They forgot about Briar and Falin, shambling and scurrying toward me. Now that my shields were open, I could feel each of them individually. There were still nearly three dozen up and walking.
The first one reached me. I thrust out my hand and pushed. Not with muscles or grave magic, I pushed with the part of me that touched different realities. I shoved the corpse into the land of the dead. It crumpled into ash and blew away in the wind whirling around me. I did the same to a second. A third. A zombie charged into the space where I’d disintegrated the first, and its skin fell away, followed by muscles. It dropped to the ground, only inanimate bone before I even had time to touch it. I wasn’t just pushing the zombies into the land of the dead, I was pushing the reality around me. I didn’t have time to think about it or try to fix it. I had to keep moving, keep pushing. Flames burst from near Briar; she’d used the distraction to get enough space to use incendiary spells again. Falin was a pale blur of movement to my side, zombies falling at his feet. And I just kept pushing the corpses into the land of the dead, accelerating decay.
It seemed to go on forever, but when the last zombie fell, sunset had not yet hit. I glanced down at my watch, but it was gone. As were the sleeves of my coat and my sweater. Small decayed bits of fabric still clung to my shoulders, but my arms were bare aside from my charm bracelet, which was badly tarnished, several of my charms made of less permanent material missing, presumably rotted away. I’d deal with it later.
“Time?” I asked, turning back to the circle where Saunders and Gauhter stood, their heads pressed together as they conjured magic.
“Four minutes until sunset,” Briar called back.
I hadn’t closed my shields, so I could see the magic swirling around the two men. It whirled in a tightly woven ball, growing larger and larger and feeding down into the cauldron between them. Gauhter was the one weaving it, Saunders freely surrendering his magic to the other man. Another tendril of the magic was tied to Rianna, draining energy from her life force into the homunculus. The shimmering ball of orange and red magic sank to the thing moving in the cauldron. If it reached the homunculus . . . Rianna would die. Her soul might move to the homunculus, but her body, her real body, would die. I had no doubt.
“Shoot Gauhter,” I yelled.
Out of an MCIB investigator, an FIB agent, and a private investigator, I was the least authorized to make that command, but Falin didn’t question it and Briar didn’t contradict it. Falin pulled his Glock, slammed a fresh magazine in place, and pulled the trigger.
The shot took Gauhter in the chest. There was a moment when the report of the gun was still echoing in the basement, where Gauhter looked stunned, his mouth falling open and his eyes going wide. Then the book he’d been holding slipped from his fingers. He looked down and pressed a hand to the growing red stain on his shirt.
The magic he’d been working with churned, incomplete. I saw the energy start to unravel, growing unstable.
“Rianna, get down,” I yelled.
She was still bound to the chair, so there weren’t many options for where she could go. She kicked her feet, and the chair teetered before crashing to the side. Even through the gag I heard her scream of pain. It was better than the alternative.
A heartbeat later the unstable spell exploded. Gauhter and Saunders were flung backward, a magical ricochet bouncing through the circle. Fire crawled up both men where the spell struck. Saunders hit the ground. He rolled, screaming, trying to extinguish himself. Gauhter slammed into his own circle. It shattered with a discordant snap of magic, and he screamed as the backlash tore through him. Then he fell silent, still on fire, but not dead yet. I would have felt it if he’d died.
The blast also knocked over the cauldron. It rolled, spilling liquid that glittered in the weak lights and dumping a body onto the ground. It was almost fully formed, though skeletally thin and shimmering with the liquid it had been grown in. Red curls were plastered to a face that looked far too much like Rianna.
I took only a heartbeat to see it roll to a stop, falling still and lifeless, but not dead as it had never been alive. Then I rushed to the real Rianna, ignoring the two burning necromancers—they could fend for themselves. I didn’t have time to be delicate, but pushed the rope binding Rianna into the land of the dead. I pulled her free of the chair as soon as the coarse knots had deteriorated enough to release her.
“We have to get you out of here,” I said as I dragged her to her feet. One of her arms hung funny; it had broken when the chair landed on it in the fall.
“And go where, Al?” she asked, rushing to Desmond as soon as she got her legs under her. “There’s what, two minutes until sunset? I can’t reach Faerie that fast.”
No. No, that wasn’t acceptable. Why would Derrick have warned me I needed to beat sunset only to have me find Rianna in time to watch her wither and die?
Rianna fell to her knees beside Desmond. He was hurt. Bad. But Desmond was fae. As long as he survived his injures, he would heal. Rianna would die if we didn’t get her to Faerie.
Rianna sank her good hand into the fur around Desmond’s ear, careful not touch the large bleeding wound on the back of his skull. At her touch, his eyes opened, and he whined around the tape sealing his muzzle.
“We have to get this off you,” she said, trying to gently peel back the tape, but her broken arm wasn’t doing what she wanted and she couldn’t do it one-handed.
“No, we have to go to Faerie, Rianna,” I said. The big, doglike fae made a sound deep in his chest that I took as agreement.
Rianna shook her head, looking defeated, but resigned. “There is no time, Al. It’s okay. I’m okay with it.” She tried to smile at me, but her lips trembled, refusing to hold. “Hey, I found the missing bottle.” She laughed, the sound more hysterical and desperate than anything that could pass as humor.
“When I defeated Coleman, you ripped a hole into Faerie. Can’t you—”
“No. That was part of Coleman’s spell. I can’t rip through reality and space like that normally.”
Reality. She couldn’t rip through reality, but I could. And I could weave it together too, theoretically.
I just needed enough of Faerie to work with.
I looked around. We were minutes from sunset, from the time between when Faerie’s influence was thinnest. But it was never gone. Not fully.
So where were the threads of Faerie? The shadow court tied into every shadow, and there were plenty here. The nightmare realm drew power from nightmares. I glanced at the fallen zombies, at least those rotted bodies that hadn’t turned to ash. They were definitely the things of nightmares. Belief. Belief was the greatest source of power Faerie had. And there were mortals here. I pulled off the chameleon charm that hid my telltale Sleagh Maith glow, letting my true self show.