The nice thing about buying magic from dark mages, I thought, is that they just don’t give a damn. There’s none of the hand-wringing, permit needing, or side-eye giving that you get from the legit places, not to mention that the selection is, oh, rather better. Because this little baby was the definition of one shot and done.
Except when used on these guys, apparently. Because while this thing would put down a charging bull elephant—or a freakishly huge rock monster—in a single shot, the latter didn’t stay down. Like the first creature I’d hit, who had ended up sprawled on a pile of his buddies, but who was already getting up, was closing the wound, was coming for me—
And was getting his head blown off for a chaser.
But even that didn’t seem to matter, to him or to the others I was busy turning into Swiss cheese. Because they healed the same way they’d formed: by pulling dust and dirt through the air, or through cracks in the floorboards, or from under the front door. And there was no way to stop it, because the wards, good as they were, had been designed to keep out normal threats—spells and hexes and more mundane stuff like bullets.
They weren’t designed for this.
That thought connected to something in my brain that had been nagging at me, like maybe it was important. Only I didn’t have time to worry about it right now. Because I was going to run out of rounds before they ran out of dirt, which meant, okay.
No more Ms. Nice Guy.
Which is why the next minute or so saw thirty grand’s worth of next-level, badass, lethal-as-we-wanna-be magical weapons go up in smoke. And fire. And a hail of flying steel shavings that buzzed through the rock like a drill bit through wood, leaving only dust clouds behind.
Which immediately coalesced into more rock monsters!
It quickly became apparent that, while my toys worked a wonder on flesh, nothing works on dirt. And that includes the ever-nasty, always-favorite, terribly expensive dislocator, the kind of pretty bauble that, once it explodes in your face, you no longer have a face. You have ears growing out of your knee and a smile on your ass and brains where your kidneys ought to be, because your entire upper body has just been dislocated—to somewhere not conducive to life, hopefully.
Because the damage is not reversible.
Unless you happen to be a freaking rock monster. In which case, you just turn dusty for a second, and do a little twist-and-writhe that hurts the brain of the person watching you, because torsos aren’t designed to turn into Escher-like knots. And then hey, presto!
Good as new.
Okay, that was . . . fairly impressive, I decided, digging furiously around my pack for something, anything, that might work on these things. But while a bunch of auto garrotes disrupted the next charge up the stairs, popping off heads that I thereafter kicked back into the fray, it was a momentary victory. Like the potion bombs that ate huge craters into the next assault. Or the cloud of fighting stars that a war mage had enchanted for me, which zipped about, glittering impressively in the gloom, since most of the lights had been shattered by now. But didn’t do much else but ricochet harmlessly off rock and I was running out of options!
And yet another charge was forming, or trying to, because they really wanted up these stairs, didn’t they?
But they were being opposed by our no-longer-little chess pieces, who were splitting heads and cleaving limbs much more effectively than before.
They’d been having trouble at first due to their blade weapons shattering on the stonelike surface of the enemy. But they’d figured out that massive fists and iron maces and huge, heavy wooden shields were more effective. As a result, the hall and rooms branching off it had turned into a sea of churning rubble, spotted with flotsam in the form of lamps and pieces of furniture and Gessa, passing by like Rose after the Titanic sank, riding a piece of door while jabbing at re-forming rock monsters with a pike.
And then yelling at me, I didn’t know why.
Until I realized: a new monster had formed out of the pieces of his fallen brothers on the stairs. And had stayed low, until he was whole enough to make a surge upward. And grab me by the throat.
There was no way I was breaking that hold. Not in time, and probably not at all. But there was time to make a gesture.
And small though it was, it worked. Because, sure, you can save a few bucks here and there, on sales of ammo or two-for-one grenades at that one guy’s stand at the local gun show. But there are things you simply pay the asking price for and don’t argue.
Because, one day, they’re going to save your life.
Like my little stars did for me. Because all of them suddenly paused, midair, and zoomed back this way. And kamikazied the massive stone arm, like a magical jackhammer. And, while most of them got stuck in the rocky hide, or went ricocheting off, bent out of all usefulness, their combined force was enough to crack the forearm, allowing me to finish the job with a savage upward blow.
The arm cleaved and shattered, I fell back, gasping and choking—and had the other fist come at me, almost before I could blink.
But this time, I’d expected it, and managed to get my legs up, including the one with the possibly broken ankle, because there was no other choice. Leaving me with the giant fist in both hands, keeping it back from my face, my legs on its chest, pushing it away with everything I had, and my body shuddering in pain, because any second now—yeah, there it was. Make that a definitely broken ankle, I thought, screaming in the beast’s face, because why the hell not?
My duffle was just a few steps away, half-buried under rubble, but I couldn’t reach it. It was taking everything I could to hold the creature back, who was freakishly strong, like a couple of vamps’ worth, only he weighed a hell of a lot more. And that was before my ankle bent in ways a bone isn’t supposed to, and gave way entirely.
I would have screamed again, the force of the break echoing through me. But all the air had just been forced out of my lungs. The creature slammed me back against the stairs, my one good leg shoved against my chest, my body bent almost in two, while a red, amorphous face thrust into mine.
Staring into those dark pits of eyes, I suddenly remembered what had been nagging at me earlier. Because, no, I’d never seen these things before. But I had seen something like them, only that time they’d been strangely beautiful and made out of water. A manlikan was a fey construct formed from the elements. It wasn’t human; it wasn’t fey; it wasn’t really anything except transport for the mind behind it. Because the creature didn’t pilot itself; there was no consciousness there.
Except for the maker’s looking out through its eyes.
And enjoying watching me die.
“You first,” I mouthed, and spat in the thing’s face.
And, oh yeah, there was a personality in there, wasn’t there?
Because the ugly thing reared back in fury, to get the leverage to crush me against the stairs. But that also left me a second and a tiny bit of wiggle room. I used it to shove the great fist to the side, to twist, and to lunge for my bag. And to miss, because my head was suddenly gripped from behind and slammed against the railing.
Repeatedly.
I screamed, in pain and fury that this was the way I was going to go out—to the fey version of a fucking drone.
Until I noticed that, while I hadn’t gotten a hand on the duffle, I had gotten a foot. And yes, it was that foot, but right then I didn’t care. Because in agony or not, the leg still worked. And so did my reaching arms, grabbing the bag that it sent flying through the air and slamming it against the massive chest, as I screamed the word I’d paid a dark mage five thousand dollars for.
It was worth every penny.
I watched the space above me wrinkle, and flatten, and bend. And then turn strangely triangular, like I was suddenly looking at everything through a piece of abstract stained glass. And then the body, so large that, towering over me like this, it was literally all I could see, folded up like a deck of cards.
And disappeared.
Chapter Seventeen