Shadow Rites

“Fine. You take this, then.” Careful not to touch the two brooches together and knock me out again, he handed me the brooch that had been in Leo’s flesh, still tacky with vamp blood. I skimmed it into the small pocket where the blob had rested.

Before either of them could reply, I shoved them through the witch hedge of thorns and into the side yard, to safety. In the same motion, I ripped at the Gray Between and Beast forced a half form onto me in a wrenching of bones that left me huddled in a mewling heap on the small porch.

“Are you okay?” someone asked.

“What about us?” another voice complained.

I made it to my feet, the toes of my combat boots now massive, my paws pushing out the sides, which had been made to change shape with them. I had to say that they looked really weird with the extra width. I caught a breath, aching in every part of me, as I tried to straighten my back.

Behind me, the waitstaff, the chef, the sommelier, and a few others huddled on the small stoop. They had followed me out through the sword-sliced Nicaud door ward and now all were pressed back at the sight of me, squishing each other tight against the house, and because there was only one blob, they were still trapped. “You’re out of the house on the porch,” I said. “That’s all I got.”

“What the hell are you?” the chef asked.

I chuffed a laugh and sprinted back through the door just as Beast bubbled time.

My belly cramped and tore. I stumbled and a knobby knee hit the floor before I could catch myself on the office desk. I knocked papers off in a flying shuffle that caught in the air the moment they slid away from my time bubble. I held my gut with a hand as I pushed upright again and felt something new in my belly. A depression ran along my right side, a space where the muscle had ripped and left only soft tissue like a hole in a foam pillow. It ran from my ribs down to my hipbone, soft and slightly spongy, as if something was missing like a part of my abdominal wall and muscle. I chuffed in disquiet, and the sound was growly.

Holding my side, I stalked through the house, my narrow waist and wide hips moving with a catlike roll, despite the missing parts. The sounds from the ballroom were echoing, heavy, deep, and vibrating painfully on my ears. The magics had a sound too, a rustling, shushing sound like fire reaching for dry leaves high in a tree. And the room ahead was glowing a reddish shade, different from the greenish one when I left only a moment ago in real time.

I stopped in the doorway. In real time, the ballroom was on fire. The walls were burning, a green fire that was paused midway, licking up the draperies. Black and red smoke billowed into a separate working, the form of which I couldn’t yet see. The parquet flooring was blackened and heated beneath my boots. Amalie was going to be one unhappy hostess. And the Witch Conclave would never get their security deposit back.

But there was something symbolic about the fire. Fire was used to cleanse, purify, sanctify. Just as I had once cleaned my soul home of Gee’s blue watching eyes, the Nicauds were cleansing the witches and the vamps. But their form of cleansing was brought about with blood and suffering and the kidnapping and draining of a vampire and the deaths of many humans who had been dumped in a swamp. This was using evil against evil, and that was never successful.

The Nicaud witches were standing back to back, throwing fireballs at their enemies. The workings were about the size of softballs and they were being tossed underhanded, the orbs looking like red glitter that had been pasted over celery-green spherical Christmas tree ornaments, with a hint of black in the centers. There were three in the air and two about to impact witch wards. A sixth had smashed onto the ward of the woman who had asked Leo the good questions. Her ward was falling and her skin was burned, second-degree blisters weeping and breaking. The attacking sphere was in the act of changing shape, spreading out. Flames licked to her, as if hungry to taste her flesh, ready to wrap the witch up in a binding of fiery pain. Three other witches were down and burning. It was no longer Gee and me burning. Now it was everyone. The rest of the witches had retreated to the Chaperone’s Alcove and the doors to the rest of the house, where they were working to remove the Nicauds’ sealing ward.

Leo and Grégoire were engaging the Nicauds, one on either side, and appeared to be in the act of batting the fireballs aside with bloodied swords. Ming stood by the vamps, her eyes still green with flames but not reacting to anything. Her body displayed a number of wounds, suggesting that the fighting vamps had cut her each time they needed fresh blood on their blades. There was something horrible and evil about that, but I couldn’t deal with the thought of a blood-sucking vamp victim who should be rescued. Again. Who had been made into a victim by witches and now by her own kind. Maybe I could fix it later. Tomorrow, Tara.

I went inside the ballroom and considered all the people and my options. I could try to take them all outside, one by one or even two by two, and stack them up on a porch. I could try to put out the fire with buckets of water. But all that would take time I didn’t have. Not with my belly cramping so badly. So it looked as though I’d have to do this the hard way, flying by the seat of my pants like always. One day it was gonna get me killed. I wondered if today was that day.

I stepped to the dark working that was about to land on the wise witch and poked it with my blade, bringing it into my time. The working fell to the floor and darkened. Like a dried-out shriveled fruit, maybe. Good enough. I poked all the Nicauds’ attacking spell orbs that were hanging in the air and watched them fall. Not like fruit. More like rotting water balloons.