“Get down,” Caleb yelled and shoved me back toward the wall.
The ravens swooped at us, shiny black talons flashing and sharp beaks thrusting forward menacingly. Caleb uncorked his vial with his teeth and threw it at the nearest bird. A hazy green miasma exploded around the raven. It gave a sharp croak of a cry and then dropped. Caleb kicked it aside, but two more had already taken its place.
He swung his mallet. The sound of bones snapping made me cringe, even though I knew the birds weren’t real. But this bird didn’t fall. Caleb’s death blow smashed its rib cage and it vanished, a small copper coin hitting the carpet a moment later.
Neither one of us had time to be amazed because there were more birds, so many more birds, to take the first’s place. They swooped at us, talons extended.
I lashed out with my dagger, hitting one of the ravens in the wing. It went down, but didn’t vanish. Climbing to its feet, the raven spread its uninjured wing wide and rushed me, its head darting as it lunged at my leg. Damn. You have to hit to kill.
Another raven dove for me, its talons aimed at my eyes. I ducked, and it got a claw full of my hair instead, pulling a clump out by the roots. I yelped, but the grounded raven was still coming for me. I jabbed with my dagger again. This time the bird vanished.
“There are too many of them,” I yelled over the roar of wings as I scrambled to my feet.
“You have a suggestion?” Caleb asked, never pausing as he swung his mallet, knocking birds out of the air.
I didn’t.
Somewhere beside me a door opened, and I spun around. Falin staggered into the room, one arm pressed against his injured side but a large dagger clutched in his other hand.
“Get out of here,” I yelled as soon as I saw him.
He didn’t retreat. His icy gaze took in the situation in one quick glance, and then landed on me. He hobbled forward, his breathing hard, pained, but the dagger in his hand cut through the air effortlessly. With every twitch of his wrist a bird vanished on his blade so that small copper disks lined his path as he made his way toward me. It would have been something to watch, if I hadn’t been fighting off the damn ravens myself.
My enchanted dagger buzzed merrily in my hand as I jabbed at the birds. I could feel it making suggestions in my muscles, trying to guide my arm, and I let it, but even with the dagger’s help, most of my jabs injured rather than dispelled. Frustrated, I dropped my shields. I aimed for the knot of magic in the hazy forms instead of body parts, and the birds exploded into mist around my blade.
“Where did they come from?” Falin yelled, more ravens dissolving as his dagger struck true again and again.
Caleb’s mallet took out two birds with one massive swing. “Like you don’t know.”
“Guys,” I huffed, but didn’t say anything else. My chest burned, my breathing came hard, and my arm ached from continual motion, but more birds poured in through the open front door.
A figure appeared in my peripheral vision. I swung around, anticipating seeing whoever had set the constructs on us. Instead I came face-to-face with Death.
His dark eyes went wide, as if he was surprised to see me, and in my own shock, I didn’t notice one of the birds diving close until it was inches from me. Death’s hand shot out, his fingers jabbing into the bird. He jerked, and the bird vanished. It didn’t dissolve like the ones Caleb, Falin, and I killed, but all trace that it had existed disappeared—except the disk that fell to the ground.
“You always have to interfere, don’t you?” said a voice behind him, and we both turned as a soul collector—dressed for a rave, in a bright orange tube top and a pair of white PVC hip-huggers—stepped forward.
She shook her head in disapproval, making her long dreadlocks swish. Then she strolled forward, slashing through the birds with her orange talonlike nails. Another reaper, wearing all gray, followed close behind her, swinging his silver skull–topped cane through the birds.
“Welcome to the party,” I muttered, aiming my own dagger at a construct that dove too close.
“Alex, down!” Falin yelled, and a large hand slammed into my back, shoving me toward the floor.
I rolled as hit I the ground, but with Caleb and Falin on one side and the collectors on the other, I didn’t have anywhere to go. My roll ended with me on my back, staring straight up as three groups of ravens descended from different directions, all diving for the spot where I’d been. Not that they stood a chance against the three collectors and two fae. I covered my head as a shower of spelled disks rained over me.
Then there was silence.
I pushed myself off the floor and looked around. The front door still hung open, but no more dark shapes swooped through it. I clutched my dagger, waiting, watching, sure the reprieve would break at any moment. I think we all were. But nothing happened, and I finally released the breath I’d been holding.
Caleb immediately rounded on Falin. “What did you do?”
