by Joey W. Hill
Or maybe, like all of them, Elagra was caught up in Ramona’s incomprehensible detachment from the volatile atmosphere.
Ramona didn’t wait for an answer. “They’re a defense mechanism. Something attacks the mollusk inside the shell. A parasite, or just something that irritates it. Or maybe something tries to pry it open and injures it. The mollusk creates the pearl around that spot to seal off the irritation. It overwhelms the wound, the parasite, and becomes something beautiful.”
She swept her gaze over Elagra, head to toe. “Aren’t you cold, in that thin dress? Don’t you want to come inside?”
Ramona flung the pearl up into the air. It erupted into a white fog that billowed outward, swirled, hissed like scalding steam. Raina grabbed Marcie’s arm, yanked her right. She felt the heated grasp of the energy that whipped past. A howl, and when it cleared, Elagra wasn’t there. Ramona was frowning.
“I guess she wasn’t cold enough yet,” she said.
The wind rose again, only this time there was a different tone to it, one that pivoted them all swiftly toward the water. Silas was back in street clothes, no evidence of his scythe, but Marcie wasn’t forgetting it anytime soon. Grim Reaper? Now she knew why she hadn’t wanted to look at him. Could this day get any weirder?
Her heart caught in her throat. On the roof of the Aquarium, Ben had moved to the very edge, so she could see the tips of his shoes over it. If she was still up there, she would have reached up, gripped the back of his belt, because he didn’t seem to be aware of anything but what was happening in front of him. His gaze was trained on the water. No. She squinted to see better. His eyes were closed, though she sensed his attention was on the water, something below it.
Then it broke that surface, slowly emerging.
“Beautiful,” Elagra cried. Marcie and Raina spun back together. The witch stood against the dock rail. There was a shimmer around her that Marcie suspected was some kind of shield, because Raina wasn’t immediately resuming the attack. Instead she was focused on that shimmer, a concentrated look on her brow.
The witch didn’t seem to notice them. She was riveted on what came out of the Mississippi.
Elagra had called her beautiful, and Marcie couldn’t disagree. It was like a dragon and a gargoyle rolled into one, with sleek, dark wet skin, a lot of curved horns and claws. There was an exceptional grace to its movements, despite its gargantuan size. Its eyes seemed to have so many darkly rich colors that sparkled when an explosion of fire bloomed high in the sky. She saw the silhouette of a winged Mikhael diving into the center of that fire, a giant swirl of darkness with moving parts converging around him.
Marcie saw Raina’s gaze cut over to that fire and darkness, her throat work, as her green-gold eyes returned to full human and witch. Mikhael. Her lips moved over the word noiselessly.
A shot of blue fire crackled across the firmament, but seemed to originate from the roof, drawing Marcie’s attention back to Ben. He was talking to the large creature.
To Bonnie. Marcie remembered what she’d told him, and a brief warmth cut the cold fear. The name fit her. Bonnie, who’d just been born, who was emerging into the world. Ben had that little book in his grasp, lifted toward her, holding her attention with that idea Marcie knew he’d thought was bat-shit crazy. But he’d do it anyway, her man. Marcie’s heart pounded a little harder as the creature’s head began to descend closer to him, bringing all those teeth and horns with her.
He wasn’t afraid. She could tell. He was the bravest man she knew. Reckless as hell, but in this case, she felt what he likely did, what Ramona had tried to tell them. Bonnie didn’t intend harm.
Any more than a human intended to step on an ant. Though that didn’t change the outcome for the ant. So she held her breath as Bonnie’s head lowered. But she had obviously connected with Ben, just as they’d suggested, and it was a miracle to watch. Maybe—
White fire shot across the water. It had a tail of blue electricity following it, and it moved too fast. It exploded next to Bonnie’s head like a cannon blast, tearing flesh, striking far too near her eyes. The creature recoiled with a piteous, enraged howl.
