“That ought to at least slow them down, but we should think about getting the hell out of here,” he said.
Friar Matthew shook his head, white hair floating like waves on the beach. “That’s going to be difficult,” he said. “They’ve already found Magnus’s van and placed guards on it, and I don’t think I could have been that far ahead of them.”
Donata looked around the room wildly. Other than her gun, they had no weapons to speak of. And the little workshop wasn’t designed to be used as a defensive position: too many windows and too many entrances, and no handy bolt-holes like the one in Peter’s apartment. What had she gotten them all into? And how on earth was she going to get them out?
“Friar,” Magnus said, bending over the older man, “aren’t you going to get in trouble for warning us when they specifically told you not to?” The lines on his forehead got even deeper as he followed Donata’s desperate gaze around the room and came to the same unhappy conclusions.
“I don’t care,” Matthew said, decisive and defiant. “Some members of my order may not be living up to their sacred vows, but that will not stop me from doing so. I promised to help you prevent another Inquisition, and I intend to do whatever it takes to keep that promise.” He set his jaw and suddenly looked a great deal less frail. His faith shone through like a beacon in Donata’s eyes. She wondered if the others could see it or if she was the only one.
The thud of fists hammering on the door yanked her attention away from the old monk and back to their dilemma.
“Open up!” a man’s voice shouted. “We know you’re in there, Abominations! Come out without a fight and hand over the painting, or suffer the wrath of the God’s chosen warriors.”
Crap! Donata swallowed hard and ran over to pull her gun out from underneath where her jacket hung on the wall. Peter and Magnus came over to stand next to her, looking grim.
“I called my father when Matthew first got here,” Peter said quietly. “He’s closer to us than anyone else I could think of, and he has a better chance than any of us of getting out of here with the painting intact. But I don’t know if he’ll arrive in time.” His face was pale and set, and a wisp of smoke curled out of his mouth as he spoke. His eyes glowed the way they had the first night Donata had met him, the stress causing his newly discovered Dragon half to the surface.
Donata nodded in agreement, the pounding loud enough now to rattle the entire building. Friar Matthew sat upright in his chair, farther away from the front door than the rest of them, but not completely out of the line of fire. Donata gestured for him to go toward the workshop area in the back, but he hovered hesitantly in between.
“Do you think I should try calling the Alliance?” she asked Magnus, biting her lip. “It would mean handing over the painting without knowing the answer to the question of the sixth race, but that’s a lot better than the Cabal getting their hands on it.”
Peter had been peering out a side window, half hidden from outside eyes behind the plain white curtain.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said. “I’m pretty sure they’re already here.”
Donata and Magnus raced over to the window as someone started banging on the back door too. The sound of fighting could now be heard over the thumping: raised voices and the impact of bodies hitting each other or the ground. So far there had been no gunshots, at least.
Looking out the window, Donata could see two distinct sets of combatants locked in battle. The Cabal men could be distinguished by their large crosses and massive size, while the Alliance forces were made up primarily of Witches, with a sprinkling of Ulfhednar and a couple of men that might have been part Dragon. There were a few women among the Paranormals, but all the Cabal fighters were men.
The Cabal soldiers fought with the fervor of the fanatical, armed primarily with clubs, knives, and even the occasional sword. They grappled with the Ulfhednar and most of the other Paranormals, while a few of the Witches stood off to the side, trying to use magic in less-than-conducive circumstances. There were more Paranormals at the back of the building than at the front, but in both places they were clearly outnumbered by the Cabal. A rescue was by no means certain.
“They must have followed the Cabal here,” Magnus said, moving around to another window. “It looks like they didn’t realize how many of them there were, or maybe just couldn’t mobilize enough of a force fast enough.” He frowned at the tactical disadvantage, clearly itching to get out there and join the fighting.
“Maybe we should open the back door,” Peter suggested. “There seem to be more Alliance fighters out there than Cabal.”
Magnus shook his head, fingers moving restlessly as the adrenaline flowed through his system. “Bad idea. You never want to give up ground if you don’t have to.”
The sound of glass breaking came from the direction of the tiny bedroom, and all four of their heads swiveled in that direction. Elmyr whimpered and dived under the couch, and Donata had a serious urge to follow him.
“They’ve come in through the window,” Magnus said through clenched teeth. “Damn it! I should have been in there!”
“Which side is it?” Donata asked. “Ours or theirs?”
Peter looked even grimmer than before. “Are we sure any of these folks are on our side? It seems to me like the Council is almost as likely to take us out on the way to getting the painting as the Cabal are.” He cocked an ear toward the bedroom. “I think whoever is in there is moving toward the door.”
Magnus added, “There’s definitely more than one of them.”
Not for the first time, Donata envied their keen Paranormal hearing. Why couldn’t she have a cool ability like that, instead of being able to talk to the dead? Which, come to think of it, was what had gotten them all into this mess in the first place.
Magnus nodded to Peter and started moving toward the bedroom, but when Donata went to follow, he gestured her back.
