Bewitched, Blooded and Bewildered (17 page)

Loud crashes shook the house as the hunters battered at the doors, but these weren’t flimsy wooden doors, so they’d have to work at getting through them. The windows, on the other hand, were bulletproof but not battering-ram-proof, and hunters streamed into the living room through the broken front windows. Lex charged them, and as they raised their guns, their first few shots bounced off the shield. I kept close to him and put everything I had into our shield, so much so that I could see blasts of frost where it took hits.

“Portia!” I called, hoping for reinforcements. She didn’t show, and I cursed. Of all the times for her to be off on a field trip.

Instead of bullets skittering across the floor, I spotted tranq darts, and I frowned. The hunters rushed us once they figured out their darts were doing diddly-squat. I stood fast, knowing the shields would stop them. One of the nice things about Lex’s guardian spear is that the thing has reach, so he was able to skewer a hunter without stepping outside the shields. The hunter gurgled and fell, and I turned to see another one hit the barrier and stop cold. It looked confused, as confused as a man dressed head to toe in black-ops gear like a soldier in an Xbox game can look. He tilted his goggled head at me, and I flipped him off.

“I can do this all damn day, asshole. Get the fuck out of my house,” I snarled.

“Surrender and you won’t be harmed,” it ordered.

“Oh hell no. You motherfuckers burned down a soccer mom. I’m not buyin’ that bullshit.”

Before the storm trooper could pull another cease-and-desist order, the dogs went after his legs. He went down, and I stabbed my blade into his chest. Not bad. I was getting better at this. I should’ve felt bad for killing a human being—not a vamp, not a demon, but a person. I didn’t. Instead, I stabbed him a few more times with anger roaring through me, but I didn’t have time to linger, because there were plenty more of them.

Lex’d taught me to go for the weak spots in armor. The material may have evolved from chain mail to Kevlar, but the weak spots remained the same. I aimed for the neck, and I moved like a fencer. I’m not sure what they were trained to deal with, but it wasn’t me and Lex. We fought back-to-back and killed every motherfucker stupid enough to get close.

I made my first mistake when I heard one of the dogs yelp. I couldn’t see which one it was in the chaos, but Lex and I both flinched. My shields couldn’t protect the dogs. For a moment my heart froze, and then something broke inside me. Maybe it was that last brittle bit of my witch upbringing that said to do no harm. Maybe it was the last shard of mercy I had for people who surely couldn’t know what they were doing by killing innocent magicians. But most likely it was the part of me that cries when dogs die in movies. And that part of me latched on to the inner frost faerie I’d been learning how to tap into, and I lost my shit.

The kitchen sink exploded as I pulled watery fuel from it, and winter cold exploded from me like an atomic bomb of frosty anger. Ice blasted through the room and knocked everyone down except for me and Lex. We parted to make sure the bad guys stayed down, with extreme prejudice. I didn’t count them. I just stabbed and moved on to the next before they got up.

The sound of gunshots jerked my attention toward the front door, and Lex shuddered and fell. The world slowed, my ears ringing. A man with a gun stood in the doorway, swinging around to aim at me, and bullets pinged off my shields with sharp cracks of ice—guess they ran out of darts. Unlike the rest of the hunters we’d just taken out, this one wore a plain black suit and dark sunglasses. The sunglasses at night triggered my
what the fuck?
alarm, and it blared full blast as the man holstered his gun and hurled a fireball at me. I ducked, and the flames bounced off my shields and exploded against the wall.

Wired on adrenalin, I charged him. My shields bowled him over, and while he was down I pounced on him. The smell of sulfur gagged me, and I realized in horror that instead of tackling a turncoat sorcerer, I’d pinned down a demon.

“Who summoned you?” I shouted. The demon smiled and tried to buck me off, so I dropped my sword, grabbed my dagger, and stabbed it. “
Who?
”

“No one,” it answered in a low growl.

“Bullshit. Are the summoners working with the Prometheans?”

“What summoners? They’re all dead.”

