Samantha

"This is taking way too long, what are we waiting for?" I was starting to get uncomfortable standing around these strangers, doing nothing. 

"Patience... Patience. Sending that other werewolf back up with the blade sped things along. This will all be over soon." said Harry.

"Actually," said Edriss, "There isn't much of a point in waiting longer. Most of the vampires we came after have been eliminated. There are only a few still lingering around, and there are in know condition to oppose us. Straight to the top floor, we get the key to the sky and we'll be gone before those dogs realized what's happening."

Harry looked up at the burning building, watching it tremble.

"It still isn't safe."

"It says alot about us when we're too afraid to go in and take something after the battle is over," said Edriss.

Harry turned to him, and they stared at each other like they were ready to kill.

An ambulance pulled close to us, breaking the silence.

"Fine then," said Harry, breaking the silence. "We'll get it now."

Even the way he snapped his fingers was angry. It felt like we had begun to float on air even though I could see my feet touching the pavement, then a wall of transparent pink circled us and with jarring motion, we were in a room covered with blood and broken glass The smoke was too dense to see anything above the floor.

"Jesus..." said Edriss. "I wish we had front row seats to this shit."

Everyone slowly broke from our protection circle, eager to get a look at the chaos. Harry muttered an enchantment and quickly began to dissipate. The room we were in was very open, a door on both sides and beautiful windows that touched the marble floor. Some of the lights had gone out and some had actually fallen out of the ceiling, creating a dark and spooky look in the room.

"They're all gone." said one of the few I never cared for." She was female and had on a mostly brown getup, but she seemed happier than the rest of the whole group.

"I don't think anything was left alive." She spoke again, observing the savagery up close.

"You mages think you know everything" said a mysterious figure by the door.

The man looked like garbage. He looked like he had been in ten car accidents since he came in, scars and blood and charred flesh blackened his body. His left arm ended in an uneven burned stump, but it still looked as if it recently happened. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes looked bloodshot. Even for a vampire he looked as good as dead.

"Interesting..." said Harry. "So bold when your whole race is about to eradicated by your own disease."

He bared his fangs and hissed softly.

"How dare you?" he growled, enraged.
He took two steps forward and a line of fire appeared at Harry's feet, slowly making it's way towards the vampire. It split and went in three directions, left, right, and towards the vampire. The vampire stepped back to the door, avoiding the flames.

"Look at yourself. Immortal or not, you can't take much more damage, can you? I see no allies, it's safe to assume they're dead. But I also don't see any enemies... meaning you and your crew took care of the other vampires, am I correct?"

The vampire didn't respond at all, he just glared at us viciously, breathing faster. He coughed because of the smoke, and some of the mages behind me cleared their throats as well.

"You don't seem to be taking me seriously, so let me help you." said Harry.

He raised his hand and the entire doorframe caught fire, causing the vampire to jump forth, right on the glowing trail of fire. He screamed as the fire went up his leg and circled his body, burning through clothes and flesh, gliding all over his body like a snake.

"YES!" he screamed, frantically hopping and jerking while trying to put out the flames.

"YES! STOP IT PLEASE! WE KILLED THEM! WE KILLED THEM!"

Edriss moved forward a little and put this hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Enough. It stinks in here as it is."

Harry retracted the firey line and it went back to it's original position, this time staying stationary instead of slowly moving closer.

"It's a good thing you said something." said Harry, chuckling.

"This firey only goes out when I want it too. You would've been burning to absolute ash in minutes."

The vampire, still distraught over the new wounds, trembling and slowly fell to his knees.

A roar could be heard from somewhere below us, and I swear, it sounded like Allen.

"What was that?" I asked the vampire.

"Do you know what's going on below us?"

He raised his head and spat blood at me, but the line of fire grew larger and taller, vaporizing the bloody spit.

"I don't know shit about this place," he said, seething.

"It's probably the werewolves Avery failed to kill. That's why that dumb chick is dead now."

"That's the head of this territory, I reminder her father." Edriss whispered to Harry.

"She's not the head anymore," muttered the vampire. "No one is."

Another loud roar and crash came from below, vibrating the whole building.

"Let's take the key and go before the building caves in on us." One of the mages in the back suggests.

The vampire looked up in shock.
"The key? Are you talking about-"

"Yes. Yes we are." said Harry.

Harry walked towards him, and so did the blazing line of fire. He stopped a mere foot away from the vampire and crouched to speak to him.

"Do you know where we might find it?" said Harry, playfully. He was toying with the vampire.

"I... I don't know where it is." said The vampire, eyeing the flames.

"The vampire who had it is dead somewhere here, it could be on any of these corpses..."

Harry grabbed the vampire's head, squeezed his cheeks and lifted him up off the ground.

"Bull. Shit. See, I can feel magic emanating from you. I'm almost certain the others can sense it as well."

I heard whispers behind me saying they felt it too, but I felt nothing.

"I also know that they don't let just anybody travel with the sky. There's always a mental link with the head vampires, and even then you bats always plan ahead before you use it.
It's a waste with you vampires, you only took it because you didn't want anyone else to have any piece of leverage over you. So I ask you again, where is it? What shape have you given it?"

He lifted the vampire up higher, this time causing the vampire to cry out in pain.

"Why do you need it so bad huh? Powers getting a little shaky, aren't they? Last time I checked, the key was a gift."

"A gift to werewolves, not you demons." Edriss replied, stepping forward.

"I don't see the difference." The vampire snarled.

"Fine then," Harry ceded. "I guess will pick it from your ashes."

