There was no up or down. No me or it. But if I still possessed a body, I would have weapons. And there would be a blade, heavily silvered, in a sheath. Near my right hand. Near . . . here. I had trained to reach and draw and cut outward and upward all in one sliding motion, a parry built into the draw. Fast. Trained so hard and thoroughly that I never had to think about drawing the weapon.
I reached up, my mind pushing through the motions, the expectation of action. And though I felt nothing, I slid into the memory of fight, my mind moving even if my hand didn’t believe it, my fractured faith taking over where reality had failed. I drew, cut outward, upward, and finished with a thrust, whispering in my mind, Hayyel. The Raven Mocker is yours. Send him back where he belongs.
Light blasted against me. Light and air and warmth. A flare of moonlight. A vision of angel wings and demon claws. A concussion of sound buffeted me, the roar of every battle that had ever been. It rolled me across the concrete, banging elbows, knees, jaw, and cheek. The M4 was beneath my hand. I caught it up. Continued the roll. Saw the demon above me, feathered and blacker than the sky above it. No time to finesse a shot. No collateral damage, the soft thought warned. I braced the weapon on the concrete, away from the blinding light. Fired carefully into the dark. Boom. Boom. Boom. I rolled again. Braced. Fired. Boom. Boom. Boom. I was on my feet, pulling blades and stabbing into the demon-dark. The light was blinding against the shadow.
I jumped back. Saw the demon constrict. Tighten where I had stabbed. The light arrowed in after the silver of my shots. The darkness drew in and down, into a large black bird, four feet tall, wings flailing, fighting for freedom, bleeding black blood, even as it was pulled into the blood splattered on the drive. Over him, a massive golden eagle flapped his wings, screaming a challenge, throwing off light and lightning. The blood on the concrete rippled and bubbled, a clotting, drying mass, like a trap. A tar pit for evil.
The demon was caught. Sucked down, into the blood. Gone in an instant. Just gone. So was the golden eagle. My angel? Hayyel? I blinked away the image of heaven and hell in battle.
Blue lights strobed the night. Shots echoed as cops fired into the hedge. I saw a cop fall, Sam Orson, screaming, falling into the dark. I didn’t know how long the spilled blood would hold the Raven. I didn’t know how long I had been trapped. I didn’t know much of anything except that I needed the pink blood-diamond. The Raven had been summoned with the diamond and the blood. If they got together—
Gunfire erupted to my left. I pivoted on the balls of my feet. In front of the red car, Grégoire and Evangelina struggled, lit by flashes of light, obscured by a swirling darkness the color of old blood. He was inside the hedge of thorns. He had a blade, and he was stabbing at the witch. She was bleeding on arms and one shoulder, but not badly injured. She was deflecting the sword somehow, using her magic. Grégoire dashed and cut, seeming to parry some unseen enemy, some invisible blade. And Grégoire was burning.
Red-orange flames rippled across his arms and upper back. In a whoosh, his hair caught fire. Flames shot into the sky. Evangelina laughed. Grégoire screamed, that glass-shattering sound they make when vamps are dying. Leo attacked the hedge with his blade, but where it had parted for Grégoire, it resisted Leo.
Grégoire thrust and parried. Silver flashed against the hedge. He’s using a silvered sword. A weapon designed to kill his own kind. Outlawed by the Vampira Carta. It let him penetrate the hedge of thorns. I pulled my last blade, my favorite vamp-killer, held it out in front of me. And raced in, leaping. The blade pressed in to the ward. Pierced through. Hedge of thorns shattered against me. Over me. Flaring bright, white, hot. It was like being flayed with melting obsidian blades. I screamed. I was still screaming when I landed inside. Stumbled with the momentum of my charge. Fell. Into Evangelina.
The blade slid into her. No resistance at all. Deep. All the way. Hilt deep. Eighteen inches of silver. Heated by the hedge as the ward died.
My eyes tracked the damage—midcenter. Between her ribs. Direct hit. Slicing through her aorta—even as I screamed. “Nooo!” And still I fell forward, the blade shoving her before me. Into the car. Blood gouted out, pumping over my hand. I rode her down. Onto the leather seat. My momentum wasn’t yet spent. I rolled across her, into the passenger floor. Caught myself with one hand. My hair slung forward. I was holding myself up with the hand that was coated, painted, with her blood.
Jane is killer only. Jane even kills her friends.
Beast!
She didn’t reply. I levered off the floor. Evangelina lay on the seat, one hand to her stomach, as if to hold in the blood that pumped. With the other, she grasped at her throat. Clutching, grabbing at air. Seizing the necklace around her neck. The blood-diamond dangled, bright with the pink hue of its magic, with the brilliance of flickering lights. The gem spinning, beautiful, deadly, and dangerous as the hell the demon came from.