“They weren’t after me,” Falin said, wincing and leaning against the wall. Fresh red blood dripped over his gloved hand where he pressed it against his side.
“Leave him alone,” I told Caleb as I stepped forward to help Falin. He needed to sit down, and I didn’t care what Caleb said—he needed a healer.
A hand on my arm stopped me, and I turned, ready to lay into Caleb for being overprotective. But it wasn’t Caleb; it was Death, and the look on his face killed any protest I might have raised.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, his hazel eyes scanning my face, my neck, my shoulders. He brushed aside my hair as if searching for any injury it might have hidden.
“I’m fine.” And I owed him and the other collectors a debt of gratitude for that. We’d have been overwhelmed if they hadn’t appeared.
My gaze moved past him and I saw the other two collectors gathering the mist hanging in the air from the vanished ravens. It dissipated slowly as they reached out again and again. Souls. How creepy is it that we’ve been trudging through souls? Not that the stuff looked like a person or a creature. Most souls I’d seen outside of a body still looked like, well, the original body.
“How does a soul turn into mist?”
“Not any way natural,” Death said, running his hands down my arms.
The raver-collector glared at him. Guess he wasn’t supposed to tell me that. It wasn’t as if “not any way natural” told me much.
Death ignored her. “You’re sure you’re not hurt? Not one of those creatures touched you? Not even a scratch?”
I frowned, looking down at myself. “I don’t think so.” I hadn’t exactly had time to take stock yet, but I didn’t feel hurt. “Nothing serious, surely.”
“Alex, who are you talking to?” Caleb asked, stepping forward at the same time Death brushed my top up so he could search my waist and back. Caleb stopped. “Anyone else seeing her clothes move on their own?”
Falin nodded. “Yeah, she’s not alone,” he said, and I swear he glared at the space near where Death stood, as if jealous.
Not that he had any right to be. Still, I brushed my shirt back in place and stepped away from Death’s searching hands.
“I’m fine,” I said again.
“Alex, those were carriers. As little as a scratch would transfer their spell.”
I blanched, staring at Death. Crap. I was pretty sure I wasn’t hurt, but the others?
I turned but didn’t have time to say anything before the collector in gray stepped forward. His cane shot out, the silver skull ornament pressing into Death’s chest not in a blow but more a cautionary block.
“Do you think that wise?” he asked, his eyes on Death, who glared at him in return.
Whatever passed between them made Death look away. “We’re done here,” the raver said, and true to her word the soul mist was gone.
Death looked at the gray man again, who crossed his arms over his chest, his cane tapping impatiently on his thigh. Then he turned to me. His eyes swept over me again, as if he still was not confident I hadn’t been hurt. He reached out, his hand cupping my face. His thumb traced over my cheekbone and for a moment I thought he was going to say something more.
He didn’t.
He leaned forward and his lips brushed against mine, a ghost of a kiss that made my entire body react to the almost electric feel of his skin against mine. Then he vanished, the raver and the gray man disappearing a heartbeat later. I stared at the space where he’d been and touched my lips, still feeling the gentle warmth of his mouth. I was breathless again—but not from the fight.
Now is seriously not the time.
I let my hand drop and turned. Both Caleb and Falin stared at me. At least they aren’t fighting with each other. I wiped my suddenly damp palms on the front of my shorts, fumbling with my dagger awkwardly as I did so.
“I, uh . . .” I shook my head. It was Falin’s ice blue stare more than Caleb’s that got to me. I swallowed and tried again. “Are you hurt? I mean, more than you were when you got here? Apparently the birds were carrying a spell that would transfer with as little as a scratch.” I stopped and pressed my fingers to my mouth again, but this time in alarm. “Oh, crap—Holly.”
“I don’t think she woke for the fight. She should be fine,” Caleb said, but he was already moving toward her bedroom as he spoke.
I wasn’t so much worried about tonight’s fight as I was about the fact that she’d been injured by the cu sith in the Quarter. I had no doubt the raven constructs had been sent by the same person, and if they were carrying a spell, had the cu sith been as well?
I darted around Caleb as I sprinted down the hall. I reached Holly’s door a moment before he did, and I threw it open.
Holly wasn’t inside.
I hadn’t closed my shields, so the comforter pooled at the end of Holly’s bed looked both faded and rotted and whole with a vibrant geometric pattern. The sheets had obviously been slept on, and unlike me, Holly made her bed. Always. So she’d been here, but the bed stood empty now.