I should have bid more on that piece of art. Pretty ungrateful, considering that it was my fault Mrs. Morrissey got hurt. I wasn’t fast enough or smart enough to protect her. The least I could have done was bid more. She helps us out a lot with research. Selfish, selfish, selfish –
I caught myself and turned toward Teag just as he reached for his messenger bag. “Watcher-guilt!” I warned. “That means trouble!”
“Maybe we can get home –” Teag started to say, but then something dark, fast and solid leaped out from the shadows behind us, taking Anthony down with it.
“Anthony!” Teag shouted. He ran for the Nephilim, which was still in human form, and got in a solid kick to the monster’s head that would have dropped a normal opponent. The Nephilim barely registered the blow. Teag pulled a three-sectioned bo staff out of his bag, and with a snap and a twist, the sections came together to make a six-foot fighting rod. In his other hand was his dagger. Josiah Winfield’s pistols were back at his house, too bulky to easily carry in public.
I didn’t dare fire either my athame or my walking stick for fear of hurting Anthony. Three more Nephilim were heading our way from the other direction. The waiters at the party might not have been fallen angels, but these pretty boys sure were.
I shook my left wrist, and Bo’s ghost appeared by my side, already growling. He’d had a taste of Nephilim lately, and he sounded ready to get some more. I had the walking stick already up and leveled, and let loose a torrent of fire that caught the Nephilim on my right full in the face while Bo snarled and leaped at the Nephilim in the center.
Teag was giving the Nephilim that had attacked Anthony a first-class beat-down, striking with his staff, dodging in and out to drive his dagger down again and again through the Nephilim’s back. He couldn’t use his urumi with Anthony pinned under the fallen angel, but the dagger and staff together should have been a lethal combination.
Anthony was fighting, trying to wrest free from the Nephilim’s grip. I heard what sounded like six muffled shots, and the Nephilim’s body jerked with each one.
“Drop your weapons! Charleston Police!” The voice came out of the darkness, but I knew it had to be Monroe. Now she’d gone beyond annoying. She was likely to get us killed.
The three Nephilim coming toward me never slowed down. Bo went for the man in the center, sinking his teeth deep into the flesh of his shoulder. A shot fired, and went straight through Bo’s ghostly form, while his snarling spirit never loosened his grip.
Teag landed a hit to the skull of the Nephilim that had Anthony pinned, hard enough to score a home run. Instead, the bloodied fallen angel stood slowly, revealing the mere shell of a body, its chest blown away. Anthony scrambled to his feet, covered in blood, a gun still clutched in his right hand. Teag gave one flick of the urumi and the razor whip blade took the Nephilim’s head clean off its shoulders. It lurched toward Teag, arms outstretched and hands clutching, before it finally toppled to the ground and the body disintegrated.
“What the fuck is going on?” Monroe grated, and it was clear she was pissed off. Some choice – get shot by a cop or slashed to ribbons by a fallen angel.
The Nephilim I fire-blasted barely broke stride, although his clothing burned away and his skin charred to blisters. I sent a column of fire toward the center Nephilim, which wouldn’t hurt Bo but caught the fallen angel right in the face.
“I said drop your weapons!” Monroe snapped.
“Can’t,” I shouted. “Not unless you want to see these guys cut us up where we stand. I could use some help here!”
“Ask yourself why they’re still charging us after they’ve caught on fire,” Teag yelled as he cycled his staff overhead, keeping a wary eye on the Nephilim on the left. Although the collapsible staff was metal instead of wood, I saw that he had engraved runes into the surface that were glowing like embers.
He stepped forward and gave a shake of his wrist. The urumi snaked out with a zing and struck the Nephilim around the waist, tearing through his shirt and peeling off a strip of flesh with it.
With a roar, the Nephilim on the right began to shift. Blood-red leathery skin replaced