And this was the whack idea you came up with?

Now, mom had fully shifted to a white wolf with shining silver furs and eyes. She looked helpless since she was bounded by magic and the same thing is applicable to Cedric and Hilda.

"You know, I have thought of nine hundred and ninety nine ways to kill you over the millennium, Cedric." He snapped his fingers and candles were lit with fire that burned brighter than I had ever seen all over the cemetery. He pulled out a blade and pierced the snake right from the tail upward before throwing it inside the fire.

"And this was the whack idea you came up with? It's too bad you are this dumb considering the fact that you are over a thousand years old." Dad snickered.

"Killing your father would have been pointless, so it occurred to me  to kill the son that aided him and the seeds of your loins." Lucindo inhaled sharply.

"Eew!" I scoffed. "You know when you put it that way it makes me want to gag." I scrunched my face up in disgust.

"Oh, poor sweet soul! You will be gagging out a whole lot of blood when I'm done with you." He rubbed his hands together and grinned.

"Not under my watch," Suzy screamed into the air and lept onto the warlock. I jumped on him and seize his hands in case he tries to attempt magic. Suzy began to whisper incantations and the warlock screamed in discomfort and turned ashen. He was covered in sweat so I'm guessing Suzy was boiling his blood till he combusted.

His skin began to get too hot that it burned us both and we left him out of reflex action. Suzy aimed a dagger at this heart with hatred in her eyes, she looked tenacious and fierce and a part of my heart warmed up at how my guardians will do anything to protect me.

Lucindo caught the dagger, swiped his index finger into a long horizontal line and the dagger multiplied and changed direction towards Suzy and me.

I ducked and slid onto the ground but Suzy wasn't so lucky. She hissed in pain and her slender fingers were pressed against the stabbing wound in her chest to stop the bleeding. Her camisole was torn open and her injury looked deep but my major concern was why she wasn't healing? Vampires heal up as soon as they get injured unless Luncindo poisoned the dagger with something else.

"You bloody bastard!" I screamed with pain and jumped on his neck. He tried to fling me away by shaking his body aggressively but I was too blind with rage, mad with anger, and sad with pain.

I took out a dagger from my boot and stabbed his neck. "You killed a good man, Dan."

"He was just collateral damage I used to threaten your family as a warning." He used magic to detangle himself from me, he clenched his teeth because of his bleeding neck.

Lucindo groaned in pain and grabbed his head in pain, Bastaiana stretched her hands over his head and caused him a severe headache.

"I will send you right back to where you belong. The ancestral ground with the dead." She stepped closer to him and intensified her magic.

Lucindo grabbed her by the legs and flung her away, he stretched his hands over her chest and began chanting. Blood was beginning to soak Bastaiana's top and her face was ghostly. I lunged for the warlock again but he slammed me against the grave.

"You should begin your last prayer because the ancestors won't hesitate to punish you after your death." Lucindo boot clicked as he made his way towards her.

"You and the ancestors should kiss my ass, you bloody hypocrites." Bastiana coughed in pain. She was getting paler by the seconds and looking more like a ghost. She was covered in sweat and blood and yet she still managed to put the front and armor of confidence like a true warrior.

"You wanted me out because of jealousy and you had to team up with the witches' worst enemies? The Marshalls?" He let out a harsh sigh and his nostrils flared in disappointment.

"Says the hypocritical bastard who once teamed up with Alaric Marshall the great to overthrow his opponent." Bastiana scoffed and hissed.

"How dare you?" Lucindo said with throbbing veins in his neck and he kicked some pebbles with anger.

"Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Lucindo." She gave a mirthless laugh and the warlock silenced her by snatching her heart with magic and dropping it right next to her corpse.

"No!" A tear slipped from my eyes as I watched Bastaina's corpse stare at me. She didn't deserve to die this way even though she was never a friend to me or my family. Lucindo is an abominable evil of the ancestors making and if the ancestors can be daft enough to connive with him to ruin everything in this city then they must be stopped.

I looked around to study our situation. Bastaina is dead, Cedric is being imprisoned by a magical block, mom has shifted to a full wolf but is being restrained by magic, Hilda has a boundary spell shielding anyone from going inside the circle or leaving the circle. Suzy is injured and not healing at all, so in other words, I'm my family's last resort and any move I take must be in our favor because if I get bound by dark magic too, then we are as good as dead.

I saw Suzy staring at me and I knew I must get whatever information she was trying to pass across with her eyes since Lucindo is within earshot. Suzy groaned and jerked her chin towards my right. I turned and saw Lucindo's accomplice in a trance. Since they were together with the warlock, they should be fighting hand in hand and not secluding themselves elsewhere and performing something diabolical.

Lucindo knows this is no playground so he can't be stupid to bring people who won't be useful in this fight and since they are not aiding physically then they must be aiding spiritually and like a light bulb sounded in my head, I knew exactly what Suzy was trying to pass across.

Lucindo was busy bluffing to dad about how stronger he had become and how he wants to give us all a painful death. I raced towards the women in my full supernatural velocity, dug my hands into their chest, and pulled out their hearts.

Lucindo let out a loud shriek and for a moment he looked vulnerable. Lucindo was using all the people he murdered and was channeling their powers through the women and me killing them meant I have disconnected the sacrificial magic and ruined his power bank. Now he is as weak as any other witch because he can only battle with his ancestral magic.

Lucindo stretched his hands into the air and I automatically got hung in the air. I could feel my lungs and chest tightening and I gasped in shock when blood stained my shirt. He was about to rip out my heart and make my bloodstain the cemetery just as the other dead people.

A distant growl rapt my attention, her tail wiggled and her ears straightened as she snapped her teeth and pounced on the warlock and bit his legs. He cursed in pain and infected mom with a dark curse. As mom struggled to process what had happened, my chest constricted more and my heart was almost being pulled out when something hopped on me and threw me to the ground.

Fear gripped me when I realized I was seconds away from getting my heart ripped out by an evil yet good-looking warlock. It's not the predictable anger or pain that is the worst, it is the random stuff you saw coming which acts as torture and elevates primal fear. It was the first time I ever had a close glimpse and contact with death and even though I'm unkillable, I can't just help but squeeze my savior tighter and try to get my racing heart to calm down first.

"Thanks for saving my ass, Cass." I sniffed in his fresh masculine after-shave and perfume. At least his scent distracted me from the bloody cemetery that smelt of death, sweat, and evil, and what doesn't help matters is the evil energy the atmosphere is charged with.

Lucindo had disappeared into thin air when he realized he was now no match for anyone and peace is only earned when trouble has been taken proper care of, but when the trouble escapes into thin air, one should be truly troubled because no one knows when, how, and what form it will eventually strike again.