Jan Delima - Celtic Moon

Clutching the smooth metal beneath her palms, Sophie pulled the Serpent from her waist and let it uncoil to the ground. “One more step and you will lose your head.” She wasn’t sure if it was the Serpent that made him pause, or her threat. The Serpent, most likely.

Those awful white eyes studied the uncoiled whip, lingering on the horned details of the fanged barb, and then lifted to her face. “Who are you?”

She braced her legs apart, balancing for an assault. “The human who’s going to kill you if you don’t leave our territory.”

“She’s Dylan’s mate,” Elen blurted out, revealing her emotions for the first time in front of Rhun. “Their son has been gifted by the Goddess. It is Taliesin who gave her the Serpent of Cernunnos. You must not harm those the Goddess protects.”

Her announcement was not received well. Rhun sliced his hand through the air as if to erase a vile presence. “Liar! You filthy little . . . drwgddyddwg .” Visible tremors claimed his limbs. “Ceridwen protects Her Guardians. She protects Her Council. Not . . .” He leered at Joshua, spittle foaming at the edges of his mouth. “Not the bastard of a traitor and a human.”

Malsum crowded by Sophie’s side, obviously sensing the same thing she had: running was no longer an option. “Will you back up your threat?” he asked, keeping his gaze locked on the encroaching Guardians.

“Yes,” she said simply, and as Rhun lunged toward her son with a battle cry wrought with fanatical vengeance, she didn’t hesitate. The whoosh of the whip split through the air, like the roar of a bear in the middle of winter, a deadly threat that something had just awoken that should have remained undisturbed.

A brief spark of recognition, of shock, widened his milk-white eyes. Too late. A warning of death had been given and ignored. The Serpent grabbed hold with surreal accuracy and anchored around his neck. Sophie followed through, separating head from torso in one fell swoop.

And the battle began.

The others did not cower back as she’d hoped. They came at Sophie and her family with weapons drawn, knives and swords of varying shapes and sizes, all crafted with one purpose: to sever head from spine. Feverish anticipation shone in their eyes.

She fought for her son, for the children who cowered in homes because they feared their deaths. She fought for Melissa, and Taran, and for all those years she’d lost with Dylan because he’d been forced to contain her against this evil.

“Stay behind me,” she yelled to Joshua and her mother. But her son held his sword in his hands, the one his father had given him, and was holding off one of the Guardians. She killed three others, and two more who had fixed their attentions on Joshua, while Tucker had his jaws around another’s throat.

The Serpent coiled around her targets with a fluid motion that increased momentum with each kill, as if garnering strength in death. The very thought horrified her even as desperation propelled her forward.

On her right, Malsum was swarmed, though he still fought, dropping bodies around his feet with his simple but effective garrote and a lethal blur of motion. In a sudden move, Malsum faltered backward, either overcome by their zealot fury or in a strategic move to draw the Guardians away.

Clarity of purpose balanced the chaos. Sophie counted thirty-two enemies, twelve dead, eleven fully functional humans, seven wolves and two in mid-shift. Adrenaline pumped through her veins with every lash of her whip. The sounds of metal on metal rang in her ears. Faces swam before her, contorted with hatred and rage. The putrid scent of unholy elements clogged the air as more Guardians began to shift into their other forms, realizing their swords were no match for the Serpent.

Above the deafening roar, Sophie heard one voice penetrate through the others, clear as ice cracking on a frozen lake, and as jolting as if she were the one standing directly above it. She froze, horror-stricken.

Francine screamed, “Joshua . . .”

Sophie turned to see a flash of movement, and then her son yelling, “Grandma . . . no . . .”

A Guardian, still in human form, charged Joshua from behind in a rush of metal and flesh. Francine threw herself in his path, too human and too weak to offer any protection other than the shield of her own body and the power of her heart. Without thought, as if swatting an annoying insect, the Guardian grabbed her head and twisted.

Her mother crumpled to the ground and remained unmoving.

Sophie staggered in disbelief, a base reaction of utter shock. Darkness clouded her vision and blanketed her chest in a weight so heavy her lungs refused to draw air. What her heart knew, her mind refused to translate. Reality suspended, as if all justice had been drained by the dark hand of evil—and then came rushing back on a blast of color and sound. She toppled forward, unbalanced, her throat raw from a continuous scream she couldn’t contain, rage and pain mixed with the sound of feral grunts and the clash of swords.

But it wasn’t her anguish that stopped the battle, as it should have been. Elen moved behind the man who had just taken her mother’s life. The Guardian’s back was bare, sheened with sweat, his attention focused on Joshua as he raised his sword. Elen placed her hands on his exposed skin and closed her eyes, a gentle touch that jerked the man in an upright position until he stood stiff and unresponsive, his mouth ajar and his sword frozen in midair.

Without warning, the man imploded, as if turned inside out. Blood spattered the area in streams of burgundy and red. Sophie blinked, unsure if her mind had registered the impossible correctly. Or if, God willing, this was all just a nightmare and soon she would wake up to the smell of blueberry pie in the oven and her mother arguing over which fat made a better crust, Crisco or lard?

Sophie blinked again. And the forest appeared before her. A nightmare? Yes, but regrettably real. The scent of iron clung to the back of her throat. She wiped her cheek and found blood on her hands. All that remained of the Guardian was a pile of fur and pulp moving around the base of Elen’s feet. The pile issued a burst of canine wails, pain-filled and disjointed, broken vocal cords that had no form. The battle ended when all eyes turned in Elen’s direction, to that ungodly sound, stupefied into submission by the unfamiliar.

Elen stood in the middle of the trail, unmoving except for tremors that racked her body. She stared down at her hands. Green moss formed at her feet and then began to spread in an outward circle, consuming rocks and roots, and growing up trees. She looked up and caught Sophie’s gaze, her lower lip trembling in a silent cry for help. Tears shone like a river of anguish, leaving pink streaks through spatters of her victim’s blood.

“Fuck me,” one of the Guardians exclaimed, stepping away from the encroaching green circle, his sword falling from his hand to be engulfed in moss. “Did you see that? Siân spoke the truth.”

“Someone . . . grab her,” another ordered.

“ You grab her. I’m not touching her.”

A grumble of voices.

“The human killed Rhun. What should we do?” A stream of foreign words ensued, angry. An argument? The name Math was repeated but the rest was spoken in their original language. And then silence. A resolution?

“We’ll take the human instead.”

Sophie was focused on making her way toward Elen and Joshua, striking anything in her path: trees, arms, air, it didn’t matter. Still dazed by loss, it was a second too late when she realized they were referring to her , because she was the only human left. Joshua yelled, “Mom, behind you.” But it was too late.