Smart pixie.
Another gunshot went off, too close for comfort. The weight on top of me tumbled to the side, a booted heel kicking me hard in the thigh as Luna fought to regain her legs underneath her. She giggled—giggled—and I heard metal striking metal. I couldn’t turn my head to look, could barely focus my eyes. Flint grunted, followed by another sound of metal on metal.
Raphael’s voice drew my attention away from Flint and Luna fighting behind me. The leannan sidhe was studying Andy with rapt attention, his eyes flicking from his bloody back and arms to the crown of his head, now so much closer to the ceiling.
“Well, aren’t you full of surprises.” Malicious delight dripped from every word, like a child who’d stolen someone else’s Christmas present and opened it to find the very toy he’d wanted all along. “What are you, my boy?”
A black shadow streaked across the room and bowled into Raphael, driving him into the opposite wall. I couldn’t follow the movement, but I heard the unmistakable snarl of a large cat, the sound of claws digging ragged furrows in the wood floor.
“Don’t bite him!” Peasblossom shrieked.
Another snarl, followed by a hiss from Raphael. I tried to get an arm under myself, to rise and see what was happening. But my body still wouldn’t listen, my muscles too warm, too liquid to get the necessary tension. I let out a moan of frustration, loud enough that I almost missed the tiny mewl of a kitten.
Peasblossom’s next cry was “Look out!”
Scath’s body hurtled through my line of sight. She crashed into Andy, hard, and then both of them were flying into the empty room on the left as if a hurricane had sprung out of nowhere and tossed them like so much debris. The crack of splintering wood and patter of crumbling plaster followed soon after.
“Shade, are you okay?” Peasblossom landed on my waist pouch and tugged at the zipper, fighting to get it open.
“Can’t move,” I whispered, my voice thick and sluggish.
“Hang on,” she grunted. “I’ll be right back. Bizbee! I need a sleeping potion!”
“Sleeping…potion?” I furrowed my brow in confusion, that one flex of muscle giving me hope that Luna’s power was wearing off.
Peasblossom clutched the tiny bottle to her chest, then flew off in the direction of the room where Andy and Scath had disappeared.
“We aren’t finished yet.”
Raphael’s taunt snared my attention and I watched with growing alarm as he prowled past me toward the room Andy and Scath got tossed into. “Agent Bradford, are you ready for another push?”
He didn’t wait for a response. This time, his power wasn’t focused only on one person. It flooded the second floor, sinking into my body like branding irons. My muscles stiffened, and finally I could push off the ground, force myself to my feet. I spared a quick glance behind me to check on Flint facing off with Luna.
His gun was gone, and a short blade lay a few feet away—Luna’s, I guessed. Flint’s shirt was torn, and his eyes had brightened from hazel to the polished tiger’s eye that meant his power was active. Luna looked invigorated, but it was hard to tell if she was turned on by Flint’s magic, or if she was just enjoying the fight. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, and she reached out her tongue to lick it away.
A loud roar from inside the other room sent my heart into overdrive, increasing the waves of adrenaline from Raphael’s power until I was sure my heart would explode. I clutched my chest, fighting for calm, the control to take an even breath. Raphael still stood in the hall, his arms out wide as if making himself a target.
Scath didn’t disappoint.
For the second time in less than a minute, Scath heaved herself straight at him, teeth bared, green eyes blazing. Her paws struck first, her injured leg scrabbling weakly against his chest while the other dug curved black claws into the muscle of his shoulder. Raphael hissed, but didn’t lower his arms or try to defend himself.
“Scath, no!” Peasblossom shot into view.
I raised a hand, pointing at Raphael, a spell already spiraling up inside me.
From somewhere to my right, hidden in the shadows, Majesty meowed.
The floor exploded beneath Scath. The claws of her good legs scrabbled for purchase, tried to hold onto Raphael, the floor, anything to stop her downward fall. But the upward shower of splinters ripped through her hide, embedding themselves in fur and flesh, and she twisted in pain. She crashed down to the next floor below with a high-pitched screech of rage. Raphael plummeted with her, shouting in surprise as her claws in his chest tore his wounds wider, sending a rush of blood down his body.
