The melee ahead got out of hand faster than Tara imagined possible. First, the vampire named Ghost, who'd saved Jesse, stood in the face of a specter one and half times his height with no fear. Tara'd been sure the crude man with barely any unburned clothes was about to gut Ghost, but then some freaky undead arm thrust out of the void like a strike of black lightning, shooting through the specter and blowing him up for lack of better phrasing. Pieces of the apparition rained on the pavement in a sickening cascade of goo that lost its undead energy as it sank into nothingness.

Those same tendrils of death lowered toward Ghost, and Tara was sure again that their ally was about to be a smudge until they wrapped him like a sash and lifted him off the ground. The undead energy was so thick that Tara was physically holding her mouth shut to avoid dry heaving, and as the specters fled from Ghost, it only worsened the pulse of their power. More arms reached from the void and ghostly fingers sank into several specters as they turned to flee. They dug their claws into the ground, shrieked, and scrabbled for life but ultimately ended up yanked back into the void from which they'd come.

With the void still open, more slipped out to take up the fight, and Falz backed ghost in pushing them back and keeping them off the rest of their party. With that half of the fight covered, Tara turned back to Neil who was not faring as well. Vampires circled him, living ones giving off dark energy while more specters forced Vincent back. Each time Vincent tried to help his son, another damned ghost grabbed his arms and yanked him back with raucous laughter. All Falz and Vincent could really do was keep pushing the back only to have them rush at their face again.

It was a lost fight unless Tara could seal their entry point, but she didn't want people to die getting her there. Walls dug up from the ground around Neil, but they splintered and exploded as the living vampires broke them down. In their place, Neil stood back to back with Silvia, and a hurricane surrounded them, tearing up anything too close and blowing back anything further off.

It was only a delaying tactic, because these vampires weren't easy pickings. Dark magic more powerful than Jesse's came off of each of them, saturating the air and marking them as generals, as they called them. Two specters took the lead among the living to keep them that way, and Tara offered her hand to Tanya reluctantly.

"They need our help, and we won't get past Dev at the gate if we don't down his lackeys, right?" Tara said as Tanya hesitated. The ghost hooker crossed her arms in frustration that she had to do work, but eventually touched Tara's fingers.

Every time Tanya joined with her body, it sizzled her insides, and Tara wondered if it wouldn't permanently damage her to rent out space in her body. That was a worry for another time though. For now, she had to focus as much as Tanya, using her ability to see seconds into the future to aid the ghost in pushing back her own before felling the living.

The first two living vampires dropped without much effort because they'd been paying her no mind. Tanya slipped up behind them as they went for Neil and executed one with a scythe blade into the face, and the other got their skulls crushed from the swinging weight on the other end. What was the thing made of?

"Concentrated dark magic infused into ore. Dev crafted it specifically for me, a gift for his heir." Tanya provided within her mind, but the word gift was said with sarcasm. There was bad blood between the two of them even if she was his descendant. "Issues that I shall settle in the void with Dev after his passing." Tanya dismissed Tara's wandering thoughts, and spun back as a blade dropped where she'd been standing. It was best she joined Neil and Silvia and she backed into a triangle formation that gave their adversaries pause.

"Hello, lover," Tanya said into Silvia's ear, and the mage covered it with a curse as she rubbed Tara's shoulder on hers. "Tired of my play thing, have you?" Tanya went on, and Tara wished she could duct tape her own mouth. The jabs and downright harassment didn't let up either, pushing Silvia further from Tanya as the specters focused her, and the living vampires corralled Silvia and Neil back into the truly undead. As much as they could handle their own, the specters always forced their way through and it was only a matter of time before it wasn't enough.

A specter rushed his power into the ground, demolishing the pavement and Silvia lost her footing as bits of sharpened rock and metal flew for her face. With a small wind spell, Silvia staved off what would have shredded her face like cheese, but in protecting her weakest points, she didn't have enough for the rest of her. Spectral power threw her into the air, and Silvia flipped as best she could to steady herself, but another specter darted down for her. Tanya moved to help, but one of the living with a death wish grabbed her scythe chain. Barbs and all, he sliced his hand open but locked the woman in place with a snarl.

Dark magic sliced through the fight in a strike of power that reverberated through the area and drove attention to where an interloper had caught Silvia and was setting her down next to her mate. Seething ice eyes ran over the fighting before they landed on Tara just as she managed to yank her scythe out of the vampire's face, dropping him like a pig for the slaughter.

Busted.

"What the hell is going on here?" Jesse asked in a low growl, but there wasn't exactly time for discussion as Tanya jumped back to avoid a huge vampire's strike. When his claws found no purchase, his body weight through him forward and left the back of his neck open for Tanya's blade. Tanya managed to near sever his head from the rest of him as she vaulted over the rest of the guy, but it didn't completely separate. Anything important did though, and the guy tumbled to the ground next to another corpse.