I blinked at it, confused, and the demon laughed. A burst of pungent brimstone made my eyes water, and I banished the bastard back to hell before he could do anything stupid. I wasn’t going to get anything useful from him anyway. The demon disappeared, leaving an oily, black residue that stained the floor and my jeans, and the plaintive sound of Bubba’s whining caught my attention.

Stumbling to my feet, I sheathed my weapons and spotted the shepherd behind me, his tail between his legs as he stood over Lex. He was so still—I staggered toward them, my knees buckled, and I collapsed at Lex’s side. He was alive. Unconscious, but alive. His chest rose and fell with a wheezing gurgle as he struggled to breathe, and my hands shook as I pressed them against his wounds. Too much blood, too much damage—I’d dealt with claws, bites, slashes, tears and stabbing wounds, but bullets? Bullets were completely new territory. How the fuck was I supposed to heal that? I shoved as much healing energy as I could at him, and the world dimmed around me. My magical batteries were almost tapped out. Lord and Lady, I couldn’t faint now. Not now. If he didn’t get help soon, he’d die.

“Portia!” I shouted again. My voice was high and thin, filled with terror. I glanced around the room, but nothing happened. Lex groaned, and I flinched at the sound. “
Portia.
Damn it, I need help.”

“What happened here?” a voice asked, but it wasn’t my faerie cousin. I shot a look over my shoulder and spotted Faust standing behind me. Not who I wanted, but he would do.

“Help me,” I begged. “I can’t—I don’t know what to do.”

Faust slipped his jacket off, balled it up and placed it beneath Lex’s head. “I can help you, but you need to stabilize him first. The trip could kill him otherwise.”

“I can’t,” I repeated. “I need my rings. I need a spell. It’s too much—” I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t strong enough. Lex was going to die—

“Catherine. Look at me.” Faust grabbed my chin and turned my face toward his. “Focus. You can do this. Remove the bullets, strengthen him as much as you can, and another healer will see to the rest. It’s very simple.”

“It’s not simple!” I screeched.

“Yes. It is. Think of them as big splinters. Surely you’ve removed a splinter before?” One thin brow arched above his dark, smoky lenses.

“Yes.”

“Then do it. May I borrow your cellular phone?”

“Yeah, it’s on the counter,” I muttered. Splinters. Nothing but big, evil metal splinters. My heart raced and my hands shook, but I could handle splinters. Sure, no problem…

Placing my hands over the wounds, I closed my eyes, stretched out my magic and felt for the presence of the bullets. I found two—two hard, cold lumps of invading metal. Was there a third one? Maybe it’d gone right through…was that good or bad? Good that I didn’t have to dig it out, bad that it’d probably done extra damage on the way out. I tugged on the first one, slowly at first, not sure if yanking it out was a good idea, like ripping off a bandage. Lex hissed, a strangled, choking sound.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, honey—I’ll fix it,” I assured him. Fast then, to get it over with. I yanked at the bullet and it leapt from the wound into the palm of my hand. I squeezed it in my fist, unsure of what to do, and I stuffed it into the pocket of my jeans. One down, one to go. Faust’s voice droned on behind me, probably talking to Zach. Great. I couldn’t even begin to worry about that now.

The second bullet was in a trickier spot, lodged near his kidneys. That would be hell to heal, so I needed to be careful about it. Sweat broke out across my brow, and a drop slid across the left lens of my glasses. Either that, or I was crying. Both were likely at the moment. My magic was fading, and I struggled to keep hold of the bullet. It was slippery, as though my actual fingers were struggling to hold it, instead of the spell. Finally it was free, and I put it in my pocket to join the first one. I poured everything I had left into strengthening him, but I had to hold back just enough to keep me conscious. I couldn’t faint, because I couldn’t trust Faust and Zach not to let Lex
accidentally
die. I had to make sure they really helped him.

“There now, that’s better. I knew you could handle it,” Faust said. “There’s a cleanup crew on the way to deal with the bodies. Let’s be on our way.”

I nodded, my hands pressed against Lex’s wounds. He was still bleeding, and I didn’t have the strength to stop it. “The dogs and my cats. I don’t know where Cesár is.”