“One of us has to stay in here and make sure they don’t get in another way,” he said. “Watch out for Friar Matthew. We’ll be right back out.”
He threw her one of his most rakish grins and turned to run into the bedroom door at ramming speed. Donata clutched her gun butt harder as she heard the sound of a body on the other side hitting the floor with a thud. It seemed to echo in time with the banging on the doors and the screams from outside. Peter followed him in. All the saliva in her mouth had vanished about the time they’d heard the glass shatter, and she tried in vain to wet her dry lips.
“Stay behind me, Matthew,” she said, backing them both toward the corner where the painting and its copy lay. Even close up, Donata could no longer tell which was the original and which was Peter’s forgery. He really was good.
Ominous noises came from the bedroom where the two men had disappeared. There was the crash of breaking furniture, a loud growling, and the occasional yell of a man in pain. Once, the whole building shook as someone hit the wall with a thump.
Then, in a brief moment of almost silence, Donata heard what sounded almost like a hiccup, followed by a whooshing noise. A minute later, smoke began to pour out of the room.
Chapter Thirty
Donata watched in horror as flames began to lick at the edge of the door. She took an involuntary step in that direction, but Friar Matthew grabbed her arm to stop her.
“You can’t help them in there,” he said. “And if either Peter or Magnus loses control, they could very well hurt you without intending to.”
Donata thought to herself that the fact the bedroom was on fire pretty much indicated Peter, at least, had already lost control, but she didn’t bother to state the obvious out loud. Instead, she held her gun steady, aiming at the front door, which was starting to give way under the pressure of multiple repeated blows.
Moving her head back and forth between front and back doors, she almost missed the moment when a pile of men came tumbling out
of the bedroom in a flurry of arms, legs, and what—for just a split second—she thought might have been a snout.
One of the bodies separated from the rest and went flying against the bookcase with stunning force. Once on the floor, it twitched, and then lay still.
Magnus’s blond head shone out among the darker ones as he stood tall and roared out his fury. Bestial ferocity glowed from his blue eyes as he bared his teeth at the remaining two foes, both of whom took a rapid step away from the enraged Shapechanger. Donata swung her gun in that direction, then back at the door when she realized she was just as likely to hit her friends as she was her enemies.
Peter pulled himself up off the floor and gazed in horror at the flames now visible in the doorway of the room they’d just vacated. Smoke began to taint the air in the main space, and Donata stifled a cough as she struggled to look in all directions at once.
The Cabal men backed slowly away from Magnus and Peter, just as the front door finally gave way with a screeching of tortured hinges. More Cabal fighters poured into the workshop, following one cadaverously thin man wearing all black and a fierce expression. Clearly the leader, he threw up an arm to halt the rest as he spotted the fire. The two men who’d come in through the bedroom sidled over to join their fellows, as the back door threatened to buckle next.
“Surrender now,” the Cabal leader said in a deep voice, one eye on Donata’s gun and the other on the growing flames. “You are vastly outnumbered. And God is on our side.”
Next to Donata, Friar Matthew coughed, then said sternly, “God does not ‘side’ with those who would cause needless war and suffering.” He coughed again, and Donata flicked her eyes away from the Cabal force to check on him.
Behind her, the back door burst open and three Alliance soldiers staggered in, followed by a male Witch who was apparently in charge. They were all battered and bleeding, and one of the Ulfhednar clutched an obviously broken arm, but no Cabal fighters came in after them.
The male Witch, a slightly portly Council flunky named Clarkson whom Donata recognized from her mother’s many dinner parties, pulled up short at the sight of the Cabal force across the room. His beady black eyes widened when he saw the flames shooting out of the open doorway, and he, too, coughed on the smoke that was starting to fill the room.
“Donata Santori,” he said, officious and fussy even under these alarming circumstances. “I am instructed by the Alliance Council to take possession of the Pentacle Pentimento. You will hand it over to me immediately.”
Donata choked on the taste of ashes as she opened her mouth to say something rude. The Alliance men were closer to her and Friar Matthew than the Cabal troops were, but somehow, she didn’t feel reassured by their presence.
Through the smoke, she could see Magnus and Peter brace themselves as the Cabal men stepped forward in unison, preparing to rejoin the battle. There were only a dozen Cabal men left, and Donata and her friends might have a fair chance of beating them if the Alliance team was willing to fight with them.
But she’d met Clarkson and his type before, and she was willing to bet that he would wait to see the outcome of any further battle between the fanatics and her people before lifting a finger to come to their aid.
She steadied her gun, squinting through the smoke as she tried to aim at the man leading the Cabal force. If she could take him out before they closed with Magnus and Peter, maybe she could eliminate him before it became too dangerous to shoot in that direction. If only she could stop coughing; the tremors now tickling her lungs were making it hard to hold her hand still.
“Give me the painting, Donata!” Clarkson demanded, moving farther into the room.
The Cabal leader took another step. “The painting belongs to us!”
Donata coughed again, her finger starting to tighten on the trigger, when from beside her, she heard Friar Matthew say, simply, “No.”
Just that. One word. “No.”
