run and I don’t chase. And your cheap parlor tricks won’t work on me.”
“You just chased me through the building.”
The effort to keep her pinned wore on me. It took all my concentration to keep her where she was. Magic flowed out of me in a steady torrent. I had spent a lot of my power at Keystone and now I was deep into my reserves. Soon they would run out. I couldn’t keep this up too much longer, and if Lawrence unleashed the swarm again, I would be done.
Jocelyn sneered back. “You’re a talented amateur. But I’m a professional. I didn’t survive this long by losing battles. I’ll kill you and be home in time to watch Out of Order and drink a glass of wine before bed.”
“You’re not leaving this roof.” My magic had grown with every word, but the tendrils of my power drummed against her mental shields without doing any damage. This was about to end, one way or another.
Jocelyn bared her teeth. “Big words for a little girl. I know all about you. You were the spare and now you’re the heir. You won’t elbow me out of the way like you did your sister.”
What?
“Look at you. You wanted to be in charge so badly, you climbed over your own flesh and blood to do it. It must have burned you that you had to follow her lead. She’s married and rich and so pretty, and here you are, an ugly dark duckling.” Jocelyn clicked her tongue. “You sad little thing. Couldn’t match your sister in anything else, so you decided to be the Head of your sad little House, climbed over her, and now you’ll die here, and your sister will laugh and laugh . . .”
The words burned. She wanted me to throw everything I had at her. I would exhaust my magic on her shell, then she would hit Alessandro, and Lawrence would finish us. I saw it in my head, me dying, curled into a fetal ball as the swarm tore at me, Alessandro running off the building, his eyes full of rage.
“Stop talking,” Lawrence spat, his voice low and inhuman. The swarm subtly realigned itself to face me and Jocelyn. “Kill the bitch. Kill the asshole. Bugs eat. We get paid.”
He could speak. He understood words.
“Hush, Lawrence,” Jocelyn told him. “You have your orders.”
“Fuck it. Kill, eat, go.”
Lawrence, a man of simple pleasures.
“You take orders from her?” Alessandro asked Lawrence. “She’s old and weak.”
Lawrence refocused on Alessandro, the swarm around him shifting in his direction.
“Hey, Lawrence, how about this? Kill her and we’ll go out for drinks. We will even find some roadkill for your friends.”
“Lawrence!” Jocelyn snapped.
“Yes, Lawrence,” Alessandro taunted. “Be a good boy and listen to Mommy.”
Lawrence opened his mouth. “Fuck you, shithead.”
“Such eloquence,” Alessandro noted. “Poetry in the flesh. No wonder she has you on a leash.”
Lawrence hissed at him.
“He’s all talk, but you got nothing to say?” Jocelyn mocked me. “Hey, pretty boy, your girlfriend weighed the odds, and she doesn’t like them. I can see it in her face. You understand, don’t you, little girl? There is nothing either of you can do, except die.”
“Switch,” Alessandro said, the single word cracking like a whip.
A new, longer flamethrower popped into his hands, white letters on the side spelling out “Property of the Houston Fire Department.” A twenty-foot jet of flame tore into the swarm and died. The scorpion ticks shied from the flame and heat, opening a gap.
I dropped my magic, spun to my left, and ran into the hole in the mass of insects. Behind me, the flamethrower roared, spitting fire at Jocelyn.
Hadn’t weighed those odds, had you?
The swarm surged to me, but it was too late. I charged through them, arms crossed to shield my face, knocking the small bodies out of the way. It was like trying to fight my way through a ball of barbed wire. Lawrence loomed in front of me, his eyes surprised and burning with fury. He bared his teeth at me, all three rows of them. I threw myself at him, hugging his neck, so we were face-to-face, and exhaled two words and all of my magic. “Love me.”
The surprise vanished from his eyes. His expression went slack, his features relaxing. “Hi,” he said.
He was mine.
I let go of him, stroked his jaw with my fingertips, and told him, soft like I would tell a lover, “Jump for me.”
He spun around and threw himself over the edge. The