Blade Bound

   “Shay!” Catcher said again, a sharp and decisive order.

   She blinked, looked at him.

   “Inside. Call the cops. Go.”

   He must have gotten through, as she turned on her heel and ran for the door.

   Unfortunately, Catcher’s voice, that protective order, had traveled. More of the brawling crowd realized we were there, and turned back to look at us, their immediate conflicts forgotten.

   We condensed into a smaller group, a tighter group, scanning the growing threat.

   “Sentinel?” Ethan said. “I believe you’re the one with the experience here.”

   They didn’t need killing; they just needed subduing. “Knock them out,” I said. “That’s the best way to keep them from killing themselves or each other.”

   “Or us,” Mallory quietly said.

   “We can distract them, separate them,” Catcher agreed, gaze narrowed as he looked over the group.

   The man with the tire iron raised it over his head.

   Mine, Ethan said silently, and took off his jacket, tossed it on a parking meter.

   That was the first act of the offensive. Amit’s jacket followed Ethan’s. Mallory and Catcher began to gather power; it bristled around us as they prepared magical fireballs.

   “Luc is going to be pissed he missed this,” Lindsey said, stepping beside me. She’d pulled a dark elastic through her hair, was twining it into a bun to keep it out of the way. It was a practical move that matched the determination in her eyes. Lindsey may have enjoyed her shares of sass and fashion, but there was no one fiercer in battle.

   “Probably so,” I agreed. “Let’s shut this down.”

 

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

WAR OF WORLDS

 

There was a rhythm to every fight, a kind of dance between opponents. But the speed, the steps, the music of it, varied. When Ethan and I practiced, it was a fine ballet with careful moves and exquisite precision. This fight was a drunken midnight dance. All elbows and unfocused eyes and stepped-on toes.

   I separated two women in nightgowns, slippers still on their feet, who were screaming like banshees between sobbing, terrified wails. Like Winston and the first man we’d seen tonight, they tore at their hair like they might rip the demons away. That obviously didn’t work, which seemed to exacerbate their screaming.

   It had been unnerving to see Winston struggle. It was exponentially worse to watch the insanity travel its way through a crowd.

   The women fought back as I pushed them apart, turning on me instead of each other. I swept the feet of the one on my right with a low kick that put her on the ground. When she went down, I turned to the other, ducking to dodge a ball-fisted slap. She wasn’t a fighter. She was an animal, striking back at something that was attacking her. Something predatory.

   I came up again, shoulders hunched in case she tried to make another move. That she wasn’t trained didn’t mean she wasn’t dangerous. She windmilled both arms at me, nails bared, a manicure that couldn’t have been more than a few days old. I grabbed one of her arms, turned and twisted until she was bent over, wrenched by the shoulder. She wouldn’t know how to escape the move, so I used the moment to my advantage. Or tried to. The other woman popped up again. With my free hand, I hitched up the right side of my dress and kicked out, toe pointed.

   I caught her underneath the chin, snapped her head back. Her eyes rolled, and she hit the ground.

   “Good girl,” I said, and turned back to the other woman.

   “Sentinel,” Ethan said, and I glanced back at the black bow tie he’d extended. His hair was loose around his face, his shirt unbuttoned. “Tie her hands.”

   I nodded, took the thin panel of silk as he ran forward and blocked the strike of a woman carrying—quite literally—a wooden rolling pin that looked like it was still dusted with flour. And worse.

   Focus, I told myself, and pulled the woman’s other arm back. By that point, her voice had become one long ramble of throaty pleas. “Make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop!”

   “I’d like to, but you don’t want to be coldcocked, so you’ll have to settle for second place.” I maneuvered her to the bike rack and pushed her to the ground, then pulled her arms through one of the rack’s supports and used the bow tie to secure her. “We’ll get you unconscious as soon as reasonably possible.”

   I turned, was pushed backward by Catcher’s outstretched hand as a blue ball of fire whirred past me, thrown by Mallory’s hand. It hit a man wielding a bloody wooden baseball bat in the chest, sent him flying backward, arms and legs thrown forward by the momentum. He flew ten feet before hitting the sidewalk, arms and legs splayed. And he stayed down.

   I looked back at Catcher in horror. “Did she kill him?”

   “God, no. It’s just force, not fire. Kind of like getting hit by a very large beanbag.”

   I looked back at the man. Sure enough, his chest continued to rise and fall, but he didn’t try to get up. I’d say that hit the mark.

   “Shit!” Mallory called out, as a hulk of a woman—easily six and a half feet tall and two hundred forty pounds of muscle—stalked toward her. Two whole Mallorys would have barely covered her bulk. Her Cubs T-shirt was torn and bloody, blood dripped from her nose, and her eyes were wild with fear. And she was much too close for Mallory to use magic.

   “Stop screaming!” she said, accusation clear in her eyes. “Stop screaming! Stop screaming!”

   “I’m not screaming!” Mallory said, now screaming.

   “Later,” Catcher said, and went to help his wife.

   The gleam of metal in the streetlight caught my eye, and I looked back. A woman walked forward, chef’s knife in her hand. She was wearing pajamas and scuff-style slippers, and I’d bet the knife had come from her kitchen.