As Rebecca’s magic attack dissipated, the gnome released a burst of his own demonic magic at us. My shield held, though I felt as if scalding acid had been sprayed over my mind. Rebecca’s step faltered briefly. Then she sprinted out of the shielded area, caught up the little boy, and yanked him back to me.
I knelt beside the child, doing a quick diagnosis while maintaining the shield. He was dangerously depleted, but hadn’t suffered any injuries. I gave him a dose of vital energy, not enough for complete recovery, but sufficient to keep him stable. I couldn’t afford to give more.
I looked up to see Rebecca stalking toward the gnome, both hands locked on a business-like pistol. She must have used one hell of a don’t-see spell to get that through airport security!
“Release her!” Not waiting for a response, Rebecca fired into his chest at point blank range. The bullet was accompanied by a blast of hunter attack energy.
“Guardian bitch!” Though the gnome flinched back with a snarl, he didn’t seem to be seriously hurt.
Rebecca used his momentary distraction to sweep the blond girl into her arms and dart back toward me. The gnome rose to his feet with a roar that rattled the windows. “Guardian hunter and healer together! Your souls will blend well!”
He began to swell in size, expanding till his head bashed into the ceiling, denting the patterned metal panel. Flinging his hands toward us, he screamed incomprehensible words, either profanity or demon spells, maybe both. Red light boiled from his palms down the length of the car. Rebecca barely managed to get herself and the unconscious girl inside my shielding before the corrosive magic hit.
I had been getting to my feet when the demon power struck, and it knocked me back onto the dirty carpeting. I gasped, feeling as if a huge beast had taken a bite out of my magic and vitality. I couldn’t hold out against many more assaults like this.
As I pulled the girl toward me, the demon’s magic deflected from my shielding in all directions. The red color morphed to a virulent, toxic green.
As the green energy swept over the toys, they came alive. Trains started whirling around the tracks, whistles blasting. The Napoleonic soldiers marched toward us, led by the high kick ballerina from the music box, and the Victorian dolls began clambering down from their shelf, murderous red glints in their eyes. The demon laughed with vicious amusement as they headed for Rebecca, who was several feet in front of me.
Swearing, Rebecca swept her foot through the army of lead soldiers so that they knocked each other over like dominoes. A train flew off the track right toward her head. She knocked it out of the air with a hard fist. It spun into the wall, crushing some of the descending Victorian dolls.
The dolls who’d reached the floor were heading toward her, their mouths open to show sharp ceramic teeth. She yanked over a narrow side table to block them, then shoved the table into the wall with a crunching of ceramic heads.
As the rocking horse began moving toward Rebecca with frenzied movements, I diagnosed the little blond girl. She was near death, in much worse shape than the boy, and it took a dangerously large amount of my power to stabilize her. I was running on fumes now and not sure how much longer I could be effective.
I felt a touch on my head and Rebecca’s fiery magic flowed into me, restoring me enough to maintain the shields. I clambered to my feet. “Can we save the Santa?”
“If you can extend the shield over him, I think I can drive off the demon possessing him.”
She’d switched to mind talk, and I realized that she didn’t want the demon to know our plans. “Done.”
I stepped forward, moving the shield, and she knelt by the Santa. His hat, white hair, and beard had fallen off, leaving a pleasantly ordinary guy with receding brown hair. Rebecca clamped her hands on the side of his head and blasted him with a spell I’d never seen before. “Demon, begone!”
A whirl of red energy erupted from him and the toys redoubled their hysterical efforts to attack. I grabbed one of Santa’s arms and Rebecca took the other and we hauled him back to our end of the car, which allowed me to shrink the energy shield. Anything that saved power was welcome.
We’d moved so fast that the gnome hadn’t realized our intentions until we’d retrieved Santa. He bellowed like a freight train, then leaned forward to gobble the red energy from the air, the cords in his neck tightening as he swallowed. His form broadened, bulking up so that he looked like Hulk.
”We need to get out of here!” I thought to Rebecca.
She bent over to slap Santa’s face while I moved to the four children who’d been watching blankly. Little children are easily enchanted, but the spells are also easily broken. I laid palms on the foreheads of the black girl and the redheaded boy and sent healing energy to dissolve the imprisoning spells.
They came awake instantly, looking around in confusion while I gave the same treatment to the other two children. The black girl cried, “My sister, where’s my sister?”
Before I could reply, she saw the little blond girl lying on the floor. “There you are! Melissa, what happened?” She tumbled to the floor and stroked the blond hair back from the other girl’s face. “Missy, are you all right?”
Sisters by adoption, I guessed, but sisters nonetheless. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Rebecca had pulled Santa to his feet. Beyond her, the demon had begun to bash on my shield. It would have collapsed at the first blow if Rebecca and I hadn’t been combining our powers.
The twin boy went to his brother. “Travis, you okay?”
“What happened?” the redheaded boy asked.
“You were kidnapped in the toy shop and brought down to an old tunnel,” I said, my gaze riveted on a quarter scale cannon that was rolling out of the far corner, its barrel aimed at us. “Help the other children and run! Outside this railroad car, you’ll see footprints in the dust. Go that way.”
The dark skinned girl nodded and beckoned to the others. “Away now!”
The twin who hadn’t been energy drained pulled his brother to his feet. “This is the strangest birthday party we ever had, Trav!”
Santa spoke then. He was weaving on his feet, but he looked thoroughly human. “Sorry, guys, I thought it would be fun for you and your friends to see me play Santa before your party.” He glanced at Rebecca, and I saw that he had some idea of what had happened. “Can you hold that thing while we get away? I’ll call 911.”
