Before I could say anything, the two combatants staggered and the mage went to one knee. The woman remained standing but looked like she’d just been hit by a Mack truck. Her face turned white, which was pretty impressive, considering her natural skin tone was a deep olive, and her wand fell from her hand.
Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t have been able to use it anyway. I doubted either of them could have thrown a spell to save their lives, and might not for days. A null was to magic what a vamp was to blood.
And they’d just been exsanguinated.
“A little lesson, boys and girls,” Tami said as they tried to breathe. “My house. My rules.”
“I thought it was the Pythia’s house,” Pink Hair said, sidling closer to her friend.
“Who put it under my management, making it my house. And in my house, you pull a weapon—any weapon—and that’s a paddlin’. Unless there’s a Black Circle army busting down the door, your weapons stay secured. This is a suite full of children, something you’re gonna know, something you’re gonna remember, every time you get that urge. ’Cause if you don’t—”
The two former combatants groaned, and the witch finally did go to her knees, mouth open, eyes wide.
“—I will drop you,” Tami told them. “You get me?”
“I . . . think they get you,” Pink Hair said, grabbing her friend, while Jug Ears pulled away the dazed-looking mage.
“Would someone explain what just happened?” I asked.
Tami opened her mouth, but the grizzled mage beat her to it. “The witch provoked him, but he was out of line,” he admitted. “We’re on edge—all of us. We missed the battle this morning—”
“Damn right, you did,” Pink Hair muttered, until I looked at her.
“—and another this afternoon. We want to be there.” He gestured back at the living room. “At HQ, where we’re needed. Not here on babysitting duty—”
“Then go.”
“We’ve orders,” Red Face gasped.
“Which I’m overruling. Jonas needs you more than I do—and I’ll clear it with him in a moment, when we talk. Go.”
The two men looked at each other.
“Now. Or I’ll send you myself.”
It was an empty threat, but they didn’t know that. And it didn’t look like they cared. They went.
“Damn straight,” Pink Hair said, and I rounded on her.
“I appreciate the covens sending you,” I said, trying for diplomacy. “However—”
“However?”
“—Tami is right. There are some ground rules.”
The tattooed witch had fought her way back to her feet and retrieved her wand, although I noticed she tucked it away. All while eyeing up Tami, as if she’d never before realized what a null could do, if you were dumb enough to let one actually touch you. Tami could pull magic from across a room, but it was harder, and she wouldn’t get as much.
But skin on skin?
Yeah, you were fucked.
But the experience didn’t seem to have softened the woman’s attitude any. “She doesn’t want us,” she told the others. “I told you.”
“She hasn’t said that,” Pink Hair replied, but her eyes were on me.
“I didn’t say that because I didn’t mean that,” I said. “You helped this morning, in a big way. I appreciate it—”
“But now you’d like us to kindly fuck off,” the tough chick interrupted.
“What I’d like you to do is stop finishing my sentences,” I said, sharper than usual, because my nerves were shot.
She looked surprised, like she wasn’t used to being challenged. And I didn’t give her time to recover. “As I was saying, I appreciate the covens’ help this morning, and welcome it now. But there are rules—”
“Like what?”
“Like everyone gets along,” I said, watching her. Because I was pretty sure that had been deliberate.
The mages weren’t the only ones who didn’t like babysitting duty.
“If you don’t want to be here, then don’t be here,” I said, my eyes taking in the whole group. “But if you stay, then you accept that this is a family. Not a job, not a burden—a family. If you can’t handle joining one that’s made up of people you don’t approve of, then you know what to do.”
Nobody moved.
“I’ll fix it with the covens for you,” I added. “I don’t have as much pull with them as the Circle, but I’ll do my best—”
“We’re not leaving,” Tough Chick said, crossing her arms.
It sounded final.
“Then you agree to the rules?”
There was a long, silent moment, and then more silence. But I finally got a nod. And not just from her. The other three witches followed her lead, and so did Jug Ears, who I was surprised to see still taking up space over by what had been a bar before somebody made off with it.
“And where the hell’s my court?” I asked Tami, who rolled her eyes.
“It’s a long story,” she said. “Take your phone call. I’ll be finishing up dinner if you want to talk.”
I nodded. Roy sidled up beside me as we walked back to the living room. “Vetted?” I asked, almost silently, but his ears didn’t need the help.
“They’re clean. Well, clean enough.” He slid me a glance. “Of course, you could just send them away.”
“I’ve been preaching unity for a while now, and as soon as we get some, I send them packing?”
He grinned. “Be careful what you wish for.”
I was trying to think up a suitable reply when Fred returned. “Your party’s on the line.”
I reentered the living room to see Jonas striding down the burning tunnel in full battle regalia, some sort of black shiny armor that made his white hair all the whiter by contrast. And on either side of him was a woman: one tall, thin, and dark-haired, maybe somewhere in her early forties, the other old and round and grandmotherly, with hair almost as white as his. I wondered what they were doing in an underground bunker that still looked to be on fire.
And still coming this way, despite the fact that they’d just left the wall of glass behind.
“Jonas,” I said, preparing to ask him to step back a little, because the weird 3-D effect of the spell was confusing my brain.
Really confusing, I thought, as the three of them stepped down onto carpet, their shoes denting the plush pile.
And then kept right on coming.
Chapter Forty-three
A swarm of leather-coated war mages streamed around the figures, enveloping the trio in a flurry of activity for a second, before dissipating like mist—and leaving them behind. Because they weren’t images. They’d just walked out of a freaking wall, crossing half the world in a millisecond, without so much as breaking stride.
And there was only one group in the world who could do that.
“The children,” I whispered, stumbling back into Roy.
“What?”
“Get them out! Get them now!”
I heard raised voices, running feet, and felt Roy jerk me behind him, none of which would do any good against the two Pythian acolytes with Jonas—and how the hell were there more acolytes?
“Cassie—” Jonas said.
“Get down!” I told him, and threw everything I had, trying to shift the women far enough that we’d have time to get the kids out, at least.