BOOM! THE WARD TOOK ANOTHER HIT.
The building blocked my view. I needed a better angle.
I sprinted into the hallway, turned left, and ran to Maxine’s desk. Grendel followed me, snarling. Maxine’s office was shallow, but long, and her window was the farthest I could get from the entrance short of breaking into Ted’s lair.
I swung the window open and leaned out.
Below me and to the left a man in a tattered cloak punched the ward, trying to batter his way through the spell to the front door.
Boom!
Boom!
His bare arms glowed with dark red.
Torch. Power of fire. My aunt decided not to show up in person. I’d hoped I’d hurt her enough for her to lay low for a day. No such luck.
Andrea popped into Maxine’s office with a huge crossbow in her hands. The crossbow sprouted metal gun-looking parts in odd places as if half a dozen assorted rifles had thrown up on it. Mauro followed her.
“The guy below is Torch,” I told her for Mauro’s benefit. “He’s an undead mage with power over fire. Erra’s riding his mind the way navigators ride the vampires.”
“We can’t take it outside.” Mauro leaned to the side, getting a better look, and nodded at the new office buildings across the street. “If we fight him down there, he’ll burn everything. Those buildings across the street are all wood. They’ll go up like straw.”
“Better to keep him contained.” Andrea took my spot by the window, sighted Torch, and dropped her aim. “No good. Keep him engaged.”
She moved into the hallway, jumped up, and pulled down the access door leading to the attic.
Boom!
Keep him engaged. No sweat.
I slid the window up, letting the icy air in, and sat on the windowsill. “Break it already, you’re giving me a headache.”
Torch looked up. About my age, solid black hair, American Indian features. Looked like a Cherokee to me, but I wasn’t sure. “There you are!” he said in Erra’s voice.
“What’s the matter? Too scared to come out and fight me yourself?”
“Pace yourself, coward. I’m coming.”
Boom! The building shuddered. The ward wouldn’t hold him for long.
Mauro ducked into my office. “Andy says bring him closer to you, so she can get a shot. Here.” He tossed me a jar. “Fire protection.”
I dug in my pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill. “Hey, Erra?”
Torch glanced in my direction.
I dangled five bucks at him and let it flutter down in the six-inch space between the ward and the building. “For you!”
Torch strode over and stared at the fiver. “What’s this?”
“Some change for you. Buy your flunkies some decent clothes.” I dipped my fingers into the jar and smeared thick fragrant paste on my face.
Torch frowned, mirroring the expression on my aunt’s face. “Change?”
Oh, for crying out loud. “It’s money. We don’t use coins as currency now, we use paper money.”
He stared at me.
“I’m insulting you! I’m saying you’re poor, like a beggar, because your undead are in rags. I’m offering to clothe your servants for you, because you can’t provide for them. Come on, how thick do you have to be?”
He jerked his hand up. A jet of flame erupted from his fingers, sliding against the ward. I jerked back from the window on instinct. The fire died. I leaned forward. “Do you understand now?”
More fire.
“What’s the matter? Was that not enough money?”
Flames hit the window. Hairline veins of blue appeared in the ward. Not good. Why the hell wasn’t Andrea shooting him?
I waited until the fire vanished and popped my head back out. Torch stood with both arms raised, and his cloak hung open in the middle, presenting me with entirely too much of his full frontal view.
“Oh no, is it naked time?”
He opened his mouth to answer. A sharp twang sliced the air. A crossbow bolt sprouted from his open mouth, its point protruding from the back of his neck shining like a green star. The air hissed. The second bolt punched through his chest. The third took him in the stomach, just under the breastbone.
Green light pulsed once, like an emerald catching the sunlight.
The bolts exploded.
A torrent of green erupted into the sky. I ducked away from the window. “What the hell did she shoot him with?”
“Galahad Five warheads. Something the Welsh came up with to use against the giants. Packs a good punch.” Mauro blinked against the light. “She demanded we get some after that whole Cerberus episode.”
The flare finally faded. Erra’s jeering voice called out from the street, “Is that all you’ve got?”