Marcie cried out, even as she cursed herself for her stupidity. She suspected Raina was doing the same, but as she turned to re-engage with the witch, she saw Elagra had bolted, was running away from the docks with surprising swiftness, since Ramona’s spell hadn’t been a complete miss. One part of the woman’s leg looked encased in a grooved substance like a mollusk’s shell. The witch’s dreadlocks whipped around her as she threw a wide-eyed look over her shoulder Marcie realized wasn’t for her or Raina.
The ground was shaking, and a swelling roar that seemed to be all around them was coming from one specific direction. The river.
Raina dragged Marcie into a retreat, but not before she saw the wall of water rising up from the Mississippi. In the darkness, with just the dock lamps, it gave the eerie impression of meeting the starless sky, creating an abyss of blackness bearing down on them.
Raina was calling out something, some kind of spell Marcie was sure, her voice breathless, urgent. Worried. Whatever she was doing, she wasn’t sure she’d be in time. She kept them running away from the docks, even as she spoke the words harshly. Marcie noticed Elagra wasn’t attempting any spell craft. Which suggested the amount of water about to hit them was something nothing could stop. It was reaching out like the hand of a giant, coming down to splat a bug.
And they were the bug.
Chapter Seventeen
Raina spun the cushion around Marcie as fast as she could think the spell. It almost fell short, but she saw it enclose Marcie in its bubble right before Raina had to turn her attention to her own survival.
Too late.
The water slammed into her, picking her up and tossing her forward, then catching up to swallow her, tumble her over and over. She hit something that felt like it jammed her shoulder into her chest cavity. Her arms were flailing, so she couldn’t get them wrapped around her head to protect it. When her forehead bounced off something, she blacked out, but she was jumpstarted by sheer panicked survival instinct.
She wasn’t a fan of being out of control anywhere but in Mikhael’s arms, but she’d been there often enough to get her panic under control. She oriented herself enough to cast a shaky levitation spell. It had enough strength to bring her back to the surface, though not smoothly. She bounced off the side of the blue, usually-sparkling globe crowning the Harrah Casino’s entryway. A cut in her shoulder immediately burned from the saltwater, but pain had always been a good focus for her. She scrambled to the top of the globe, breathing hard, and clung to it as the water washed past.
Marcie. Where was Marcie? And Elagra.
Raina.
The urgency of his voice in her mind was a blessing, but she didn’t want Mikhael worrying about her when he had an army to fight. Her heart had stopped, seeing him dive into that nest of winged death.
No time to talk. Busy handling an ass-whooping over here.
His affectionate scoff in her mind was just the shot of adrenaline she needed, laced as it was with concern and deeper things. Watch your ass, vedma. It is mine, after all.
Yes, it was. As his very muscular one was hers. She held that thought for the moment, steadying herself, then got her head back into the game. Just in time to see Ben dealing with a very fractious sea monster and a second wall of water coming in behind the first.
“Hell,” she muttered, and braced herself, but this time the water washing in wasn’t as high. After it roared past the Aquarium, it hit Harrah’s and doused Raina with a heavy sheet of spray, but that was all. When the water tumbled onward, she was able to swipe her wet hair out of her eyes and look for Marcie.
There. Raina felt the tight fist of fear around her heart ease. The bubble had protected the girl from both waves, thank the Goddess. A floating dock, torn loose and thrown between two pilings, had firmly lodged there at a lopsided angle. Marcie’s bubble had bumped against it and held. After her initial start at
realizing there was nothing but empty air beneath her, the girl had put her foot out, found her way to the knee-deep water on the sloped dock. She had the presence of mind to hold onto a coil of rope twined around the piling. She looked as if she was doing what Raina was doing, taking current stock of the situation around them.
A boat had been torn loose from the dock. It was in the middle of the street on its side, swaying in the water. Based on its position, Raina guessed it had crashed into the tiki-style bar and restaurant in front of the mall on the dockside and then rolled from there to the street. The bar was little more than a hollowed-out structure of broken timbers and crumpled tin from the roof demolition, visible just above the churning water.
