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Souls erupt like shrapnel, scattering in translucent streams that take to the skies. More Cù-Sìth arrive, eager to feed. My pink fire spreads, burning through the hounds and releasing more souls.
“Run,” I scream without thinking. “Run!”
An elderly man walking his dog, and completely oblivious to the mayhem on the lawn, scowls. “I’m moving as fast as I can, lady,” he yells. “Roger’s gotta pee.”
Cathasach roars, his entire left side aflame. He morphs into his beast and jets toward the door. I crouch and spin my whip, ready to strike.
I never get the chance.
A large green hound tackles Cathasach, resolute on taking his injured alpha down. The hound yelps as my magic catches his fur. It singes him and spreads along his broad chest. He releases Cathasach, rolling along the grass to squelch the flames.
Two more hounds appear and gang up on Cathasach, forcing him to the ground as the magic burning him begins to dwindle.
Cathasach lost two limbs and is bleeding souls. One of the hounds on top of him goes for his throat, and still, his rage pokes at me through the wards. The wards won’t hold and the hounds won’t beat him. Cathasach is too strong.
“Livvie,” Stevie urges. “The text. It never went through.”
The increasing howls rattle the house. More Cù-Sìth are headed toward us, their outlines cutting into the blackening and azure sky. Azure―Ryker. I need Ryker.
The Cù-Sìth slam against the house, shaking the walls and foundation as they search for weaknesses in the ward. I clutch my whip against my chest, remembering who first held it and how I felt when he passed it to me. “Ryker!” I yell
“His name is Roger!” the old man with the dog hollers from down the street.
Five hounds charge the front door. My body rekindles with pink light. I lift my whip, slashing across the wards.
I mean to reinforce the wards. Instead, my whip penetrates through the protection and strikes across three Cù-Sìth. They roar in agony, their faces splitting open as they burn in glorious pink.
A cluster of sprites clamber through the stretching and burning tissue. More beasts appear. I lift my whip, striking left and right. I think we have an edge and that I can hold them back.
The Cù-Sìth prove me wrong.
Chunks of ceiling fall in startling blasts. The Cù-Sìth are ripping the roof apart. Jowls and snapping fangs shove their way through the cracks, keen to gnaw on flesh.
Stevie scrambles to my side with every knife in his arsenal. I fling each one he passes me through the doorway. The first nails another hound, engulfing him and another in flame. The others disperse, dodging out of harm’s way to chase after the shrieking and fleeing spirits.
Transparent apparitions blur the atmosphere. The faster ones shoot outward and away. The slower ones are torn to shreds, unable to escape. Glass shatters upstairs and snarls berate us from every direction, overwhelming my senses and causing me to lose focus.
Stevie yells to be heard over the pandemonium bombarding Bill’s home. “Olivia, your whip is cutting through Jane’s defenses!”
He’s right. Somehow, I weakened the ward.
A hound races past the door. I fling another knife and miss. They’re bating me. We can’t just stand here.
Stevie reels. “Liv!” He points to the stairs and the advancing hounds. I throw a knife, and another, killing two as three more appear. Glass explodes in the kitchen. They’re in. Time to run.
I shove Stevie ahead of me. “Mamacita?” he calls over his shoulder.
Hounds surround us at each end of the hall, their lips peeling back to expose their razor sharp fangs. “Oh, hell yeah,” I reply.
We stumble through the basement door. I cling to the knob, scrunching my face as I call upon my magic. “Sruthán.”
Burn.
The knob illuminates in pink, the light spreading along the wood as a large paw punches through the wood.
Claws rake my arm. I scream, tumbling down the stairs and crashing into Stevie. He struggles to his feet, hauling me up and stuffing me into Mamacita.
Blood pours from my right arm, pooling on the leather seat. Stevie’s entire body is shaking so hard, he can’t slip the key into the ignition.
I get it together enough to hit the garage door opener clipped to the visor. The garage squeaks open, drawing the attention of the hounds circling the house.
Cold night air slams into our faces as Stevie finally shoves the key into the ignition. “Hang on!” he yells.
Mamacita roars to life and jerks forward.
And stops.
Jerks forward.
And stops.
Jerks forward and . . . stops.
The Cù-Sìth form a wall in front of us, slamming their snouts and bodies against the dwindling wards.
What’s left of the wards crack and splinter. They’re almost through and all we’re doing is lunging and jolting.
Screw this.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and stand, clinging to the rim of the windshield. “Stevie, listen to me.” He swears instead, his panicked expression taking in the mounting cluster of death hounds. “Stevie!”
He glances up, sweat pouring down his body. “Ease off the clutch and push on the gas.”
“That’s what I did.”
I take a breath. “Try again, this time, not so forcefully.”
“I’m trying, Livvie,” he says, his focus whipping from me to the hounds.
“Stevie,” I need you to say calm,” says the bleeding woman beside him whose beating heart is seconds from imploding.
The hounds are ravenous, howling, snapping their jaws, and pieces of the wards are crashing against the foundation like breaking glass. My arm is on fire and I think I’m losing too much blood. Still, an air of calm washes over me.
I know what’s coming and I know exactly what to do. I focus my power and the car fires pink.
“Stevie,” I say. “We’re not alone.”
Stevie looks behind him and jumps. Jane, my little druid priestess, sits in the back seat, her little feet dangling from the edge and her candy cane striped wand tight in her hand. She lifts her chin and takes in the rabid pack seconds from smashing through.
“Fuck,” she croaks.
And then she smiles.
Stevie eases off the clutch.
And Mamacita shoots out of the garage like the road bitch she is.
I’m thrown back into the seat. We power through the hounds, bowling them over as my magic setting them ablaze. Stevie grinds the clutch until we reach full “eat my ass” speed.
