Huge fangs hurtled toward me, but Death reached me first. He tackled me to the ground, his hand behind my head keeping my skul from cracking against the stone. The hydra’s head sliced through the air above him, taking out a section of the bridge railing where I’d been standing. Death twisted, watching the head withdraw. Then he turned back toward me.
“Love, the only way that thing is supposed to take you somewhere is if it passes off the spel in its fangs. Don’t try to reason with it,” he said, his face close enough that his breath drifted over my lips as he spoke. His face wasn’t the only thing close. The entire front of his body pressed against mine. He seemed to realize that fact at the same time I did because a grin spread over his face. “I real y wish there wasn’t a hydra here,” he said, his voice pitched low.
Then he rol ed off me and helped me to my feet.
Damn hydra.
Death stepped away, his focus on the hydra again. Oh, I wanted to destroy that construct. Bad.
I glanced at my dagger. If my reach had been a handicap with the gryphon, it was astronomical y worse with the hydra. The dagger was just too smal . Only one other option.
I dropped my shields.
I could feel graves in the darkness. The essence from smal dead animals, some not so smal , and some that smal dead animals, some not so smal , and some that were most definitely not animals, reached for me. Fresh graves. Old graves. And some graves that felt ancient as the essence clawed at me, trying to sink under my skin.
I didn’t have enough time to do more than try to block out the encroaching essence as one of the hydra’s heads snapped toward me. I dove to the side, reaching with power. As the head recoiled for another strike, I pul ed with magic. A soul popped free. The head shrank. One soul down.
Someone released a sharp scream and I whirled around.
Beside me, the raver pressed a hand over her arm—an arm soaked in blood. The hydra can hurt them? My racing heart stumbled in my chest, missing several beats as my gaze snapped to where Death dodged the lunging heads, his hands darting out whenever one got too close. The head always drew back smal er, down one more soul. Then two heads rushed him at once.
No!
I thrust my power into the head lunging for his back, and jerked at the souls inside. One. Two. Three souls popped free. Then I was fal ing forward, the bridge rushing up to slam into my knees. The gray man stood above me, jabbing his cane into the nostril of a head fil ing the space where I’d been.
“Watch your own back, girl. He’l watch his,” he said as he pul ed his cane free. “We could use more room to maneuver. The beast is targeting you. Lead it to the bank.
We’l cover you.”
Right. I pushed to my feet, then immediately dove to the side as another head lunged forward. I made it only a few feet with each sprint, but true to his word, the gray man covered my dash off the bridge. Two men in uniform met me on the bank.
“Bul ets won’t pierce its skin,” I said, turning back to reach with my power again. The hand I lifted shook too hard to hold straight.
hold straight.
“It’s fae, right?” one of the men asked as he snapped a clip into his gun. A gun I wasn’t familiar with but bigger than the Glocks that most of the homicide detectives carried. It was also spel ed. He pul ed the trigger and one of the heads exploded.
I blinked at him, wide-eyed, as he squeezed off three more shots. Another head scattered into mist. We’d already destroyed two, and while he lined up another shot, the col ectors finished off the last three heads. Then al that was left was a lumbering body. The col ectors tore into it as the gunman squeezed the trigger twice more.
He smiled as the beast vanished and a disk the size of a tabletop hit the ground. “Spel ed iron,” he said, clearly thinking his bul ets had done the trick. I so wanted to disil usion him, but I didn’t. He turned to me and held out his hand. “Name’s Tucker.”
“Alex Craft.”
Tucker’s vest had ABMU stitched on the front. anti–black magic unit? When John arranged backup, he didn’t skimp.
Or maybe I was earning a reputation for trouble.
I left Tucker showing his gun to several of the uniformed officers and used my ability to sense magic to track where Hol y’s ruby amulet had fal en. I found it in the grass near the foot of the bridge. Then, clutching the amulet in my fist, I made my way to the three col ectors, who were huddled over the charmed disk.
“You okay?” I asked, nodding at the raver.
She shrugged the shoulder of her uninjured arm. “I’l heal, but this has gone too far. We’ve got to find that accomplice.”
“I don’t think they’re going to show here,” the gray man said, spinning his cane like a baton, his colorless eyebrows drawn tight. “I told you this sounded like a trap. And judging by the escalation of the aberrations, I believe you have gone from potential tool to potential threat. That one was out for your life, the compulsion spel included just for good out for your life, the compulsion spel included just for good measure.”
I didn’t disagree.