AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m saying that every time your aura fluctuates, it stresses the spell,” I told him clearly, hoping the asshole trying to kick my head in might overhear. “We have to get down from here, or any moment—”
“Any moment what?”
“Plop,” I said, indistinctly this time, because I’d just ended up with a mouthful of dirty leather.
I grabbed the damn boot, trying to sling it and its owner against the side of the building. Or the roof, where at least I could shoot the son of a bitch. And it might have worked—if Slava hadn’t started thrashing around like a blowfish out of water.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I demanded, as he almost sent me flying.
“I know this plop,” he told me violently. “You think I don’t? I have been in this country thirty years! I know this word!”
“Then why are you fighting me?”
“You weigh me down, both of you. Get off!” He punctuated his sentence by elbowing me viciously in the neck.
And then someone started shooting at us.
Of course they did.
I looked up to see Marlowe hanging out of the office window, but he wasn’t the one firing. He was the one on his back getting choked by the vamp trying to push him to his doom, while the vamp’s two buddies took potshots at us. Only they weren’t likely to get any brownie points from the guy they’d just shot in the butt.
“Not me,” Slava sputtered. “Shoot them. Shoot them!”
But Æsubrand didn’t seem to like that idea. Or, rather, he liked it fine where I was concerned, just not for him. Which was easily remedied by jerking Slava around, so that I faced the window full of shooters.
Who promptly drilled me through the shoulder.
It probably would have been through the heart, but Marlowe was giving them hell. The choker’s head suddenly exploded, like a watermelon under Gallagher’s hammer, and Marlowe snarled and threw the bloody stump at the shooter. The result was another miss, but then a backup squad muscled in the door and I decided that maybe it was time to return a favor.
I pulled the gun I’d taken off the mage and drilled one of the guards right between the eyes.
But not with a bullet.
At least, not the normal kind.
A single bullet won’t kill a vamp, even a baby, but they do seriously piss them off. So I’d expected him to lose interest in Marlowe and start firing at us. Which is why I’d jerked us back around so that Æsubrand was facing him.
I had not expected him to turn a weird, all-over white and freeze in place.
Literally, I realized a second later, when Marlowe slammed the butt of a rifle up against the guy’s head and he shattered into a few dozen pieces. Several of which tumbled out the window and smashed against the concrete below. And Marlowe’s head jerked up.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded, looking envious, even while getting hit over the head with a chair.
“Off the mage,” I yelled back, staring at my new toy in disbelief.
And then Æsubrand tried to kick it out of my hand.
He didn’t succeed, but only because I was gripping it with the fervor of a saint holding a sacred relic. But the blow still hurt like a bitch, turning my whole hand numb. I didn’t get a chance to retaliate, however, because the wind, which had been unusually calm, suddenly decided to pick up.
And why didn’t I think that was a coincidence?
Maybe because I’d seen what Æsubrand could do with the elements.
Most fey were good with one, maybe two. But as far as I could tell, he was good with all of them. His mixed heritage could have been the reason, with two great houses of the Light Fey melded into one. Or maybe he was just talented that way. But I didn’t think it spelled good news for me.
And then I knew it didn’t when what sounded like a freight train came whistling through the space between buildings, gaining momentum on the way.
