Elsa shimmered and whispered, and the grass around us burst into flames, a roaring wave of fire that swirled over our heads like a tornado. The heat was intense, my hair crackling like kindling. It flashed away, replaced by the cold night air, and three mages were sucked up into the air and hurled away as if an invisible giant had picked them up and thrown them afar.
I clawed my way forward, Mags acting as drag, trying to cling to me. The field had descended into chaos, the enustari doing their best to flee, their apprentices and Bleeders throwing blocks, the whole group of the cowardly bastards breaking immediately. Step one: Run the fuck away. Step two: Run faster.
Fallon swam up in front of me, and I took hold of him. He glared around.
“The morons!” he shouted. “The Picsas!”
“What do we do?”
He oriented on me with his sharp gray eyes as if he’d just realized I was there. “We are fucked,” he snarled. “They have broken, and she will tear them apart with blood and her arad. Without any fucking discipline, nothing we do will pierce her defenses, and she will have her way with us.” He bared his teeth. “Someone must get past her little army and slit her throat.”
“Fucking subtle!” I looked around. Broken seemed like the right word for it. I saw myself in the bar, the blade in my hand, cutting deep, the demon seeking the worst, most powerful spell it could find, seeking to do as much damage as it could. Damage without reason. Damage just for the sake of inflicting it.
I looked back at Fallon. “Fine—I’ll go!” I shouted.
He oriented on me again. Flames erupted around us again, lighting us up. He nodded slowly. “Can you?”
I glanced back at Mags. He nodded, firm, convinced as ever that I could do anything. I turned back. “You lift the Wards on the front door, we’ll make it. We’ll get to her, we’ll take her out. You keep her busy!”
He nodded, whipping out one arm and catching a fleeing Bleeder by the arm and yanking her in close. “Ya, I will organize these cunts. Go!”
I nodded, and turned back to Mags. I put my hands on his shoulders, and he looked at me with such intense trust and fucking affection that I wanted to turn and run. I’d never had anyone look at me like that.
“Get me inside that house, buddy,” I said, hoarse. “Don’t let anyone stop you.”
He stared at me, then straightened up, and I realized that Mags had been stooping ever since I’d met him, and though I’d known he was huge, he was actually huger. He nodded. “Get behind me.”
The flames died off again, three more people sailed into the air, Elsa shone like the moon above us, and I pulled my switchblade from my pocket and snapped it open.
11.
THERE WAS ENDLESS, INFINITE gas in the air, but I slashed my forearm and felt through the chaos for the tiny pulsing thread that was me, that was my life seeping out into the hungry universe, shit flecked with gold. I seized on it, running through my bag of dirty tricks.
Me and Mags had spent a lot of time sleeping outdoors, and I’d cobbled together a few decent offensive mu, War Cantrips. Nothing powerful, because when you were riding your own melt and no one else’s, you couldn’t do much without bleeding out and killing yourself; but it was all I had.
I would have to do something similar to the trick I’d played on Lugal: Take a dozen shit spells and glue them together into something better. But I would get only one shot; anything more than bullshit and I’d be half dead after one casting.
“Mags!” I shouted as we ran. “If I go down, you pick me up and carry me.”
The mages and their Bleeders ignored us. I caught a glimpse of the woman in black, or her Glamour, floating serenely overhead. She looked right at me, and my balls attempted to crawl up into my body. Mags body-checked people, knocking them left and right with casual twitches of his shoulder, an unstoppable force, and I drafted behind him, trying to keep up as I ran through my repertoire.
A bloated Bleeder, holding his hood in one hand, swerved to avoid Mags, then sailed up into the air, exploding into a red mist a few feet up. With a roar, another wave of flames erupted from thin air, rolling over the field, screams and howls.
Mags put his head down and ran us through it. I felt the heat, intolerable, agonizing, and then the house loomed up in front of us.
Between us and the house were the arad.