Thedeathmagics crawled up Konstantin’s hand, sank into his skin. Terenzio’s flesh glowed faintly as the demon passed out of him and across the circle. Into Konstantin. He wasn’t just a stand-in. He was a major participant, keeping the vamps alive, undead. At Terenzio’s feet, the human shriveled.
Dark energies crawled over Nyoka. She bent and took the last drops of sacrificial blood, wiping them on one arm. Her head turned and her gaze met mine. Her eyes blazed with possession, but…her eyes flashed silver and her mouth formed the words,Help me.
Nyoka was acting under duress. The demon…
Things came together in a snap that sounded over the din of battle. Iknew. When Terenzio killed the third man, our entire team would die.
I pulled my silver athame from its sheath. The blade had been purified in spring water on Wolf Moon. A blade meant for death.
Energies were brilliant lights everywhere. Red, green, blue, silver.Too much.My skin felt as if fire ants attacked, all over, at once.
To my side, Walter was down. His brand blazed. Willim raised a death strike.
Pretty Thang shot Willim. Real rounds this time. Not magic splats. Silver-lead RIP shredders to explode an inch inside and rip through muscle and organs.
Willim fell. His hand landed in blood that had pooled from the sacrifices.The circle didn’t fall…Willim rolled upright. His vamped-out eyes never closed, his fangs never retracted. He attacked Pretty Thang.
Grizz shot Willim from the other side. And then shot Konstantin. Changed magazines.How many demon rounds did Grizz have? What did they do to possessed vamps? They had been invented for humans.
In the broken seconds it took Grizz to change mags and pull an offhand weapon, Pretty Thang scuttled back against the rear wall. Fired again, emptying his clip. Changed out for a fresh. He was trapped. No place to go except outside. He spun up on one hand and somersaulted out the broken door into the night.
Nyoka stepped inside the circle and back out, fighting the possession. She tripped over one of the tiny containment vials. The top cracked and splintered off. Achortemerged and wrapped itself around Nyoka’s left leg. Nyoka’s eyes blazed with orange and green and darkness as the EEB inside her reacted to a second energy. The succubus in her didn’t seem inclined to share. Nyoka looked down and swatted with her damaged hand, the one with two amputated fingers. Thechortreceded to the witch’s knee, uncertain, facing Nyoka’s elixir and Nyoka’s demon.
The succubus spoke, its voice like flames and the dark of space: “It is for you, girl child.”
Asshat leaped to his feet, shook his head. Sword outstretched, he charged me.
EJ appeared, almost as fast as a vamp, in front of Karson, both of them outside the circle. EJ fired into Karson’s midsection, the weapon pressed deeply into the vampire I had once loved. “Pugno di vento,” EJ sang. A working blazed from his other hand. My brother threw Karson across the room.
EJ stalked to Karson, unsheathing a vamp-killer. In a single cut, he beheaded my ex-husband. Asshat’s blood drenched the wall, not the circle.
I pressed the trigger on my staff. Sprites flew from Karson and were sucked into the staff. My hand screamed in pain. In the scant second Asshat fought and died, Iknew. New potential futures opened for me like photos. Flashing like pages turning, telling a dozen stories.
None of them good.
Someone will get away.
I need to be inside the circle.
My hand was frozen and yet roasting in an oven. Agony, freezing fire, lit something inside. My magic welled like a flood. Battle magic. Precog. All my magic. I took the staff in my right hand. Placed my left palm on the floor, dead-white fingertipsinthe circle of blood. Whispered, “Bruciare.”
A flash of flame shot out from my dead-white fingertips. The blood burned to char, smelling of overcooked meat and brimstone. The demon circle weakened, thinned.
Hand still on the floor, I opened agauntlet hedge. The shield rose outside the demon circle, just touching it. Bell-shaped, centered over me.
Shiloh, blood-soaked, popped into placeinsidethe demon shield. Her eyes were blazing silver. But she was fighting the demon’s energies. Stubby fingers poked from a secure pocket in her psychedelic armor, real fingers, amputated, a macabre trophy. Her eyes flashed black, silver, manic.
I caught a glimpse of Konstantin, stepping into the night, cradling a bloody hand. Somehow still undead.
Terenzio was crawling to his feet.
Shiloh shook out one hand and pressed it against the inner circle’s energies near my face. Black lightning spat at her touch.Shiloh laughed, her mask of glamour and the smeared blood on her face and in her hair a horror show all her own. Crazy eyes met mine. She grinned through her gilded fangs. Le Vampire Sauvage in all her mad, battle-frenzied glory.
“This comes down. Now,” she said.
Responding,battlemagic flamed. Time slowed as the fighting raged around us.
I placed my dead-white hand against the energies, matching Shiloh’s position, finger for finger, and pushed through my own protection, to touch the demon circle. My power met Shiloh’s, like oil and water, shimmering. Together, we pushed against the demon circle. Around us, the warfare raged.