And then the little monk grabbed both canvases from the worktable and ran straight for the bedroom door before anyone could stop him. Donata stood rooted in place by shock as he disappeared into the fiery inferno and was gone.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then Donata screamed, “No!” in an unconscious echo of Matthew’s last word and ran for the bedroom.
Peter beat her there and vanished into the flames. Donata would have followed him in, but Magnus grabbed her around the arms and held on.
“’Nata, no, honey,” he yelled over the roar of the fire and the sound of her ragged sobbing. “You can’t help. Let Peter do it. His Dragon half will protect him.”
She struggled for a moment, forgetting all about the Cabal and the Alliance, all of her energy focused on the doorway, as if she could will Peter to come back out with Friar Matthew. At this point, she didn’t give a damn about the paintings—as far as she was concerned, they could burn. They’d already caused too much.
Peter’s father was suddenly at her shoulder, appearing out of the smoke like a ghost. Of all those in the room, he was the only one who wasn’t coughing.
“Peter’s in there!” Donata shouted, pointing at the doorway.
The full-blooded Dragon nodded. “So I saw. A valiant gesture, but a foolish one. The Human will have died almost instantly. And Peter knows too little of his heritage to be able to protect himself adequately.” Almost casually, he walked into the flames after his son.
For another long minute, no one moved. The only sound was the crackling of the flames and the subdued coughing of everyone in the room. Then Clarkson blinked rapidly, as if suddenly remembering he had the ability to do something about the situation, and he uttered five short phrases accompanied by a series of flowing hand gestures.
With a whooshing noise and a pop like bubble gum bursting, the fire was abruptly out. Blackened walls and the floating shreds of smoke drifting through the room were the only evidence that it had ever happened.
Donata stared blankly at the Council Witch. Why hadn’t he done that five minutes ago? Before Friar Matthew—her heart contracted at the unfinished thought.
Peter’s father walked back out of the bedroom, one arm around his badly injured son. Peter’s face was red, as if with sunburn, and large patches of clothing had burned away, along with much of his skin. One long-fingered hand was black around the edges.
Donata took a step toward them and Raphael looked at her, his eyes dark with pity. He shook his head.
Her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them away. There would be time for sorrow later. Right now, she was simply very, very angry.
Ignoring Peter for the moment and trusting that his father was taking care of him, Donata swiveled around from Cabal to Alliance and back again. Finally, thoughtfully, she aimed her gun at the Cabal leader, although she spoke to both groups at once.
“Okay, people,” she said, rage resonating in her every word although her voice was quiet and even. “Here’s the situation.” She glared at the Cabal men. “The painting is gone. There will be no second Inquisition. Not today. Not ever.”
She turned slowly and aimed her gun at Clarkson, who paled and swallowed hard. He opened his mouth to speak, and she glared at him, too, her anger so palpable, he just stood there with his mouth gaping like a fish out of water.
“The painting is gone,” she said to him, slowly and clearly. “You wanted it safe from the Cabal, and it is. My obligation to you is fulfilled. And if you don’t want everyone in the Paranormal world to hear about how you let a sweet old monk sacrifice himself to save our people, you’d better treat my family like royalty from now on. Are we clear?”
He blanched and nodded.
She swung the gun back toward the Cabal leader, who was in the process of trying to edge behind one of his own men.
“You are all assholes,” she said, bitterness turning the words to venom. “Now get out of my sight before I arre
st you all.” She coughed, briefly out of breath. “Or shoot you, whichever comes first.”
Magnus reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. “Here,” he said, head cocked quizzically to one side, “shall I flip a coin?”
As if his words had freed them from a spell, the Cabal and Alliance soldiers started backing rapidly out of the room, one group toward the back and the other the front. The two opposing forces studiously ignored each other.
The Cabal leader turned back to face Donata as he walked out the door.
“We’ll be watching you,” he said, a sneer distorting his thin face. “We know who you are now, Witch.”
Donata calmly shot a chunk out of the already shattered doorframe next to his hand.
“And I know you too,” she said with a humorless smile that made even Magnus wince. “If I were you, I’d make sure our acquaintance never gets any better.”
He looked down at the bullet hole and back up at her, and left without another word.
In the smoky room, the only ones left were Donata and her friends. Peter’s father placed him down on the couch gently. Magnus walked over to Donata and carefully removed the gun from her hand.
“It’s okay, ’Nata,” he said, putting one arm around her shoulder. “It’s over. They’re gone. The painting’s gone. You can get back to your life now.”
She looked at him bleakly. “I know,” she said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Donata walked over to where Peter lay on the couch, and cringed at the sight of the blisters and red patches left by his walk through the fire. In contrast, his father seemed largely untouched; only his clothing showed any effects from the flames, and even that was minimal.
“Will he be okay?” Donata asked Raphael, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.
Peter pulled himself up with a groan. “I’ll be fine,” he said, his voice stronger than she would have expected. “It hurts like hell, but I’ll heal.” He glanced over his shoulder at the charred entrance to the bedroom, regret written clearly on the streaky mask of his face.
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