Guardian Angel...

It was as if time had stopped. Nobody moved, all eyes rested on the passed out at my feet, while my shoulder seemed to have gone up in flames. We assessed ourselves. The ring of seekers of tears around me and I, the prey animal in its midst. I didn't dare lift a finger for fear that they would then rush at us all together. Questions, escape plans, visions of death, everything rushed through my head at the same time and did not allow me to think clearly.
The ice magician gave his oversized henchman a sign and he calmly stepped up to me, followed by dozen pairs of eyes. "Don't defend yourself," advised the boy, who apparently had the whole pack under his control. "You can still get out of this unscathed. All you have to do is leave your friend to us."
A lump formed in my throat. Let you nick? I hesitated. What would happen to him if I left him here?He was useful to her in some way. Did that benefit include staying alive? Even if so, it wasn't a guarantee they wouldn't harm him. I thought of his sudden seriousness when we entered the property.But vampires can drink my blood, those were his words and they burned admonishingly into my memory. On the other hand, what did I care about the fate of this idiot? Wouldn't I have given everything to get rid of him? Here was the chance. Why didn't I take it?
The giant leaned down to the corpse-pale beanstalk that lay at my feet. "Wait," I said harshly as he reached out to Nick to pull him away from me. "What happens to it if I give it to you?"
The ice mage smiled as if he had seen my question coming. "If you're interested, it's actually too late for you. Do you really want to sacrifice yourself for someone you can't save anyway?""Stop babbling and answer my question," I replied, annoyed beyond measure by the angry tone that resonated in my voice.
"He's going to die. I'll spare you the details," he replied bored. As if on cue, the giant grabbed Nick by the shoulders and half straightened him. At the same moment I made a decision and, purposefully as I was in these matters, I chose the path that would cause me the most trouble.
I blew a flame into my hand and held it right in front of the subordinate's face. "Do you remember how that feels?" I asked him charmingly. The grimace that flitted over his features told me that he remembered very well. Meanwhile, a pulsating burning sensation radiating to my arm reminded me that I still had the mark on my shoulder. If only this damn thing didn't hurt so much!
"Well, you've made up your mind," stated the ice mage, "help yourself."I screamed as a pair of canine teeth dug into my neck from behind. In a flash they separated Nick and me. I had never seen human beings move at such a speed. I fell back, hit the branded shoulder of all things, and couldn't feel my right arm anymore. I thrashed around with my left hand, kicked out on all sides at the same time, writhing under the hands that held me below and tried to avoid the claw-like nails on her fingertips. Warm blood ran down the back of my neck and I saw some of the faces above me feel a certain remoteness. One of them came towards me to tap into me too. I punched my fist in the middle, only to be bitten by two other tearseekers.
I got dizzy. Heat raced through my body in waves, I waited longingly for the panic that would trigger the reflex that made me burn, but instead of it overwhelming me, my mind watched all of this with stoic composure from someone who knew when something was inevitable.At the same time I was breathing like a fish on dry land, unable to give off a single flame. Every heartbeat thundered in my ears and I thought I was on the verge of a heart attack, given the high rate of the blood pounding in my veins.
Great, you wanted to save this total failure and now you are lying here hyperventilating towards your demise, I thought with a touch of amusement.
You won't,replied da Lavande's voice as bright as a bell. It seemed to come from everywhere, but even in the face of this terrifying vision, the panic would not set in. On the contrary, I felt that her words were final, I knew I was going to live. She wouldn't let them kill me while that damn mark was on my shoulder. I had a guardian angel in her. I just wasn't sure whether I was happy about this security.
The heat in my body concentrated first in my shoulder and then covered my whole back.The pack above me was swept aside by the flying remains of my backpack and my wings, which had suddenly forgotten that I had been trimmed. Startled, my attackers backed away, eyes wide with fear. I was a little surprised. Did I really look that scary just because I now had a couple of wings on my back?
Still gasping and pulled to my feet as if by magic, I straightened up. My head flew back and forth looking for Nick. He wasn't here anymore. I called his name as loud as I could and was worried that the majority of our attackers did not stay with me, but ran away with my dearest enemy.
"NICK!" I tried again and rushed into the garden.
