Molly pressed her fingers through her ward, toward the dancing witches, saying,“Múchtóir dóiteáin. Múch.”
Marlene staggered. Tau threw out her hand at Molly and said,“Confuto. Retardo.”
Molly’s offensive working exploded in a scattering of scarlet sparks. Molly dropped like the dead. Evan caught her and her reinforcedhedge 2.0brightened over them, glowing red and blue. Half of it was now Evan’s magics.Dang. One more use of magic and he’d be permanently out of the closet. My godchildren would be forevermore in danger.
“Jane,” Eli demanded. “Options.”
“Eli,” I whispered. “Take the shot.”
He fired. But the weapon clicked oddly. Misfire. With his off hand, and a second weapon, Eli took another shot. It too misfired. The spells of the green mist were multilayered and multipurpose. Eli cursed softly and, in a single motion, pulled a knife, throwing at Tau. The whirling blade stopped in the air and fell with a sound of shattering steel.
The Nicauds turned at the sound. Marlene snarled when she saw the broken blade. Ignoring the human on the bar as useless, she looked at me and said some word I didn’t recognize. “Now, my daughter,” she said, and whirled something around her head. In Beast vision it looked like two electric stones tied together with a length of black magic rope, a spelled bolo, one of those things horsemen used to trap horses, if they didn’t care if the horse broke a leg. It whipped through the air. Once...
Tau danced to Grégoire on the floor.
Twice... The bolo spell whirled.
Marlene aimed her gaze at me.
Someone called my name, the voice broken, full of pain.
Three times... Marlene released it. The magical rope slid from her fingers.
“Jump!” I shouted.
Time slowed down, that situational awareness that sometimes gives battle the consistency of taffy. In a single motion, I caught my breath, set the weapons on the bar, and again dove through the fog, sliding under the piano. My hands caught on fire again. My face burned. My hair smoked. But as I slid through the mist and into the blue magics of Gee’s personal protection, the flames on me were snuffed.
The bolo hit the bar, just behind where I had stood, wrapping around it and through it, cutting the antique burled wood into four equal-sized chunks of smoking kindling. At my shout, Eli had leaped and landed on top of the Trueblood’s hardened ward.That was close.
Marlene screamed in fury. Whirled to follow my movement. And threw a second bolo spell at me.
Still sliding across the floor, I bowled into Girrard DiMercy, picking up his slight form as I rolled over my burden and to my feet on the far side of the piano. The bolo was wrapped around nothing but air, about a foot away from my skin. It fell to the floor in a shower of blue as I placed Gee on top of the piano. We were both coughing and full of the stink of burned hair, skin, and feathers. His voice a pale imitation of its usual power, Gee said. “I didn’t know if you would hear me. Not after—”
“I heard.”
Eli jumped back onto the broken bar. And threw another knife at Tau, who ignored him and his broken blade. But trying to buy me some time.
Marlene threw another spell at me. It spat when it hit Gee’s magics and fell. Marlene screamed in fury. With her attention on me, conclave witches were abandoning ship, turning their attention to getting through the black, woven wards on all the doors. It was just occurring to them that they were trapped. Tau hit one with a knockout spell and the woman simply crumpled to the floor. Tau laughed and hit another.
Gee’s face was blistered. Neck and hands raw. Burned before he opened whatever magics he had used to shield himself. Magics that had let me in. Another thing to think about later. His burns weren’t quite as bad as myown, but they were bad enough. There were slashes in his throat. Two fang slashes.
I remembered Ming’s bloody fangs. She had clearly attacked him. He wiped both hands through the blood of his throat and onto me, on my face and my injured hand. The pain instantly eased and beneath the blood I saw actual skin on my palm. “What—?”
Beneath Marlene’s screams, Gee said what I had thought only moments before. “We two are the only ones burned. We two who are goddess born. My blood, a drop of Ming’s blood, and your blood upon the weapon made by your friends.” He closed my healed fist around the blob, which appeared in his bloody fingers, stolen from my pocket as if by prestidigitation. “You are protected now. You must protect the children. Always.” His eyes closed as he slumped on the piano.
I turned back to the ballroom. Marlene’s anger had fueled the green flames all around her. Red fire danced over her body, licking but not burning.
Beyond her, Tau pulled something from her bodice, but her back was to me, and I couldn’t see what it was, except it was small. She said what sounded like“Meus es tu.”And she struck down with her hand. Down onto Grégoire, who still lay on the floor. Magics ballooned out around him like a black flower blooming through the green.
That couldn’t be good.
Tau turned to the witches and pointed at them, accusing. “You didn’t help us when we asked, when webegged.”
Marlene hunched in, her angry screams echoing away. Tears had tracked down her face, leaving black mascara trails in her makeup. In Cajun patois, she said, “You. You di’n’ stop the fanged devils when we show you proof of they evil. You done hid you heads in de sand and let dem take our young, you did. My Antoine, him die because you refuse him help. Now you pay.”
“Now you pay!” Tau echoed. She clapped her hands together twice and said,“Maintenant. Vous tuerez. Assassiner.”
I understood the last word, just as Grégoire stood. He moved the way a marionette did when a puppeteer pulled itupright on its strings. He was still vamped out. There was a peacock pin stuck into his chest, just inches above the stake I’d stuck in him. Grégoire opened his vamped-out eyes. The black of the pupils were filled with green flames. He had a sword in each hand. Face slack. He stared at the wall.
