The first thing I did was drop the charms I’d set. I didn’t need another headache and I didn’t have a charm to soak some backlash this time.
Something else for the to-do list. Haircut, new charm, washing, rip Beo’s throat out. I was going to have a busy week.
Deirdre’s door was whole when I got there. Fury drummed in my head, heart, and lungs.
In my bones.
Maybe it showed, too, because her eyes went huge when she opened the door. “Get in,” I said, flatly. “And hide.”
Amor wasn’t the only hunter in these woods.
She wouldn’t follow the same pattern. But she was thorough and smart.
Deirdre went for the classic option of the shower. “Can—can you see me?” she whispered.
I looked at her from my position by the bathroom door. Her silhouette was clearly visible through the shower curtain. The window above was too small, too cloudy, for it to be a potential point of entry, but it was most definitely enough to illuminate a silhouette.
“No,” I lied. “Stay there. I’m going to get into position in this room. When you hear us clash, call Taig. Put it on silent, then on speaker. He’ll hear what’s going on.”
Her indrawn breath was loud in the quiet. “I…I don’t have his number.”
I walked across the small bathroom, flipped my phone to silent, brought him up, and passed it over. “Here.”
She looked up at me, eyes huge in her pale face. “Where are…the police, or…”
“Coming.” There were no hiding spots, but enough makeshift weapons. “Repeat what you need to do.”
“Call Taig. Make sure it’s silent. Turn it onto speaker.”
I nodded. “And if I fail?”
Her eyes filled and overflowed. “I—I can’t—I don’t do curses, or…”
I waited until the maybes and the what-ifs had run their course and she was focused on me. “You survive,” I told her, quietly. “You do anything to survive. If that means going quietly, you go quietly. If it means doing what she wants, you do what she wants.”
Her tears rolled. My stomach didn’t.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Please, Rory, she’s dangerous. We could run—”
“You don’t run from predators.” And that was all there was to it.
You could avoid, sidestep, or retreat, but as soon as you bolted, you were gone.
I put my wand between my teeth, turning to the bathroom wall and checking out the ceiling. Shit was going to be expensive to fix.
Then I kicked some footholds into the drywall and started climbing.
If I had my battle charms, if I’d known what I was up against so I could choose the right collection before it got to this point, I wouldn’t have had to anchor myself with a ward. I’d have had more options.
But I had nothing except my wand, the spells in my head, my standard charms, and an entire ocean of rage.
Dierdre’s sobs were half-muffled. On the ceiling like a spider with my wand in my teeth I was very, very grateful I’d tied back my hair. It was annoying like this. It could’ve been deadly if it was out.
My hoodie was probably going to buy it. Alas, poor hoodie, I knew you well.
I should’ve called Lilith.
The thought occurred to me as I listened to my heartbeat, to Dierdre’s sobs, to the rise and fall of the city around us. And hadn’t I been about to, except fucking arrogant, spineless arsehole Beo?
Really, if I ended up dead, they should send him the bill for the extensive plastering they were going to need after this.
From my position, I inspected the gaping holes in the off-white plaster. It’d be hidden by the angle of the door opening, at least until she did a room check. If she even bothered, with Dierdre so clearly outlined.
Not many people looked up, though.
Glass shattered and my heartbeat tripled. Through the curtain I watched Deirdre fumbling with the phone. There was a blast of noise before the quick beeps that signaled she was turning down the volume.
Wrong order. But that wouldn’t matter.
The door exploded open. Booted foot, lupetec leggings, bare hands, jacketed arms. I had to assume she had the full sleeve armored shirt, though.
Fuck. Weak points were face and hands, maybe throat, maybe toes. Ears, eyes, seams.
Blonde head. Bow in her quiver. Knife at her hip. Wand in hand. “Come on, Clara,” she said, impatiently. “Tobias has been waiting months and you know he can’t—”
I drew in a breath and ended my ward. Gravity was a fucking bitch.
Just like me.
I hit her shoulders and drove her to the ground, struggling for grips. Her jacket slipped. I was thrown into the mirror. The shattering of glass came from far away as my head whirled. I went low. Take out her knees. No—no, armored. She crashed into the toilet but the angle was wrong to do damage to her. Roaring filled my head. Her fist met my face and I barely felt it except as a change in balance, a dull, background annoyance. I went for her eyes but she ducked, and I drove my fist through the cursed plaster.
The flash of steel caught my attention. Knife.
I drove my knee up in reflex. Protect the midsection. The bite of the blade, the burn in my leg, didn’t slow me.
Spells clamored in my head. Not yet. Not yet. I could only have one active. And she—I need to time it so—
We ended up on the ground. I caught her in a triangle choke between my thighs. Pressure. Her pretty blonde hair was chaos. Her eyes were a beautiful cornflower blue.
Then they flickered—brown eyes, brown hair—before she went back to being an Aryan poster girl
Illusion.
Her knife was lifted in a panicked move. Rookie mistake.
I squeezed harder and it came down on me, biting deep. My. Fucking. Thigh.
The soundtrack of Dierdre’s sobs warped like some sort of DJ trick. Whacka-whacka-whaaaow.
