Bewitched & Betrayed

Tam shot an infuriated glance at Sirens’ roof, flung open the doors, and ran inside.



I was on his heels with Vegard right behind me. I sheathed my blades and checked my throwing daggers. I was going to bag myself a sniper. Alive would be good; I had some questions for the bastard, but dead would be perfectly acceptable.



I ran across the theatre floor toward the stage; that is, until Tam’s arm went around my waist and snatched me off my feet.



“Just where do you think—”



I twisted in his arms, putting us face-to-face. I pointed straight up. “Same place you’re going.”



“I’m going to the roof; you’re staying here.” Tam released me and ran to the bar, reaching behind it to pull out the wickedest crossbow I’d ever seen and a quarrel of bolts big enough to take down a sentry dragon.



I whistled. “Got another one of—”



“No!” Tam stalked past me and leapt to the stage in one smooth move. The stage was nearly shoulder-high on me so I had to run around to the stairs.



“Vegard, keep Raine down here,” Tam shouted back without turning. He was headed backstage and to the ladder that went to the catwalk above the stage and to the roof.



Not without me, he wasn’t. I think Tam realized that he couldn’t keep me from following him and get to the roof at the same time, and Vegard wasn’t about to sit this one out. By going up on that roof, he could protect me and get his hands on a Khrynsani at the same time. Tam slung the straps of the bow and quarrel over his shoulders and climbed that ladder quicker than a man could run up a flight of stairs.



“Those sentry dragons are going to torch anything on that roof,” Vegard said from behind me. “And if they’re Khrynsani, they’re goblins, and our men won’t be able to tell the difference between them and Talon.”



Tam swore and climbed faster.



I couldn’t catch Tam, but I could almost keep up. “We need one alive.” Though Nachtmagus Kalta could probably have a conversation with a dead one just as easily, and we’d be spared the annoyance of leaving a Khrynsani among the living. But in my family, killing someone you needed information from was just sloppy work. I was going to get a sniper, neat and tidy. He might have a neat hole or two in him, but he’d still be able to talk.



The ladder ended in the kind of door I didn’t want to see. It wasn’t a door; it was a hatch. It looked metal, and being on a roof meant it was probably heavy. Something or someone could be on top of it or next to it. That meant anyone trying to get through would have their head sticking up for about a split second too long if there was an alert sniper on the other side.



Tam slowed as he neared the top of the ladder, his boots making no sound as he stopped just short of the hatch. I stopped about five rungs below him. If Tam needed to come back down quickly, I’d worry about how to get out of his way then. Tam had the wicked crossbow, not me. It was the roof of his nightclub that a sniper was using as his killing perch—and it was his son up there. By rights, it was his takedown.



I was in the middle of hoping that the hinges had been oiled recently, when the hatch was flung open above Tam’s head.



I knew Tam was fast, but damn. One second his crossbow was slung over his shoulder; the next he put a bolt straight up through the opening. A grunt and the thud of a body hitting the roof told me that not only had some idiot opened the hatch; he’d bent over to take a peek inside.



Since stealth had just been shot to hell, Tam leapt out onto the roof, a solid shield of red surrounding him. He just stood there, unmoving, not firing, glowing red, and scanning the rooftop. He held his crossbow ready, but he didn’t fire; he also didn’t call out the all clear.



“What is it?” I asked Tam in mindspeak. About the only good thing about the umi’atsu bond that Tam and I shared was the ability to communicate silently. That had come in handy recently.



“Talon’s got one.” Even Tam’s mindspeak was the barest whisper.



I knew why.



Spellsong magic was dependent on sound: tone and pitch. Vocal or direct magical interference could negate a spellsong or send it snapping back at the singer. A master spellsinger could block out interference.



Talon wasn’t a master. At least I didn’t think so.



I shielded myself and scrambled as quickly and silently as I could through the hatch before Tam could think to close it on me. Vegard emerged a split second after I did. From the shouts down below, Imala Kalis and her people were still under attack, but no one was firing on them from Sirens’ roof.



Tam hadn’t taken cover behind anything because there was absolutely zero cover up here. If we lived through tonight, I was sure Tam would rectify that oversight.



Talon had a sniper frozen, unmoving, unblinking, unaware. With a paralysis spell, the subject had no clue what was happening. Like I’d said, it was as if the kid had frozen time.



Talon was unwholesomely handsome, a slightly smaller version of his father. The only difference was Talon’s paler gray skin and aquamarine eyes courtesy of his elven mother.