Couldn’t be. I leaned to the window, Mauro next to me. On the street, Torch pulled the shreds of his cloak off his shoulders. The fabric broke to green-glowing ash under his touch.
He squared his naked shoulders and opened his mouth.
A blast of magic hit me, ripping through the protective spell like a thunderclap. Window glass exploded. The world went white in agony. The building quaked and bucked under my feet, shuddering from the aftershock of the ward’s collapse. I clenched my teeth and clawed through the pain. My vision cleared. In front of me Mauro slumped on his knees among shards of the shattered window. Blood dripped from his nose.
He sucked it in and staggered to his feet, his face caught in a grimace. “A power word.”
“Yes.” Probably something along the lines of Open or Break. I glanced at the window. A translucent wall of blue blocked the view. Hairline cracks fractured the dead ward. The wall held together for another second and broke apart, melting into the wind.
So that was what a power word spoken by a six-thousand-year-old woman felt like.
Erra’s voice rolled through the building in a cheerful song. “One little step! Two little steps! Three little steps! I’m coming up the stairs, little squirrel. Prepare yourself.”
I pulled Slayer free of its sheath and strode into the hallway. Behind me Andrea dropped through the access panel, landing in an easy crouch on the floor.
The door to the hallway flew open, ripped off its hinges, revealing Torch on the landing. His nude body glowed with an angry deep ruby light. A wide metal collar clasped his neck. There goes my decapitation trick.
He was undead, made with my family’s blood. It gave me a chance, a small insignificant chance, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. I pulled the magic to me.
Torch raised his left foot, stepping inside. Tiny sparks broke across his toes. His foot touched the floor and the sparks erupted into flames, spiraling up his limbs in a quick cascade.
Mauro braced himself.
The flames licked Torch’s bare chest. Fifty feet of the hallway lay between us, four offices on each side. I kept pulling, winding the magic around me. That’s right, bring him closer, Aunt dear. The shorter the range, the greater the impact.
The crossbow string twanged. Twin bolts pierced Torch’s chest. He ripped them out with an impatient jerk of the flame-sheathed hand. Andrea swore.
“Cute,” Erra barked. “My turn.”
The fire swirled around Torch like a mantle of heat and light. He raised his arms. Flames danced about his fingertips.
A huge hand pushed me back. Mauro thrust himself in front of me. His shirt was gone. A dense wall of tattoos covered his back and chest. They glowed with tiny lines of bright red that shifted and flowed, as if inside Mauro’s skin his flesh had turned to lava. He stomped, first left foot, then right, planting himself in the hallway, feet spread wide, arms raised at his sides.
“Get out of the way!” I snarled.
Mauro took a deep breath.
A fireball burst from Torch’s arms, roaring down the hallway.
Mauro bellowed a single word. “Mahui-ki!”
The tattoos flashed with bright red. The wall of flame broke into twin jets five feet before the Samoan, shooting through Mauro’s office on the left and Gene’s on the right. Mauro stood untouched.
The fire died. The Torch cocked his head to the side like a dog. “What’s this?”
Mauro grunted and stomped, one foot, then the other. The red lines on his skin flared.
Another wall of fire hit Mauro and twisted, deflected into the offices. Mauro packed a hell of a power. But now three hundred pounds of him stood between me and Torch and those three hundred pounds showed no signs of moving. The hallway was too narrow. I was stuck.
“Mauro, get out of the way.”
“Hit me!” Mauro roared at the Torch.
Right. No intelligent life there.
“Brace yourself.” Torch swung his arms, building up spirals of fire around his arms.
If I couldn’t go through Mauro, I had to go around him. I ducked into the break room and kicked the wall. The old wooden boards splintered under my kick. The building was solid brick, but the inner walls that cleaved the inside space into offices were single board thin. I kicked again. The wood gave with a snap and I broke through into Mauro’s office.
In the hallway Mauro roared, a raw bellow full of strain.
I hit the next wall with my shoulder.
Mauro’s body flew past me. A thud shook the building—Mauro’s back punching Ted’s office door. A wall of fire followed, blasting me with heat. Andrea screamed.
I tore at the wall in front of me and squeezed through the narrow opening.
“Where are you, whelp? Did you run away again, maggot?”