But nature was the least of their problems. The whipping wind, the unnatural darkness in the sky, took her attention back over toward the Aquarium. Fire and lightning still streaked the firmament. Against it, she caught a glimpse of Mikhael’s silhouette, a winged humanoid figure in among a heart-stopping number of winged not-human ones. She saw the unique blue-gold light of Derek’s magic illuminating the sky with those explosive flashes, and knew he was still right there in it with Mikhael.
They’d been fighting at a low enough elevation, the army would have had to scatter to avoid the wave. They’d obviously rallied, but if they’d broken formation, even momentarily, that meant…
Raina dropped and rolled behind the globe as a rush of dark energy passed over her. The extended talons came so close they snagged her shirt, ripped it across her back, taking flesh with it.
Damn it, but also good. She had a blink to think oh shit as she saw two pass over Marcie’s position, but they paid no attention to her. Whatever blood-and-soul price she’d paid for them, Elagra had obviously contracted them to occupy the magic muscle interfering with her plans. She didn’t see the mortals as a threat. Yet.
Raina scrambled back to her feet, putting the globe at her back, and crouched. The trio of demonic minions that had tried to snatch her up arced above her and then turned, a pelican style plunge back toward her position.
Though hand motions, staffs, wands and words made excellent focus channels, she didn’t need them. She’d been a witch from the moment she’d been born. A practitioner for whom magic had long ago stopped being practice. Instead, it was the air she breathed, the blood rushing through her veins.
As the enemy dove for her, thought and intent came together into projectiles of fire and ice, and a wave of disorientation that snared them like a net. Two crashed into one another and spun away, while the third made it through and cloaked himself in smoke, but not before she saw the gleam of the blade. She dodged right as the sulfur-smelling fog engulfed her. The blade shrieked across the metal of the globe, and she flung herself at the attacker. Slime and muscle. Goddess, she hated demon minions. Like malevolent, squirming, deadly worms.
She’d already yanked her knife from the ankle holster Ruby had given her as a gift last Yule, bless her violent soul. She used it now, jamming it into some soft tissue.
The beast howled. A claw swiped her face, but she jerked back fast enough it was superficial, though she tasted her own blood in the corner of her mouth. She shoved into close quarters again, and was yanked up, then thudded back down in a tangle, her foe unable to get himself turned around into a launch. They rolled along the Harrah’s rooftop, but she got the upper hand, jamming the knife into her enemy in three rapid stabs, stabbing deep. Then twisting.
“You’re done,” she snarled. Though it was her least favorite kind of magic, she pulled the heart energy of the thing into her as she took its life. She needed the fuel and the strength. She’d do a deep cleansing later. Along with a deep tissue massage. Li, her eldest incubus, had great hands.
As she kicked free of her now lifeless opponent, a quick look said that was the last of them. But she had another problem. Fucking hell.
Her slim hope that the dark witch had been pushed to the bottom of the river and was drowning there under a big rock was dashed. Fifty feet down the docks from Marcie, Elagra had resurfaced. As she stood on top of a warehouse whose roof was half torn off, her target was obvious.
Ben was full of surprises. The cynical, wise-assed human had reconnected with the injured sea monster, was calming her down. Ruby—Raina recognized her energy signature—had levitated Ben so he could better communicate with the “baby,” and he was still there, now, eye to multi-eyes with it. He had his hands on her, a remarkable sight. Raina wished she could see her fellow witches, but if Ruby had done that, then she and Ramona would be busy getting the cocooning energy ready to wrap around her, so they could transport her out of there.
They were doing their job and she needed to do hers, keeping Elagra out of the mix. As the witch stood on the warehouse overhang, her hands were moving in a fast, graceful motion, her mouth moving just as quickly. Raina could feel the malevolent energy vibrating off her, even from here. And damn it all, the witch was smart enough to still be shielded, so that she couldn’t be struck down unawares by another witch.
Raina knew what was turning the wheels in the dark witch’s head. She’d tried hurting the newborn to get her to accomplish Elagra’s destructive goals, but that hadn’t succeeded. Ben had established a bond. So Elagra had to get rid of Ben, a far more vulnerable target than the creature she’d wanted to see born. It was unexpected that she hadn’t tried that angle first, but then, just like the minions’ dismissal of Marcie, it was clear Elagra hadn’t anticipated the humans being such a threat.
