hit the ground and held on as a blast of magic tried to knock me back. Every move made my head spin, and blood made my eyes sting. I ached, and my body protested getting back up, but I couldn’t fail now—not myself, not the people behind me, not the werecat who trained me to fight through even the most fatal of injuries.
Go down with your sword, Kaliya. Make them earn it. The pain is temporary. The pain can be beaten. Don’t let it rule you and stop you from giving your enemy hell before you fall.
It had been lesson number one from Hisao, the Assassin. That title didn’t mean much to anyone outside of the werecats and werewolves, but there was a small group of us who knew how to kill as assassins and Executioners, and it was thanks to him. He probably never saw me in this scenario, which was hands down the worst thing I had ever dealt with, but that didn’t mean I could throw everything he taught me out the window.
I tackled Levi to the ground, using the moment he was dazed to grab my last dagger from my boot. I brought it down hard, hitting his heart as he used his last moment to send another powerful wave of magic at me point-blank. I yanked the dagger, taking it with me, and let the blast send me ten feet away.
I hit the roof rolling and slid to a stop at the edge. It was a full minute, a very long minute, before I could get my body to stand and move, the dagger still in my hand, my knuckles white.
The first thing I looked for was Raphael. He was holding Wesley to the ground while the wolf struggled and snapped the air in anger. My roommate didn’t budge. Nakul was gone, just disappeared into thin air, my sword on the roof.
I stepped over a head and walked for my sword. Another howl could be heard, this one close. I didn’t need to move to the edge to see. I knew exactly who was coming.
Another two minutes later, as I stood there too tired and hurt to function properly, werewolves, this time normal ones, burst through the roof door and entered the scene. Some were in combat gear, some in wolf form. There was shouting and pointing.
“Executioner Sahni,” a deep voice greeted. I blinked, and the werewolf Alpha of Phoenix came into sight. His styled blond hair and somewhat boyish face were at odds with his reputation. He was an old bastard, predating the Tribunal and the War of the werecats and werewolves. His voice carried maturity and age, but his face seemed ten to fifteen years too young. Today, there were bags under his eyes, and the look on his face was so severe, I wondered what I had done to piss him off.
Wait. No. I’m the one allowed to be pissed off today.
“Took you long enough,” I snapped. “Raphael is holding Wesley—”
“We have an armored truck to haul him in,” Wagner said. “The bodies…”
“Levi is over there.” I used a thumb to point over my shoulder. I knew he was dead. Witches didn’t come back from knives to the heart. “The other two…” I started walking again, going to the one staring into space, blood still coming out of his eyes. There were now long, dark tear tracks where he continuously bled. I offered only a little mercy, bringing my sword down and ending him by cutting off his head. There wasn’t anything that could come back from that.
“Burn these bodies with their heads separated from their bodies. They had a nasty tendency to heal through fucking everything.”
“Of course. Do you need medical assistance? We brought medics—”
“Yes, but not from you.” I knew where I was heading after this. With the big threats dead for the moment, I could hunker down and heal while planning my next move in the investigation of how all of this happened.
“I can smell another naga here. Is it who I think it is?”
“I’ll deal with him,” I promised, not trying to lie by saying something more exact because Wagner would be able to smell it. “He’s not your business. You get Wesley, then get off the streets.”
He gave a soft growl, then looked at me. I had ordered an Alpha werewolf to do something, and he needed a moment to come to terms with it, so I politely ignored the growl.