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“Derek!” Julie grabbed his arm. “No!”
He shrugged her off. He had to get to the woman. Fighting the flood of magic was pointless. It would only exhaust him more, and he was already weak.
“Derek!”
He shoved her back. She fell and he marched to the pillar.
“He’s lost,” Adams mocked. “He’s young and single. He can’t resist a letavitsa. That right there is unmatched power. A single one can empty a city of every man in it.”
“Derek!”
He heard her trying to run after him and, out of the corner of his eye, saw Adams pull a knife out and step into her path.
“You’ll die next,” Julie snarled.
“I took measures. I have protection. He doesn’t. The fallen star will feed on him and drain him dry. Now it’s just you and me.”
“Come closer. . . . Tell me you love me. Give yourself to me.”
He let the magic pull him forward. It was too strong to fight. He had to give himself to her. He was almost to the Pillar Rock.
Adams raised his hand. Foul magic spread from him, like dark ink. “Evdokia will just love this.”
“What the hell do you want with a letavitsa anyway?”
“Funny thing about gangs,” Caleb said. “Ninety percent of members are male between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Rabid with hormones and unlikely to form lasting attachments. A man would have to be willing to die for a woman to fight off the letavitsa’s magic. That kind of devotion is rare. Tomorrow night I’ll walk with her through the Warren, and that will be the end of my turf war.”
Derek jumped onto the pillar and began walking toward her. She waited, golden, warm, ready, her hair floating around her, her silver eyes glowing. . . . He could see Julie and Adams below them among the puddles.
“I’m the Herald,” Julie said. Her voice had an odd cadence. “I serve the Guardian of the City.”
“Well, your Guardian isn’t here.” The dark magic around Adams coalesced. Black serpentine shapes slid within it, stretching from him, each tipped with a skeletal dragon head armed with needle-sharp teeth.
“Her blood is my blood. Her power is my power.”
Adams halted. “Cute. Are you incanting, little one?”
“Look into my eyes and despair. For I’m Punishment, and you cannot escape me.”
The black smoke serpents streaked to her, their skeletal mouths opening wide, their smoke bodies billowing with black.
Magic punched from her, sweeping the smoke serpents aside. For a fraction of a second Adams froze, his face shocked.
Julie opened her mouth. “Karsaran.” The sound rocked her. She dropped to her knees.
An unseen power jerked Adams off his feet. His body froze, rigid. A sharp short tremor shook him with a loud sickening snap, as if every bone in the warlock’s body had broken. The body fell onto the ground.
Julie straightened, wiped the blood from her nose with the back of her hand, pulled out her tomahawk, and walked toward Adams, her mouth set in a hard line.
He saw Adams’ mouth gaping.
“He’ll still die,” the warlock squeezed out.
“Come, beloved. . . . Give me your love. I will make you whole.”
“I’m coming,” he said. He was almost to her, to that celestial pliant body, so soft, so eager for him. Ready. Willing.
Julie raised her tomahawk and chopped down.
