[img]http://i.imgur.com/UlzA0f1.png[/img]

Atticus was the last of his colleagues to react, and it allowed him to view the full, violent fury of their retort. The Nixie that was holding the knife was immediately impaled upon Raleigh’s antlers, moments before Henry—in all his natural glory—fully removed the water spirit from the realm of the living. Her body, still skewered upon the antlers of the dryad, began to wilt, and then subsequently disintegrate into a vast pool of acrid water, as if her body were a giant sponge being wrung dry by unseen hands. Her voice carried an ear-splitting wail throughout the cavern until, in mere moments, she died.

The other Nixie, the one that had been whispering her honeyed-sorcery into Aislinn’s ear, faired little better as Siya struck her like a tiny fanged bullet. She flew back, striking the wall with enough force to send a spider web of cracks in the granite walls. Atticus could see that though mortally wounded, the Nixie was not yet dead. Her breath game in agonal gasps accompanied with dark blood oozing from her mouth. 

Atticus had a thought, and he began to move towards the injured Nixie when Dr. Blair called to him, speaking about the need for his own life-force to aid the dying werewolf. Reginald Hoyle answered for him, anticipating what Atticus was intending to do.

“Get what you can from that bitch, Atticus,” Hoyle said, moving to kneel beside his sister and the Doctor. He looked to the supernatural physician, “Take what you need from me, all of it if necessary. Do what needs to be done to save her.”

With a pit of hateful sadness in his gut, Atticus turned away to leave Hoyle and the Doctor to their grim work. He covered the distance to the wounded Nixie quickly, and planted a firm grip upon her shoulders. Bending to look into her eyes, eyes that seemed to be crystalized oceans ensconced in white, Atticus let the full force of his own magic build within him. What he was about to attempt he feared would not work against a being so magical as the Nixie, but he had to try.

“Heed my words, you rotten, soggy bitch,” Atticus said, his voice filled with malice, but equally laced with the lustful power inherent to his kind. “Who sent you here, how did you find this place, and what was your full intent? Speak quickly!”

The actual phrasing of Atticus’ words meant nothing when fueled by the flames of his magical ability. To the Nixie, all she would truly hear was an overwhelming tug of lust and dark desire, enough so that hopefully Atticus could draw from her the answers he desired.

“I…” the creature began, her expression eerily carnal despite the river of blood flowing from her mouth. “We…were sent by the Lady of Ice…” The Nixie bent forward, as if trying to kiss the incubus. Atticus thrust her back against the wall.

“Go on.”

“We were told…told that there was a she-wolf that needed to be culled…and…and,” the Nixie broke her speech for a moment to cough up another flood of black blood. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and her breaths gasped even louder.

“No!” Atticus roared, his magic at its most intense. “How did you find her?!”

For a long moment Atticus thought the water spirit had finally died. Her breathing had stopped, and her blue irises were just barely visible beneath her upper eyelids. Then, as if pulled back from the gates of hell, she came to life once more, just enough to gasp out six more words.

“The mark, we followed the mark.”

Then, as her sister had done, the Nixie died. She diminished into a puddle of watery filth, leaving nothing but questions in her wake, and Atticus raging for lost answers.