his chest. I let my athame fall down my sleeve into my hand, called on my power, and blasted that cold force right through his body at point-blank range.
It tore a hole right through his body, as if I’d shot him with a cannon. Crow sank to his knees and fell face-first onto the blood-covered floor, then disappeared.
That left the Asian Dude in full monster mode. It swung a clawed hand at Chuck, but he ducked and got in a good, deep slash with his sword. The bloody blade’s silver gleam betrayed its magic.
I didn’t want to get close enough to Asian Dude to try my candelabrum trick again, but I whacked it good on the wrist when it tried to take a swing at me, and got backhanded out through one of the ruined windows for my trouble. Lucky for Baxter, who was still in my backpack, I fell on my side. The walled garden had been great for keeping befuddled residents in, but now that we needed a way to escape, it made it damn near impossible to easily get out. The air was filled with smoke, and part of the roof was burning. We were running out of time.
I picked myself up, aching all over. My lip was swollen and bloody, and the gash I’d taken on my arm was bleeding pretty badly. The scratches from the Nephilim’s claws burned, and if I survived the fight, I’d have to deal with their poison.
My chakram glinted in the sun, and I grabbed it, running back in to the fight. The last Nephilim was heading for Judy and Mr. Thompson. Chuck was on the floor, crawling to his knees for another round.
“Hey ugly!” I yelled, trying to distract Asian Dude. I hurled mychakram, and caught it in the neck, but it wasn’t straight on, so the razor disk just loosed a fountain of black blood instead of taking the monster’s head off. Now it was really pissed.
Mr. Thompson croaked a word of power, and a white blast shot from his cane, rooting the Nephilim to the floor with a thick layer of ice from the waist down. Some of that ice made the tile slick, and I slid, and slammed into the memorial tree canvas on my left side, knocking the wind out of me.
Judy fired off another green blast from her ring, hitting Asian Dude square on. Bo sank his ghostly teeth into the Nephilim’s right leg, while the old soldiers rushed the monster from the front. Chuck came up on one knee and aimed the biggest damn handgun I’d ever seen in my life at the fallen angel’s back.
As soon as my skin touched the memorial tree artwork, I felt a surge of powerful emotion: sadness, hope, acceptance, and even joy. I was drained and fading, so I latched onto the vivid memories and feelings that permeated every inch of the canvas. The artist’s passion. The grief of family members. The dedication of nurses like Judy. The bittersweet memories of people like Mrs. Butler.
I thrust my power into the canvas, pulling the surge of those emotions into me, recharging my magic. And then I sent it all blasting toward Asian Dude with a full-throated battle cry of defiance, feeling as if I had opened a fire hose of magic that poured through me and out through my raised palms.
My blast of magic hit just as Chuck pulled the trigger, and my head rang like a bell at the sound of the shot. The bullet and my force magic tore through Asian Dude, taking off its right arm and half of its back and showering the room with gore and blood. The bullet slammed into the door to the reception area, splintering it from top to bottom.
The last Nephilim collapsed to the floor in a bloody heap. Small ash heaps marked where the other fallen angels’ bodies had disintegrated. The old soldiers saluted and winked out, along with the rest of the ghostly onlookers. Bo barked at me urgently, as if to remind me that the building was on fire. Like I could forget. Chuck was crawling around, gathering up our weapons and stuffing them in his bag.
Even with the broken windows, the smoke was getting thick. My lungs ached, and my eyes stung. Baxter had gone quiet in my backpack and I was worried. Overhead, the ceiling creaked ominously. In a few more minutes, it wouldn’t matter that we had defeated the Nephilim. We were all going