They followed me, but their efforts were half-hearted. Something was holding her back. I didn't have time to think about what it was. The fact that I could feel Lavande's oppressive presence down to the ends of my hair told me more than I wanted to know anyway.The dizziness had completely disappeared from me, the bite wounds were already closing again, but my surroundings seemed to have changed in the course of this regeneration process. Their contours were sharper, the colors brighter and the noises around me seemed like a single, deafening roar. Somewhere to my left, in the middle of this crowd, I heard Nick and the footsteps of far too many pairs of feet. Like a bolt of lightning, I shot in the direction from which he was screaming. He was conscious again. So maybe we still had a chance to escape.
"Where are you ?!" I shouted because I thought I couldn't drown out this noise in any other way and was shocked by the volume of my own voice, which was in no way inferior to the noise.
"Kori! Here!", He gave me one of his answers, notorious for their richness of information, that my ears only boomed. But not only my ears were sensitized to the utmost, I noticed every pebble under my feet, on my tongue I tasted every breath and my nose was full of strange smells.Well, not that strange. I recognized the metallic smell of blood that emanated from myself very well.
At last I reached the scene, completely unmolested by my pursuers. When I saw Nick in a tree, two questions came to my mind. First, how the hell did he get up there? Second, how could you be so stupid?
Armed with two branches and waving them around wildly, he crouched up there like a cat over a pack of vicious dogs. I almost called the fire department at the sight. Below him, partly on the ground, partly halfway up the tree and well on their way to catching Nick, were the vampires. "Get out of here!" He hissed, more beeping than threatening, so that the bloodsuckers were quite unimpressed. I glanced at my pursuers. They had stopped and were watching us from a distance. Some of those who surrounded the tree craned their heads uncertainly and became visibly nervous, even looked almost guilty when they saw me, including the cheeky giant.The only one I couldn't find was the ice mage.
That was more than fine with me. I used the new wings and pushed myself off. Nick stared at me with wide eyes, the danger beneath him completely forgotten.
"Wa-wawa," he stammered ... and exactly what I had expected happened: He fell from the tree. In a dive, I also dropped, spitting a jet of flame in front of me, caught Nick on the wrist at the last moment and flapped my wings with all my might to regain altitude. He was still staring straight into my face, his mouth open so wide that I thought we'd left his jaw down.
"What is it ?!", I snapped, "Please stop staring!"
"There-your-ey-ah, be careful!"
My right wing suddenly became heavy as lead when a thick layer of ice enveloped it. I spat fire on it and barely managed to avert the impending crash. Hovering over me, the familiar grin on my face, was the ice magician.I couldn't help but admire the wings that held him in the air, since they were exactly the same shape and shape as mine, the only difference being that they were snow-white and not orange-red.
"You're not like those down there, what have you got to do with them?" I asked him with a mixture of amazement and anger. His reply was an icy storm that he blew against me, just as I used to do with my fire. We whirled through the air, completely uncoordinated.
"Kori! What's that ?!", Nick screeched, causing a horrible ringing in my ears, "Why can this guy fly ?!"
“What are you asking me that ?!” I shouted back, “You have your training here! And now shut up, my drums will burst when you beep!” Somehow I managed to regain my balance.
"As if you were so much quieter!", He snapped, "Who is yelling at me here ?!"
"Are you finally finished ?!", the ice magician intervened and the labor stopped so abruptly that I almost fell from the sky. I hurriedly flapped my wings a few times, but they were hard for me with the extra weight of Nick on my arm.[i]I'll never do it again Jokes about his anorexia, I swore to myself.
"What do you have to do with Ronga Darey?" Asked the ice mage.
"How?" I made completely confused.
"You really yell at me all the time!", Nick grumbled on, "I don't understand at all what you -"
"Shut up!" We both silenced him. "Your shoulder.", My counterpart then continued poisonously. “That is his wife's seal. Lavande.” His expression darkened and my face followed his. "It banishes the forces that were in the ashes. What do you have to do with both of them?"
I gritted my teeth. The last thing I would do was tell that bastard about my time with her. "I killed her," I replied dryly, not feeling the slightest regret."We," Nick insisted on his share.
"Well, if you think about