Chapter Twenty-Seven
Angie
The back door ripped open, folding to either side like tinfoil. No fresh blood was in the chiseled circle. Not fully activated.
EJ’s door blew wide. The oven tipped, skidded across the room.
I activated my gauntlet. Took two steps. The oven slid into the circle. Light flashed, red and heated.
Everything happened in overlapping elements, like a deck of cards tossed, all falling at once.
Shiloh landed atop Konstantin, swords in him. His in her.
One down.
Walter raced in. Nyoka appeared in the open door to the church, eyes glowing. Had she been shadowed? Waiting on us?
Asshat’s gaze was on me.
I tossed a molasses working through the doorway at Nyoka. Another at my ex. The amulets activated. Both vamps looked stunned when they slowed to sloth speed. I pulled two more amulets.
Walter screamed, “I demand Sangre Duello of Willim Danil Yorath IV! You will fight me now and die!”
I tossed an inverted hedge over Nyoka. A short-term prison. It wouldn’t hold the possessed woman for long, not even if she had taken a fresh dose of the elixir. It landed close enough and initiated, covering her. Two down.
“Darling!” Karson said. Something in his left hand. A sword in his right. “I’ve waited for you.” Viscousness in his eyes. Satisfaction. He flicked his thumb over the small thing. Still slowed by the molasses working, he said, “You’ll be mine again!”
He began an underhand throw.
Julietta Ravensport popped toward EJ.
Shiloh, wounded, moved to intercept Ravensport.
EJ raised his sword and sang out the words, “Stadaidh tú!” It was an Irish command for “You will stop.”
Shiloh stopped. Mid-motion.
Ravensport didn’t.
EJ’s and Ravensport’s blades clanged even as he finished the wyrd.
I took another step.
Walter and Willim engaged. Swords rang. Blood flew.
Karson released that something at me. It spread out like a handful of green and orange dust. In midair, orange light spilled out.
Chort. A big one. It too was slowed.
Battle magic tried to rise within me. A golden green spark. It puffed away, like a match that didn’t light.
I activated my null staff. The chort elongated, like taffy stretched and twisted. The staff sucked the demon into its interdimensional trap. My left hand blazed with pain. The stench of brimstone filled the frigid air. It hurt to breathe.
I threw an amulet. Hit Karson with the small stone. Said, “Gan comhfhios.” Karson looked befuddled for all of a half second. Then Asshat’s head lolled to the side. His eyes rolled back. He slumped to the floor. Asleep.
I would have laughed if I had time. Three down.
Nyoka growled. Her eyes glowed orange, focused on Terenzio, who took a step across the circle toward the back door. Toward me. I raised my sword at the former clan master.
Terenzio was standing with one foot on the throat of a human man. He held the hilt of a shortsword in one hand, gripped in his thumb and two fingers, the tip touching the man’s belly. He lifted his eyes to mine, laughing through his fangs.
He plunged the sword through the sacrifice.
The steel made a strange tink when it hit the concrete beneath.
Blood pulsed up and out, scarlet and bright.
Magic swept through the sigils painted on the sacrificed man’s chest. Glowed in his blood, pulsing, pulsing, black mist and motes like black light, strangely purpled.
The instant he impaled the man, power ran up Terenzio’s arm. Magic sank into his flesh.
The circle shouldn’t have been able to activate, not with an oven across it, steel, iron, other metals. Shouldn’t. But did. With me outside it. Some players inside it, some out. Dead-ish Konstantin outside.
I had to break the circle. Sword and staff in first position, I shouted, “Díbrigh!” I thrust my sword forward.
It stopped. Almost bounced. The circle should have weakened at the dispel wyrd.
It was like hitting solid rubber. My blade point sank in a quarter inch and squished out in a line of purple and green magics.
The staff bounced off with a splatter of the odd energies.
The circle’s shield was like nothing I had seen before.
I pressed the trigger. Nothing, except pain like lightning from thumb to armpit.
Twice more I struck. Nothing.
The sacrificial man’s blood pumped, gushing through the circle’s trough. It flared with power. Blood pumped again, slower. His bowels released in a gush of filth.
Blood magic. Death magic.
I had only seconds if I was going to save the human.
I sheathed my sword, rested my staff in my elbow, and pulled a handful of dispel working disks.
I slammed them against the circle energies, my gloved palm and my own magic against the rubbery shield wall.
The strange energies felt alive beneath my unprotected fingertips.
My disks’ energies emptied into the shield, strengthening it.
