few feet from me, and lay on the ground twitching.
I can’t even . . .
A small flock of scorpion ticks tore out of the utility room behind our backs and swallowed us. The creatures washed over me, scratching, biting, stinging, tearing my clothes and skin. One clamped onto my leg. I shot it. It stopped chewing on me, but hung from my jeans, dead. A scorpion tick tore at my hair. I grabbed it by its tail, yanked it off, and slammed it onto the gravel. They were shredding us. I wouldn’t last much longer.
Alessandro barked a short “Ha!”
A stream of fire arched over my head and seared the swarm. Bodies plunged down, burning. The air around me was suddenly clear and I spun left. He had a small black flamethrower in each hand, the fire pouring from them in twin orange jets. A maniacal grin twisted his face, lit up by the flames. His eyes glinted. I had never seen him so happy.
The summoner screamed, an odd, guttural sound.
All around me scorpion ticks dropped out of the night sky, fell to the roof, and kept burning. The stench of chemicals, fire, and singed hair filled the air. Thick black smoke poured from the flames. It looked like a medieval painting of hell come to life, and Alessandro Sagredo was its devil.
A second swarm coiled over the edge of the building to our right, broke apart, and deposited a middle-aged black woman onto the roof. The receptionist from Diatheke. She still wore the same dark suit with a string of pearls, except now it was torn from dozens of scorpion tick claws.
Alessandro was right. Everything had gone wrong today.
I snapped my wings open and hit her with a stream of my magic. My power crashed against the solid wall of her will.
“Thank you, Lawrence,” the psionic ground out.
Her defenses wrapped around her mind in layers. She’d had them up before she ever set foot on this roof and they were entrenched, their pattern old. She must have maintained them for decades and now activating them would come effortlessly to her.
Her magic was combat grade, mine wasn’t. She relied on direct assault, while I beguiled and used subterfuge until my magic gained hold. If I had surprised her or if I had the time and opportunity to draw a circle, it would be a different story. I had her pinned with the blunt press of my power, but that was as much as I could do. If we had been swordsmen, I would be a large strong fighter beating my blade on the shield of a more skilled, more experienced opponent. She made no effort to parry me. She knew that once she engaged me on the mental plane, only one of us would be left standing, and I was a Prime of unknown power. She refused to commit. Instead she sat behind her shell like a turtle and bided her time.
I began to hum, sending tendrils of my magic through my voice, trying to wrap them around the mental sphere of her defenses and trying to burrow into it.
The scorpion ticks regrouped, readying for the next assault. They hung around Lawrence like a maelstrom. The summoner’s jaws moved continuously, cracking invisible walnuts between his teeth. His eyes bulged out of his skull. He’d planted his feet. The muscles on his shoulders bunched, causing the sleeves of his trench coat to ride up his arms. Everything about him emanated rage.
There was no pain feedback between the summoner and the summoned. Mages like Lawrence reached into the arcane realm, pulled creatures out, and sent them to do their bidding. Alessandro’s pyrotechnics hadn’t injured Lawrence, but they did piss him off. He looked like he couldn’t wait to tear Alessandro’s head off.
It was a standoff. Lawrence wouldn’t move until he knew what weapon Alessandro would conjure, and for some reason, Alessandro did nothing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him, his magic winding about him shining with orange fire. He watched both Lawrence and the psionic, his hands empty, a look of intense concentration on his face.
Little flashes of pain flared in random spots on my body. The adrenaline was wearing off, and I was bleeding from a dozen places.
I managed a Victoria Tremaine sneer. “If you run away now, I might not chase you until tomorrow.”