At the last moment, one of the Thornguards surrounding Virus glanced up, and his eyes got huge. Drawing his sword, he gave a shout of warning, and amazingly, Virus whirled and looked up. Ash’s blade slashed down in a streak of blue and met the Scepter of the Seasons as Virus swept it up to block him.
There was a flash of blue and green light and a hideous screech that echoed through the room and caused every eye to turn to the pair on the overhang. Sparks flew between the ice blade and the scepter, bathing the combatants’ faces in flickering lights. Virus looked rather shocked to be facing her former soldier; Ash’s mouth was tight with concentration as he bore down on her with his sword.
Puck set me down—I didn’t even remember landing—and leaped between the Thornguards as they rushed up with drawn swords. Grinning, he threw himself at the guards, daggers flashing in the hellish light coming from Ash’s blade and the scepter.
Then Virus started to laugh.
I felt a surge of cold iron glamour, and she shoved Ash away, pushing him back in a flash of green. He recovered immediately, but before he could rush her again, Virus retreated, stepping off the mezzanine to float several feet in the air. Her poisonous green eyes found me and she smiled.
“Well.” She sniffed and cast bemused glances at the chaos spread at her feet. Ironhorse, surrounded by Iron fey, still kicked and raged at them, though his struggles were growing weaker. More Thornguards came rushing up the steps, but these held crossbows with iron bolts, pointed right at us. Ash and Puck drew back so that they were standing between me and the guards, who had us surrounded in a bristly black ring.
“Meghan Chase. You are full of surprises, aren’t you?” Virus smiled at me. “I’ve no idea how you managed to free the Winter prince from my bug, but it doesn’t matter now. The armies of the false king are ready to march on Summer and Winter. Once they have taken the Nevernever and killed off the oldblood rulers, it will be our turn. We will overrun their armies and kill the false king before he has a chance to savor his victory. Then, the Nevernever will belong to m—”
She didn’t have a chance to finish. Ash drew back and hurled a flurry of ice daggers at her face, taking her by surprise. She flinched, holding up the scepter; there was a flash of green light and a surge of power. The icicles shattered, bursting apart before they reached her. With angry shouts, the crossbow men released their quarrels even as Virus screamed at them to stop.
The deadly storm of iron bolts flew toward us. I could feel them sailing through the air, Matrix style, leaving distorted ripples in their wake. Without thinking, I turned and flung out my hand. I didn’t think how crazy it was, that at such close range the bolts would rip right through me like I was paper. That we would all most certainly die, peppered by lethal darts that could kill even if they weren’t made of iron. I wasn’t thinking of anything as I spun and gestured sharply, feeling a surge of electricity beneath my skin.
A ripple went through the air. The bolts flew to either side of us, thunking into the walls and pinging off metal beams to clatter to the floor. I heard Iron fey shriek as they were hit, but not one of the half-dozen bolts touched us.
The Thornguards gaped. Ash and Puck stared at me as if I had grown another head. I shivered violently, trembling from the strange cold glamour that writhed under my skin and buzzed in my ears.
“Impossible.” Virus spun slowly to face me, her face draining of color. She shook her head, as if trying to convince herself. “You cannot be the one. A weakling human girl? You’re not even one of us. It’s a mistake, it must be!”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but it didn’t seem to matter. Virus started to giggle, sticking a green-tinted nail in her mouth, her laughter growing louder and more hysterical, until she stopped and glared at me with wide, crazy eyes. “No!” she screamed, making even the Thornguards flinch. “It isn’t right! I was his second! His power should have been mine!”
Her mouth opened, gaping impossibly wide, and the Thornguards backed away. Heart pounding, I pressed close to Ash and Puck, feeling their grim determination, their resolve to go down fighting no matter what. The air started to vibrate, a terrible buzzing filling the air, and Virus threw her head back. With the droning of a million bees, a huge swarm of metal bugs spiraled up from Virus’s mouth, swirling around her in a frantic glittering cloud.
Her smile was savage as she looked down at us, extending a hand from the center of the buzzing tornado. “Now, my dears,” she said, barely audible over the droning of a thousand bugs, “we will end this little game once and for all. I should have done this when I first saw you, but I had no idea you were the one I was searching for all along.”
Everything grew very still. The cold glamour still buzzed beneath my skin, and I could taste metal on the air. I looked at the swarm and saw thousands of individual bugs, but also a single creature sharing one mind, one goal, one purpose.