The muscles in my legs wouldn’t hold. I grabbed her hand on the knife, driving my fingers into the sensitive webbing between hers. She hissed like a cat but didn’t let go. Bitch tried to yank out the knife.
Fuck, no. I need that blood inside me.
Her thumb in my hand bent and broke. The sound of splintering bone. Sunlight, warm, on my face.
A grunt of pain reached my ears after I’d registered her letting go. I fell away. Tiles. Bathmat. And shards of mirror.
Gotcha.
The spell ignited in my head. Yeah, bitch, let’s dance. A harmless spell, but a great distraction. Homefires, answer my call. Homefires, don’t let me fall.
Fire sprang up around us, crawling up her body, clawing at her face. Homefires were harmless. And yet—there was smoke?
I grabbed a shard while she counter-spelled but didn’t hear her speak the words.
Fucking. Retrievals. Trained. Bitch.
Her laughter was low and hard. “Parlor tricks?” she asked me, waving away the last of the smoke as she approached.
Fury pounded in my temples. I had to get close. Slashing her wrists wouldn’t take her out quickly enough. I had to go for the throat or the eyes. “Look, I’ve had a bad day,” I said, my voice sounding like it came from a lousy speaker phone. “Cut me some slack, okay?”
“Yeah, you look like shit.” She lifted her wand.
Anger rolled through me. She wasn’t going to get into arm’s reach again.
I couldn’t ward. I’d kill Dierdre. Hatred flashed through me at the limitations of my very circular ward.
I aimed at her feet, encased in steel capped boots.
Burn, witch, burn.
She stopped to defend. The reek of burning leather, plastic—rubber? —Whatthefuckever—clogged my throat but I couldn’t breathe anyway. I hip-escaped and took out her knee. She wouldn’t be hurt, but I didn’t need it to hurt. Just to knock her—
Into the hallway. She hit the wall. A generic picture of generic flowers in a generic vase smashed beside us. I was on her, heart roaring in my head, every cell focused on her. The glass cut into my hand. I lunged and she fucking dodged. I drove my knee into her face. No armor on that, bitch.
The door exploded. “Police!”
About fucking time. I drove my knee into her face again just for luck, then staggered off her.
She raised her hands. “I surrender!” she said as they flooded the room like blood into water. Her boots were still smoldering. “I surrender!”
“Put your wand on the ground,” Taig was demanding down the muzzle of his gun.
As if he’d fire in these quarters.
She spat blood and sent me a disgusted look. She was moving onto her knees and tossing her wand in front of her.
If my leg hadn’t suddenly reminded me it had a giant fuck-off knife in it, I would’ve kicked her wand away. Instead, I just climbed to my feet. On a scale of one to dead, that hadn’t gone so bad, now, had it? I didn’t need to be looked after. Taig was talking—cautioning, arresting. And her gaze cut to me. She was smirking. Her eyes were milky.
My heart.
Froze.
Angel.
“Angel!” I screamed, levelling my wand, casting. Breathe not through this ward. It bounced. The air around her shimmered.
No magick would work on her, now.
They don’t know. They don’t know—
I had to.
She was smiling on her knees. Her face was tipped up and her lids dipped to half-mast over eyes that were going white. Her lips moved.
I pulled the knife from my thigh. Launching across the tiny distance, I hit her hard. She fought but I fought smarter and took her back. The reek of roses filled my nose. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. From this angle, all I could access was her throat.
The knife cut through her like butter in a heatwave. Blood pumped, sprayed over the leaflitter and rock, and she kept struggling.
“Rory!” The shouts were just reverberations in my skull. Blood spurted against the wall in time with her heartbeat was the beat holding the rhythm. The fine mist that settled over the rocks, drying quickly in the afternoon sun. “Drop the weapon!”
I tossed the knife at some faceless cop but kept my hand in the woman’s hair as it went from blonde to brown, waiting for her to bleed out. It seemed right…and safer.
“Hands behind your head!” someone was bellowing at me.
They weren’t going to fucking shoot me. I glared daggers but dropped Amor’s hair. There was a dull thunk on the cheap linoleum floor. Good thing lino was easy to clean. The roar of helicopter blades sending leaves swirling. “Put your hands behind your head,” Clint said, his gun pointed right at my face.
My face?
I did, feeling the adrenaline start to ebb. Considering I’d got a slow start, today had been a pisser already. I struggled to breathe evenly. Clint approached me with handcuffs at the ready. I let him settle the fucking things on without complaint. If it was serious, they’d gag me. “Don’t come out yet, Deirdre,” I shouted. “Taig will come get you.”
I could feel her sobs, even though I couldn’t hear them over the rights I was being read. I was being taken for questioning. Unlawful killing.
Clint sounded pretty smug about it. There was your gratitude.
Taig came over but was pushed aside. “Conflict of interest, Detective,” Clint said, the words flat. “You understand.”
Conflict of interest?
My heart sank. I’d given Dierdre his personal number.
Well, shit. With my hands behind my back and my wand in Clint’s hand, I limped out of the tiny apartment past the swarm of cops. Where the fuck had they been twenty minutes ago? And now I was going to have the book thrown at me.
At least there were no angels. I ordered witch, not wings.