Ritual Magic

TWENTY-FIVE

LILY didn’t think about raising her weapon. Didn’t have to. Her hand did that all by itself and sited on the dworg standing on the smashed Pinto, though she couldn’t use a proper two-handed grip because her left wrist was either broken or badly sprained. This close, it shouldn’t matter—might not matter if she missed, either, considering how little notice the other dworg had paid to bullets so far.

Cynna shouted a string of nonsense syllables.

The dworg standing on the remains of the Pinto flew backward to crash into the wall of the building in a spray of gore.

On the other side of the dworg twins, an Uzi opened up in a quick, deafening burst.

José had gotten the trunk open. Thank God.

Lily went flat. A big, hairy wolf landed on top of her.

She heard shouts and a howl and a second quick burst from the Uzi, but from a different spot. José had probably fired the first burst high because the idiot who was now trying to shield her with his stupid hairy body had put her in the line of fire, which meant one or both of the goddamn pair of dworg were still alive enough to pursue him. She squirmed over onto her back—not easy with a hundred seventy or so pounds of wolf on top of her—and jammed the barrel of her gun in Santos’s throat. “You will go to Cynna,” she growled. “She probably fainted from saving my ass after you dragged me into the line of fire.”

Wolves’ faces do show emotion, if you know what to look for. This one looked really startled.

“You will Change and get Cynna safely to the Toyota. Then you will get the AK-47s from the trunk”—and why the hell had she thought it was okay for the guards to park so far away? Stupid, stupid—“and come back here as fast as you can.” When he just stared at her she pushed the gun deeper into the fur and flesh of his throat. “You. Will. Obey. Me.”

He must have believed her. He launched himself across the open center aisle in a burst of speed, staying low, not pausing to Change until he reached the limited sanctuary of the space between cars.

Lily took a second to check out the dworg Cynna had sent flying. It lay motionless atop what was left of the Pinto. It looked like its chest had exploded from the inside out. White rib bones stuck out through ripped and bloody flesh.

Turned out their blood was purple.

Lily flipped back onto her stomach and crawled under the nearest vehicle—a panel van with a nice high clearance. High enough for her, anyway, but too low for one of those oversize centaur-bugs. Once she had herself under cover—freeing José to fire as needed, which he may have noticed because there was another burst of fire—she scooted toward the back of the van so she could see what was going on.

There was a dworg blocking her view. A dead one. At least she was going to assume it was dead, because the head, neck, and shoulders had been thoroughly pulped by some portion of the Uzi’s six hundred rounds per minute. The shiny purple blood made the scattered bits of brains and flesh look weird.

Two down, then, and two to go. One was chasing José—another burst of fire from the Uzi, this one closer to the street, and how many rounds did he have left, anyway? And one she guessed was still being harassed by wolves. How many wolves? She’d seen two of them knocked out or killed. Were the rest still . . .

Metal creaked. Something grunted loudly a couple of times, like the huffing grunt of a bear. Something on the Pinto next to her cozy retreat under the van.

Shit. Not two down, after all.

Lily sucked in a breath, trying to calm her racing heart. Trying to think, dammit. And noticed that gasoline smell again.

Now her mind raced along with her heartbeat.

Years ago, Pintos had been notorious for the way their gas tanks ruptured on impact. Lily had read that subsequent studies showed that they weren’t any worse in that respect than a lot of cars in their class, but most patrol cops still approached a rear-ended Pinto with caution.

She needed a match. She didn’t have one. Or a lighter. Cynna’s tote might hold one or both, as she routinely packed it as if she expected to need to camp out for a week. But her tote was on the other side of the central lane and several spaces back. If Lily tried to get it she’d get in the way of the lupi fighting that dworg and could easily get in José’s line of fire again. Besides, she hadn’t missed the way every dworg immediately aimed itself at her when it arrived. Sneaking was likely not possible.

