Magic Without Mercy (33 page)

“Go to hell,” I said to Jingo Jingo.

Jingo Jingo shook his big head. “Such a shame.” He turned and walked away, toward the back of the crowd.

A low murmur of chanting from the Authority built to a chorus of voices. Voices raised against us, voices raising magic to kill us.

“They don’t touch the wall,” I said to the Hounds as we spread out and took our stand. “They don’t touch anything or anyone inside that wall. We kill anyone who gets too close. Understand?”

“We understand,” Jack said, his voice low, but carrying on the still night air. “Kill anyone who gets too close.”

I heard the snick of a lighter catching flame. “This ought to be fun,” Shame said, lighting a cigarette. “I call dibs on that piece of shit Jingo Jingo.” He unzipped his coat and pulled out a long knife and a gun.

“Do you care how we kill them?” Davy asked. His voice was even, strong.

But I knew he had to see Sunny out there in the crowd. Yes, she was a member of the Authority who was standing against us. She was also the woman he loved.

Just like the others gathered were my friends, and friends of all of us.

Or at least they used to be.

“Unless they are breaking down that wall, wound; don’t kill,” I said. “Knock them out, stop them, hamstring them. Some of those people are my friends. Our friends. Good people. They just don’t understand that they’re following a madman.”

“But if they touch the wall?” Bea asked from where she stood next to Jack.

“We’re going to make sure they don’t get that far.”

W
e stood, fifty strong against the Authority, city to our left, the river to our right, the empty parking lot behind us. The Authority was holding about eighty yards in front of us, each of them with one hand free to use magic, the other around his or her weapon of choice. There was a lot of manicured grass between us, a few trees at the edges, and the St. Johns Bridge spiraling up to the night sky behind them. No one was moving. No one was throwing magic, other than the Georgia sisters, who stood at the rear of their group, holding the bubble of Illusion around us all.

It was like teetering on the edge of a fall, breathless, calm, knowing the storm was about to hit and swallow us whole. I didn’t want this to happen. But there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The ground beneath my feet shook. Hayden swung his broadsword, the shotgun in his other hand, and yelled, casting a spell I’d never seen before. It rose up like a huge wave, a barrier that grew and grew, then crested, falling, rushing toward the mob in front of us.

And when it fell, it sucked down all the sound. All the chanting, all the air. At least twenty people fell. But the rest, all of them, came rushing across the field toward us, throwing magic, so much, so fast, my throat burned from
the heat of it; my eyes watered from the sparks; my skin seared with the acid of spells.

No magic for me. If I cast, I’d pass out. And then I’d be killed.

“Stay back,” Zayvion said to me. “Behind us.”

“This is my fight,” I said. “I can handle it.”

He turned to me, grabbed my arm. “It’s all of our fight. We need you to keep us together, Allie. The Hounds won’t listen to my commands or follow anyone else. Hell, you’re the only one all of us will listen to. We need you behind us, directing, keeping us alive.”

Sweet hells. He was right. I hated it, but he was right.

“Don’t you go hero and die on me,” I said.

He smiled. “Never that.”

And then he waded into the fray, sword in one hand, spells in the other, running across the field to meet the mass, mowing people down as he went. I didn’t look to see if the people who fell at his feet were alive or just knocked out. I didn’t have time to count, to wonder, to worry. Mike Barham, a magic user from Seattle, and a man Shame hated, came at Zayvion with magic wrapping both his hands like gold gauntlets.

Zay Blocked his first attack, then swung his sword, cleaving through the gold fire burning in the air between them. He countered with a black glyph that spun a net to tangle Mike’s hands, and then Zay stepped in, and clubbed him with the hilt of his sword. Mike crumpled to the ground.

Hayden charged into the crowd and fought, sword and magic, and sheer brute force. Lesser magic users were tossed aside as he held our left flank. Maeve and Victor stood ground just a few yards ahead of me. They worked Shields and Blocks holding our line and pushing the Authority back, while Terric and Shame launched
spells high overhead to batter the Shields the Authority held in place, and give Zay, Hayden, and the Hounds some breathing room.