Peasblossom sailed through the hole after them, the sleeping potion still clutched to her chest.
I didn’t have time to worry about the chaos that had just vanished. I could still see Andy in my mind’s eye, see his injured leg where Raphael had shot him.
“Andy!” I cried out. “Andy, where—”
Another roar. A male voice, so deep it made my body vibrate. A huge hand gripped the edge of the doorway, and Andy dragged himself into the hall.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Peasblossom was with Scath, down on the first floor. What I saw now, what Andy looked like now, had nothing to do with her pixie glamour or other magics. Or my magic.
Andy was still enormous. Still a hulking beast of a man. His clothes were little more than decoration at this point, bloody rags hanging haphazardly on a body several sizes too large. The veins in his neck bulged with the heavy beat of his heart, and the corner of his mouth was torn, revealing too much of his too long teeth. One eye was sunken in, bruised and bloodied, enough that I half feared to see an empty socket staring back at me. Black eyes fixed on me, but only for a heartbeat. Then they flicked up, locked onto someone behind me.
Flint.
“Andy, stop.”
He didn’t listen. I had the sickening sense of seeing my friend move in slow motion. I had all the time in the world to see his muscles bunch, see him take that first step toward Flint with murder in his black eyes.
My magic was so close to the surface, so ready, that I barely had to think the spell I needed and it was there. I gathered energy in my mouth, spit it out as Andy charged for the leannan sidhe behind me. Panic made me faster, and my spell flew at Andy, striking his legs and torso. Blue, sticky strands exploded like a net, tangling around him so he stumbled into a heap on the floor. He screamed, a sound of such rage that it raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
Suddenly Raphael was cresting the top of the stairs, halting as he took in the scene before him.
Flint held Luna with her back to him, her hair wrapped around one of his fists, his other hand holding her arm twisted behind her back. Blood coated half her face from a cut above her eye, and though she was still grinning, a wheeze in her breath said she might have internal bleeding as well. He dragged her farther away from her twin, so we all stood in a triangle formation with Andy just behind me, closer to the far wall than the stairs.
My bulked up partner fought to get to his feet again, but the sticky blue cords lashed too tight around his ankles and he fell, striking the ground with his shoulder. He grunted and immediately struggled to get back to one knee.
“How long will that spell hold him?” Flint demanded, grunting as Luna thrashed in his grip.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care, not right now, not yet. A thought was trying to make itself known, screaming at me from the corner of my mind. Raphael wasn’t moving. He wasn’t trying to attack me, or Andy, or Flint. He wasn’t even trying to help his sister. He just stood there, and I could feel him still filling the air with his magic, pumping everyone up with a fight or flight instinct—emphasis on the former. Why? I wanted to shout at him. What could he possibly expect to gain?
I fought to make all the pieces fit, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t think, not with his damn power coursing through me like this. I could throw a spell, try to take him out. But he was fast. And he was far enough away—sti
ll close enough to the stairs to escape—that I might not hit him in time. He stared at my mouth, body tense. Ready to run if he saw me start a spell.
Andy made a satisfied sound deep in his throat. I realized another of the sticky bands had snapped, and he had one arm free. He looked at Flint, and there was nothing left of my friend in those black eyes. Nothing I recognized.
I couldn’t help him as long as Raphael was keeping his blood heated, keeping him on that razor’s edge where fury and violence felt normal, and the idea of calming down was no more than a pipe dream.
“Bring her to me,” I ordered Flint, gesturing at Luna. “Bring her to me, and hold her still.”
Flint didn’t question me. He kept his eyes on Andy, but he dragged the struggling sidhe closer.
“A hostage, Shade?” Raphael chastised. “Really?”
I ignored him. Luna lifted her chin, gave me a smile that showed teeth stained pink with her own blood. I smiled back.