The kid’s voice was silk, descending in tone and pitch until he held a single deep note and then carefully let it evaporate in the air.



I reached for my blades. To stop a spellsong is to stop the spell.



Talon’s spell held and the sniper didn’t as much as blink.



It should have been impossible, but unless my eyes were lying to me, it was all too possible, and Talon had done it easily.



With an ease that said it clearly wasn’t the first time he’d done it.



Talon sounded pleased with himself. “Don’t worry,” he told Tam. “I got this one; you got the other. End of problem. It was just the two of them up here.”



What Tam was worried and angry about wasn’t snipers on his roof, but what his son had just done and who might have seen him do it. Tam’s fear was a palpable thing in the air. The only thing Tam had ever been truly afraid of was having someone he loved in danger. I sensed that fear now for Talon.



Tam’s voice was a tight, enraged whisper. “I’ve told you never to—”



“Keep a killer from putting a bolt in your back?” Talon retorted, never taking his eyes off of his subject. Apparently singing wasn’t necessary to maintain the spell, but concentration was.



Vegard had a pair of slender manacles in his hands and was quickly but carefully approaching the frozen sniper. Get him cuffed, and Talon could let him go.



“Never to expose yourself needlessly,” Tam snapped.



“This wasn’t needless.”



“In your opinion. Don’t you ever—”



“What? Save your life?”



“You just showed the head of the goblin secret service and her top agents exactly what you’re capable of—and any Khrynsani who might have seen you.”



Talon blanched. “Oh shit.”



“Yes, it is,” Tam readily agreed. “And you’ve jumped in it with both feet.”



Vegard cuffed one of the sniper’s wrists and was prying the crossbow out of his hand. That done, he cuffed both hands behind the man’s back. With him frozen like that I’d expected him to be stiff as a board, but his body was still pliant, just staring and unresponsive. Vegard jerked the hood off of his head.



An elf.



Oh hell. Not just any elf. A Nightshade.



Talon just sank in that metaphorical crap heap up to his neck.



Nightshades were assassins, kidnappers, blackmailers, or whatever they had been given enough gold to do. You pay, they’ll play. And to get a Nightshade in a playful mood took more gold than could be had outside of either a vast personal fortune—or a government treasury.



The air moved, brushing the skin on the back of my neck.



We weren’t alone.



Just because I couldn’t see, hear, or smell him didn’t mean he wasn’t there, watching us. He was; I could feel it. And he had been the entire time.



“A veil.” I sent the thought to Tam. “A good one.” Recently some demons had used veils to hide themselves. Thanks to the boost my magic had picked up from the Saghred, I’d been able to see them just fine. It was night, the sniper was probably wearing black, but he shouldn’t be invisible, at least not to me.



A prickling of magic was all the warning we got.



Tam fired a bolt that blazed red like a comet at the spot where the man had to be. Something batted it harmlessly aside with no more effort than swatting a fly.



Then came a laugh, taunting and confident.



And familiar.



Banan Ryce had always been a cocky bastard.



The Nightshade commander dropped the veil and with a tug and dramatic flourish pulled off the hood covering his head. The streetlamps gave me enough light to know it was Banan. I didn’t need any more light to remember what he looked like: dark hair, tanned skin, pale green eyes, crooked smile, and the morals of a horny demon with an hour to live.



He had an absurdly large crossbow leveled on yours truly. “Consorting with goblins again, Raine?”



I indicated the bow. “Compensating for something, Banan?”



“Your half-breed spawn is indeed gifted, Nathrach.”



Tam controlled himself. I knew it took nearly everything he had not to close the distance between them and rip Banan’s head off.



Banan kept going. “My employers are going to be thrilled to know what tricks your mongrel can do.”



Talon snapped three words—the same words he’d used on the sniper in the street.



Banan laughed as they bounced harmlessly off of his shields.



“Nice try, boy. If I had a treat, I’d toss you one.” Then he smiled like this was the happiest moment of his life.



Then he fired.



And I trusted my backup.



Shooters usually expect you to dive left or right. I did neither, instead diving down and straight toward Banan as Tam and Vegard opened up on him. With our umi’atsu bond, I didn’t have to tell Tam what I was going to do; he knew it as I thought it. It was teamwork at its finest.



Banan’s shield was solid, but regardless of how strong they were, shields extended only so far. Tam kept him occupied with a blur of magic-spawned red needles while I worked on that shield. I wasn’t pounding my way through it; I was going under it, not to attack Banan, but to let my magic eat that shield from the inside out.