Harry slammed the vampires face to the marble floor repeatedly until we heard a crack and the vampire went still. Then the trail of flame smothered the vampires body, covering every single inch of his skin, casting shadows in the dark room like a bonfire.

"Okay..." said Edriss, breaking the silence. "Now we have to decide who takes the key."

"Why don't you just do it?" I asked him. "Are you scared to touch the vampire?"

"No, it's not like that." Harry told me, while Edriss scowled.

"Whenever a new being touches the key, it transports then where it thinks they need to go on it's own volition. There's no controlling it, unless you are concentrating on a place really hard in your head. We aren't vampires, so it basically resets itself and tries to recalibrate for us."

"So it completely disconnects the vampires, and links to us?"

"Yes, exactly." said Harry. "But we have to choose who picks it up wisely. If the wrong person picks it up we could get whisked off to Jamaica and be stuck there for a day."

"So who should pick it up?" I asked, looking at the others. It took a few seconds to realize they were all staring at me.

"You should pick it up." said Harry. "Your niece, her curse and that monster she resurrected have a role to play, a big one. We can't ignore this."

"Afterwards," said Edriss. "We'll use the sky and restore power to all the mages that have lost it, or have been weakened. We'll supplant the vampires in no time."

I heard the flames sputter out behind him and I turned to look. The vampire was nothing but a pile of ash with smoke still coming off of it.

"Go get it." said Edriss. Also, when you grab it, don't turn it into something stupid."

I bent down and sifted through the ashes. I tried not to recoil at the thought that this used to be a person, and finally, I touched a cold hard metal, and I shook it to get ashes off.

"What is that?" said Harry, getting closer. What is that supposed to be?

"It's a necklace," I told them, my eyes still attached to it. "It looks just like my grandmother's necklace."

"We aren't getting teleported," said Edriss. "What's going on?"

"It's a necklace." said Harry. "Maybe she should put it on.

The building shook more as the werewolves below roared.

"Uh, kid, we need to go. Put on the necklace." Harry urged.

Suddenly there was an weird scream, less wolf and more human. I wasn't sure, but it still sounded like Allen. And it sounded closer than before.

"They're getting too close! Watch out!"

I was yanked back by a powerful force when the wall and part of the floor burst outwards and exploded towards us, sending splintering shrapnel in all directions. I looked up and saw Edriss was holding me, and the first protection circle had come back.

"Oh my God!" Harry exclaimed.

Turning back I saw two huge wolfish man beasts, one grey and one dark brown. I recognized the grey one. Allen, but he something felt off about him. His demeanor, I had never seen him this furious, or this size.  He was strangling the other large werewolf raising him so high his head touched the ceiling. He was balancing on the jagged edges of wood that they came from and using his left hand to hold the remaining part of the wall they tore off. Looking at his hairy, bloody feet, I could see part of the room They came from. I don't know how he jumped this far.

"Allen! Allen it's me! Look at me!"

To my surprise, Edriss clamped my mouth shut.

"Stop it! Don't alert that thing to us, are you trying to get us killed?!"

I wasn't completely sure, but for a glimmer of a second, it seemed as if Allen actually looked in my direction.

Then he roared and flung the other guy towards us, leading to tons of swearing from my crowd. Edriss jumped in front of my, about to cast a spell, but Harry snapped his fingers and everything flipped out of control. We didn't just appear outside on the street, we smacked the pavement. It wasn't as if we had fallen the whole way down the skyscraper, but it definitely felt about ten feet of the ground. No one landed on their feet.

I saw stars and heard groans from all sides. Someone hit my foot and I saw Edriss glaring at me, also flat on his chest.

"This wouldn't have happened if you had listened and put on the necklace!"

"Don't blame her. The key is what disrupted our teleportation." said Harry.

"She should've slipped on the necklace before those beasts arrived!"

An otherworldly cry came from above, and suddenly a big hairy brown arm jutted out the window. The beast swung it's arm, breaking the glass and causing it to shower down on us. Edriss conjured a purple shield and stopped the glass.

"You were right Harry." Edriss said while helping him up.

"I'm sorry." I apologized. "I thought Allen would remember me."

"Oh, he does, I'm sure. I doubt that matters when he's fighting for his life though. I saw more blood on him than the brown guy, even though it looked like he had the upper hand there."

"Well we should go back and help him!"

One of the other mages laughed.

"God, no."

Who asked you Johnathan?" I snapped.

He frowned. "My name's Mario."

"Both of you..." Edriss whispered.
"Shut the hell up and tell me who that is."

We followed his gaze and saw a bloodied, barefoot woman watching us from the corner of the building. She was watching us like she wanted to say something, but didn't know how to say it.

"She's not mortal." said Edriss. "Possibly a vampire. I can tell she's dangerous.

"Miss Sam," Harry half whispered, half hissed.

"Put on the necklace, now. Unless you'd rather me snap my fingers and our necks with the next teleportation."

"Did you say Allen?" She said softly.

"Did you say Allen?!" she spoke louder this time.

Edriss' purple barrier went up.

"I'm not playing with you girl, necklace! Now!" Harry demanded.

"Lisa, take it!"

One girl from behind me snatched the necklace out of my hand. I was prepared to bash her skull in to get it back but she put it around my neck and connected the ends.

The moment she let go, I could feel time stopping. I could feel an icy tingle in the air, despite it being the middle of summer. She smiled.

"It's real," she said as the sunset went blue and sound faded from the world. Everyone was smiling and glowing.

I looked for the girl, who had vanished, either because of the sky, or because of her own motives.

Was my mind playing tricks on me, or was that Danielle?