“Okay. Here’s how it will work. I’m going to walk up close to a location that looks likely to hold a focal item, point at it, and then I’m going to back away and you are going to shoot it. There may be an explosion or there may be nothing. If it explodes we’ll know we were successful. If it doesn’t we won’t know diddly-squat and we’ll have to figure out something else.”
“How come you can see the magic stuff?” Eli’s new partner asked.
“She’s Supergirl. She has X-ray vision,” Eli said.
“Rolling eyes again,” I said, checking out the cop’s name badge, which was P. Nunez. In any other part of the country, that would be a Latino name. In this part of the world, it was just as likely to be Cajun. “How close do you need to be to hit a target about four inches across?” I asked.
Eli said, “Distance on this property won’t be a problem, but the angle of shot might be, if the target is buried. If you can tell me how deep, I can make adjustments by climbing trees or on top of the gazebo.”
“Okay. Gazebo first.” I pointed to a place behind the ornate columned gazebo. “Maybe four inches deep. The apex focal is there. Nunez, we can boost him up.”
The cop’s eyebrows went up and Eli said, “She’s stronger than she looks. Supergirl, remember?” At the base of the gazebo, the guys put weapons on the patio tiles and I took off my jacket, laying it near the firepower. Nunez made a cup of his joined hands, boosting Eli up about eighteen inches. My partner caught a column to hold his balance and I stepped close and bent, hands to knees, offering my back as a step stool. He transferred his weight to me one foot at a time.
“Next time, take off your freaking combat boots,” I said. “The treads are getting grit on my shirt.”
“Such a girly comment,” he said as he stepped onto Nunez’s right shoulder and I stood, taking his other foot on my left. Nunez was shorter than I was and when Eli bounced up off us and pulled himself up to the gazebo roof, it was an ungainly leap, but it was sufficient.
I brushed off my now-dirty shirt and called up, “When you hand-wash my shirt, be sure to let it soak, you thug.”
“Yes, dear,” Eli said, accepting his weapons from Nunez, who clearly didn’t know what to make of us or our relationship.
“He’s my brother,” I said to Nunez. “You can see the resemblance in the jawline and the snark line.”
The cop shook his head and called up, “Target?”
“Acquired. Back off at least fifteen feet. That’s about ten feet father than Lachish and Evan were thrown.” We walked back and hunkered down, kneeling on the patio. Louder, Eli called out, “Everybody down. On one.” He counted down, “Three. Two. One.”
The shot and the explosion seemed to happen simultaneously. A frisson of magic spiked the air and shivered across me. I was expecting it this time and I was holding my left hand open. An eye appeared there for a moment, green lid closed, green lashes resting along the skin over the metatarsal of my little finger. And then it faded. I was still marked. Now I had to worry about Evan. And Lachish.
There were emergency vehicles gathering, blue and redlights creating a stained glass effect on the nearby buildings. A fire truck pulled to the curb, brakes hissing. Voices called; people raced here and there. I hoped that the paramedics standing at the ambulances had sufficient skills to work with witches. Not all the city’s EMTs had taken the specialized training.
Nunez and I accepted Eli’s weapons, and before we could raise hands to help, he found a good handhold, slid off the top, flipped over and through his arms and into a swing, dropping free and landing in a crouch.
“Showoff,” I muttered.
He gave me a self-satisfied grin and brushed his hands together. Eli seldom deliberately displayed his skills and combat readiness, but he was having fun, his body odor heavy on victory pheromones, which were musky and acrid, but he didn’t swagger. Uncle Sam’s best didn’t need to swagger.
He had to climb a tree to get a firing angle on the next focal item. Once he was settled into a firing stance, I moved to Evan and took both of his hands as Eli counted down.
“Three. Two. One.”
The explosion was intense, stronger than the others, as if they got worse as more and more of them went offline. I ducked but kept my eyes open, watching Evan’s palms. Green eyes appeared in both palms, for half a heartbeat. The lids were partially open.
I didn’t know what it meant that both palms were marked. It could be that he was under the power of the two witches. Or was a target they were intent upon attacking. Or that they had spelled him already, as they had me. There wasn’t a single good reason I could come up with for Evan to have witchy eyes in his palms.
Molly had said I was free of latent magics, but my palm had displayed green eyes. I had to think the eyes were linked to me, through the first scanning spell. But how could the witches turn it off and on? Good question. Were we all a danger to the conclave? Better question. Should we stay away? Best question. And the answer was no. Together, we could defeat anything a spell could throw at us. Yeah. That.
Keeping my worries and conclusions to myself, I went to help Eli down from a perch much higher than the gazebo. He stretched down and gave Nunez the pistol, then motioned us two feet apart and dropped down. He landed, taking the fall on bent legs, a hand on Nunez’s shoulder and one on mine. I stumbled, not expecting him to drop that way, and bit my cheek. Just a nick, which I ignored. I didn’t even flinch. How could I in the presence of so much testosterone?
When my partner was in place for the third shot, I dropped to the ground by Lachish, who was struggling to resist Ailis’s healing magic, struggling to break free of the painkilling sleep. I took both of her hands, turned them so I could see the palms, careful not to jar the broken arm, and whispered, “It’s okay. It’s a healing working. You broke your arm and leg. You’re in pain. Let Ailis help you until I can get an ambulance.” Oddly Lachish stopped struggling and relaxed.
“Thank you,” Ailis said, her shoulders dropping.
“This explosion may be worse that the last one,” I warned. “Can you cover us all in a ward?”
“On one!” Eli called out.
Ailis cursed with great force and even more imagination about donkeys and male body parts. I stuttered in laughter as a ward opened over us.