Raina wasn’t the only one who’d noticed what was happening on the top of the warehouse. She also wasn’t the only one who considered neutralizing Elagra her mission.
Marcie had gotten off the piling, likely stroked through the now waist deep water to the warehouse. Raina expected she’d hauled herself up to the roof using the drainpipe. The girl was now on the roof, running flat out across it toward the edge where the witch had stationed herself.
Screened by the wind, thunder and firefight, Marcie was banking on Elagra not detecting her approach. The girl had noticed the shielding on Elagra, same as Raina had, but Raina realized Marcie was taking the chance that Elagra’s shield was only to deflect magical threat.
And hell, she was right. Thank Goddess for Elagra’s tunnel vision. The magical force field didn’t stop Marcie. She went through it as if it wasn’t there, and plowed into the witch like a battering ram.
They rolled across the flat expanse. Elagra snarled and struck at Marcie’s face, raking her with the lethal nails. As they hit the raised lip of the roof edge, Elagra brought her legs up like a lithe cat to shove at Marcie’s midriff. Marcie blocked and countered with a punch to the face. This one made direct contact with the bridge of Elagra’s nose.
Marcie had the advantage in hand-to-hand. But Raina knew all Elagra needed was enough of an opening, enough space. She’d blast Marcie with a fatal dose of magic as soon as she could be sure the recoil wouldn’t take her out with it.
It would only take Elagra a few moments to recognize that as her best option. Whereas Marcie might not realize it was the only kind of opening Elagra needed to win the fight. Or maybe she did, because it was next to a miracle that the fight hadn’t broken apart enough, even for a moment, to give Elagra the chance to do it.
Raina had to get over there before it was too late.
Marcie had expected to be dead, or washed halfway into the Business District when that wall of water hit. Instead, as she was tumbled around, she realized the water wasn’t touching her. She was in some kind of cushioned hamster ball, where she could look up and all around and see things, all while remaining dry. Except she was being tumbled too fast to look at anything. However, since she was also not drowning or being impaled on storm debris, she wasn’t going to complain.
When her protective shield landed her on a twisted floating dock lodged between two pilings, she was bruised and had a heart rate somewhere in the three thousand beats per minute range, but she was alive and pretty much unscathed. She
was certain she had Raina to thank for that, though she was worried because she didn’t see the witch.
She did see Elagra, and the sight of her fired her blood, gave her a needed shot of rage-induced adrenaline. She was running across the flooded docks, bounding like some strange frog along the water’s surface until she reached the top of a warehouse. Then she was on solid ground, but she was doing freaky things with her hands, her mouth moving even faster, and her attention was on something up ahead of her, in the sky.
When Marcie followed that line, her heart triple hammered again. Ben, suspended in the air, was back with Bonnie.
The vision of the witch striking and hurting the creature, the blast coming narrowly close to taking Ben with it, was still technicolor clear in Marcie’s brain.
“Oh no, you don't,” she said, scrambling to her feet and taking off after the dark witch. Thank Goddess the hamster ball let her go. She plunged into the water, stroked toward the warehouse as fast as she could. The drainpipe was the quickest access. She hauled herself hand over hand onto the roof. Once there, she broke into a run. Though Elagra was her primary focus, she had to let herself look toward Ben for just a moment. Standing on air, saying something to the baby, throwing his arms out, laughing, talking, doing a variety of things to get her attention.
She also noticed Elagra wasn’t looking at the sea monster. She was looking at Ben as she made her crazy hand gestures and mutterings. Oh, Goddess. Elagra had realized removing Ben from the equation was the better way to secure her victory.
You touch him, you'll be too dead to savor anything but your own grave.
Every workout, everything she’d done to prepare herself to run down perps, she put into this. She would catch the witch. She would get there in time.
She wasn’t going to get there in time. The witch was lifting her hands, drawing back.
A fireworks explosion of movement snapped Elagra’s attention to the top of the mall. Even Marcie glanced that way, briefly distracted by the odd sight.