Something exploded behind her, and more people screamed.
Paige ignored it and marched to her daughter, grabbing her arm and spinning her around to tell her to go home.
The girl turned to her, her face full of gritty resolve and just stared her down like an alpha would.
There was no alpha push, though. It was a hundred percent Whiskey stubbornness, and it hit Paige right in the gut.
She swallowed, realizing that her kid was starting to become an adult. She didn’t want her to, not here. But where? They were heading into war and shielding her from that wouldn’t do any of them any good. “Tell me the twins didn’t follow.”
Leah smiled. “Tyler did, but we made everyone else stay at home.”
Well, at least there was that.
Something else exploded behind them.
Things were getting serious, and it was time to put on her war face. Paige turned to Tyler. “You make sure Lee is safe while she’s focusing on the door. Help as many as you can, but when you’re pushed—and you will be—” Blessed Mother, she was a terrible aunt and mother. “—you protect Lee. She’s the least experienced out here.”
Eldora sighed after sending the others off. “Not the least, but certainly one of them. Come. You’re with me,” she told the Whiskey kids before looking at Paige. “Go do your—” she waved her hand around. “—thing.”
Right. Time to bring the war back to DoDO.
With a single person. What in the glorious hell?
She reached for her magick, her hands zipping out like arrows with lines of dark energy attached to them. She grabbed two DoDO agents. Before she realized what she was doing, a door opened and they were pushed through.
To Hell.
Yeah. She’d just sent them to Hell. It was like dialing the Stargate with the only address she really knew.
Eldora was right. She needed to practice this.
But not now.
The noise overwhelmed and focused her. That was something a lot of people didn’t talk about. The fact that, in all that noise, a person struggled to hear things and could hear a pin drop next to them at the same time. The outside noise was so overwhelming, but something inside the brain flipped and made it easier to remain alive somehow.
People screamed and shouted and roared and generally made a lot of noise.
Bullets flew everywhere. The DoDO agents really didn’t have a problem using semi-automatics.
On people who only had clouds and air to defend themselves with.
There were a lot of dead elves of all ages lying on the ground. Many more who were wounded and not dead and in a worse state, their faces twisted as they tried to figure out how they were going to remain alive or as they reached toward someone they obviously cared about.
Paige had to tune all of that out. She couldn’t afford to become emotionally invested in anyone, no matter how hard it was to step over the form of a toddler wounded and crying in the street. If she stopped to help that toddler—and he wasn’t alone—then others would be much worse off.
That one act was going to haunt her. But she pushed it aside for later.
Her witch hands pulled DoDO agents through the Hell gates she created. She didn’t need to send them through the one embedded in her chest, though if her door magick started to get tough, she would.
While she did that, she called on the elements, using them to push other agents back, sending them toppling, giving the people being mowed down by the bullet spray a chance to recover, to gather their people and flee.
It focused the attention of the agents on her.
Good for the elves.
Bad for her.
She wasn’t alone for long. She’d barely had a chance to throw a few tornadoes—yes. She was throwing tornadoes at these guys—when a few dozen elves scrambled to fight beside her, throwing their own magicks into the fight.
Their magicks were different as well. They were combinations of elements, much like the tornadoes, which were a mix of water and air and fire. The elves didn’t simply use air. They used air and fire, or water and earth.
The tides were turning.
One DoDO agent stepped out from the rest and held up his hand, telling his agents to stop. He stared at Paige as both sides entered into the temporary cease fire. “Ms. Whiskey. What a surprise.”
Paige didn’t know the agent. They all looked alike with the riot gear on. The only person she’d ever known in the DoDO was Mario, and she was starting to get the impression that he wasn’t that high on the totem pole.
The man smiled a sick smile. “You shouldn’t have come, though.”
“That’s what all the bullies say.” She was a little surprised he didn’t ask where his people were being sent.
She hoped it didn’t mean they had ways of just opening new doors and coming back, but she didn’t know why she would hope that. They had door magick too. But their doors worked differently. If their magick was tied to ley lines, that might trap them in Hell because Earth’s ley lines weren’t Hell’s.
“This isn’t a war you can win.” He looked around as doors opened all over and more DoDO agents poured through.
Oh, shit. Time to get out of there.
“We have the advantage,” he said, with his cold, sickly smile. “And the president will be so pleased when I hand her your head on a platter.”
It looked pretty likely he’d get that chance.
“Retreat,” she said in a low growl. She just had to hope they’d managed to install enough doors and wards.
The elves with her didn’t balk. They retreated, shouting in their own language as they moved.
Paige stepped over the toddlers again, but this time—she couldn’t help it—she opened a door underneath them with the location of home and let them fall through. She didn’t know if it would work. She didn’t know if they would make it. Others fell through with them in the short span the door was open. She just had to hope she hadn’t sent them to Hell or somewhere worse.
And while she’d been focused on that, she’d let a few agents slip past their lines.
Their bullets flew.
