“Not as wounded as Del.” I jerked my chin toward my deirfiúr, who still lay on the ground. “Help her.”
I tried to catch my breath as Aidan knelt over Del and laid his hands on her middle. Her clothes were singed from the flame, but at least I didn’t smell burning flesh. Nix looked on expectantly. She held one hand over a gash on her arm, slowing the blood flow. Connor and Claire sat with their backs against the counter, panting. Claire looked rough—her clothes were torn and her lip was bleeding. Connor looked a bit better, but not much. He was almost as good a fighter as his sister, despite his lack of practice. A natural.
Ancient Magic was a mess. Shelves were broken, replicas shattered all around us. Pottery and glass glinted on the floor, and silver and fake gold were crushed. In most cases, if the vessels containing the magic broke into too many pieces, the magic dissipated into the air, gone forever.
How much had we lost today? And why the hell had it happened? We needed to go after whoever’d done this, but not until Del was better and we’d all talked.
“How’s she doing?” I leaned over Del.
“Okay.” Del’s voice was scratchy and her eyes weren’t open yet, but there was a bit of color to her cheeks. She was dressed in her usual mercenary gear. Whereas I favored jeans and leather jackets, she was an all-leather kind of girl. It looked pretty badass with her black hair.
“She’ll be fine,” Aidan said. “I don’t know what that guy hit her with, but it was strong.”
“Felt like a rhino hit me in the gut,” Del muttered. She opened her eyes and her gaze met mine. “Did he get away?”
“Yeah,” I said. There was a hell of a lot more I wanted to say to her and Nix, but I couldn’t. Not until I got Connor and Claire and Aidan to go away.
Del pushed herself up until she sat upright. Or at least, as upright as she could. We were all a mess. Only Aidan looked uninjured, and that was probably because he was a man who could fight like a bull.
“What happened?” I asked.
“That guy and his minions blasted through the glass door,” Nix said. “There was a flash of light when it happened. It blinded me, but I’d seen how many there were right before it happened.”
“They were trying to incapacitate you and not even have to fight,” I said.
“Probably. Little did they know,” Nix said. “I used my charm and called Del.”
“I had enough power that I could come,” Del said.
“Thank magic,” I said.
Del could transport from anywhere in the world in a second, but she had to have enough power stored up to do so. Her power regenerated weirdly, but it wasn’t a matter of practice like mine was. If I used my magic, I became so exhausted I couldn’t do much for a while. I just wanted to sleep. She was physically fine after using her magic—she just didn’t have any more juice for a while. It was one of the reasons she couldn’t often make transport charms. It was also one of the reasons that we didn’t call her home unless we really needed her.
“Shit! That reminds me,” I said. “Check the demons’ pockets for transport charms. They sometimes have them.” Raiding demon corpses was one of my favorite tricks of the trade.
Wincing at the pain in my back, I crawled over to the demon that Nix had felled and searched his pockets. Nothing. I turned back to my friends.
“Mine already disappeared,” Claire said.
“No charms in this guy’s pockets,” Aidan said.
“Damn. Worth a shot, anyway.” I sat back down by Del. I tried not to shift my back too much. “So you made it here.”
“Yeah,” Del said. “Claire and Connor were already here.”
“We heard the blast that took out the door,” Connor said.
Guilt tugged at me. “Thanks for coming, guys. You didn’t have to.”
“Sure we did,” Claire said. “You’re our friends.”
“Yeah, but our business is dangerous. Connor, at least, chose a profession that wasn’t deadly. We shouldn’t drag you into our mess.”
Connor shrugged. “No problem. And my sis here gets antsy if she doesn’t kill something every week, so this was good exercise for her.”
“True,” Claire said. “But what did that guy take?”
“A box. I couldn’t make it out though.” I gingerly climbed to my feet. As I made my way to the counter, I remembered the Chalice of Youth that Nix had stashed under there. The original.
When I looked down at the empty shelf, it was gone. Damn. I glanced at the back shelf. The replica was gone too. He must have grabbed it right before he disappeared.
What the hell?
“Thanks for your help, guys,” I said to Connor and Claire. I didn’t want to drag them farther into this. “You’ve got to be beat. Why don’t you get cleaned up, and we’ll meet you over at your place. No need to hang around this dump with us.”
“We’ll help you clean up,” Connor said.