The nearest mage yanks a potion from his coat and hurls it. It fizzes with volatile magic, but Miss Beattie moves like smoke. Her sword swings almost lazily, batting the errant spell aside. Only then do I see the nullifying runes along her blade. The rune-etched steel hums with power. Clever woman. A sword perfectly attuned to battling magic users.
The bottle skitters across the road before detonating in a plume of fire. The blast sends the mages reeling.
The thrower screeches, drops to the cobbles as though shot, scrabbling backwards, clutching another potion—the same brew he used on Harriet.
Miss Beattie tilts her head, assesses him and brings her blade down in a clean arc; he dies without a sound. She pivots, shifts the sword to her left hand, and back-swings, severing another man’s head cleanly. Blood spatters the cobblestones, steaming slightly on the cool stone.
The others break and bolt in every direction, only to crash into my ward. Blue-white magic snaps through their bodies; they crumple. One twitches, and a tendril of my power twists his neck—then another, and another.
Five dead, just like that.
The vampire hunter does not flinch. She dispatches her last screaming opponent, the redhead, with the efficiency of folding linen, then drags the corpse across the cobbles, seams of his shirt ripping.
At my gate, she flings the body into the ward. I do the only polite thing to a child predator: I vaporise it.
I discovered this knack when the first corpse, the moustached mage, began to rot; a pulse of heat reduces organic matter to ash in a blink—ideal fertiliser for my roses.
She pulls a cloth from her coat pocket and wipes her blade with the methodical care of a woman polishing silverware, not one fresh from three kills.
The last two mages linger, tracing the ward’s edge around the back of the house, murmuring spells to probe for weaknesses. Single-minded fools who never notice their comrades falling. I indulge them: a garden gate appears in the rear wall, inviting them in. The high-walled plot I cultivated from bare earth is now thick with herbs and vegetables given away to those who cannot afford food. Like a benevolent sprite, I leave parcels on doorsteps at dawn. No point in letting the food go to waste.
The two men are considerate enough not to tread on my vegetables; otherwise, their ends would be far louder.
A few more feet farther into the garden, the ground simply vanishes beneath them. Both men drop with a shout until the earth holds them at chest height.
I can bend physics within my wards, and now that I have learned to speak to Harriet, perhaps I can address these two as well. With their arms trapped, they cannot do anything foolish, such as cast a spell.
Gentlemen,I say, my voice sharp and cold.Why are you sniffing around my house? Who are you with?
“There are eight of us,” one snarls. His companion merely writhes, but this one—cocky and red-faced—dares to speak. “What’s holding us? What sort of magic is this? Let us go, or you’ll be sorry.”
Eight of you,I repeat.You were chasing the girl.
“She belongs to Mark,” he spits. “We saw you take her. Hand her back, and no one dies. Throwin’ your voice around’s a neat trick, but you’re not takin’ all of us on.”
‘All on?’ Just eight, then? You two and the six lying dead in the street?
“What?” His expression crumples as he begins to grasp his predicament.
Yes. Your friends are dead. So let us start again. Are more of you coming, or is this the entire coven?
He splutters instead of answering.
I slip into their pockets, rifling through letters, receipts, and scraps of identification, while my filaments sweep beyond the garden walls. Eight men in total came all this way to hunt a sixteen-year-old, all for the sum of…
Fifty pounds? Is that the price of a child’s life nowadays?
Unthinkable.
I locate Harriet’s father as well; I shall deal with him later—perhaps with a note to the vampire hunter next door, who may enjoy a visit.
The mage who writhes begins to scream for help; his friend is slick with sweat. I do not linger. Torture holds no appeal. Rather than bury them alive, I snap their necks—one, then the other—and vaporise the bodies.
Those in the street follow. Miss Beattie hums as she watches the bodies and blood disappear in a cloud of ash.
“That’s a neat trick.” She rests an elbow on the gate. “The girl, will she be all right?”
Unable to address her directly—she is no true magic user—I flick the latch once. I doubt the woman is ready for a magical note. I can scarcely believe I am communicating with another person,fourin a single day.