The Hounds were everywhere, fighting in pairs. Bats, crowbars, rifles, and magic were doing a hell of a lot of damage as they wove in and out of the Authority’s forces. I caught a glimpse of Collins diving into the fray and disappearing in the press of people.

Davy ran straight into the crowd, and my heart stuttered. He wasn’t using magic. He wasn’t even drawing a weapon. He was running, calling a name as if there weren’t a battle being waged around him. Calling for Sunny.

“Davy,” I yelled, “no!”

He couldn’t hear me, or didn’t want to hear me. He phased from solid to ghost, as magic struck him. Each time he was struck by magic, he went ghost and sucked the magic in. He used that magic, like tentacles lashing out from his hands, grabbing and holding his attackers, throwing them aside. And then he became solid again.

People were screaming. People were writhing. And still Davy ran, calling Sunny’s name.

Sunny heard him. Found him. Stood in front of him as a pressing crowd of Hounds swarmed around them, rolled past them like surf over ragged stones.

Davy and Sunny were in their own world, silent, still. They stood close enough they could touch each other, but remained untouching.

Until Davy raised his hand, and gently brushed her dark braid away from her face. She searched his eyes, frowning, as if trying to remember something and unable to do so.

A man—I didn’t know his name, had never seen him before—threw a spell the size of a tank at Sunny.

Davy grabbed Sunny around the waist, shielding her
with his body. He lifted one hand, his arm straight and high, like a lightning rod, and the magic poured into him. He faded, became nothing but an outline of who he was. Davy fell to his knees as he whipped the spell back at the caster.

That man went down, and didn’t stand up again.

Sunny reached for Davy, but her hand went straight through him. She was trying to help him to his feet, trying to fight off the people coming toward them, trying to get him away, safe. Trying to stay alive.

I started toward them and nearly fell.

Even though I wasn’t casting magic, so much poured around me, contained in the Illusion bubble, it made me sick, dizzy. I took a few deep breaths, trying to hold it together.

Jack Quinn appeared beside me, caught my elbow, and made sure I was steady on my feet before jogging off to stick that bowie knife of his into the side of a man who had Bea pinned.

I glanced at the field. Davy was on his feet, his arm around Sunny as they worked their way out of the worst of the fight.

Maybe three-quarters of the magic users were still on their feet. We were fighting, but we were falling just as quickly as they were.

Dr. Fisher knelt beside one of the Authority, a woman. She cast a healing spell, then stood, and walked over to one of the Hounds who was trying to stanch a gut wound. For a second, I thought she might end him, but she gently moved his hands away and healed him too.

Looked like the good doctor wasn’t taking sides. That was something, at least.

Still, it wouldn’t take much more for them to break past our Shields. There were still more of them than us. And if they reached the wall where Cody and Stone and
Nola were trapped, they would destroy everything we were fighting for.

“Maeve,” I yelled, “can you hold alone?”

She nodded.

“Victor, to Hayden.”

Victor dropped his Shield spell, and drew his sword as he ran toward Hayden. Hayden had sheathed his shotgun down his back and was holding off his attackers with broadsword and magic. But he seemed to have become the main target for half the remaining Authority, and I didn’t know how long he could hold.

Then from the middle of the Authority, I heard a broken yell. Two goons who had worked for Bartholomew heaved a massive spell across the field. A roll of blue fire caught and poured across the grass, burning and electrocuting everyone who couldn’t throw a Block, a Break, or a Protection spell.

Nothing could stop it. It was too fast. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t throw magic. And it was headed right for me.

I turned to run, and a hand gripped my arm, pulled me up off my feet. Yanked me away.

Not Zayvion. Not Shame.

“Run, Allie.” It was Kevin, Violet’s bodyguard. He pushed me forward as he spun and spread his stance. He threw a Block spell that could extinguish the sun. The blue fire hit it, hissed and blistered, and was snuffed out.

Count one more fighter on the good guys’ side.

I ran. To open ground, back toward the wall, where Paul stood defending magic that licked and crackled past Maeve’s Shields. There was still no sign of Nola or Cody or Stone. I pivoted to look out over the fight again.

Melissa Whit broke free from the crowd. She was running my way. Even at this distance, I could see the glint of her teeth, bared in hatred.