At least one of them hit her. She was too focused on the battle to really know where, but she was losing energy. She reached to create a door in front of one of the agents and it faltered. She tried again, feeding it more of her energy.
Finally, the door flared to life just as the agent dropped his rifle to hang in front of him and drew his knife. He disappeared with a shout before he could hit her with it.
Too close.
She focused harder, drawing on her magick, on her will. She opened doors to Hell, each one harder than the first. She didn’t use the door inside her bones. These weren’t souls. These were men and women with rifles and knives.
She stumbled, her leg nearly giving out. She needed to get out of there.
But there was too much space for her to cross between her and the gate home. With her own door magick not working super well, she didn’t want to chance sending herself to Hell… or worse.
Where’d she send those kids?
Somewhere better than here, she hoped.
She wasn’t going to make it home. That was clear.
There were too many dead. Too many wounded. Too many DoDO agents. The original plan would have been okay if she hadn’t forced DoDO to call in reinforcements.
Paige had just handed DoDO the elven fortress.
And the one person standing against them.
Her.
17
Paige sent out a hurricane gale force wind, sending DoDO agents flying backward. Some crashed into the walls of vines and toppled through. She’d never wished so hard for concrete in her life. With concrete, their bodies would have broken at least a little.
More elves joined them.
Eldora came behind her and shouted in her ear, “Move back. We’re spread too thin.”
“Retreat and close the doors behind you,” Paige shouted back.
Eldora disappeared, hopefully to
spread the word.
Paige needed to keep the main focus there on her. She was buying time for the elves, for Leah and Tyler, and for the other Blackman witches who were risking their lives to help this city.
Elves who had fallen in the field, who had been stuck in the city, who had been hiding the forest were fleeing. They were escaping
Underhill was massive. They could get into the woods. They could hide in other areas. But this city was lost.
Super Douche, which was what she was calling the DoDO leader, was getting upset. Each time he advanced with his bullets and his artillery, thinking he’d get the advantage, he lost ground.
That surprised her too.
Until his mages put their semi-automatics down—or let them hang from slings—and took up their magick instead.
This was the first time Paige got to experience mage magick.
And it wasn’t awesome.
Their magick punched through her nature magick powered line—well, hers and the elves’—like a battering ram. She tasted copper in her mouth. Blood.
Tyler’s voice pierced the air, sending several of the mages to the ground, clamping their hands over their ears.
That was nice, but the boy’s lungs were only so big for a tiny kid. And shouldn’t that kid be through the gods-be-damned door?
One mage didn’t drop to the ground, but his mouth didn’t move either. Was he deaf?
Paige didn’t give DoDO or the lone mage a chance to react. She combined her witch hands, called up all the elements she could, whispered a prayer to the All Mother to give her the boost she needed, and shoved as many of those dressed-in-black sons of bitches into the biggest portal to Hell she’d ever made.
That certainly cleared the field a little.
It didn’t escape her notice, though, that a few of the wounded and dead elves had fallen through with them.
She’d feel bad about that another time. She didn’t have time for that emotional shit right then.
Super Douche rose to his feet as Tyler took in a gulp of air. His eyes landed on the boy.
Shit. Shitshitshitshit.
Paige gave him a sick smile of her own and punched him in the face with her witch hand.
Super Douche staggered back, putting his hand to his bleeding nose. He bleeding-finger-flicked a salute her way.
Yeah, okay. It might not have been her greatest move ever, but she was getting tired. Like…tired. She’d hoped her hand would at the very least transport his head to another realm, but a door hadn’t even thought about opening.
Tyler went to sing again, but his voice cracked.
“Get out of here,” she shouted at him. Well, at Leah, but who knew if that girl was even going to listen to her?
Super Douche frowned at the kids but returned his attention to Paige as he advanced. “You’re going to regret this.”
She sincerely knew she would.
She didn’t know how much longer she could withstand this. Her ability to call up the big things was dwindling. No more hurricane winds for her. No more tornadoes. No more doors.
Just her normal magick.
She shifted into a massive gorilla and charged at him, releasing her alpha roar.
Two of the remaining DoDO agents cowered.
But the rest of them raised their damned guns.
What a bunch of fucking assholes, bringing semi-automatics to a magick fight.
The elves who still fought beside her sent another blast of wind, trying to send the rain of bullets away.
But wind was no match for the power of fast-flying lead.
Paige morphed into an armadillo, focusing on the shift, slowing it down so that for a brief moment, she was a massive gorilla with armadillo armor.
Those bullets bounced back at them. Hard.
Three fell. Two more staggered.
But as an armadillo, she was a tiny target and a slow one.
So, as soon as the best effect wore off and the elves were again the main target, she rose back up again.
As a t-rex.
Because why the fuck not? This shit was fun.
But her roar was like the alpha roar of a sick chicken.
Not nearly as cool as in Jurassic Park.
Choose another one, Cawli growled and took over.
