“You’re probably right,” Molly said, her tone composed and serene, “but it’s smart to consider everything. No stone unturned, you know?” she said.
Lachish didn’t like it, but she gave me a curt nod. She gave Molly a smallcome this waygesture with her fingers and said over her shoulder, “We can start at the ambulance and work our way to Evan. Then once he’s in the ambulance, we can clear the yard, beginning at the area where your husband entered the circle. We need to find out what attacked him and how he was able to enter without breaking the energies. The circle should have stopped him.”
Molly’s expression didn’t change, but her scent went to panic, fast. Lachish didn’t know that Big Evan was a male witch—whose magics had never been studied—and this wasn’t the time to explain it all.
Speaking loud, I said, “It could be part of the focals’ working. First disrupt a working and its ward, and then allow people in to attack. All you have to do is figure out how to defend against both parts. Or it might be because he was in the backlash of the same kind of magics today.”
Molly blinked and said, “Exactly,” maybe a little too emphatically, but Lachish was already on the far side of the patio, bending over a place in the grass, a spot of browned grass similar to the ones at my house.
Lachish said, “There’s something here—”
“Don’t touch it!” I shouted.
The explosion threw the witch across the grass, toward the ambulance. Dirt and grass and two tree branches blewoutward. Beast shoved me into action and I threw myself over Molly to protect her. Eli hit the earth. So did two of the uniformed cops. Jodi and all the other officers drew their service weapons. One raced to unlock bigger firepower and came out with a city-issued automatic rifle.
“Get off me, you big oaf,” Molly said, pushing at me. “I’m suffocating here.”
I rolled to the side and got to my feet, pulling her with me and running my hands over her and her baby bump, leaning in and breathing her scent deep. Molly wasn’t fine, but she wasn’t bleeding or leaking amniotic fluid from the concussive release of magic. Lachish, however, wasn’t moving. “Lachish is hurt,” I said. “Stay with Evan and keep his healing wards up. Don’t wander.” I spotted Bliss—Ailis—standing in the shadow of the back door, with a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. The elegant hostess, Amalie, stood beside her, face pale and drawn. “Ailis,” I said.
“The explosion shut off my cell phone,” she said. “I don’t know how to summon yet, so I was going to call in some more of the circle to help, but the phone is fried.”
“I know. I need you over there.” I pointed at Lachish, whose blood I smelled on the air. I walked slowly across the lawn toward Lachish, my eyes on the ground. But it was getting darker and even pulling on Beast-vision I couldn’t see well enough to step safely. “Watch the ground for any indication of dead grass or magics.”
She came, feet uncertain, eyes wide, watching the ground, and followed in my footsteps to Lachish. The coven leader was bleeding from the mouth, her left arm looked as if it had an extra elbow above the wrist, and her lower left leg was deformed. Both leg bones were broken, not quite compound fractures, but close. But she was breathing and her heart was beating. “Don’t touch her until the paramedics can get here. Set a healing circle,” I said, “and”—I looked around—“where are the two aka witches?” I asked, meaning Butterfly Lily and Feather Storm.
“They took off the moment the circle was down.”
“Guilty or afraid?”
“Terrified,” Ailis said. “I have the healing circle up. I can hold it for a while alone, but I’m not used to using mygifts, so...” She opened her lips to drag in a deeper breath, and finished, “So I can’t promise anything.”
“You didn’t run,” I said. “You could have. I’m proud of you.” Ailis sent me a smile that suggested I shouldn’t be proud just yet because she might still run, but she returned her attention to Lachish.
Carefully I walked to the side street. “Eli,” I said as I neared, speaking softly, “the magic may have been intended to interfere with communications too.”
“You think we set off a prepared working early. As in, this was probably supposed to happen after all the witches were gathered in one place. Which would mean the witches who set it weren’t on the inside of the plans.”
“I think so. Maybe. But multipurpose spells are difficult to craft, harder to power, and tricky to activate and deploy.” I lowered my voice even more. “I have no idea what the double exposure to the green energies will have on Evan, or have on the spells here, for that matter. But we need to get Lachish and Evan to Tulane.”
“Suggestions?”
“I find the icons, and you shoot them?”
“Anything with explosions—where people don’t get hurt—is fun. I’m in. I’ll tell Jodi, and she can tell the cops what we’re doing so they don’t shoot us.”
“Good idea. I always like not being shot at.”
“But the adrenaline rush is such a high.”
“It’s too dark to see, but I’m rolling my eyes.”
“Love you too, babe. I have a .22 target pistol in the SUV. I’ll be right back.”
It didn’t take Eli long to talk to Jodi and get his pistol, and bring the cop she insisted go with him up-to-date. The officer was a recently discharged boots-on-the-ground soldier, and the two army boys bonded immediately over weapons and blast radii and other weapons-porn, and discussed what they needed to take cover behind to be protected. I let them talk and make decisions and move the other cops back and generally handle all the details while I studied the grounds with Beast-vision.
The night grew deeper and artificial lights came on from all around, throwing long grayed shadows and shorterblack shadows, which interfered with my Beast-vision and made it harder to find the pale greenish energies I was hunting for, buried beneath the grass or in flower beds. I found three probable sites of unexploded focal icons in the backyard, one to the very back of the property, and the other two out to the sides of that one, positioned halfway between it and the exploded ones. There were probably more in the front yard, and since magic was mathematics and geometry, there would be a specific number and placement of them, oriented along specific lines and compass points. We had blown two, with injuries, at east and west, near the house. With three more in the back, that was five, and covered a shape that might be a triangle, which would intersect with similar shapes in the front yard. However, the front and side yards were minuscule as compared to the back. The mathematics were going to be either magnificent and complicated or overly simplistic and imbued with raw power. I was going with curtain number two, but none of the witches were available to help me with my speculations.
“Jane, we’re ready,” Eli said.