And seized her throat with both hands.
Luna’s eyes flew wide. Her pulse throbbed against my grip, caught like a wild animal in a steel trap. Her free hand stopped groping behind her for a grip on Flint that would make him release her and started to claw at my hands.
Too bad there was nothing she could do with one hand that would make me let go. Flint wrenched the arm behind her back up higher. She would have cried out in pain. She tried to. But she couldn’t draw air past my grip on her throat.
My magic writhed inside me, howling to be released. The rush of blood in my ears was almost enough to block out the sounds of Andy snarling and writhing on the floor, punctuated by the snap of more sticky blue restraints. I tightened my hands around Luna, staring into her eyes.
The spell opened up. I wasn’t looking at Luna’s eyes anymore, I was looking inside her. Feeling my power flow into her body, into her blood. My ears popped, and then the magic pushed further, reaching past Luna, tracing that invisible cord that connected one blood relative to the other.
I felt Raphael’s throat under my fingertips.
I didn’t need to hear his choke of surprise from the top of the stairs to know it was working. It was real as if I’d crossed the room on the material plane and grabbed him with both hands.
Blood is a tie that binds.
I squeezed harder.
Luna’s face flushed red. Flint grunted as he fought to hold onto her, keep her from twisting out of my grasp. I held her until her nails stopped scrabbling at me, until her eyes drifted closed. She went limp, sagging in Flint’s arms.
I didn’t let go.
A tiny part of my brain registered Flint’s expression as he watched me cling to the unconscious leannan sidhe. I beheld his satisfaction, his quiet triumph.
Another band of blue broke with an ominous twang, and Andy braced both legs under him. Only his left arm was still pinned now.
I shoved that thought out of my mind, holding on to Luna’s throat. Raphael choked, tried to speak, maybe a threat, or a plea. I met his silvery eyes. His face had turned dark red, and his body swayed with the lack of oxygen. He gawked at me as if he’d seen a ghost. Then his eyes fluttered closed. His body pitched forward, and he fell down the stairs in a series of sharp bangs, dull thuds, and splintering wood.
I held on a few seconds longer, just to make sure. Then I released Luna.
Forcing someone unconscious isn’t like the movies. They don’t go down for the count only to wake up an hour later, disoriented, but fine. In real life, you have a choice between a few seconds, maybe a minute of unconsciousness—or death. I couldn’t kill either of them this way, sidhe were hardier than that. But it had bought me the time I needed. I grabbed Luna’s arm and pulled. Flint let me take her, watching with unabashed interested as I dragged her to the stairs and shoved her town. She tumbled tail over tea kettle to land on her brother, and I followed as quickly as I could.
“Bizbee, two sets of iron cuffs please.”
The grig’s antennae popped out of the pouch, but not his face. There was the clink of metal then two pairs of handcuffs flew out of the pouch.
I cuffed the twins together, hands behind their backs. The iron would leave burns on their skin, but I wasn’t inclined to feel any sympathy. The iron would keep them from rolling their power over the room, and it would make it much harder to run away.
I made my way back up the stairs, where Flint waited with a smile on his lips. I gestured toward the fallen twins. “Watch them.”
“With pleasure.” Flint retrieved his gun from the floor before sauntering downstairs. He gazed down at the siblings as if mentally planning what order he’d shoot them in.
I didn’t care. For now, I had bigger problems.
Or rather, one much bigger problem.
“Andy,” I whispered.
He didn’t turn my way. Or rather, he didn’t cease watching the stairway where Flint had disappeared.
“Talk to me.” I knelt on the floor beside him, reaching into the pocket of my trench coat to pull out the orb Evelyn had given me. Andy’s eyes darted to the small amber-hued bubble, and finally he stopped squirming to free his arm. I held my breath.
“Tranquillitas.”
I threw the bauble to the floor between us.
My third eye couldn’t show the energy of the spell, but I could see it working just watching Andy. He went still, almost seeming to choke on his next mighty prolonged inhalation that swelled his chest so he seemed to be getting even bigger. Then the breath left him in a loud whoosh.
