore them into smaller shreds. He looked up at his tormentors, tears brimming in his eyes, and as he went to speak, the blood of the witches boiled over and exploded, tearing him into a million tiny pieces.
Salem wiped the gore away from her face and looked around the room. “I wouldn’t want to be the one cleaning up this mess.”
Poor Thorn. He went all to pieces.
Wow