Molly was standing atop the short wall marking the edge of the upper level, her dress blown tight against her body by the wind of death magic, the cloth rotting and tearing, wrapped around her legs. Her red curls were swept back. Her eyes were blazing with magic, with power. She held a small rosemary plant in one hand. It still had leaves.Earth magic.Molly was using her earth magic to fight the witches’ darkness. To fight the death magics of the enemy that were still active.
In the circle, the last living witch, Fiona, threw a death bomb. Molly flicked it to the side with awyrdworking.“Anam.”
The death bomb stopped midair. Hovered.
“Anam.”The Irish Gaelic of her family language.
Evan was standing on the floor of the balcony, at Molly’s side, one arm around her hips, giving her stability, holding her in place. He sang out a single note, steady and pure. His air magic was gifted to his wife, letting her lead the charge against the death magic of the witch still alive in the circle.
Drawing on his magic, Molly said,“Bri!”
The death bomb reversed course. Toward Fiona. The witch sat down. Hard. She landed on the body of a beheaded vamp. A hand out, throwing up a ward in midair.
Molly finished,“Bua an tsaoil.”
Fiona’s ward tore into tatters. Her own death magic hit her. She curled into a tight ball. Relaxed. Died.
In the desecrated, ruined sanctuary, nothing moved but the last threads of a dying breeze.
Eli’s heart beat with ours, with Beast’s and mine.
Holding to that connection, I pulled healing out of my crown and tried to repair the worst of my bleeding. When that didn’t seem to be working, I twisted the energies that were mine to call into a balm that eased enough of my pain to allow me to shove myself over with my good arm. To see the rest of the room.
The enemy vamps had been beheaded. Koun and Tex sat beside them, bleeding, still undead. My vamps were outside the circle, alive, despite their swords having crossed the death magic circle to behead the vamps inside it.
Aya had shifted into human, naked, spattered with gore and filth. His fingers jerked. He breathed out in a soft groan. At some point he had freed his hands and was holding a blade, bloodied.
Hayyel was still present, a black, twinkling glow on the wall, watching us. Still bound by the silver chain, his physical body writhing as if to pull free of the wall.
The Heir lifted himself from Lachish a few inches. The blackness between them sparked with black motes and crackled with power.
Sitting, Tex raised a six-shooter at Mainet.
Mainet cut his own arm and aimed his pulsing blood at the circle. It splattered with a sizzle onto the arcane energies and across the symbols on the wall where the angel rippled. A drop of the vamp blood landed on the chain around the angel.
Hayyel shrieked, a discordant sound of cracked bells and broken wood instruments.
The chain tightened on Hayyel’s ebony flesh, glistening like sterling on black velvet. It cut into the angel. Angel blood dripped, a long, glowing trail, light shimmering from the blood itself.
The demon was gone, but Mainet had layers upon layers of potential plans, like a chess game played over eons. He wasn’t done. Not yet. And Lachish still lived, resting beneath the weight of his body.
I pulled again on my power and felt it undulate insideme, to my ribs. I caught a breath that hurt like the frozen fires of hell.
The Heir picked up a cup from beside Lachish’s body and threw it at the angel.
The contents splashed on his image. An iridescent arc, a rainbow of light.
The white stoneware cup followed and cracked into pieces against the wall.
Ka lifted her head. She whirled her finger. Green and orange energies reeled around her hand. She threw a death bomb at Tex. The foul energies enveloped him. Tex crumpled, one hand out to catch himself. The gun butt hit the floor with a steel-on-wood thump. Ka sang a note of triumph. Tex bounced. Raised his head. Forced his gun hand up. Fired. Head shot. Through the eye.
It blew out the back of her head.
Big-assed round, silver and lead.
Ka fell back again. Tex went limp.
Aya leaned over Ka and, with the blade he had found somewhere, began to saw off Ka’s head. She was dead, so it wasn’t bloody. But it was necessary.