When he exhaled, it was as if whatever magic had wrought his transformation went with it. His black eyes paled to brown irises and red-streaked white scleras. The muscles that had made him look so inflated, so unreal, coiled back into the gym-toned body of a middle-aged FBI agent who knew physical fitness could save his life.
I reached out slowly toward the wound in his thigh, calling the orbs of yellow light from before to hover over the bullet hole. Blood seeped from the entry point, slow and sluggish as if he’d already started to heal. He made no move to stop me, so I laid my fingers over his skin where the tear in his pants had left it bare.
Healing had been one of the few magics Mother Hazel considered worth teaching early in my education—after I’d learned how to treat injuries and sickness without it. That knowledge made my healing spells stronger than those of most practitioners—outside those who dedicated themselves to the art. I felt for the bullet and used my magic to seal the flesh behind it, pushing it out as I repaired broken tissue, muscle, and blood vessels.
It felt like a small eternity, and I felt exhausted by the time I was done. Unfortunately, even though neither the bullet wound nor the phantom injuries on his arms and back bled anymore, he’d still lost a lot of blood. Andy’s shirt was still red, still wet. It clung to him, filled the air with the scent of copper. I gagged at the smell and the realization that at one time, Andy had suffered each of those injuries for real. This was the second time he’d bled from those wounds. And it never should have happened the first time.
I flung a hand at him, cleaning his clothes and mending them with a flex of magic that didn’t lessen the buzz under my skin in the slightest. It wasn’t my imagination that Andy’s breathing evened out as his white shirt and dark trousers returned to their pristine state.
“Shade.”
His voice sounded broken. As if that one word had escaped by accident. I reached for his hand, giving him time to pull away if he wanted to. He let me hold his hand in mine, and I felt the gummy remnants of my spell clinging to his fingers.
“I’m here. Talk to me.”
Andy closed his eyes. His fingers curled around mine, as if afraid I’d let go. “Do you remember Lorelei?”
I stared at him. Of course I remembered her. It was really hard to forget a demon at the best of times. It was even harder when they nearly got you killed. “Yes.”
Andy kept his eyes closed. “When you came to get me that night on Siobhan’s boat after I was shot, Lorelei was with you.
There was a fight, and Lorelei almost died.”
“Yes,” I said, more slowly this time. I didn’t want to rush him, not when he clearly had something important to tell me. Not when it was so hard for him. “I remember. You saved her.”
“I gave her CPR.”
“Right.” I frowned. There was some connection eluding me, swimming in my adrenaline-infused brain.
“I think…” He stopped, took a deep breath before opening his eyes. “I think that’s when she did it. That’s when it started.”
“That’s when she did wh—”
I broke off.
Andy met my eyes, and with awful clarity, I knew.
“Demonic influence. What did you call it?” he asked quietly.
It took me two tries to get the word out. “Corruption.”
Chapter 15
My head felt too light, as if it would float away and leave me there. Staring at Andy, I realized just how blind I’d been. In a mad rush of images, my mind played back his behavior changes of the past months, the quick temper, the uncharacteristic mood swings and outbursts.
“Shade?”
Andy’s voice sounded too far away, considering he was kneeling beside me. He took both my hands, held them until I managed to look at him. My vision blurred with tears.
“You didn’t tell me,” I said dully.
Andy let go of my hands to reach down and snap the last of the blue threads that held him, then sat with his legs crossed, getting comfortable. I had the stray thought that Evelyn’s spell was impressive if it had calmed him this quickly, let him think so clearly. I should ask her for one for myself.
“I didn’t realize it at first. I’ve always been…angry. As long as I can remember.” He paused, his brows furrowing slightly. “But not now.”
“It’s Evelyn’s spell,” I said, my voice more of a croak than actual words. I cleared my throat. “It’s a spell for mental clarity. Sort of like an hour’s worth of meditation all at once.”
Conviction Page 16
