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There’s no time to answer. Right behind Juni, dozens of guards file in three abreast, weapons cradled to their chests. Spreading out, they take aim. Before a stunned Shark and his team can react, an officer bellows a command and the air around us is ripped apart by a lethal hail of bullets.
OPEN SEASON
WITHOUT magic we’d have perished instantly. But magical energy streams through the window, as it always does when a passageway between universes is opened. Tapping into that instinctively, I throw up a barrier between us and the guards. The bullets mushroom against it and drop harmlessly to the floor. As more troops flood into the room, I strengthen the barrier and start thinking about ways to make it a one-way shield, so that we can fire at them.
Before I can do that, Juni barks a short command. The window pulses, then snaps out of existence. The flow of magic stops, and though a strong residue is left in the air, I now have to work off a dwindling supply. Altering the shield would take a lot out of me. Too much.
“How long can you hold that?” Shark yells.
“A couple of minutes,” I guess.
“Pip!” he roars.
“On it,” she mutters, darting to the rear of the wall to my right. There’s a corridor on the other side that bypasses the section of the building we came through. Shark was keeping it in reserve in case we needed an escape route.
As Meera frees Prae Athim, the guards on the other side of the shield part to allow Juni Swan and a smirking Antoine Horwitzer to advance. They come to within a couple of inches of the barrier. Juni smiles crookedly at the shield, then at me.
“Nice work, Grubbs,” she gurgles, her voice a hoarse mockery of what it once was. “But what more can you do in the absence of demonic energy?”
“As much as you,” I snarl.
“Possibly,” she chuckles. “But I don’t have to do anything. Not with so many finely armed humans to depend on.”
“Did you pay them much?” Shark sneers.
“Antoine recruited them on my behalf,” she says.
“Most humans have a price,” Antoine chuckles. “I’ve always been adept at calculating such sums.”
“I’ll have your head for this, Horwitzer!” Prae Athim screams, ripping the tape from her mouth and thrusting a finger at Antoine. “You’re finished!”
“Don’t be silly,” he coos. “You can’t do anything to me. Your reign has come to its natural end. I run the Lambs now.”
“Why this way?” she snarls. “You were always power-hungry, but you’d have squeezed me out eventually. Why betray us to monstrous fiends like this?”
“Careful,” Juni growls. “You don’t want to hurt my feelings.”
“It’s the dawn of a new age.” Antoine smiles. “Our associates can provide us with the cure for lycanthropy, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. I was never much interested in that side of the business. While you were wasting money on werewolves, I was busy making it in other fields. We’re already a major force, but when we move into areas of supernatural energy, we’ll be in a class of our own.”
“I’m ready,” Pip calls.
“Give us a minute,” Shark says, then squares up to Juni. “I never liked you. When you were Beranabus’s assistant, all you ever did was complain. You’re weak and petty, a disgrace to the Disciples.”
Juni stares impassively at Shark. “Insult me all you like. You’ll be dead soon. We’ll see who’s laughing then.” She looks around and spots Meera. Her smile blossoms again. “You had a lucky escape in Carcery Vale. You won’t get away this time.”
“You were in the Vale?” Meera frowns.
“Of course,” Juni says. “I was outside. I was sorely tempted to break into the cellar. I could smell the three of you and I knew Dervish was incapacitated. But my master warned me to be wary of Bec… of the Kah-Gash.”
“So that’s what this is about,” I snarl, our suspicions — that the attacks were the work of Lord Loss and the Shadow — confirmed. “You want the Kah-Gash.”
“Obviously,” Juni sniffs. “Did you think my master would stand by and let you wield the most powerful weapon ever known? That he’d wait for you to learn how to use it, so you could destroy our universe?”
“But why try to kill us?” I frown. “The werewolves could have ripped Bec to pieces. Surely you need her — and me — alive.”
“Not at all,” Juni sneers. “Our new master deals in death. I’m proof of that — he released my soul and let me walk among the living again. I’m here to harvest your spirit, just as I would have harvested Bec’s if she’d been killed. It’s simpler to let others do our dirty work, then steal your parts of the Kah-Gash as you perish. We weren’t sure how powerful you might be, so —” She gasps, clutches her chest, and bends over. Takes several breaths, then stands again.
“You don’t look too healthy,” I laugh wickedly.
