Magic Triumphs

“Are you sure? Because they were really hard to kill.”

“I’m sure. The body did undergo profound changes. All of the human organs are still there, but everything has been altered. The fascia, which is . . .” Luther coughed again. He sounded choked. “. . . fibrous connective tissue enclosing organs and musculature, has been . . . reinforced . . .” He doubled over, coughing.

Behind him, a cloud of emerald-green dust poured into the room through the doorway. The powder licked the boundary of the circle and recoiled.

Luther straightened. A puff of green powder escaped his mouth. His eyes stared at me, glassy and cold.

There were four feet between me and the circle. I cleared them in a single jump, caught Conlan in midleap, and backed away toward the center of the ward.

The dust filled the room now, shifting like diaphanous emerald veils all around us. Only the surface of the circle remained clear. And Sarrat and all my weapons were conveniently stowed in Luther’s stupid box, deep in green dust. Great.

Luther stepped to the circle, rigid, like a marionette pulled by its strings. “Traitor,” he hissed in a sibilant voice.

Conlan growled in my arms.

Oh good, it wanted to talk. “Who did I betray?”

“Stupid traitorous bitch. Unworthy.”

Was this a box thing? “Of all the insults out there, this is what you come up with? Pathetic.”

“He’s done everything for you. You’re not fit to lick shit off the soles of his boots.”

“Shit eating is your job.” The more I pissed it off, the more it would talk and the faster I would figure out what the hell was going on. “Try harder.”

Luther moved in short jerks. He was fighting whatever it was. He was also a distraction. If you wanted to launch a surprise attack, it helped if your target focused her attention on someone else. Luther was meant to keep me preoccupied. When the attack came, it would be at my back. I was still holding Conlan. I would have to drop him to defend us and trust that he’d stay in the circle. He was only a year old. He had no sense. He licked walls and ate soap, for crying out loud.

“He gave you life.”

Not a box thing. A Roland thing.

“He is God. He is life. He is holy. You’re an abomination.”

Only one group of people thought Roland was holy and their path to heaven. The dust belonged to a sahanu.

I rifled through my mental roster of sahanu Adora had told me about. This didn’t match anyone in particular, but she’d said that sahanu kept their powers hidden.

“My father is a liar.” The spot between my shoulder blades itched. The sahanu had to be right behind me.

“Blasphemy!”

Religious fanatics. Reasonable and understanding people, easily persuaded by facts and logical arguments.

“There is no heaven waiting for you. He fed you lies and you gobbled it up. My father is too smart to ever become a god. When you accept godhood, your thoughts and your actions are no longer your own. You would know this if you weren’t blind and deaf. Thinking for yourself, try it. It will help.”

Using power words against my father’s assassins was risky. Some of them had the benefit of my father’s blood, which made a blowback likely. A lot of them used power words themselves. With Luther infected, there was a good chance that any power word I used would hit him as well.

Luther leaned forward, baring his teeth. “I’ll kill you. I’ll eat your flesh and then I’ll eat your baby. I’ll swallow his soft flesh and then I too will be a god.”

Cold rage burst through me. The world turned crystal clear. “And what will my father do when he finds out you tried to devour his grandson?”

“He will praise me. He ordered your death. He wants your son brought to him, but I’ll eat him instead.”

When I finally got through to my father, we would have words.

“I’ll suck the marrow out of your baby’s bones and consume his magic. Then I will be even more powerful.”

No, you won’t. I sneered at Luther. I’d had a great role model when it came to sneering. Nobody did put-downs like Eahrratim, the Rose of Tigris.

“You and what army, sirrah? I’m the Princess of Shinar, the Blood Blade of Atlanta. My line stretches thousands of years into the past. My family was building palaces while your ancestors cringed inside their mud huts. You’re weak, stupid, and less. What threat could you possibly be? You dream of power I already have. A tiger doesn’t notice a worm she crushes under her paw. Slither, little worm. Slither away as fast as you can.”

I felt the precise moment she charged out of the fog into the circle. I dropped Conlan and stepped back, twisting out of the way. My brain registered the attack in a fraction-of-a-second burst: lean blond woman, my size, my height, young, a dagger in each hand.

The right dagger stabbed the air an eighth of an inch from my chest. I grabbed her wrist with my right hand, aiming to smash her elbow with my left palm. She dropped into a crouch and slashed across my right bicep with her other dagger. A hot line of pain tore my arm, like a heated rubber band slapping against my skin. I swung into a kick. She raised her arms, covering up at the last moment, and rolled back. My foot barely tapped her. She rolled to her feet and leaped back into the green mist.

I stepped back to Conlan. He’d stayed exactly where I’d dropped him, hugging the floor. Thank you, whoever you are upstairs, for the miracle. Thank you.

Conlan sat at my feet. I stood still. My right arm burned with pain. She was damn fast, and her daggers were razor-sharp. The bleeding wasn’t heavy. I could seal it, but it wouldn’t last. The moment I used the arm, I would bleed. That was fine. I could use the blood.

The fog flowed back and forth, shifting in shimmering patterns. I waited, every sense straining for a hint of movement, a whisper of sound. Something.

Moments crawled by.

Conlan turned his head slightly to the left. I kept my gaze on the mist, watching him with my peripheral vision. He turned more. A little more.

My son was a shapeshifter and a predator. With supernatural hearing.

I kept looking to the right, toward Luther.

A moment.

Another.

Another . . .

She charged out of the mist to my left, leaping. I took a quick step with my right foot to pick up momentum and hammered a sidekick into her. My foot connected with her ribs. Bone crunched. The impact knocked her back into the haze.

I waited. Conlan was turning to the right now. That had to hurt. She’d try to cover up that side now.

A low, animalistic grunt came from Luther. It sounded half-bestial, half-obscene. The grunts kept coming. Noise screen. She was trying to muffle her footsteps.

“I can still hear you, worm.” I raised my hand and beckoned, loading every drop of arrogance I had into my voice. “Come to me. Accept your death with grace.”

Luther fell silent, but the sahanu stayed hidden. Damn. For some reason the jeering worked for my aunt much better than it did for me. I needed more practice.

Conlan turned right. I had no idea how I knew the strike would come low. I didn’t see it or hear it, but something told me he was the target. I dropped into a crouch, clutching him to me, shielding him with my body. The dagger shot out of the dust and sank into my left shoulder, barely an inch in.

Moron. Throwing only worked in movies.

I jerked the blade out and spun to my feet barely in time to block her slash as she came charging into the circle. She stabbed, and I sliced across her arm. Blood wet my dagger. Thank you for the knife, asshole.

The sahanu erupted into a flurry of slashes and stabs. I closed the distance, working her, fast and fluid.

The colors, the noises, her movements, her blue eyes; everything became so clear and sharp, it almost hurt.

When I was eight, Voron took me to a man called Nimuel. His name meant “peace” in his native Tagalog, and that was exactly what his opponents found when they came at him with a knife. As I worked her, blocking her arms with my own, wrapping my fingers around her wrists, using my wrists to channel her strikes, cutting her forearms, I heard his calm voice in my head. Under the bridge, on top of the bridge, over the bridge, inside, outside . . .

She would not touch a hair on my son’s head.

The sahanu snarled, stabbing and stabbing, and finding only air. I nicked her a dozen times, but she was so fucking fast.