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Monster was eager to fight this one and tried to urge me forward, dared me to slice the panther through.
The cat swept its paw through the air again, this time catching me on the arm, raking its enormous claws across tender skin. I must have screamed and loosened my grip enough to allow monster to take control, to turn my eyes red.
The panther hesitated only for a moment before stalking toward me, hunger in its eyes. Monster spun my sword as my bloodplinkedto the sidewalk. It managed a slice against the panther’s front leg, putting the scent of new blood into the air.
But that only pissed it off. Its growl was low and deep, the warning obvious.
Another sour breeze lifted—the scent of demon magic. And chaos struck again.
Something hit me in the back, sent me stumbling forward. The bright shock of pain sent monster into the back corner of my consciousness. A brick, I thought. I’d been struck by a human with a damn brick.
I nearly dropped into the panther’s waiting jowls but managed to pivot and hit the ground on my back. Close enough to smell the musky tang of its fur. It screamed again and bounded.
I managed to get my sword up, its spine against the panther’s belly, pushing with all my strength to keep its snapping teeth and those damned claws off of me. I gathered all my strength—and the strength that monster could contribute—and shoved it off me. It struck concrete, then rose again, limping on its wounded leg and hissing with fury. Rose might have been directing it before, but now it was genuinely pissed.
I kept my sword in front of me, climbed to my feet, and waited for it to launch.
And then there was a different sound, a new smell.
The padding of heavy feet. A low growl. And suddenly beside me, the thick fury of a gray wolf.
Connor, I thought with a mix of relief and fear.
“Rose is the demon,” I said. “I think she’s influencing the panther.”
He sniffed, raised his muzzle toward me, noted the blood on my arm, and snapped his head back to the panther, lips pulled back and teeth bared with obvious fury.
I looked back at Rose. Once again, she hadn’t moved, presumably because she’d been busy drinking in the energy from the cacophony she’d orchestrated. But she did look surprised, and not a little worried. Patience had said demons didn’t like dogs. I guess that feeling extended to their lupine cousins. Was it Connor? Did the wolf frighten her? Because we could use that.
The panther screamed again as it faced its new foe. Connor was bigger than the cat, but they were both plenty large. The catbounded and Connor followed suit, so they hit each other midair. The panther clawed and Connor snapped, tried to catch the nape of the panther’s neck in his own enormous teeth. They grappled, and the panther screamed its disturbingly human sound.
The air snapped with energy, and the ward unleashed its wrath.
“Take cover!” I screamed, and huddled back against the building’s wall beneath a narrow ledge that extended over the sidewalk.
Even the panther could feel the energy in the air. It wrenched itself from Connor, slunk behind a stand of shrubs. Connor came to me, crouched at my side beneath the overhang.
The lightning came at us like a barrage of arrows: fast, furious, and deadly. Maybe because the three of us were so close to each other—demon, shifter, vampire—the barrage seemed worse, stronger, more than the others. Concentrated weaponry intended to annihilate its target and damn the consequences. The bolts speared into buildings, sidewalk, road, vehicles—sending concrete, asphalt, glass, and metal flying. I heard a human’s cry some yards away, knew they’d been struck, and was newly furious at the Guardians and the demon who’d tripped their infernal “defenses.”
Rose had gone absolutely still, but either the lightning or the beam of light had given her skin a strange green cast. To make her noticeable, I guessed. Either for the ward to identify her or for humans to know she wasother.
A bolt struck a plot of brick town houses across the street from where I crouched, right in the seam between the last two houses, as if trying to shear one away like a slice from a loaf of bread. Occupants screamed as they ran outside to escape, only to be faced with the torrent outside. They huddled as we all did, hoping the odds were in our favor.
A final crackle, and the attack stopped.
I looked up toward Rose.
She was gone.
“Shit,” I said, and ignored the lightning, climbed to my feet,and took off, darting through humans and overturned vehicles and fires now burning from direct magic strikes, and the officers and rescue crews who’d finally made it through traffic to help with the turmoil behind me.
I chased her down the block past more town houses, realized her legs and feet barely moved; she was doing a horror movie glide that was infinitely creepier. Connor ran beside me, and his low growl seemed to agree.
I circled around, making my way through an alley to shorten the distance so I could flank her from behind and use my surprise as an advantage.
She turned when I was only feet away. She breathed deeply, her eyes brilliant and shining as she replenished her energy from the turmoil in the streets.
She watched me move toward her—hobble toward her—as she waited on her still-perfect heels. She held out a hand, poised to use her magic again. “You take one more step, and I see how much more trouble I can cause.”
