Tall, Dark & Apocalyptic by Sam Cheever

talk?”
    The other man shook his head, the motion sharp and impatient. “The longer I’m here the more possibility that I’ll be discovered.” He lowered his gaze toward Joris, “…that we’ll both be discovered.”
    Joris twitched his fingers dismissively. “Don’t waste your concern on me, dear one. She doesn’t have a clue where I am or what I’m doing. The dark witch is stupid in love with me. It would never occur to her that I might betray her.”
    Edwige’s anger swirled in her chest, biting at her like a nest of angry vipers. Her knees buckled under the pain, but she barely noticed as she hit the floor. Her ears rang as blood rushed to her head. It was confirmed, Joris was plotting against her.
    More importantly, he no longer loved her.
    “I wouldn’t dismiss the witch that easily, Joris. She has eyes and ears everywhere.”
    Joris shrugged, walking away to pour himself a drink from a clay pitcher. The cloudy, pink liquid swirled into his glass, a light froth adorning the top. Edwige recognized the magic-infused nectar she’d perfected just for him…to keep him looking young and vibrant.
    She suddenly realized that she’d done the worst possible thing with Joris. She’d given him the means to go on without her. She’d taught him entirely too much. With a sinking heart, Edwige realized she would have to end Joris. Though it nearly broke her heart to admit it to herself. It would have to be done.
    “I have it under control, dear one. You should concern yourself with your own safety. How did the attack on Authority headquarters go?”
    The man’s mouth tightened, his brows lowering. “You told me you would only send a few reborn, to create the illusion Edwige was declaring open war on the Sorceri. You sent a hundred good men from both sides to their deaths.”
    Joris shrugged. “The cost of war I’m afraid. With the witch distracted by an energized Sorceri our job is much easier.”
    The newcomer grimaced. “You knew it would be a blood bath. The hunters are superior fighters.” He frowned. “And of course there is the Sentinel.”
    Joris sipped his life-sustaining drink. “Ah…the Atlantan. Yes, he is a terrifying spectacle, isn’t he?”
    Joris’s laughter skimmed warmly over Edwige’s skin and she shivered under its power.
    “If only we could put him and the dark one in a room together,” Joris went on.
    The comment was so mean-spirited that Edwige gave a small cry. Her rage-filled emotions traveled through her connection with her familiar and Ebon lifted from his hidden perch, his wings shaking with sympathetic anger.
    The newcomer’s sharp, golden gaze shot upward, narrowing as he spotted Ebon. “The witch’s familiar! You fool!” He drew his sword as Joris’s blue eyes widened in surprise.
    Edwige’s gaze fixed on Joris, her fists clenching at her sides in impotent rage. She sent a bolt of power through Ebon toward the angry hunter and he dove to the side, neatly avoiding it. He quickly gathered his guide magics and popped from the room without a single word or concern for Joris.
    Her former love…her ex-apprentice…her Judas betrayer looked up at her through a wide, blue gaze, understanding lighting his handsome features even as he reached for an ebony wand cut from the shin bone of an ancient dinosaur.
    The energy wand she’d made for him herself as protection.
    Edwige didn’t wait for him to use the wand against her beloved familiar. She sent Ebon flying toward the vented peak through which he’d entered Joris’s hidey hole. But before the raven slipped through the vent, she focused his gaze downward, to the pale-faced betrayer lifting his wand toward the ceiling in jerky, panicked movements.
    Edwige whispered an incantation and appeared before Joris in a formation of light and shadow, only her angry black gaze forming completely before him. “You foul, ungrateful creature. You are dead. Do you hear me? Dead! You can run, but I will find you. And when I stand before