The hounds we ram detonate like bombs, igniting the closest ones, but not the ones in the sky. They circle the house, searching and confused by the explosions.
It won’t take long for them to notice our escape. We need more help.
Help arrives in the form of a little old man.
I yell at Stevie to stop when I see him. The tires burn nasty rubber and the engine whines with how hard Stevie slams on the brakes. I topple into the dash and then lurch backwards, my injured arm smacking hard into the seat.
The old man abandons the sidewalk, dragging his dog with him, just to yell at me. “What the heck’s wrong with you, girl? This is a family neighborhood!”
I ignore his accusations of being “on the crack” and wink at Jane. “Pucker up, girlfriend.”
There’s no hesitation. Jane drags the little old man to her, her tongue shooting into his mouth and lapping it like a thirsty pup.
My guess is, it’s been a while since the old man got some lovin’. He drops the leash, crushing Jane against his bony chest.
“Oh, gawd.” Stevie gags over the moaning and slurping.
I cover my mouth. Yeah. It’s kind of hard to watch.
The man grabs Jane’s dangling breasts like they’re defibrillator paddles and he needs to resuscitate. Jane reaches around him, her arthritic fingers massaging the old coot’s sagging ass through a good inch of polyester.
Stevie gags some more and throws up over the side of Mamacita. I drum my fingers impatiently. The death hounds stop circling and sniff the air, trying to catch traces of my magic
I straighten. “Jane, that’s enough.”
She ignores me and reaches for the safety pin holding up the old guy’s pants. Jane, in addition to being loose-skinned and persnickety, is evidently horny as hell.
Lightning crashes in the distance and roars accompany the thunder. Cathasach, now whole, stalks out from a smaller cluster of Cù-Sìth, freezing in place as his glowing red gaze fixes on me.
With a howl and another roll of thunder, he calls the entire pack.
“Jane, they’re coming.” I shake her shoulder. “Jane!”
Her liver spotted hands stop their exploration of the man’s deep south. I love Jane and am thrilled to pieces she got some. That said, ew.
Stevie slams on the accelerator, propelling us forward. The man gave chase, his plaid pants down to his ankles, his little dog barking after him, and his male parts dangling to his knees.
“Jesus Christ,” Stevie spits out.
We careen over the corner as my little priestess’s head splits in half and five slithering snake heads pour out.
The tails remain attached to Jane’s torso, her tiny legs bouncing with every pothole Stevie runs over. The snakes writhe, thickening and lengthening, and their forked tongues flicking with anticipation of their coiling bodies ready to strike.
“Will the ward keep us hidden?” Stevie asks. He hasn’t noticed the snakes yet and continues to gag.
“No,” I reply, glancing around. “Nothing is working.”
My magic sparks in and out, blinking the car from fuchsia back to red. Jolts of pain shoot down my arm in wicked pulls. Overusing my magic is keeping me from healing and my body’s need to heal is draining my magic.
I withdraw the power surrounding Mamacita, hoping to hang on to my reserves. Ominous clouds roll in from the west and east, cresting and descending on us in a monstrous wave.
“Give me the knives!”
Stevie drops the knives that remain beside me, his awkward movements causing the car to swerve. One of the snakes slinks between the seats and into the front, sliding across Stevie’s lap.
Stevie doesn’t take it well. “AHHHHHH!”
He loses control of Mamacita and we bounce off a guardrail. I land on top of him and wrench the steering wheel, moving us back to the center of the road. “Stevie, it’s just Jane,” I insist.
He yells some more when the snake circles his neck and licks his ear. By some miracle he keeps the car on the road as the pack falls upon us.
I fling the knives at random. There’s no strategy, I’m merely trying to keep us alive. My weakening magic burns the Cù-Sìth. Fire catches on their materializing bodies, singeing their fur, but failing to fully ignite them.
I wasted too much energy at the house and now we’re paying for it. The hounds advance, reaching for me and Stevie.
With a chorus of hisses that chill my spine, Jane’s snakes attack. They spit poison and fire, blinding and burning them with the might of Jane’s Ancient magic. The hounds retaliate, biting the serpents’ heads and tearing them from their bodies.
Bitches don’t know when you sever a Hydra’s head, two more grew in its place.
The snakes double, quadruple, octuple, shooting more hissing heads from their sliced necks. They protect Stevie as I beat back the circling hounds with my whip.
Poor Stevie races along the desolate highway, his skin blanched with fear, but his features determined to survive.
Too bad only Death remains in sight.
The muscles of my injured arm scream as I lash out against the hounds. My fingers clenching the windshield grow numb and slick. I’m almost done and I’m losing strength fast when Cathasach lands on the hood of the car.
His long, matted hair streams behind his human form as he rises from a deep crouch, his fiery eyes flashing and beckoning me forward.
“Oh, come on,” I say.
I crack my whip in his direction, screaming and forcing my remaining power across its length. To my horror, the pink light fades before reaching the tip.
Cathasach snatches the end and yanks me to him, my body smacking hard against his chest. He clutches me tighter, baring his teeth inches from my face. I thrash, trying to break free and calling magic that no longer comes.
“Get off her,” Stevie yells. “Jane. Jane help!”
Jane can’t. The hounds pile on Mamacita at once, smothering Jane and the snakes.
Cathasach’s tongue circles my mouth in grotesque licks. I jerk my head from side to side, but there’s no escaping him.
The air snaps with azure light and Ryker appears, battered and bruised from battle. He wrenches Cathasach by his hair and drives a dagger deep into his throat. Cathasach laughs, choking on his spewing blood. He shoves me away and I fall off the side of the racing car.
My skull crunches and sound explodes in my ears as the world spins. Asphalt pummels and rakes my body. I roll to a stop, briefly aware of the darkness suffocating me when bloody fangs wrap around my throat.