The witchings retaliated almost instantly. All of them. A storm of magic, crackling with too much—everything. Fire, electricity, the threat of imminent pain. And—shit—Noam deflected the flurry of bullets just in time. Ithurt, it physically hurt, extending his magic like this: blocking the witchings’ attack, evading the bullets. He didn’t even ... god, he didn’t even have an automatic weapon, only his service pistol.
He drew that anyway, flicking off the safety and reaching out with his power to sense—
He couldn’t sense them. Of course. Antiwitching armor.
Noam’s magic lashed out again, and he used the cover to step out from the smoke wreathing the collapsed hangar.
Four of them. Four witchings,twelveantiwitching soldiers ... shit,shit.
Noam aimed his gun at them anyway and fired, over and over; he hit one in the neck, and the soldier in that armor collapsed like a broken doll. He squinted against the white flares of light as they held down the triggers on their machine guns, Noam’s electromagnetic shield the only thing keeping those bullets from tearing into him like he was made of paper.
He couldn’t shoot them all. He was gonna run out of bullets. He couldn’t use his magic against that antiwitching armor, either; he had to—fuck, he had to be smarter.
Okay.
Focus.
It was taking almost all his focus fighting those damn witchings.
One of the witchings had their own electromagnetic shield up now, defending the antiwitching soldiers from Noam’s bullets. Question was, which one?
Violet-colored magic—okay, trace it back to the source.There.
That one. Blond hair.
Noam redirected his magical attacks, using whatever he could spare from his defenses to assault that one witching. The others noticed, of course, and so he had to contend withtheirefforts to protect blond guy—
A shot of lightning zipped past him, uncomfortably close. Shit. He couldn’t drop his guard.
Just.Kill the blond guy.
Noam threw as much power as he could behind the attack, yelling with the effort of it. It felt like magic was barbed wire ripping through his veins. Like it would tear him open and he’d bleed out here on this field, like he’d burn himself to cinder—
Fuck it.
He started running full tilt across the tarmac. He got the chance to see the blond guy’s eyes widen a split second before Noam collided with him, and they both toppled to the hard ground.
He was inside their shield now, could have shot his own gun at the antiwitching soldiers if he wasn’t so busy deflecting their bullets. Noam slammed his elbow against the blond guy’s throat—it was bright, so bright, the night lit up with the pop-pop of automatic gunfire as the soldiers emptied their magazines on Noam.
He had the Texan witching gripped between his knees, the man’s fingers pressing hard into Noam’s thighs as he tried to fight him off with superstrength.
“Justdiealready,” Noam growled and thrust forward with as much strength as he could muster.
The witching’s skull crushed under the weight of Noam’s hand. His blood sprayed out like paint. His insides splattered Noam’s face. They tasted like red meat.
Some distant part of Noam was aware enough to know he should be horrified. But there was no time for that.
He swept out another wave of magic. And this time, his bullets found their targets, slipping into the vulnerable cracks between armor to bury deep in living flesh, the antiwitching soldiers dropping around Noam like puppets with their strings cut.
Noam couldn’t move. He was frozen amid the carnage, gore dripping off his face and smearing his hands. Distant gunfire rounded off. Someone’s magic tore a plane from the sky, and it crashed into the dirt, black smoke pluming toward heaven.
I killed them.
I killed them all.
His legs gave out, and he collapsed forward, pressing his brow against the hot tarmac. When Noam’s eyes slid shut, all he could see was Dara. They were in the Level IV common room. Dara was curled up on the sofa, his bare feet tucked between the cushions and a book held against his knees. He was reading Tolstoy.
I love Tolstoy,Noam wanted to tell him.
