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Well, he wasn’t going to get any happier with what I had to say.
“You—she—” I coughed, liquid filling the back of my mouth, thick, hot, and coppery. I gagged, then spat out blood and bile. “She doesn’t know—you’re Ordo,” I gasped out.
Oh, it felt fuckinggoodto watch the blood drain from Garcia’s face.
Especially since, at the same time, Celestina Pelayo’s face turned purple.
God, that felt good. Even through the pain, I could find absolute joy in watching the Pelayo matriarch turn on the shit-eating dickbag that was David Garcia.
“Don’t listen to him,suma sacerdotisa,” Garcia all-but-whined. “He is amentiroso. You can’t trust him.”
Pelayo did not look either amused or convinced.
“The bullet,” I gasped out. “The fucking bullet.”
Garcia gestured, and Nico’s foot connected with my ribs again.
And then Celestina Pelayo flicked a finger and Nico fell on top of me, a high-pitched shriek so sharp it made my teeth ache. Or maybe that was still from his giant boot.
I tried to roll away from the thrashing goon, the flailing of his fists and feet just as dangerous as his targeted kicks.
Another flick of her finger, and Nico lay on the ground beside me, sobbing.
Jesus fucking Christ. I was actually glad I wasn’t in Garcia’s shoes, which, given where my shoes were, is fucking saying something. Neither did Garcia, apparently, as he backed up into the side of the Escalade, hands held out in front of himself.
“You cannot believe him,” he begged.
The woman’s dead-shark eyes skimmed carelessly over my body. “The elf does not lie.”
I didn’t know how she knew that. I didn’t want to know.
“Sacerdotisa—”
“I do not wish for excuses, David.”
The next flick of her finger dropped Garcia to the ground the same way it had Nico. But Garcia had more defenses than the hapless goon, and even though he twitched and gasped in the gravel, his hands formed a pattern in the air that made Pelayo stagger, one hand held out in front of her.
I really didn’t want to be here for this. Being the target of magic was one thing, but getting my bleeding ass caught in a magical battle between witches was not on my list of ways to escape certain death.
I tried to roll myself away, but my body wouldn’t obey, pain the only reward I got for trying to do anything at all.
More blood filled the back of my mouth, and I choked as my body tried to cough and stopped itself.
Fuck. I was going to drown in my own blood while Pelayo and Garcia fucking killed each other. Talk about a Pyrrhic fucking victory.
It was getting harder to breathe, and in the distance I swore I heard a wolf howling.
Which was really fucking weird, because we don’t have wolves in Richmond. A bear, once, that had gotten lost or just curious and wandered into downtown, but no wolves.
It was really hard to think.
Beside me, Nico had stopped sobbing and was pushing himself to his feet, but as long as neither of those feet was aimed at me, I couldn’t bring myself to give a flying fuck about it.
There was a scream that sounded like a woman, a man’s shout, and then… snarling? Growling? Something that sounded like a roar?
I was lightheaded and having trouble telling the sky from the backs of my eyelids, the fragments of my ribs from the gravel on the ground. The air felt thin, my body disconnected, floating and weirdly warm and cold all at once.
I did not feel any better when a giant-ass tiger face appeared in my very hazy field of view.
