He pulled his magic to him and opened a newhedge, nearly touching his skin. Dropped the damagedhedge. Hummed a new note, lost beneath the barrage. Pulled three silver stakes. Explosives in his left hand. Stakes in his right.
Her weapon jerked.
He dropped thehedgeand threw the explosives. Reactivated thehedge.
The energy-grenades detonated.
He leaped for her. Pushing hishedgethrough the shrapnel. Through the blast. In midair he dropped thehedge. Buried the stakes in her belly.
Landed atop her. She went limp.
Maybe fifteen seconds since Gertrude’s trap.
Angie and Raccoon. Not breathing. Injured.
One-handed, he shoved to his feet. Whirled for the stairs.
Just ahead, a form silhouetted in the window. Outside. Nine stories up.
“Son of a witch,” he muttered. Opened yet anotherhedge. This one was solely powered by his own energies. For an instant the ley line and all its power hovered in his mind. He didn’t know how to reach that power. And he was out of helpful amulets.
He lifted his flute to his lips, readying an air working defense.
The window shattered.
A form swung in. Psychedelic armor top to toe. Sword in her hand. She landed, lithe as a cat. “Well, dang. I missed all the fun.”
“Paralysisair working. Stairway. Angie and Raccoon.”
Shiloh sheathed her sword and yanked two crystals from her gear belt. Followed him. He sang a soft note and anilluminationworking opened in the stairway for him. Shiloh had vamp vision.
She pushed past him, one of the crystals glowing yellow. She waved it over Angie. The glow brightened, turning a pale pink. Shiloh rolled Angie over. His sister was gray-faced but alert, eyes panicking.
Shiloh pressed the pink crystal to Angie’s throat. Stuck a finger in Angie’s mouth and pressed a crystal orb—looked like a cat’s-eye marble—against Angie’s tongue. Held it in place with that finger.
“Roll her again,” Shiloh demanded.
EJ knelt and rolled his sister over. She was limp as the freshly dead.
Shiloh released the amulet at her throat and whacked Angie’s back with the heel of her hand. Hard. Just below her shoulder blades. Again. Again. On the third thudding strike, Angie gagged. Sucked in a breath. Another. Started coughing. Shiloh caught the marble. Jumped the stairs to Raccoon.
EJ turned his sister over and said, “Ange?”
She gagged, coughed again. Long and racking. She waved him to Raccoon. Sucking in deep breaths and blowing them out. Hard and fast.
Reluctantly, he left her and leaped the stairs to Raccoon and his first cousin, the vampire-witch, Le Vampire Sauvage. Cousin Wacko. Silently, he assisted her with reviving Raccoon.When the shooter was breathing again, coughing and gagging like Angie, Shiloh, a step below him, grinned into his face. “I couldn’t get in and you did. You incapacitated her. We’ll split the bounty.”
“Bounty…” By the time he understood what she meant, Shiloh had leaped over his head, drawn her longsword, and spun into the apartment, swinging around the doorjamb like a kid on a playground. He heard the sword descend, hitting the floor with a squishing thud.
Shiloh reappeared at the opening, holding Gertrude’s head in one hand. The smell of scorched, undead flesh and hair rode the air currents to his nose. Gertrude looked like her prewar pics again; the glamour that had clung to her flesh, gone with her life. Blood dripped from the stump.
“Money, money, money, moooooney!” Shiloh sang out. She whirled and leaped through the open window.
“Holy crap,” Angie rasped out. “Cousin Wacko strikes again.”
“All the Everharts are seriously insane,” Raccoon said, his voice as damaged as Angie’s. “She’s just the worst of the bunch.”
“What happened in there?” Angie asked between coughs.
