She’s warning them,he thought, relieved to realize that would likely be the end of the ceremony.
Margot’s head turned toward Petra just a little too fast, and not a moment later, Theodore’s spine went ramrod straight.
A flicker of movement in the deep shadows between candle sconces caught Silas’s eye.Si,Tal called, his voice clear and urgent in his Silas’s mind.Get Petra off the dias— now!
Before Silas could react, there was another flicker in the shadows, but this time there was no recognition, no spark of the magic that connected all demons to the shadows. There was just an odd sort of shimmer, something uncanny like the reflection of a mirror rather than a true image. Silas surged out of his seat, but it was too late.
Everything happened at once.
His watch began to vibrate on his wrist a heartbeat before a wail of sirens cut through the chorus of whispers in thecathedral. They were piercing, and echoed in an odd way that meant it wasn’t just one set of alarms going off, but many across the city as it became clear that San Francisco’s infrastructure was under attack.
Theodore had surged to his feet just as his guards sprang into action, ready to sweep the couple away from the crowd, when the shimmer in the corner flickered into the vague shape of a red-uniformed man.
Silas moved just as a bolt melted a hole in the great stained glass window behind the altar.
Another shot went wide, striking the front of Glory’s statue, and the man disappeared as quickly as he’d flickered into existence. The guards and Theodore lunged for the women, but the sovereign had no way to stop a bolt shot. The way the guards moved defensively told Silas that they hadn’t spotted the luminist in the shadows.
The second shot wasn’t a good one, either, but plasma didn’t need to hit someone directly to kill them — especially when the victim was the waifish sovereign’s consort.
Silas’s shadows were faster than his legs, and this time they didn’t fail him. They spread from Petra’s throat to cover her as she tackled Margot to the ground and huddled with her at the base of the statue. One of the guards rushed toward the witches but took a glancing blow to his shoulder and went down. It barely stopped him, however, as he and the sovereign grabbed the women and began to shove them off the dias.
Silas thrust aside panicked worshippers and vaulted over the altar. His transformation was instant. Shadows ripped their way out of him as higher thought slipped away. He only saw the odd, out of place flicker of light in the shadows and the unmistakable curl of smoke from the barrel of a bolt gun.
His mate was safe now. He stood between her and the attacker. Nothing would touch her. The panic behind him, the sovereign, the guards — nothing mattered except his prey.
Tal’s shadows coiled around the attackers invisible legs, holding him in place as Silas descended on him like a cataclysm. Another shot went off, eerily echoing the confrontation with Antonin in the belltower. The shot went high and struck the steel rafters. Even though he couldn’t see him or smell him through the fog of smoke and incense, Silas’s shadows acted as sensory limbs.
There was no hiding from a demon in the dark.
Fueled by the drive to protect his mate, Silas heard nothing but the roar in his ears as he grasped the attacker’s arm and twisted. The sound of bones snapping like green twigs didn’t reach him, and neither did the clatter of the bolt gun hitting the stone floor of the alcove.
The attacker didn’t scream, but his illusion flickered rapidly as he fought to focus through the pain. In the flashes Silas saw of him while he slashed with his claws, he discovered an unremarkable man with vacant eyes. His magic sputtered as he staggered under the onslaught of Silas’s attack.
He’d clearly managed to escape being drugged. Some small, logical part of Silas wondered if he’d been staked out in the dark corner the whole time, unmoving, his scent covered by the heavy incense smoke. A luminist skilled at illusion could go entirely unseen, but he appeared to lack any offensive abilities. Being invisible wouldn’t save him when his legs were bound with shadow and a demon descended on him.
The attacker slumped to the floor, his glassy eyes rolled back in his head, and Silas knelt behind him, shadowed hands gripping his jaw and the back of his head, ready to twist hard enough to pop the whole thing off his scrawny neck fordaring?—
“Sweetheart, no.”
Silas looked up to find Petra knelt before him, her crown and veil discarded. His shadows had mostly retreated back to her neck, but they covered more than usual, as if they weren’t about to let her go completely before the job was done.
She was ashen, but her expression was gentle when she fearlessly reached out to touch his monstrous hands. “Easy,” she coaxed, petting him. “Easy now, sweetheart. He’s out cold. No need to do anything more.”
His bloody fingers flexed on the man’s slack jaw, itching to twist, twist,twist.
Petra shuffled a little closer. Her fingertips skated across his knuckles, mapping them with the utmost care. “I know it’s hard, but I need you to let him go.”
“Why?”he demanded, staring into her precious, perfect face and seeing exactly what could’ve happened to her.Again.
Petra’s gaze bounced around them. Her throat bobbed nervously, and Silas finally bothered to look beyond her, to the ring of black-clad guards who all had their weapons trained on him.
He tensed, lip curling away from his teeth, but Petra moved closer still. She peeled one of his hands off of the attacker’s head and placed it over her heart. Blood smeared over the golden skin of her breast when she murmured, “Because you did your job and protected everyone. You don’t need to do anything more.”
“He would’ve killed you,”he snarled. “That’s un-fuckin’-acceptable.”
“You’re right, but he can’t do that anymore, so you’ve got to hand him over to the guards now.” Her heartbeat thundered beneath his hand. Petra paused, lips pursing, before she slowly added, “If you kill him next to my altar, Silas, I’ll beveryunhappy.”
Damn.
