wards like a kid undoing a sneaker lace.
My mouth tingled, the faint taste of oranges filling my throat and a chill sliding down my spine. I knew that chill.
Brace yourself, Dru. Shit’s about to get weird.
There was the gun. Was I actually going to shoot whoever was coming in?
Fine time to be doubting that, Dru.
The warding sparked, resisting. I almost thought of grabbing hold of it from my side and giving whoever it was a snap, like popping a rubber band hard against their mental fingers. If you hit someone just right like that you can give them a helluva headache. Maybe even knock them out.
But if they could unravel wards like that, they were probably more skilled, and I’d be the one with the headache. My best bet was keeping the touch inside my head and using the damn gun.
Better be ready. Do it like Dad taught you.
The door opened, silently. The wards unraveled, whispering off into nothing like smoke. Soft regular thudding; my ears picked it out. Two of them, and I was hearing their heartbeats.
Well, isn’t that useful. My own heart was in my mouth, warring with the ghost of citrus and the tooth-aching cold. Why just two of them, if they could spring a trap with a rocket launcher on top of a building a couple states away? An advance team? More coming in the windows or watching the hotel?
Now, Dru. It was Dad’s voice, or I might have moved too late. They’re walking right into your angle.
At the last second, the gun jerked down. I got lucky—the first one folded when the bullet shattered his knee. A one-in-a-million shot, and Dad would’ve yelled at me for not taking the body shot. Don’t point that thing if you ain’t prepared to kill somethin’!
The roar of the gunshot was lost in a thumprattle of thunder, lightning lit up the room, and the television screen flashed. The second guy—tall, dark-haired, gold glittering in his ears and at his throat—pitched forward, his hands flying out and the hex sparking red and blue like a firework.
There’s a few different sorts of thrown hexes; this was one of the flat fizzing Frisbee types that make a zshhhhht! noise and go whirling.
My left hand flashed out. In a hex battle, you’re either quick or you’re toast. Dad and I had run across several practitioners over the years, and once or twice it’d been Gran’s careful training that saved both our bacon.
So it was Gran’s owl, now, filling itself in with swift streaks, that burst into being as the hex singed my fingers. The owl hit the second guy in the face with a crunch, and the red and blue hex spun as I caught it like a nail-studded baseball, sharp edges biting my skin.
As long as I wasn’t going head-on, I had a good chance of bending the hex around. Like t’ai chi—stepping aside from the force of the punch and deflecting it, instead of meeting it with equal strength.
I may not be brawny, but I’m fast.
My left arm came back, I whipped it forward as if I was tossing the Frisbee back at him, and the guy lost his hold. Which was another miracle, because generally it’s harder to wrest control away from someone who’s taken the time to build such a pretty, malevolent piece of work as a really good hex.
And this one was a lulu. But I guess the guy was having a hard time focusing with his face full of talons and feathers. The owl exploded, a rain of white down popping out of existence just before his bleeding face came up—
—and his own hex crunched squarely into his lean midriff.
He folded up just like a spider flicked into a candle flame and was actually flung back into the hall, golden electric light shining off a spatter of blood that hung in his wake right before there was another photoflash of lightning and the power failed. Darkness like a wet bandage pressed against my eyes, and in the aftermath of another huge roll of thunder I heard ragged breathing and someone muttering cusswords.
“Bitch!” A boy’s voice, breaking. “You shot my knee!”
He sounded fifteen, tops. Where were the adults who were supposed to handle this thing? Did they even exist? Was he old, too, and trapped in a young-sounding body?
You’re goddamn lucky it wasn’t your head. I said nothing. The emergency lights came up, a dull orange glow, and the hex in the hall was still sparkling and digging