Tanya looked to Jesse, spinning her scythe at the ready, and a smile crinkled her face just as horror took Jesse. His eyes widened to dinner plates, and his jaw shook as tried to figure out what had happened to the woman he loved. There was no doubt Jesse could sense the essence of his sire within Tara, dead or not, and her ripping vampire skulls off and wielding the grotesque spiked chain and scythe left little room for doubt.

"Tara?" Jesse tried to make sense of his world crumbing, and Tara wanted to go to him, but she couldn't oust Tanya. If she was her weak human self, crippled from housing Tanya, she'd be dead in an instant. The vampires had caught on that she was a threat, and they would not let up until she fell.

Vincent dropped on them, yanking silver threads with him to sever a man's head as well as dice a few specters that had given chase. They reformed behind him, and he turned his back to Neil but ran livid crimson eyes over Jesse. "Make yourself useful, or scram, Jesse Zehir." Before Vincent could properly chastise Jesse, he was already back on the fringes of the fight, yanking back specter after specter.

"Sorry," Tara said, pushing back Tanya that much. "Talk later." It was a poor offer when she knew there wouldn't be a later, but it wasn't like she had any time now. The specters were getting pissed that their enemies had yet to fall, and the living vampires were dwindling. That meant Neil and Silvia's participation in this fight was about to be useless, and Tara needed to get into the void before that happened. More of the specters might flood their world id they saw their half fighting and wanted to win.

With Jesse aiding Silvia and Neil, Tara was confident they could keep themselves alive if she used Tanya to drag off the spirits. Tanya pushed forward as best she could, cutting anything living down and spinning as two apparitions circled, ghostly blades in hand like a tornado from hell, but Tanya ducked one and slapped the other blade away with the inside of her half scythe. It only delayed them, and Tanya couldn't get much closer to Dev with them blocking the way.

Light magic pierced through the fight, and everyone, their allies included ducked to the side as it landed in Tara's face and exploded. Shards of light shot off in all directions, skewering and melting the ghosts in her way, and by some stroke of luck nothing hit Tanya. Or was it luck. From the edge of the fight, Falz saluted her with a smiled, and went back to the dead vampire he was pummeling. It gave Tara an opening, and empty path all the way to Dev and Tanya dove through to close the gap. Just as Tara's hopes lifted that they might be able to toss her in the void, a blow took her in the side of the face.

It pierced through her face and head like someone had wedged a pickaxe into her brain, and if had been a physical blow, she just might have died. Anything physically likely couldn't have moved so fast that her poor sight of premonition did nothing though. Instead of shattering Tara's skull, it collided with Tanya's essence and ejected her like a bad tape the VCR had eaten. Tara his the round with a thud, and bile burned her throat and watered her eyes as she heaved her stomach.

Not good, not good, not good.

Her arms shook so badly that she wasn't sure if she was convulsing, but they certainly couldn't lift her. From where her face lay on the blood and decay spattered pavement, she could see Tanya moaning in pain and so out of it that she didn't rouse back to whatever consciousness a ghost could have. Unlike the specters fighting them, Tanya was weaker, still locked in the void but able to communicate with Tara because she was a medium.

Death was coming for Tara, but she could barely see straight as she managed to wedge her elbows into a position they couldn't teeter from. It pulled hers up on her arms, but her head hung limp as she tried to get feeling back into her shoulders. Everything from the head down to her chest were tingling like they'd lost all of the blood in them. Specters going through her body was not okay.

By the time she was able to angle her chin up enough to see, the specter ahead smiled and enjoyed slow steps toward her, her failed attempt to crawl away bringing it some twisted glee. Why were all these dead dicks so excited to bear down on her at a gate slower than a lame horse? The guy knew she wasn't running as much as she did, and scooting her arm so much as an inch had her face planting back into the dirt.

It laughed behind her.

Tara made one more attempt to move, and she bit her tongue to suppress a scream as she lifted her face to a ghostly hand hovering so close it would graze her lips if she fell again. It was extended down as if to help her up, but it forced such powerful undead energy into her skull that the world spiraled and she feared passing out. The hand backed several paces, allowing Tara to stabilize herself long enough to lift her gaze to a sheet of white hair. It crawled all over the man, running over his shoulders and resting on his bent knees where he crouched. It glowed in an unearthly ivory shimmer, much brighter and whiter than the silver hue of Neil's, and soft, jade eyes found hers as the ghost gave her a kind smile.

This one was still on the other side. Like Tanya. But who was he tethered to?

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