The hellhound made a leap that covered half the drag, and tore into them, and I looked back down at Rhea, unsure of what to do. The idea had been to distract the mages, grab her, and run like hell. Down the length of the drag, through the emergency exit at the end, and up the back staircase, which would get the fight away from the populated sections of the hotel. And give us the aid of the much more lethal wards on the upper sections of Dante’s.
Of course, this many dark mages might be able to overwhelm those, too, but it would take time. And they’d have a new set every level or so that we went up. And they’d have to banish the hound before they could even start. And by then, hopefully the Circle would have arrived to finish them off.
It had been a good plan.
I’d been proud of that plan.
It wasn’t going to work.
Because the mages farther down the drag were not running to support their buddies, as expected. They also weren’t running at us, because they hadn’t been ordered to, or because they thought I might have another hound up my sleeve. They weren’t doing anything, except standing there, eyes wide, watching the beast.
And blocking our path to the back stairs.
I stared at them blankly, knowing that I needed a new plan. I needed one now. But it was a little hard to think with my head reeling from the power loss, and with nothing left to work with: no weapons we dared use, no power, and no time.
And with Rhea on her knees, holding her throat, choking on her own blood.
I should have tried to shift her, I thought dizzily. But shifting two was exponentially harder than one—any one—and I’d been pretty sure I couldn’t do it. And shifting only one of us would have left a Pythian magic worker in the Black Circle’s hands, and was therefore useless.
But then, so was this.
Carla was kneeling on her other side, one hand on Rhea’s head, the other on her gory throat, blood welling up between her fingers. And her lips were mumbling something that I really hoped was a healing spell. But whatever she was doing, it didn’t look like it was working.
“Rhea . . .” I said pleadingly.
And then the hound gave another bellow, like every piece of metal tearing everywhere in the world, like a knife through the brain, like a physical pain. I jerked my head up to see the creature floundering, sliding on the slick surface of the drag. It took me a second to realize that the mages it had crushed under its claws had stuck there, forming screaming, bleeding pads that had bunched under its feet, causing it to slip whenever it tried to move.
And seriously hampering it.
Like the spells the outlying mages were starting to throw, which sizzled against its horny hide like the strokes of a lash. Or the potion bomb one tossed, which succeeded in blowing a chunk out of its shoulder. Or the mage that had become stuck to its slavering maw, sticking there like glue and blocking its main weapon.
Until it bit the struggling man in two.
And I guessed Augustine’s potion hadn’t gotten everywhere, after all. Because it managed to swallow the middle bit just fine. And to bellow at the room out of its trophy-lined mouth, making even some of the hardened dark mages stop and stare.
Which they were still doing when it crunched their partners under its feet, grinding them into the already gory floor, getting itself some traction. And then leaping for the main group, which was still holding formation, hurtling its massive body right through the middle. And sending a broad swath of men crashing into the far wall of the drag, like a freight train had just derailed and rolled over them.
I had a vague impression thereafter of screaming, panicked mages, some fused to the thing’s hide, others crushed against the wall, including some that stuck there like macabre artwork, writhing in place or slowly sliding down toward the mass of bodies at the bottom.
But it didn’t hold my attention.
Because the leader had grabbed the first of a group of fleeing men and started slinging them into another cluster nearby. “Form up! Form up!”
“We can’t take that thing!” one of the men said. “Our best spells barely touch it!”
“You don’t have to take it! Take her!” He flung an arm in my direction. “Who do you think is controlling it?”
And suddenly, our little group was facing a combined spell like the one that had almost destroyed Augustine’s, and that should have incinerated us on the spot.
Except for one small thing.
Or make that three small things.
Because the real Graeae had just joined the party.
There was a loud, ululating cry, and the sister named Enyo somersaulted over our group, transforming in the process into a twelve-foot Amazon with four-inch talons, a mass of cascading gray hair and slitted yellow eyes. And a club, which she used like a baseball bat to send the spell boiling right back at the mages. Who threw themselves to the side, scattering like pins in a bowling alley, trying to get out of the way.
Some even managed it.
For a second, I was staring at the surreal sight of a massive hound, its hide now covered in a carpet of squirming mages, rampaging back and forth down the length of the drag. Of Enyo plowing into the fight with her club, sending more mages literally flying on all sides. Of a mass of magical microphones circling overhead, screaming abuse.
And of Rhea staring at the ceiling, the entire breast of her gown stained bright red, her eyes going glassy.
“I can’t heal this,” Carla told me, her hands red, her voice panicked. “It’s too severe. The best I can do is slow it down, but it’s not going to make a difference in a minute. We have to have a healer. . . .”
She trailed off, because yeah.
I didn’t see any doctors in the room.
“Can you shift her?” she almost begged, for the life of a girl she’d just met. But it probably didn’t feel that way.
Battle does that to you.
“No,” I said, my voice barely recognizable. “I won’t be able to shift again for . . . a long time.”
“But there must be something you can do!” she insisted, staring at me with innocent faith. Which looked kind of weird on those hard-bitten features. “You’re Pythia.”
I stared back with nothing to say. A Pythia was supposed to be able to do something. A Pythia was supposed to be able to do anything. But it had never seemed to work that way for me.
I looked down at Rhea, lying on the floor in front of me, but I wasn’t seeing her. I was seeing a man, old and withered, his salt-and-pepper hair leaning mostly to salt, holding one age-spotted hand over a terrible stomach wound. The other had clutched mine while he tried to tell me something before he bled out, while I’d worked desperately to save him.
While I’d failed.
Because being able to make someone younger or older doesn’t mean you can heal their wounds. As I’d discovered the hard way, applying power to them merely gave you a younger corpse. I’d only managed to help one person—sort of—because his was a metaphysical disease, a curse, and making him younger had changed him enough that the curse no longer recognized him.
And even there I’d had help, help I didn’t have now.
“But that man did not belong to you,” a voice whispered in my ear, causing me to jump and look around.