“It’s Zhang!” Rory called to Arthur.
And in the distance, Arthur heard the revving of a car engine at its limit as tires came screeching up the path.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rory was shoved to the ground like an afterthought as his guards went running for the approaching car, pulling their guns and shouting in French and German.
“Get under the hedge!” Zhang’s astral projection yelled, and then vanished.
Rory didn’t need telling twice. He rolled toward the manor, under the bushes and out of the path of Arthur and everyone else who was either under blood magic or loyal enough to Zeppler to start shooting.
But as the guards poured forward, the guns flew out of their hands on their own. Headlights blinded Rory as a new convertible car hit the driveway and stopped so abruptly he smelled burnt rubber.
Gwen, Ellis, and Zhang’s physical body leapt out of the car as Jade stood up in the back seat, her normally sweet expression cold with furious concentration. And Rory suddenly understood why all the guns were floating in midair above their heads.
“Get them,” Becker yelled, and the guards were moving again. “Use the lead pipes, the telekinetic can’t manipulate those!”
Well, shit. Of course Zeppler’s lackeys were all armed with lead too.
The guards were drawing their pipes. Ellis—probably invisible to mundane eyes—slipped behind the closest man and knocked him on the back of the head. At Ellis’s side, Gwen was face to face with another guard. The guard lunged for her, and she dodged away, spinning just enough to reach for the air right above his heart. She gave the air a violent twist, and the man screamed and hit the ground.
Rory scrambled to stand, awkward with his hands still cuffed behind him, but suddenly Zhang was there, in physical form, helping him to his feet. “One of the guards had keys on him,” he said, hissing only a little as he unlocked the lead cuffs from Rory’s wrists.
“You’re the best,” Rory said, as the cuffs fell away. “Where’s Arthur?”
“In the fight.” Zhang was pulling him forward. “Gwen needs us. She’s got three guards on her and—Jade.”
Rory followed his gaze and saw it, Jade out of the car and back to back with Gwen. Several guards circled the two women, Ellis nowhere to be seen.
As Rory and Zhang sprinted forward, a man took a swing at Jade with a lead pipe.
“Jade!” Zhang put on a new burst of speed as Jade dodged, pulling Gwen with her, the pipe missing them by inches but the guns overhead scattering every which way like they’d been flung through the air.
Rory sprinted after Zhang, just as Gwen spun around and drove her heel into a man’s knee. When he stumbled, she plunged her hand into what must have been his aura, because he let out a bloodcurdling scream, staggered to the side, and fell at Rory’s feet.
Gwen thrust something at him. “Here!”
The Tempest Ring glittered in her hand.
He stared at it, realization hitting. “You switched the rings,” he said, grabbing his ring back and sliding it straight onto his finger without hesitation. “You never gave Becker my ring—you gave him Ellis’s wedding ring, full of the paralysis magic of the Venom Dagger.”
In the chaos, her eyes met his. “I’m sorry for the deception,” she said. “And I had to lie about the lead; no magic gets through that. But I didn’t lie about the strength of your magic. Find Becker, and use that relic to get his damn blood magic out of Arthur.”
Rory didn’t need telling twice. He took off toward the house, dodging as a much bigger man came barreling toward him with a pipe.
But someone else crashed into Rory from the side, sending him flying. He hit the ground, skidding through dirt and gravel as the crunch of fist on bone rent the air.
Rory looked up and his gaze found Arthur.
He was fighting Ellis—and winning. Blood was gushing from Ellis’s nose and from a scrape on his face, and there was real fear in his expression. Because even if Arthur probably couldn’t see Ellis, the Puppeteer could, and he was pulling Arthur’s strings.
Arthur swung again, and Ellis dodged, but Arthur followed his first strike with a second, like a boxer in the ring. The second, harder swing connected with Ellis’s temple, and Ellis hit the ground.
“Arthur, no!” Rory scrambled back up, stumbling forward. It didn’t matter that he was someone else’s weapon; Arthur was never going to forgive himself for violence on someone who’d been his own soldier. “Ace, stop—”
Arthur whirled and Rory dodged the fist that came his way, getting clipped on the side of the head instead of his face.
Oh Jesus, the look in Arthur’s eyes—
