“About dear, departed Agnes? Of course we knew. The power ages Pythias fast, but not fast enough. If we hadn’t acted, she might have lived another twenty years or—oh,” she said, smiling gently. “You are going to curse me, aren’t you? Well, go ahead. Show us the power of the covens, witch. If you can break through my shields, I deserve to—”
She may have kept talking; I couldn’t tell. Because the French windows behind Rhea abruptly slammed open, and a gust of rain and wind swirled in, powerful enough to rip one of the curtains down. A lamp teetered on a table, one of the last standing, and then fell, shattering into a thousand pieces against the floor. And a great flash of lightning flew through the open doors and hit the raised wand, splitting into a triple strand that targeted all three acolytes at once.
And blew the redhead off her feet and back through the damned wall.
I just stood there for a second, smelling ozone and seeing afterimages. And then three things happened at once: the mages targeted Rhea, I jumped in front of her with my broad orange back, and the brunette acolyte snarled and jumped back to her feet.
And was backhanded by a suddenly animated Rico.
Because nobody plays dead—or frozen—like a vampire.
“Get the safe!” I told him, in my scary demon voice. Which did not have the intended effect, because he turned his attention from the acolyte to me, probably because I was clutching my own apparently lifeless body.
But then I got help from an unexpected source.
“The golem,” t
he blonde screamed. “She’s in the golem!”
She hadn’t even gotten all the words out when what felt like a dozen spells slammed into me, all at once. They didn’t hurt, and they didn’t seem to work as intended, I guess being designed for flesh and bone instead of enchanted clay. But they rocked me and slowed me, and when I tried to move again, a big crack appeared in the huge expanse of my thigh.
“The safe! Get the safe—” I shouted as Rhea threw another spell from behind me, blasting several mages off their feet and causing several more to abruptly shield, because nobody was laughing at coven magic now.
But several more got off spells that caused my damned left leg to go dead, and sent me lurching into Rhea. And caused her last spell to go askew and hit the chandelier, exploding it into a thousand glittering shards. And then kept going, running around the room, popping recessed lights, and raining down glass and electric sparks. Followed by a veil of darkness that didn’t bother my golem eyes much but seemed to seriously freak out the mages.
Because, suddenly, spells were flying everywhere.
“The safe! The safe!” I kept repeating, I don’t know why. Probably because I was a little freaked-out, too, having the unique experience of being taken apart piece by piece while Rhea threw spell after spell and Billy cursed and Rico—
I didn’t know what the hell Rico was doing.
I was facing the other way, trying to shield my body and Rhea’s, too, and couldn’t see him. Until my big orange head got blown off my big orange shoulders and went rolling, and the eyes ended up facing the metal box that was still in the wall, although not for long. Because the next second, Rico threw aside the mage who was still working on the safe and plunged his arm through the ward. And through the front of the thick metal door.
And then jerked the safe out of the damned wall.
“Go!” he yelled, lurching toward us, but I was already going. Surging back into my own form, I got hit with the disorientation of a body swap, a rush of pain from a dozen new bumps and bruises, and blindness from the almost utter dark that my human eyes couldn’t handle. And a body that still wasn’t enthusiastic about following my commands.
But that was too bad, because we were out of time—in more ways than one.
“Go! Go! Go!” the blonde was yelling, while clutching the redhead’s unconscious form. “Get out of here!”
“What?” the brunette staggered up, looking a little disoriented.
I assumed she’d had a shield up, or she’d have been looking a little dead, because Rico hadn’t pulled his punch. But the fog seemed to clear up pretty well when the blonde screamed, “It’s time!” and disappeared.
“Time for what?” one of the mages asked as the brunette winked out.
I kind of thought I knew. I grabbed Rhea and Rico, ripped Billy’s necklace out of the golem’s chest, and pulled my power around me. It didn’t want to come; it really, really didn’t. But if that damned brunette could shift while still half unconscious, so could I. So could I if it killed me, because it was going to kill me if I didn’t—
Like right now.
I had a half second to feel something massive shake the house, to hear an explosion that deafened me the rest of the way, to see light flashes going off in front of my eyes.
And then something grabbed me. Not the gentle, familiar lift and swoop, but like a fist closing around my body, around all our bodies. And not shifting so much as flinging us out of space and into time.
And we were gone.
• • •