I tossed the useless things and put the null staff against the circle, pressing in. Nothing. Nothing!
Seconds had passed since the door rolled back.
The human’s blood pumped. Missing beats. His belly shrank, bowing inward. Concave, a bowl of flesh pooling with blood. His skin shriveled.
I shoved my null staff harder into the shield. It bucked in my hands. The shield didn’t fall. Whatever it was, it was stronger than my tools.
Nyoka, trapped in the circle, raised her head and inhaled deeply, as if the air were perfumed. She vamped out. Her eyes black in red sclera, swimming with green and orange power, possessed. There was no hint of silver in her eyes. Nyoka’s elixir had worn off or wasn’t working.
Inside the demon circle, Terenzio laughed.
He ripped his clothes open, revealing a hairless chest with a brand in the center.
Reached down and cupped the last of the blood puddled in the dead man’s belly.
Dumped it onto his own chest and dragged his fingers across his flesh.
His eyes held mine. Vamped out, eyes running with quicksilver and challenge.
He stepped over the dead body to the next sacrifice.
Placed the tip of his blade at the man’s belly. Laughing.
I clipped my staff into its loop and ripped off my gloves. Placed my white hands on the shield that was keeping Terenzio safe, and letting humans die. The circle’s energies felt pillowy and soft, warm as human skin. Spiky.
My gift flared and I knew. The shield circle reminded me of my blood gauntlet hedge. This was a blood hedge—powered by the life force of the victims. Death magics. Who was the death practitioner?
Konstantin was deadish and would stay that way without copious amounts of vamp blood. So who? None of the others was a witch.
Everything around me moved, multiple images all at once. Walter—still fighting Willim—was covered in blood. EJ—in trouble. Our people. In trouble everywhere.
Terenzio kicked a tiny clay vase over. It shattered as he stabbed his second victim. I flinched. Another I hadn’t been able to save. Power shifted and slithered from the victim’s bloody wound up the blade. Into Terenzio’s sword hand.
Yellow, green, and a dark mist of strange magic flared for a fraction of a second, from the vase. Melded into the sacrificial flesh. A flash of power shot through Terenzio, through the circle. Into Konstantin’s body. The witch vamp shook as if an electric current shot through him. His eyes opened.
Healed. Possessed.
Holy crap. The death magics were Konstantin’s. Terenzio used another vamp’s power. That shouldn’t be possible. Unless—
The blood they had shared. The near-anamchara of bonding. They all were deeply connected. They could…they could send power back and forth through the circle without breaking it. We couldn’t get in, but they could heal, change out demons, and get back out. They could fight for hours.
We would all be taken or killed.
Konstantin took another breath. Sat up, limbs floundering. His hand landed in the blood of the circle. In a shower of falling flame, the magics of the circle broke.
Too many things happened.
Pretty Thang walked up to Konstantin and shot him pointblank with the antimagic splat gun. Six rounds of antimagic amulets splattered the vampire-witch, two at head, at chest, at abdomen.
Nothing happened.
The death magics crawled up Konstantin’s hand, sank into his skin. Terenzio’s flesh glowed faintly as the demon passed out of him and across the circle. Into Konstantin. He wasn’t just a stand-in. He was a major participant, keeping the vamps alive, undead. At Terenzio’s feet, the human shriveled.
Dark energies crawled over Nyoka. She bent and took the last drops of sacrificial blood, wiping them on one arm. Her head turned and her gaze met mine. Her eyes blazed with possession, but…her eyes flashed silver and her mouth formed the words, Help me.
Nyoka was acting under duress. The demon…
Things came together in a snap that sounded over the din of battle. I knew. When Terenzio killed the third man, our entire team would die.
I pulled my silver athame from its sheath. The blade had been purified in spring water on Wolf Moon. A blade meant for death.
Energies were brilliant lights everywhere. Red, green, blue, silver. Too much. My skin felt as if fire ants attacked, all over, at once.
To my side, Walter was down. His brand blazed. Willim raised a death strike.
Pretty Thang shot Willim. Real rounds this time. Not magic splats. Silver-lead RIP shredders to explode an inch inside and rip through muscle and organs.
Willim fell. His hand landed in blood that had pooled from the sacrifices. The circle didn’t fall…Willim rolled upright. His vamped-out eyes never closed, his fangs never retracted. He attacked Pretty Thang.
Grizz shot Willim from the other side. And then shot Konstantin. Changed magazines. How many demon rounds did Grizz have? What did they do to possessed vamps? They had been invented for humans.