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“What about the other mages?” It wasn’t like I could turn around to see for myself.
“Francoise and I got ’em. Goddamn, she can fight!”
“Don’t swear,” I said automatically.
The frown on Caleb’s face got a little bigger. “I’m not afraid to die,” he told me, his weapon steady. “Can you say the same?”
I gripped Jesse’s T-shirt a little tighter and grabbed Francoise’s arm. “Hell, no,” I told him, and shifted.
We ended up outside the car, which was better than I’d feared, but not anywhere near as good as I’d hoped. I’d been aiming for Dante’s, but apparently I didn’t have enough juice left for that. It was a problem, but not as big of one as the second limo that had pulled up and was spewing mages all over the asphalt. It looked like someone had found time to call for backup.
“I keep telling you I should be carrying,” Jesse said accusingly.
“Shut up!”
I tried to shift again but this time got nowhere. Even worse, the mages had spotted us. It was like their heads were all on a string: suddenly, every eye was fixed on me. I needed a plan, but I didn’t have time for one. I just knew that keeping Jesse with me was the best way to get him killed. I pushed the boy at Francoise. “Get him out of here!”
She didn’t ask questions. She shoved something into my pocket and simultaneously muttered a word that caused a burst of light that blinded me. I felt her rip Jesse out of my grip and heard the sound of shoes crunching glass underfoot as they took off.
I decided that the best thing I could do to help her was to give the mages another target—one with a much higher bounty attached. Before the blinding light had faded, I turned on my heel and ran in the opposite direction. Right into Marco.
He caught me by the shoulders and shook me like a dog, obviously ready to rip me a new one. But then the light faded and he glimpsed the tide of dark shapes surging toward us. He snarled, baring a lot of fang, and shoved me behind him.
I bounced off his friend’s chest, which was thankfully back in one piece, as Marco turned the Shroud of Night loose on the mages. It flew straight at them, its deep, inky nothingness making the surrounding night look like high noon by comparison. But rather than being the size of a sheet, it now covered half the road.
Marco started forward, gun drawn, but I grabbed his arm. “Let’s get out of here!”
“Sure,” he responded as the darkness cut through the mages’ shields like they weren’t even there. Marco’s buddy tossed him an M16. “In a minute.”
I grabbed the muzzle of the freakishly large gun. “What are you doing?”
“Like shooting fish in a bucket,” he said with relish.
“You can’t kill them!”
“Wanna bet?”
“Marco!”
He raised an eyebrow in a way that reminded me eerily of Mircea. “And what do you think they had in mind for you?”
It was a reasonable question, but it also wasn’t the point. “I’m trying to keep the Circle intact,” I told him as the Shroud boiled over the ground like a black mist. I assumed the mages were fighting to get out, but there was no sign of it from where we stood. No sound, no gunfire, no spells, no light. Nothing.
At least it hid us from the traffic, I thought, as Marco stared at me.
“Are you crazy?” He looked like he was seriously starting to worry about me.
“It’s complicated,” I said, marveling at the understatement. “But you can’t go around shooting mages.”
“Why not?”
It was obvious Marco wasn’t going to give up on his proposed slaughter without a damn good reason. So I gave him one, although he didn’t seem to understand my explanation about the vengeful god and the portal to another world and the ancient spell that the Circle supported that was the only thing keeping it closed. To give him credit, he did grasp the major point though.
“You’re saying you got to keep alive the very people who want you dead?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“That sucks.”
