I spent taking Marc out of the game caused two new issues.
One, the ball is vibrating so much that it’s about to take me apart.
And two, Cole is headed straight for me, and I gave him the time to catch up.
117
Raining Cats
and Dragons
Part of me is tempted to stay right here and let him take his best shot at me, but I’ve got more urgent things to do right now—namely, reset the ball.
So that’s what I do, tossing it as high into the air as I can manage and then shooting up after it, about two seconds before Cole gets to where I’m standing. He makes a huge leap for me and his fingers brush against the bottom of my feet, but I’m already flying higher and he can’t grab on.
Too bad the same thing can’t be said for Delphina, who looks about as done playing as I am.
I’m almost to the ball, but she gets there a second before I do and uses her powerful tail to knock it all the way down the field—back toward the goal line I need to protect. Of course.
I zip off after it, already knowing I’m going to be too late and I’ll have to wrestle it away from someone else. But I’m back to dodging giant blocks of ice, so for the moment, I’ve got other things on my mind—mainly how not to be the prize in my very own midair shooting gallery.
I do a pretty good job of it, mostly by doing more of the death-defying flips and turns I didn’t even know I had in me before half an hour ago. But Delphina’s getting better at shooting on the fly, and she catches me with a huge block of ice to the hip, which sends me spinning out of control as pain explodes along that side of my body.
I plummet downward in a flat-out spin. My brain is screaming at me to pull up, to get moving, to go, go, go, but gravity, aerodynamics, and exhaustion make a deadly combination. So in the end, I do what my driving instructor taught me to do when skidding out in a car. Instead of fighting to pull out of the spin, I turn into it.
Apparently, it’s the right move, because it changes everything. I get control in a couple of seconds, and then I’m flying down the field, straight at Cam, who has cotton in his nose, blood on his shirt, and the ball clutched in his ham-fisted hands.
My hip is killing me, but that doesn’t matter at this point. Nothing does but stopping Cam before he hands the ball off to Cole—because I know Cole is going to want to be the one to bring it across the goal line—and end the game.
Except either Cam is getting smarter or one of the witches is, because as I barrel down the field toward him, none of them tries to use a spell on me. Instead, they use a spell on him…and he effing disappears halfway down the field.
What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
I’ve got no time—no time—but the only thing I’ve got going for me is he doesn’t have that much time, either. In fifteen seconds or so, he’s going to have to toss that ball to someone else—invisible or not.
But I don’t want to wait that long. Every second he runs is an extra several feet he gets toward the goal line. And that is not something I can let happen.
Glancing around, I’m desperate for an idea when one suddenly hits me. It’s nothing I’ve ever done before. But then again, I’ve never before done 95 percent of the things I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours.
Is it a long shot? Yeah. Does that matter? At this point, not even a little bit.
I want to land, but I know better than to put myself down where Cole might be able to get me. So I stay in the air and start looking for the ice Delphina’s been shooting since we got into this hell-arena. There are hundreds of chunks scattered around the field, and I’m going to use them all.
Or at least, that’s the plan.
Most of the books Amka laid out for me in the library really didn’t shed much light on what gargoyles can do, but there’s one thing they all mentioned… Gargoyles are naturally adept at channeling water—supposedly it’s why, for centuries, so many buildings used decorative sculptures of us as water spouts. I