For the Love of Magic

Not exactly happily ever after.... but it works

"Watch me," I say and quickly bring my knee up between his legs where it really hurts.

Ryan shouts and his magic is weakened to the point that I am able to throw him off of me.

"That was low," he growls.

"Yeah? So is using the first initial of your name even though it's made up and nobody uses it! Seriously! Did you think it would help your Pink Panther thing catch on?!" I shout angrily at him.

"You've called me that name before!" he defends.

"When?!" I question.

"When I first came up with it! Everyone said it was clever!" he argues.

"At least to your face..." I hint him in. Ryan looks positively befuddled. "Enough of this!" I say, snapping him out of his thoughts as I charge for him again and stomp on his foot before throwing an uppercut to his chin. He falls backwards slightly before stumbling to catch his balance and rearing around to throw a side kick into my ribs. The wind is knocked out of me as I stumble backwards. I'm able to regain my footing until he throws another punch between my eyes, hitting me right on. I crash to the ground, my vision spinning. Faintly, I'm aware of Dominico stepping between me and Ryan and can hear them exchange more blows of their own.

"Faye, listen to my voice," I hear Melissa say. I feel the blurriness start to fade from my eyes and the pounding in my head start to dull. "Can you speak?" she asks.

"You're a Healer, like Mrs. Redwind," I state, only tasting a little bit of blood in my mouth. She nods.

"Not useful for decking idiots like I want to do right now but I can play nurse," she says rather grimly. I hear the hard pack of a punch and see Dominico stumble and let out a grunt.

"Dominico!" I can't help myself from gasping and jumping to my feet.

"You need to wait and recov-" Melissa starts but I'm already throwing loose panels of metal at Ryan before he can land another blow on Dominico. One slices past his cheek but he manages to dodge or block the other three I hurl at him.

I see the anger burning in his eyes when he uses my own found weapons and hurls them back at me. I'm able to stop the first one and use it as a shield against the other two while Melissa jumps for cover behind me.

"Stop," Dominico commands Ryan. I only have a split second to stab my elbow into the back of Ryan's neck. I've noticed that every time Dominico uses his magic on Ryan, he becomes less and less susceptible to it. Ryan falls to his knees at the pain of my hit but reaches out with his hand and with magic, pulls a lever across the room. Immediately, sirens sound and all the lights except the red emergency lights go off.

"What did you do?!" I demand. Suddenly I hear heavy footsteps tramping through the hollow halls. Ryan turns to me with his beat and bloodied grin.

"We'll see who's outnumbered now," he says. I see werewolves like the ones in the hospital and outside coming in in full packs. Also a few tall but extremely thin limbed beings with a slight green tint to their skin and cat-slit eyes wearing fur clothing. Fairies. I also see vamps like Rose and Alec along with one or two warlocks and witches. They circle us, trapping us inside the domed room. I count a total of 25 W-members and do the only thing I can think of doing. I turn and slug Ryan in the face. They all stare at me wide eyed, including Dominico but he just looks more surprised. Ryan groans from the ground,

"'Et 'em," he murmurs. The werewolves start growling, sounding like Indy Cars warming up for the 500 or beasts who have just spotted their next kill. The fairies give us evil grins with dangerous glints in their creepy eyes. The vamps just exchange satisfied looks, as if they're already claiming who gets who's blood.