All she had was her Glock and the thirteen—no, twelve—rounds still in the clip. In the movies people routinely shot a bullet into a car’s gas tank to make it go boom. Pity that didn’t work in real life. Supposedly it was possible to skip a bullet across a rough surface like concrete and create enough of a spark to ignite gasoline, but talk about iffy! And while Cullen might have enough juice to light the gasoline, he was back at the fight, and needed. She didn’t—

A gray snake as thick around as a small elm whipped under the van.

Lily scrambled forward as fast as she could. If the bony barb at the end of the tail hadn’t gotten stuck on one of the tires, she wouldn’t have made it. But it did and she did—only now she was out in the open again, and the damn dworg grinned its shark’s grin at her from its perch atop the smashed Pinto. Its chest was covered in gore. Some of the blood was still wet, but the wound had closed.

There was a wet gleam at the Pinto’s rear end that wasn’t blood. It was clear and vaguely iridescent. Without thinking, Lily sighted on that and squeezed the trigger once, twice, again—

Fire whooshed up, instantly engulfing the car and the beast crouched on it.

Son of a bitch. It worked.

A hand grabbed her arm. “Move it!” Cullen shouted as he jerked her up—and threw her. Again she landed badly, this time even losing her grip on her weapon as she tried to keep her weight off her damaged left wrist. And saw Cullen standing perfectly still holding a sword—a sword, for God’s sake, not a big knife, and where in the hell had he gotten that?—as the fiery dworg launched itself at him or her or both of them. And the Uzi roared again.

The monster’s head exploded as its burning body fell on top of Cullen.

The fire winked out. So did the Uzi’s roar.

Another blast of gunfire erupted—not the sustained howl of the Uzi. Semiautomatic fire this time. And someone screamed, high and agonized.

Lily spun.

The backup she’d sent for had arrived. The dworg was eating one of them.

From somewhere behind Lily, the Uzi fired again—and stuttered to silence all too quickly. José was out of ammo.

But another dworg was down. Dead or temporarily down, she didn’t know which, but there was just one active dworg left. Where? Lily spun to see, and oh, God, there was José leaping from the top of a panel van to another car, but the dworg was too close! The dworg pulled ahead and jumped onto a car in front of José and—and glass broke again.

But not on the car. From up above someplace. Lily looked up—and shoved to her feet and yelled at the dworg, which just that second caught José with a blow from one of those clawed arms. “Hey! You ugly asshole idiot monster! I’m right here! You want me? I’m right here!”

The dworg charged her.

Lily threw herself to the ground and covered her head with her arms.

From the broken second-floor window—the window to the Big A’s office—the RPG she’d glimpsed fired almost straight down.

She didn’t see the grenade hit. She sure as hell heard it. And felt it.

THE explosion nearly deafened Toby. It shook loose clods of dirt and made Julia shriek and grab him. The way she hung on to him, sort of bent over, Toby wasn’t sure if she was trying to shield him or trying to make herself little enough to be shielded. Either way was annoying. It was his particular job to keep any kids near him from being too scared, and how could he do that if Julia could feel how he was shaking?

So he shoved at her. “You’re squishing me!” he whispered loudly.

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” She loosened her hold but didn’t let go. “Should we stay here? If they’re blowing things up and the tunnel collapses—”

“It didn’t collapse, and that’ll be the only explosion.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we only had one trap laid. I wish I could see how many it killed!” Some, anyway, because they wouldn’t have set it off if they hadn’t been able to maneuver some of the dworg near what looked like a utility box near the driveway. But how many?

“But—”

“Shh!” Toby listened intently. He’d been able to follow what was happening a little bit by listening, even if his ears were still only human. There’d been shouts and, once, horribly, a scream. Lots of gunshots. The coughing roar of a tiger.

Now he heard his dad. He couldn’t hear what Dad said, but it didn’t matter. His eyes filled up with tears. Dad was alive and he was giving orders and . . . and then he didn’t hear much of anything. Silence for several long moments, but his dad was alive . . .

“Toby!” his dad shouted. “Toby, answer me!”