“The cleanup crew—”

“They won’t go with just anybody. Dammit, where’s Portia?”

“I will find your cousin, and she will take care of your pets,” Faust assured me. He placed a hand on my shoulder and then the other on Lex’s chest. There was a quick blast of freezing cold and the room went dark.

Chapter Twelve

When the lights came up again I blinked several times, trying to get my bearings, and we were in an office I didn’t recognize. A big wooden desk reminded me of Simon’s library, but it wasn’t ornate enough, and I knew Faust wouldn’t have taken us there. I turned at the sound of movement behind me and spotted Zach approaching. His expression went from furious anger to fear in the blink of an eye when he saw me.

“Are you hurt?” he asked. Faust stepped aside, and Zach placed a hand on my shoulder where the faerie’s had been a moment before. I shrugged him off.

“He needs a healer,” I said.

“I know. She’s on the way.”

“You have to help him.” I stared up at him, and Zach nodded.

“We will.”

“Don’t bullshit me,” I snapped. “I know you want him out of the way. I want your word that he’ll be helped.”

He frowned. “I would never—”

“
Promise me, Zachary,
” I shouted. “If he dies, you’ll be next. I am not fucking joking.”

“I promise. I swear that we will save him. He’ll be fine, Catherine. Now tell me if you’re hurt.”

I looked down at myself. I was covered with blood, like a chick from a slasher film, with a side of demon ooze. “I don’t know. It’s mostly not mine.” Pain bloomed through my bare feet
.
“Okay, yeah. I’m hurt. But I’m not leaving him.”

Zach sighed. “Fine.”

I turned my attention back to Lex, who was disturbingly still unconscious. I wanted to funnel more healing magic into him, but I’d fry myself. It was a tough choice—help my husband and risk hurting myself, or wait until Zach’s healer showed up and risk him getting worse in the meantime. I settled on holding his hand, crying and praying.

When the stretcher arrived, I wondered why the hell Zach had a stretcher lying around—must be a vampire thing. An elderly woman arrived with it, looking like a kindly country doctor in a floral print dress and a white lab coat. Though my nostrils were filled with the stink of blood, I caught a whiff of pine-scented witch magic from her. Was she an outcast like me? I couldn’t imagine her working with Zach otherwise.

“I’m Amelia. You look like you’ve had a rough night.”

“He’s been shot. I removed the bullets. They’re in my pocket.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll have him patched up very soon.”

I reluctantly let go of his hand as her assistants loaded Lex onto the stretcher. He groaned, and I flinched. When I tried to stand up to follow, I crumpled as my feet protested with screeching pain. There was no way I was walking until some serious first aid happened. Zach picked me up and I scowled at him.

“No,” I said.

“You’re hurt. Don’t argue.” He carried me away, and we followed the stretcher until it went down one hallway and Zach turned down another.

“No!” I snapped. I squirmed in his arms, trying to escape. “You son of a bitch. Let me go!”

“Catherine, think. You know a healer needs to concentrate. You’ll only distract Amelia.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“I gave my word.”

“And you bend the rules until they scream for mercy,” I argued. “How am I supposed to trust your word?”

“Well, if you hadn’t broken the bond, you would know I am speaking the truth,” he ground out.

I winced. He had a point. Maybe I should have waited another day. Then again, how could I have known that hunters were about to kick down our doors? My options were to trust Zach or fight like hell to stay with Lex, so logically I fought like hell. I shoved Zach away with my shields, and he stumbled and dropped me like a sack of potatoes. Pain sliced through me as I hobbled away, but I only managed a few steps. This time it wasn’t faerie transportation, but a sleep spell that got me. When I awoke, I found myself propped up in a comfy chair in what I assumed was a guest bedroom. Harrison was kneeling next to my feet, adding another glass shard to a mountain of bloody slivers piled on the floral patterned ottoman that matched the chair.

“You rotten son of a—”

“Why did you break the bond?” he asked, interrupting my tirade. Zach yanked a shard of glass from my right foot, and I jerked it out of his reach.

“Ow! Motherfucker, that hurts,” I howled.

“Hold still and it will hurt less,” Zach replied.