She wasn’t headed to the wall. She was after me, out
to kill me. She pulled her shotgun up to her hip as she ran, then fired.

Maeve’s Shield stopped magic, not bullets.

I fumbled for my gun, pulled it free from the holster. I raised the gun. But couldn’t fire.

My finger was on the trigger. I couldn’t force myself to squeeze, couldn’t fire the shot.

Melissa didn’t pause. Melissa didn’t stop. She fired again.

A hand reached around from behind me. A hand wrapped warm and strong over my hand on the gun. A finger slipped on top of mine and a man pressed tight against my back. I could feel his heat and arousal.

“Just relax,” Collins said, his voice an intimate exhalation in my ear. “And let me show you how to kill someone.”

“No,” I said, “don’t.”

He pulled his finger and my finger down on the trigger.

The kick of six shots in rapid succession shook through me, through him.

Melissa Whit shuddered with each bullet that buried into her flesh in a clean circle over her heart. She staggered. Fell.

“Was it good for you?” Collins said.

I turned to punch him in the face, but he was already ripping the gun from my hand and backpedaling fast. Then he took off running.

That son of a bitch.

The horror of what I’d done raced through me and froze me in place. I hadn’t fired the shots, but I hadn’t stopped Collins either. I’d killed a woman. I’d shot someone until that person was dead. Again.

She was not an innocent in this, Allison. She wanted everything Bartholomew wanted.

My dad’s voice snapped hard and sharp in my mind. I blinked several times, trying to get my bearings.

Defend yourself,
Dad said.
Defend your friends.

I hated taking orders from him, but he was right. I couldn’t fall apart now. Plenty of people were going to die today. Some of them by my hand.

But not with a gun. I drew my sword, the rightness of it doing more good to clear my head than anything else, and scanned the field.

Victor was holding his own against at least half a dozen magic users, canceling and breaking each spell they threw at him, while Hounds took out knees with baseball bats, threw dirt in eyes, and fought dirty with weapons and magic.

Collins had given up on the gun and produced a crowbar from somewhere, probably from one of the Hounds who was down. He used it with a vicious sort of glee, a wide smile on his blood-spattered face. He swung it like a bat, then with surgical precision, cracking bones, breaking limbs. And carving out great hunks of flesh with the hooked end of it.

Davy and Sunny defended our right flank. Out in the fray I caught the mesmerizing power of Shame and Terric. They fought side by side, light and dark, wielding magic and weapons in perfect sync. They fought with a single mind and single purpose. To kill Jingo Jingo.

Jingo Jingo had been Shame’s teacher, probably Terric’s too. Jingo Jingo had also betrayed us all and tried to kill Shame’s mother, Maeve. He’d left her with injuries she still hadn’t recovered from.

Shamus Flynn was not a man who held forgiveness in his heart. There wasn’t room for it with all the hatred caged there.

Terric fought with an ax in each hand, and I could hear his voice over the roar of the fight. He was chanting
magic, using so much he glowed with gold and white light.

Shame’s voice was lost to the battle, a low hiss of curses, vile and sharp, falling from his lips as he knocked out man after man, the grass dying away to dust beneath his feet with each step he took. He was sucking energy out of grass, the bushes, the trees, calling ribbons of magic to rush to him and feed his anger. The trees might never be the same again, but I did not see him draw the energy or life from a single person.

He didn’t need to. He was a burning column of controlled hatred, magic whipping around him, black as death, crackling with hungry red flames.

And then I didn’t have any time to watch. A wide, dark-haired man swung a sword at my head. I ducked, and stayed low, sweeping his feet just as he reached the extension of his swing.

He stumbled, pushed up, chanting a spell. I couldn’t block magic. I had no defense against it. But it took a lot of concentration to cast magic.

I lunged, the tip of my katana brushing dangerously close to his face. He parried the move, but stopped chanting to engage my blade. He moved backward, and I was forced to follow, darting in fast, driving him so he didn’t have time to think of another spell. I needed to stay close to stop him, stab him, make him shut up.

He drew a very quick Freeze spell.

Holy shit, that was going to hurt.

I pulled a knife out of my belt and threw it at his head.