Paige knew quite a bit about dinosaurs. She loved them. They were her favorite part of the museum. Well, that and the space exhibit, and never once had she ever thought she’d be able to be any of those dinos.
The first thing she learned was that they weren’t impervious to bullets.
That blew.
But she also discovered that there were other dinosaurs with much scarier roars. Like the triceratops. She’d already discovered that being a hippo was really impressive. Seriously, never piss off a hippo. But being a triceratops was even better.
And their battle cry was terrifying.
She used those DoDO agents as bowling pins, not quite knocking them down faster than they could throw bullets at her.
But they did realize that bullets weren’t their best answer. A few retreated, put down their rifles, and drew on their mage magick again.
A white and blue mage ball hit her in the right flank.
The energy sent her sideways. She slid and rolled over bodies she hoped were dead and slammed into a rock. Goddess bless, she was tired.
However, her flank and her leg took that mage energy in. Her wound from earlier healed—even faster than shifter healing.
That was…weird. Right? That was weird.
How many mage blows had she taken?
Too many to count, really.
She should have petered out a long time ago. She should have just died, completely spent, protecting her kids.
She’d somehow managed to absorb the energy of their mage magick to keep fighting.
Not with the big stuff. But she was still fighting.
Okay. Well, that certainly changed things. She could take their mage hits. Just not bullets. So, she just had to push them to put their rifles down and use magick instead.
So, she got up and charged at them in varying arrays of dinosaurs, the biggest creatures she could think of.
Her favorite was quickly becoming the flying kronosaurus. Basically, the flying dinosaur crocodile. And, yes, she realized that those things swam.
But… with her ability to leap high as a gorilla, she transformed midleap into the kronosaurus—and all of those teeth. Seriously, there were a lot of teeth. And the fins? She used those like the wings of a small plane—as she plowed into the men and women fighting on the ground, biting some of them almost in half.
Not really. She wasn’t that strong. But she had eaten pieces of them. She could tell that for sure. And it was gross.
She wasn’t going to think about it.
Super Douche caught on that their magick was somehow powering her up, and he called a stop to all the magick throwing.
And, as luck would have it, they were finally out of bullets.
Paige settled on the ground as a gorilla, releasing one more alpha roar, which still had the mages unsettled. Then, she shifted into her human form. “Are you done?” she called out, using her failing witch abilities and her alpha will to make her words go further. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was tired. Really, really, really tired.
He stared at her, his expression full of fury. “Where are my men?”
Thank the blessed goddess. Paige just smiled and blinked. “I’m going to let you rub two braincells together and figure that out. Okey-dokey?”
He narrowed his eyes and raised his chin. “Hell. You sent them to Hell.”
“Did I?” Paige lost her grip on up and down and almost stumbled where she stood. She kept it together, though. She couldn’t afford to show weakness. Not now. Not when her forces—she. She was her forces. The elves had fallen and there were only two left—were so beyond tired. Not when the elven people still had people to get out of there.
But there weren’t too many of those left. We
ll, none that she could see. Bodies. There were still a lot of bodies, both elven and human alike.
But not her kids. Well, not in front of her.
There’d better not be bodies of her kids.
What were the elves going to think as they were mourning their kids?
Had the toddlers made it through? Shouldn’t she have fought harder to save more?
How much harder could she have fought?
She was too tired. Time for her to retreat. “I’m leaving now.”
He nodded slightly, refusing to take his eyes off her. “And if I say no? If I try to stop you?”
She didn’t know if she had it in her. She hoped to the goddess she did. She called on her witch hands and pushed, trying to open a door.
That didn’t work.
Well, there was one door that was always open. She hadn’t used it before because…these still weren’t souls. They still had weapons, and as they got closer to her door, to her, they could kill her. They could kill her as they went through her. She didn’t know.
But she needed a threat strong enough to buy her a retreat.
If she survived it.
So, she grabbed Super Douche’s gaze and held it in a vice as she dragged the one agent forward.
It was a young woman. Fear filled her eyes as she was pulled toward Paige. She raised her gun.
It was empty. Thank goodness because Paige would have been dead otherwise.
She pulled out a knife.
Okay. That wasn’t going to be good.
Cawli growled and unraveled the door embedded in her bones.
The woman disappeared before her knife could find a place to slice.
Cawli growled again and sealed the door shut. He was pissed.
She could understand, but she didn’t have time to care. “Do you really want to? I mean really?”
Super Douche’s eyes widened with alarm.
He had to know Paige was pretty close to falling the fuck over. She’d taken on his entire army while he’d stood around and pulled a fucking trigger.
Something shifted on his face. “We have your husband.”
They weren’t married yet. “I know.”
He raised his eyebrow in surprise, a slow smile slithering into place. “Aren’t you going to ask where he is?”
“Nope.” Because she didn’t have the resources to go save his ass right then.
Whiskey Storm (Whiskey Witches Midnight Rising Book 1) Page 16