“Here!” he yelled, shoving to his feet. “I’m down here, Dad, and so’s Julia, and we’re okay!”

SEVEN floors up at St. Margaret’s Hospital, Benedict cut off another foot.

On the floor beneath the hole in the wall, a collection of toes, claws, and now three grisly feet lay in a spreading pool of purple gore. Some of his own blood mixed in, too. Nothing major.

A machete would have been better, but his hunting knife did well enough. He was damn glad he’d worn his leg sheath. At the moment, he had the advantage. In order to widen their hole, the dworg had to expose their weakest spots—their legs and feet—and they couldn’t get at him well enough to do much damage.

The advantage was temporary. He’d slowed them. He couldn’t stop them.

A clawed hand gripped the edge of the hole and pulled. Benedict sliced at it. This time he didn’t do much more than hurt the monster’s feelings. A little blood, that was all.

In the hall outside the room, he heard all sorts of commotion. They were trying to evacuate the hospital. They weren’t going to have even just this floor emptied in time, rate they were going. “Time for you to—” Benedict interrupted himself to dodge one of those clawed hands, swiping at him through the hole, and immediately lunged. This time he got a chunk of flesh. “—pull back,” he finished.

“No,” Bill said.

He’d kept Bill with him as communicator. Bill had Ruben Brooks on the line now, keeping him posted. He’d sent Tommy with Nettie and Arjenie. They ought to be out of the building by now. “Not room for both of us in here, once they’re through.” Another grabby claw. This one connected, laying his skin open along one forearm—and keeping him back long enough for the other dworg to pull a chunk of masonry away. “They’ll be through soon.”

“You need me to—”

“Fall back.”

As Bill reluctantly obeyed, one of the dworg hammered the wall with its hind feet. That was something Benedict couldn’t counter. He didn’t dare lean out the hole himself—

That would be a bad idea, a cold voice said in his head. Stay back.

The entire building shook as if there’d been a quake. Through the hole Benedict glimpsed black scales and one enormous, taloned foot as it closed around a dworg. Even Sam’s feet weren’t large enough to fully encircle the monster, but the talon pinned it long enough for his other foot to come up—and rip off the dworg’s head.

That took about one second. Then Sam was falling away, there being no perch for a dragon on the side of the building. The great wings beat hard. Benedict felt the wind from those buffets.

The other one flees. I will stop it.

The mental voice was as crisp and cold as ever, yet something else reached Benedict along with those words—a single flick of delight as keen as the blade of Benedict’s knife. Delight he recognized as the heady bloodlust of a predator watching his prey run.

Benedict moved up to the wall and looked out the hole. The remaining dworg was scuttling down the wall, trying desperately to find cover before death stooped upon it.

Benedict smiled. Not going to make it, are you? He spoke to Bill, who had stopped in the doorway when Sam hit the building. “Tell Ruben we won’t be needing the army, after all.”

BATTLE still raged at Clanhome. Not for much longer, Isen thought, grinning through a beard sticky with sprayed blood— some purple, some red. Twenty-two nightmares from another time had rained down on them. Two remained.

There was much to be said for the traditional, he thought as he watched one of the last two dworg pitch to the ground. Especially when it was your enemy who fought traditionally. The natural weaponry of the dworg, combined with their unholy healing, inborn armor, and resistance to magic, had been devastating three thousand years ago.

But the world had changed since then, hadn’t it?

It had been a near thing. Four of the six from his squad were injured, and Rob was dead. He’d lost some blood himself—head wounds do bleed like crazy—but nothing important. But he and his squad had drawn the dworg within range of those he’d sent to the barracks. The grenades had killed about a third of the dworg outright. When they were followed by devastating fire from six Uzis, those dworg still alive and mobile had tried to flee.

Uzis have an effective range of about two hundred yards. They hadn’t made it.

The machine guns had run out of ammo, however, so his men were finishing the last two monsters the old-fashioned way—tooth, claw, and swords. “Don’t rush,” Isen had told them. “No point in taking chances. There are sixty of you and two of them. Take your time.”