He opened his mouth to argue, but a knowing gleam lit those beautiful Milky Way eyes. A grin tickled his lips. “Watch out, world, here comes Turdswallop.”
“Why does everyone I know always ruin great moments?”
He grabbed my cheeks in his strong hands and smashed his lips to mine.
“Come on, Romeo and Juliet, we have a battle to start,” Reagan said.
Emery pulled away, storm clouds raging in his eyes. Wildness rose in him, unruly and unchained. Electricity pooled between us before spinning higher and spreading out, joined by Reagan’s complex and beautiful magic. Shifters had gathered, waiting for direction, and the hair on their backs stood on end. Vampires shifted in their monster form and clicked their claws in anticipation.
“Let’s cut off some heads,” Emery shouted, leading the charge.
35
“It has taken them this long to get this one spell in motion,” Emery said, cutting right and running down the side of a building. The magic grew to our left. Had we kept going straight, we would’ve run right into the building Obliterate spell. “The team that already loosed their spell is probably regrouping with another. They’ll do it in shifts. After we take this spell down, we need to cut out the leader. We have to do that for each of them.”
“Get oder roup,” Darius said through his mouth of fangs. He needed to practice more to speak as well as Vlad in his monster form.
“Get the other group,” Emery said quietly as he turned to one of the shifters in the group. “Get people, doesn’t matter who, on the first group of spell workers we encountered. Cut them down now, while they are rebuilding.”
The wolf darted away, two reinforcements with him.
“Let’s go around this way,” Emery said, running across a walkway and over dusty ground that might have once been grassy. I felt a pull to the next building. Confused, I glanced down, not sure what I was feeling or why. “Here we go.”
I pushed the weird feeling away and refocused, slowing down with everyone else. My heart quickened as I once again sensed the magnitude of the spell that was brewing. Obliterate. Emery and Reagan were both looking at me.
“How close is it to being done?” Emery asked.
“Close,” I whispered. “It’s a monster, like the last one.”
Reagan looked at Emery with a flat expression, then me. She winked.
“No, no, what are you—” She was already running around the corner with a sword in hand, and Darius took off after her. “Dang it, I hate when she does that.”
I felt a familiar hand grab my arm. I sent a pulse of electricity through my body, through the hand, and into the stack of man attached.
Cahal flinched away and staggered.
Don’t mess with a woman on a mission.
Emery and I followed Reagan at a fast run, moving straight toward the spell casters, and though I wanted to skid to a stop and about-face, I turned up the speed instead. There they were—another large group of mages, waiting in a line, staring up at nothing, hands full of ingredients and no feelings in their hearts. They were magical drones, attempting to let loose a spell they probably scarcely understood.
Even as we stood there, the spell rose and swelled, becoming a force unto itself. It puffed up and hovered above everyone, seeking its target.
A target that was among them.
I kicked the first guy, punched the second, and smashed three more with a thick weave that sliced right through them. Reagan hacked through their ranks with her sword, looking up with tight eyes, knowing that thing would drift right back down at any moment.
“Gun. This would be a good time for my mother and her gun.” I speared someone with magic and barely dodged an attack by someone else—a rare mage who was thinking for herself. I knocked that woman out, because I didn’t think she truly belonged here, not with a brain of her own, and magically slashed another.
It turned out I was excellent at close combat, magical style. Thank you, Reagan, for those many horrible hours of training.
Someone hollered as they flew over the crowd, and suddenly Cahal was by my side. The guy he’d thrown skimmed the spell above us. His holler turned into a garbled scream before cutting off. He fell down in a clump, the area that had been in the fog eaten away.
“We can’t stick around under that,” I said to Emery, who grabbed a guy by the head, cracked his neck, and magically shot someone else.
“I know. Skirt the outside of the group. Keep them in the middle. They’re tired and scared. Let them cower together.”
A fierce snarl dragged my attention to the front of the line, where a single man stood opposite a very large lion. The mage, wearing a long, flowing robe and tall, silly hat, snatched a casing out of his satchel and fired it off.
Steve lurched forward, all teeth and claws and shifter magic, eating the spell or cutting through it, and slammed into the mage. A bear lumbered after him, opening its mouth wide and roaring at the mages at the front of the line.
“Penny!” Emery shouted.
I spun around, following the direction of Emery’s pointed finger. The red fog, similar to the first monster spell, puffed out and swelled a little more. A few sparks flared from deep within it as it slowly started moving back toward the ground.
“Go, go, go.” I turned and ran right into someone. Cahal stepped around me, grabbed the guy by the robe, and yanked him out of the way. The robe ripped and the guy barreled into a few other mages, three of them falling. Cahal pushed someone else out of the way and I ran in the newly created lane, Emery right behind me.
“Cut through,” Emery yelled.
I pulled at the elements above me, wove them into something nasty, and shoved it out, ruthless in my desperation. Up ahead I could see Darius slashing and tearing his way to the front, all strength and viciousness. Reagan followed in his wake, letting him clear the way.
The fog continued to lower, just as unhurried as the last. Tripping over limbs, struggling through the panicking crowd, I shot another spell at the people continuing to file into my way. The fog was nearly close enough to singe. The wall to my left was unforgiving, and the crowd pushing at me from the other side blocking me in.
Emery yanked me back, pushing me behind him. As big as a linebacker and just as strong, he barreled up the line, shooting magic or just muscling people to the side. I followed closely with Cahal behind, his hands on my upper back, occasionally tugging upward when my foot caught on human debris. I didn’t dare shrug him off, not with the spell drifting lower, trying to meet its target.
The bear up front swiped and someone went flying, half of her body grazing the fog. She screamed, but it soon cut off, and she fell in a boneless drop like the other mage. More people screamed at the back of the group, horrid, agonizing wails, as they were caught in the spell of their own making. When we were almost at the front and out, a throng of people pushed in our way, trying to escape the bear.
I caught sight of Reagan on the other side, her eyes widening. Cahal’s hands tightened on my upper back. Emery started shoving, forcing people forward with pure brawn.
We wouldn’t get out in time. That fog was right on us now, too big and dense for me to counter it in the half-minute we had left.
Without warning, a solid air wall slammed down in front of us. Emery ran into it face first, and I had to grab his hair and rip it down to keep him from popping straight up into the magical fog. People yelled and screamed in surprise as they were shoved by an unseen force, pushed back toward the bear. An alley had opened up, totally clear, but an invisible wall kept the mages out.
“Come on,” Emery said, taking my hand to make sure I made it. Ducking as he ran through the opening.
This time Cahal’s hands weren’t helping keep me upright, they were pushing on my back to keep my head down—and to keep him stable as he all but crawled after me. Emery reached the end and rolled out. I dove, and Cahal rolled out after me.
The bear backed up, swiped at another person, forcing them back. The fog continued to lower, catching people within its choking grasp. Killing its creators.
“Find the next one,” I shouted, panic still flooding my system. Tears—ashamedly—close to the surface.
That had been unbearably close. Terrifyingly close.
“We need to douse it in fire first,” Reagan said to us as she jogged over, lines etching her face and worry tightening her eyes.