“Beats me. They avoided the sensors somehow. Sending locations to your tablet.”
Eli pulled his tablet and tapped it awake. The small screen was covered with camera feeds, and he swiped one that gave an overview of the sensors that were lighting up the security system. There were twenty-two different spots of light in a rough circle that correlated to the Everhart witch ward. Farther back were four smaller spots. The humans, probably out of the way, waiting to feed any wounded vamps after the battle. “How?” Eli asked again. “They were hidden under movable wards? Without a witch to open and maintain them? They came in over the trees?How?We havemotion sensors. Lasers. Cameras everywhere.”
Alex said, “I don’t like this.”
“Senza onore,”Edmund said. “She is strong.”
“Then why hasn’t she burned us out already?” I growled.
If the ward failed under the onslaught, we’d have twenty vamps and a pyro inside with us. So of course it started to snow again, making vision difficult. The ward was permeable to air, snow, and rain.Lucky us.But something wasn’t right. I said, “Vamp speed? If they knew where the sensors were, could they speed through and the device think it was a glitch?”
“No,” Eli said shortly.
I spotted three of the twenty. Then a fourth. I moved through the snow to the witch ward and the Everharts. The witches’ sweat was strong on the night air, drenched in the reek of fear and the stench of anxiety and struggle, as if they fought a battle they had already lost. “If the ward falls,” I said to them, “stay put. I’ll keep you safe.”
“The kids,” Molly managed, her face running with sweat. The snow around her had melted down to the muddy earth. Earth magics warring with powerful death magics.
“Lincoln and Brute have them. They’re safe.”
She nodded, sweat staining her clothes and sticking her hair to her face. All the witches were showing strain.
“Hang on, Molly.”
She didn’t nod this time but I knew she understood, because tears started at the corners of her eyes. She had been through the wringer in the last bit. Her home had burned. Her mother, sister, and toddler niece were in danger. And... If Molly and her family had been at home, they would likely be dead in the pyro’s fire. It would have been Molly, her husband, and the children against these creatures. I wouldn’t have had time to get to her. And she would have used her death magics.
The gonging increased, harder, faster, pounding louder, even over the protection of Evan’s spell music and the circle’s casting. It hurt my ears. Lightning shot upward from the ground at the outer ward, to meet in the center with a thunder of sound.
Beast. We’re going to have timewalk,I thought.
Jane will die.
I’m gonna timewalk in half-form.
Jane will die.
A single pureGONGsounded and the ward shivered. My hand tightened on the Glob and I drew a vamp-killer, slightly curved steel blade, the back flat and fuller, all silver-plated to poison any vamp I cut.
Light and power and the stench of ozone and burning rubber billowed out from the ward like noxious steam. Molly was crying, shaking, fighting calling on her death magics. But if there was any time to use them, now seemed like it. I opened my mouth to tell her to use her magics.
A shower of sparks fell from overhead. A burst of golden light shot through the ward.
And the ward fell.
Six shots rang out. Not one of the enemy vampires dropped. Not possible for Shiloh, Kojo, and Thema all to miss at this distance. But they did.
The vampires attacked, sprinting toward the inn. Unbloodied. Vamped out. Mouths open in silent battle cries.
I rushed forward, muscle memory taking over. My half-form swept the vamp-killer back and forward in one smooth motion. I took the head of the first vampire. Felt no resistance. The bloodsucker rushed forward, head still attached. I stopped. Whirled. The vamp was fine. How had... “It’s an illusion,” I shouted. But how many were illusion and how many were real? I dashed to another, slashed my vamp-killer across him. He kept going.
“Afigmentworking,” Molly called, her voice pained. “I can’t tell how many.”
Shiloh, Kojo, and Thema were still firing, but no vampires fell.
I raced to another. And another. None fell. I tore at the Flayer himself. He stood still, tall and beautiful. Smiling. I barreled into him. Leading with my blade. The silver-plated steel sliced through him. There was no resistance. Nothing. I fell beyond him, nearly tumbling. And that was when I realized he wasn’t there either. Even he was an illusion. A human-looking one with no exoskeleton. Created by someone who hadn’t seen the Flayer recently.
“Holy crap,” I snarled, my paw-feet sliding on the snow. Even if I bubbled time—
From behind the house I heard a scream that was part bell, part raw terror.Soul.She was in the creek. Outside the ward that was no more. I pulled on Beast-speed but that wasn’t enough. I reached for the Gray Between and the power that let me slide through time.
