“Come on,” I said. “They’re Black Court. Why do you think I invited them in? ‘Come and get some’ wasn’t an accident.”
Bear’s frown turned into a fierce grin. “You think you can handle them?”
“Time I get done with them, we’ll need a lot of mops,” I said darkly. “This ismyhouse.”
She nodded, understanding. “You want to handle the lightweights first.”
“Yep. Scatter the riffraff, then I’ll deal with the rest in the main hall.”
Bear reached up over her shoulder to flick a snap on her leather strap and take her double-bladed axe down, setting it near at hand. “Sounds fun.”
Someone shouted something below. The gunfire abruptly stopped, and I slammed my hands over my ears and opened my mouth. Bear mirrored me.
There was a sound so big that it blew back the branches from the trees across the street, shattered the windows of houses and parked cars, and made everything lighter for a second, as if a wave had come along and lifted me a little up off the stones of the roof. The runes of the castle flared painfully bright. It was followed by the sound of stones rattling, smaller rocks bouncing against enchanted stone, and a cloud of dust and powder billowed out from the front of the castle, filling the already misty air. The resulting mixture condensed almost instantly into a kind of mucky, grimy rain.
Then there was a single, rasping, inhuman howl, instantly echoed by dozens of yowling ghoul battle cries, and my enemies came for me.
Chapter
Fifty-Four
Ghouls are athletic and powerful and tough, but they don’t have the kind of strength and grace that allows them a thirty-foot vertical leap.
Freshly fed Malvora vampires do. These had been feeding on the various protesters for hours, and they bounded up through the air with grace and style, all pale skin and blond hair and glittering eyes in the arcane light of the castle’s glowing runes, coming from the front and back of the rooftop at more or less the same time.
I’d already gathered my will, and the second I saw the first of them appear, I rose, shield bracelet charged and ready, left arm bearing both the bracelet and my staff held in front of me as I drew back my right hand and flung it forward as if hurling a stone, screaming,“Ventas servitas!”
Wind howled forth at my will, swatting Malvora out of the air and driving them back from the castle’s walls into wild, tumbling falls. I kept my hand extended, sweeping them back like leaves before a heavy-duty blower.
White Court vampires are faster than striking snakes, and some of them got off shots at me before I could, literally, blow them away. At one point in my career, holding a shield and a wind evocation at the same time would have been a challenge. At one pointthis year, it would have been impossible. If they’d come a month sooner, things might have gone a lot differently.
But I’d just needed time.
And work.
And rest.
And friends.
Healing isn’t the work of a moment. I still had a way to go.
But I was better now.
More than that, I’d been teaching.
I wasbetternow.
My shield rippled with blue-green light as bullets hit it, and I tried to hold it angled so the shots would reflect as directly upward as possible. Any projectile can be pulled down by gravity, but a lead hailstone was way less dangerous and less likely to harm bystanders than a bullet bouncing directly into a home. I held the shield, focused the wind like a vast broom, and sent Malvora vampires flying.
I could have used fire but, you know. Alliance with Lara’s Court and all. It would probably be less of a headache for her in the aftermath if I didn’t slaughter them wholesale.
“Watch your six!” Bear snapped.
Someone hit me in the lower back with a heavy stick, maybe a .45 round slamming into my spell-armored leather duster. I sucked in a breath, staggered, but kept the wind spell going, spinning to begin sweeping the back side of the castle of incoming Malvora—but like I said, White Court vamps are fast as hell. Another shot hit my duster over my left thigh before I could get started, and in my peripheral vision I saw half a dozen vampires come sailing up, weapons training on me.
Bear stepped in front of me like a human wall, dropping the four-bore and going for her pistols like an old west gunfighter. I heard her guns speaking and a series of heavy slapping sounds as rounds intended for me struck her instead. She sucked in a breath, staggering, and went to one knee, but kept shooting.
“Fiero, fiero, fiero!”Fitz shrieked, and blazing bolts of white-hot flame leapt out of the doorway to the stairway down to the third floor of the castle, adding his fire to Bear’s. High-pitched shrieks went up from the Malvora. Four of the vampires buckled and staggered when hit by Bear’s heavy rounds. Two of them just went up in flames and dove back off the roof, shrieking.
