Chapter 25
“Don’t distract me! I love you.”
Sam’s heart hammered so hard his hands shook. He wanted to reach out to Alistair, beg him to be careful. Run to him, protect him…
But he couldn’t. There was no possible way to reach the cemetery in time to change anything.
The only thing he could do was do what Alistair asked. The completed hexes lay in front of him, carefully inscribed on the lengths of linen he’d cut from the bolt waiting for him this morning. Each one like a yawning mouth, desperate to be filled with magic.
They still needed to dry, so he left them out while he hastily locked the Aten Disc back in its safe. Once it was secure, he hurried out of the office and toward the front of the building.
The hexworks was almost completely silent—everyone had been given the day off to attend the funeral, with the exception of a skeleton crew of guards. Because using a funeral to stage an ambush was unthinkable, one of the few rules of decency even the most hardened gangsters adhered to.
Except Fabiano had decided to do it anyway.
“Mr. Paladino!” he shouted as he reached the ground floor.
Paladino and the other guards were sitting around a table playing cards. Upon spotting Sam’s face, Paladino shot to his feet, hand going to his gun. “What’s wrong, boss?”
“Alistair just contacted me—Fabiano is attacking the funeral!”
All the guards stared at him aghast. “No way,” one said. “It can’t be true.”
“If the boss says it’s true, it is.” Paladino’s face was grim. “Should we go there and back Mr. Sullivan up?”
“She might try to hit the hexworks,” Sam said. “I don’t have any more information, I’m sorry—he’s fighting for his life, I can’t distract him. But he wanted me to go to The Pride, where it’s safe.”
“Right.” Paladino turned to his fellows. “You lot stay here and watch the place. Stay on high alert until you hear from me otherwise, got it? I’ll take Mr. Cunningham to The Pride, then head back here.”
While the others scrambled to take up their stations, Paladino led the way out to the car. As soon as they were securely inside, he started the engine and stepped on the gas.
When they reached The Pride, they squealed to a halt, the two right-side tires mounting the curb onto the sidewalk as Paladino parked as close as possible to the stairs leading down. “Let’s get you inside.”
They both clambered out, but as they reached the top of the stairs, Sam’s heart fell.
The steel door stood wide open, and from inside came the sound of shattering glass.
* * *
Winged familiars engaged in an aerial battle above Alistair’s head. The falcon, Angie, impacted with a small hawk, leaving behind an explosion of feathers. An eagle dive-bombed one of Sullivan’s men, only to be set upon in turn by three ospreys.
Sullivan and the men surrounding him took cover behind nearby headstones, and Alistair did the same. Return fire rang out—then there was a huge flash of light, and one of the men peering around a headstone cried out as he was blinded.
A light hex, used like a grenade. Even as he thought it, the headstone he crouched behind began to glow as another hex gave away his location.
Tommy guns chattered again, and chips of granite flew as bullets bit into the marker. More tore through Bellinowski’s casket, releasing the smell of embalming fluid. The flower arrangements disintegrated under the onslaught, petals filling the air like multi-colored snow.
“Come out, Mickey!” Fabiano shouted. “Or do you want to die hiding like a coward?”
Alistair risked a peek around the side of the headstone. The crowd had cleared away, leaving behind dropped hats, shawls, prayer-books, and hip flasks. Bodies lay scattered on the cemetery grass, some draped over grave markers, gunned down as they’d fled.
Through the wreckage strode Isabella Fabiano. One eye was swathed in bandages, and the hair on that side of her head looked burned off. A tiger flanked her on the right, a German shepherd on the left, and armed men spread out to either side.
Fabiano’s familiar, the heron—had he died in the fire that took her headquarters? Or…
A warning screech from Angie sounded from above. Alistair looked up, just in time to see the enormous shape of the great blue heron, its beak sheathed in brass, descending on him.
* * *
Sam’s legs went weak. The heavy door had clearly been breached by force, torn half-off its hinges, its deadbolt snapped.
The roar of an angry lioness echoed from below.
Paladino took out his gun. “Something ain’t right, boss,” he said, which was the understatement of the century as far as Sam was concerned. “You get in the car and keep your head down, and I’ll check it out.”
“No.” These were Sam’s friends; he wasn’t going to stand by and just watch while they were in danger. “I’m going in, too.”
Paladino didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “Stay behind me, then.”
That he could do. “Okay.”
Paladino put his back to the wall and slipped down the stairs, and Sam imitated him. The sound of breaking bottles joined the angry snarling of big cats—then something let out a deep, growling bellow he didn’t recognize. Another familiar.
Paladino swung through the doorway, gun pointed forward. He swore, got off a shot, then dove for cover inside. Not knowing what awaited, Sam plunged in behind him.
The interior was chaos: smashed furniture, broken bottles, silk plants overturned. All of the Gattis were in animal form; Reinhold was nowhere to be seen.
An alligator bellowed again and lunged at Philip. Philip evaded its jaws, twisting and leaping in the air to land on its back, clawing at its tough hide. A bull tried to gore Teresa, who barely got out of the way as it charged. And an enormous white tiger faced off with Wanda and Doris.
He knew that tiger. Tim, the one who’d bonded with Ignatz Ursino’s former witch. They’d thought he died in the fire that consumed the Black Rabbit, but apparently he’d somehow escaped.
Paladino crouched behind one of the overturned tables. He tried to aim at the bull, but didn’t pull the trigger. “I don’t have a clear shot. Damn it!”
“Do you have a knife?” Sam asked. “Or—the kitchen! There’s plenty of knives in there.”
The switchblade Paladino pulled from his pocket opened with a snick. “I’m gonna go for the bull. You see what you can grab from the kitchen, if you can get there safely.”
The bull tried to pin Teresa against the bar; one of its horns grazed her flank, leaving behind a streak of blood, but she managed to squirm out of the way.
Seeing his opening, Paladino charged behind the bull, bringing his blade across the tendons on the back of its leg. It let out a bawl of pain—and kicked.
If it had caught him in the face or chest, it would have killed him. As it was, one hoof impacted Paladino’s shoulder with a horrible crunch, spinning him around like a top.
Sam ran as fast as he could through the wreckage. He went over the elevated stage for the band, then ducked behind the bar, shattered glass crunching beneath his feet. He almost went down, spilled booze turning the floor slippery, but managed to grab hold of the bar before he fell.
Tim, Wanda, and Doris were between him and the kitchen. And they weren’t the only ones.
A flash of movement drew his eye to a combatant he hadn’t noticed before—maybe that none of them had noticed.
Just a mouse—nothing more. Small. Harmless. Inconspicuous enough to slip through the mayhem, until it reached an unbroken bottle of vodka that had rolled out from behind the bar.
The mouse shifted into a young woman with a hard, angry face. She snatched up the bottle, tore off the stopper, and stuffed a twist of cloth from her pocket into it.
“No!” Sam yelled and rushed to stop her. But he was too late.
She met his eyes as she raised a fire hex to the improvised fuse and set it alight.