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The wards were up.
Wards that disliked weapons’ fire of any kind, magical or otherwise. Wards that were probably designed to hate it in the lady’s own chambers. Wards that could save my ass if I could only manage to—
Shit.
The mage whose weapon I’d been reaching for pulled away, although that wasn’t the problem since I was much faster than him. I just wasn’t faster than the bolt of something that sprang from the hilt of his gun when I got a finger on it. A finger that promptly went dead, along with the rest of my hand and my chances of setting the wards off, because I needed a damned weapon for that!
Or, as it turned out, an acolyte.
Rhea started earning her new status a second later, when the guy with the gun spun and grabbed me around the neck. And tried his best to wrench my head off. But he hadn’t quite managed it when she threw a bolt of something that sent him flying back against the wall like he’d been bitch slapped by the Hulk.
It was a less-than-perfect solution, since I went, too, slamming against delicate embossed wallpaper hard enough to leave me reeling. But I considered it worth it. Because the jolt caused his grip to loosen and I jerked away, and he got pissed and pulled a gun.
“Noooooooooo!” I heard someone yell, the time bubble distorting it into a single epic syllable.
That wasn’t epic enough. The mage let off a barrage of bullets that were still traveling too fast for me to see. But not, it seemed, for the wards.
Because the slugs incinerated midair, in a line of red heat against the dim light of the room, the last exploding right in front of my face like a miniature firework.
I was still staring at the glowing green aftereffects, still feeling the tiny stings of powder burning my cheeks, still cross-eyed and breathing hard, when the real fireworks began.
Little red dots suddenly appeared everywhere, at the ends of dozens of tiny streams of light crisscrossing the gloom, targeting anyone with a weapon. The mages cursed and shielded, except for the guy with the gun. Who took half a second to realize what was going on and to drop it.
It was half a second too long.
I flung myself back to the floor as a bolt of fiery orange painted the air above my head. There was a crack like thunder. There was a surprised yelp. And then there was a burning, shrieking mage.
His coat must have offered some kind of protection, because on fire or not he was still able to run. So he did, jumping and flailing and stumbling across the room toward the French windows—why, I don’t know. Maybe because it had started to rain, and in his panic he thought that the whisper-soft mist falling outside was going to put out a magical fire that burned like phosphorus and was already eating through his coat.
It didn’t.
He screamed out on the balcony, a wail of pain and fury that was cut off when another bolt hit him. And ripped him off his feet, sending him hurtling backward through the air, toward the line of buildings across the street. It was a weirdly beautiful sight as his coat flamed up around him, a bloodred ember among all that falling rain.
And then someone kicked me in the head.
It wasn’t a mage. They were huddled lumps under their shields, being wailed on by the bolts, which were hitting down everywhere now. It also wasn’t a ward, none of which appeared to be aiming for me. But the same couldn’t be said for the acolytes.
The wards were avoiding them, since they belonged here. Which was a good thing, as otherwise Rhea would have been toast. And a bad thing, because I was about to be.
Because this had just become a time battle, and oh, shit.
The auburn-haired acolyte was the first to show off and send a time spell my way. It was small and iridescent and flimsy-looking, like a kid blowing a soap bubble, and I dodged it easily. But then her buddies, a couple of brunettes and a blonde, got in on the a
ct, and suddenly the air around me looked like the kid had been joined by a dozen friends.
And while I ducked and dodged and avoided most of them, it only takes one, doesn’t it?
I saw it coming, the tiny harbinger of doom, no larger than a tennis ball, that one of the girls had managed to conjure up. But I was powerless to avoid it with another one streaming by on the other side. And I couldn’t duck because I had just been thrown to the floor again courtesy of the smallest mage.
And it looked like I’d been wrong; one of them had lost his weapons fast enough. And was quickly proving that he didn’t need them. He grabbed me from behind in some martial arts move I didn’t know and wouldn’t have time to learn because he was about to strangle me to death.
I tucked my chin as Pritkin had taught me, and beat him to the punch. But he still had hold of me where I couldn’t hit him. And speed doesn’t do a lot of good against strength when strength has you by the neck.
Until he suddenly started screaming. I jerked away and twisted back around in time to see his skin browning and shriveling up, his eyes being sucked back into their sockets, and his lips pulling away from his teeth. And then disappearing altogether, like his scream, which cut off when his vocal cords dried up and dusted away. But I could still hear it echoing in my ears as I scrambled back.
But not fast enough. Not to avoid the small, flimsy bubble that floated out of his open mouth a second later, and into my spell. And popped them both with a sound I didn’t hear, because I was suddenly hearing everything.
Furniture was crashing, glass was shattering, people were screaming. Including one of the brunettes, who was yelling: “I’m out! I’m out!”
