Even as we stumble on the skirmish, the woman flicks the fingers of her unwounded hand. Salvatore tosses out a bolt of ephemera that knocks her arm back and pins her wrist to the ground before she can complete whatever vicious magic she meant to cast out.
Lightning flashes across the sky, bringing the scene into starker visibility. One bolt slams into the base of the surrounding trees and sends two toppling over on their sides. The impact reverberates through the ground.
As we stalk closer, Elodie and Gwyn roll over on the ground. Gwyn aims a warble of ephemera that has Elodie wincing… just seconds before Gwyn flinches in turn.
In the older woman’s distraction, Elodie scrambles into a crouch. She leans over Gwyn and points the serrated blade of her borrowed knife right over the other woman’s heart.
“Who are you?” she demands roughly. “Why are you trying to get rid of me?”
Gwyn simply glowers up at Elodie, her lips pressed defiantly flat. A hum rises through the air.
Byron sends a sliver of electricity at the side of thewoman’s head. Her features twitch, though her eyes stay unglazed.
“Answer her questions,” he snaps.
Gwyn stays rigidly silent.
Elodie prods her with the knife again. “You’ve got to have some reason. Don’t you care whetheryouget murdered?”
As the woman makes a scoffing sound, a rustle in the underbrush draws my gaze. I only have time to yelp out Elodie’s name in warning before a mangy coyote flings itself into our midst.
It lunges right at the two figures on the ground, the easiest targets.
Elodie heaves herself away faster than I knew she was capable of, her knife flashing up. She doesn’t need it.
The void coyote falls on the prone woman instead.
Its fangs tear through Gwyn’s shirt and into her shoulder. Even in her stoicism, she can’t hold back a faint cry.
The coyote’s head veers toward her throat, and I leap in without any further thought.
We need this woman alive. We need her answers, however we end up getting them.
I slice my sword downward with all the force I can bring to bear. It cuts through the coyote’s neck with a sickeningly gristly sound.
Blood splatters across Gwyn’s chest. Breath harsh in my throat, I kick the animal’s limp body aside and stand over her with my sword half an inch from her throat now.
“Try anything else, and that’ll be you next. Why are you after Elodie?”
Salvatore lets out a dark chuckle. “Let’s start by carving off her hands and her feet. Her ears and her nose. She can still talk without those. Bet she’d rather keep them, though.”
My stomach lurches, but I hold my sword steady. If that’s what it takes to protect my match, that’s what I’ll do.
So far this woman hasn’t proven herself any less monstrous than the voids I’ve trained to slaughter.
But just as I’m opening my mouth to echo his threat, several pairs of footsteps crunch across the forest floor.
“Police!” a firm voice calls out. “Step back and lower your weapons.”
Forty-Seven
Elodie
Ican’t imagine what the officers make of the scene when they first emerge around us. There’s a woman lying injured on the ground with Asher pointing his sword at her and two other men looming.
I heave myself to my feet, heart thudding painfully hard, groping for the right words.
Byron finds them first. He takes a small step back and raises his hands appeasingly. “I’m Byron Worth. We were stopping this woman from attacking our classmate—our match. She dragged Elodie Devine into the woods and tried to murder her.”
