Francis's breath came in a gulp of understanding. "Let me go!" he shrieked, fear making his voice high and ugly. "Rachel, let me go! They're going to kill you!"
I dug my fingers into him as he struggled. Jaw gritted, I grunted in pain as his effort to flee pulled my stitches out. Blood flowed, and I fumbled in my bag for an amulet, watching from the corner of my sight as the short man's lips moved and the ball in his hand turned from ever-after red to blue. Damn. He was invoking his charm.
"I don't have time for this!" I muttered, angry as I lay half atop Francis, trying to tag him.
People were running now. They scattered into hallways and unhindered past the woman and into the parking lot. When witches dueled, only the quick survived. My breath hissed in through my nose as the man's lips stopped moving. Pulling his arm back, he threw the spell.
Gasping, I yanked Francis up and before me.
"No!" he shrieked, his mouth and eyes ugly in fear at the incoming charm.
The force of it slid us across the floor and to the chairs. His elbow jammed into my bruised arm and I grunted in pain. Francis's scream cut off in a frightening gurgle.
My shoulder turned to agony as I frantically pushed him off me. He sagged to the floor, senseless. Scooting backward, I stared. A pulsing blue sheet filmed him. A thin smear of it was on my sleeve. My skin crawled as the haze of blue ever-after reality slid from my sleeve to join that coating Francis. He was convulsing, covered in it. Then he went still.
Breath fast, I looked up. All three assassins were speaking Latin in tandem, their hands making unseen figures in the air. Their motions were graceful and deliberate, looking obscene.
"Rache!" Jenks shrilled from three chairs away. "They're making a net. Get out! You gotta get out!"
Get out? I thought, looking at Francis. The blue had vanished, leaving his arms and legs sprawled in unnatural angles on the floor. Horror flashed through me. I had made Francis take my hit. It had been an accident. I hadn't meant to kill him.
My stomach clenched, and I thought I might vomit. I pushed my fear aside, using my anger to get to my knees. I grasped for an orange chair, pulling on it to lever myself upright. They had made me make Francis take my hit. Oh God. He was dead because of me.
"Why did you make me do that?" I said softly, turning to the short man. I took a step forward as the air started to tingle. I couldn't say that what I'd done was wrong - I was alive - but I hadn't wanted to do that. "Why did you make me do that?" I said louder, anger swelling as the sensation of pinpricks broke over me like a wave. It was the beginnings of the net. I didn't care. I scooped up my bag as I passed it, kicking my uninvoked amulet out of the way.
The ley line witch's eyes grew wide in surprise as I came at him. Face going determined, he started chanting louder. I could hear the other two whispering like an ash-laden wind. It was easy to move in the center of the net, but the closer I got to the edge, the harder it became. We stood in a blue-tinted bowl of air. Past it, Edden and Nick struggled, trying to push their way in.
"You made me do that!" I shouted.
My hair lifted and fell in a breath of ever-after as their net went solid. Jaw clenched, I spared a glance beyond the haze of blue, seeing the muscle-bound mountain of a man outside it, keeping it in place even as he threw ley line spells at the hopelessly outclassed FIB officers who had swarmed in. I didn't care. Two of them in here with me. They weren't going anywhere.
I was angry and frustrated. I was tired of hiding in a church, tired of ducking splat balls, tired of dunking my mail in saltwater, and tired of being scared. And because of me, Francis was lying on the dirty cold floor of a cruddy bus depot. Worm that he was, he hadn't deserved that.
I swung my bag forward as I limped toward the short man. I reached unseeing, feeling the notches of the amulets for a sleep charm. Mad as hell, I wiped it across my neck, letting it go to dangle from the cord. His lips started moving, and those long hands of his began sketching patterns. If it was a nasty spell, I had four seconds. Five, if it was strong enough to kill me.
"Nobody!" I exclaimed, staggering forward by will alone. His eyes widened as he saw my demon scar as I made a fist. "Nobody makes me kill anyone!" I shouted, swinging.
We both staggered as I connected with his jaw. Shaking my hand from the pain, I hunched into myself. The man stumbled back, catching himself. The gathering of power abruptly lessened. Furious, I gritted my teeth and swung again. He hadn't expected a physical attack - not many ley line witches did - and he raised his arm to block me. Grabbing his fingers, I gave them a backward twist, breaking at least three.
His scream of pain was echoed by the woman's cry of dismay from across the lobby. She started forward at a run. Still gripping his hand, I swung my foot up, yanking him forward to smack into it. His eyes bulged. Clutching his stomach, he fell back. His watering gaze tracked someone behind me. Still not breathing, he dropped and rolled to the right.
Gasping, I hit the ground and rolled to the left. There was a boom, and my hair blew back. I pulled my head up from the floor as the ball of green ever-after spread itself on the wall and down the hallway. I turned. The wisp of a woman was still coming, her face tight and her mouth going nonstop. A red ball of ever-after in her hand swelled, streaked with her own green aura as she tried to bend it to her will.
"You want a piece of me?" I shouted from the floor. "Do ya?" Staggering, I rose to put a hand to the wall to stay upright.
The man behind me said a word. I couldn't hear it. It was too alien for my mind to understand. It rolled into my head, and I struggled to make sense of it. Then my eyes opened wide and my mouth dropped in a silent scream as it exploded inside me.
Clutching my head, I fell to my knees, screaming. "No!" I shrieked, clawing at my scalp. "No! Get out!" Black-crusted red slashes. Squirming maggots. The sour taste of decayed flesh.
The memory of it burnt itself out from my subconscious. I looked up, panting. I was spent. There was nothing left. My heart pounded against my lungs. Black spots danced at the edges of my sight. My skin felt tingly, as if it wasn't mine. What the hell had that been?
The man and the woman stood together, her hand under his elbow as she supported him hunched over his broken hand. Their faces were angry, confident - and satisfied. He couldn't use his hand, but clearly he didn't need it to kill me. All he had to do was say that word again.
I was dead. The more-than-usual kind of dead. But I would take one of them with me.
"Now!" I heard Edden shout faintly as if through a fog.
All three of us started as the net went down. The shadow of blue hazing in the air fell into itself and vanished. That big witch outside the net was on the floor with his hands laced behind his head. Six FIB officers ringed him. Hope twanged through me, almost painful.
A darting shape drew my eye. Nick. "Here!" I shouted, grasping the cord of the invoked sleep charm from the floor where I had dropped it and winging it to him.
The assassin turned, but it was too late. White-faced, Nick dropped the loop over the head of the woman and backpedaled. She crumpled. The man fumbled for her, easing her to the floor. Mouth agape in surprise, he darted his glance over the room.
"This is the FIB!" Edden shouted, looking awkward in his sling and with his weapon held in his left hand. "Put your hands behind your head and stop moving your mouth or I'll blow it the hell off!"
The man blinked, shocked. He glanced at the woman at his feet. Taking a breath, he ran.
"No!" I cried. Still on the floor, I dumped my bag. I grabbed an amulet, smacked it against my bleeding neck, and threw it at his feet. Half the charms in my bag were tangled in it. Like a bola, it flew through the air at knee height. It hit him, wrapping around his leg like he was a cow. Tripping, he went down.
FIB personnel swarmed over him. Breath held, I watched, waiting. He stayed down. My charm had dropped him into a sweet, helpless sleep.
The noise of the FIB personnel beat at me. With a single-minded purpose, I crawled to Francis lying alone by the chairs. Fearing the worst, I rolled him over. His sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling. My face went slack. God, no.
But then his chest moved, and a stupid-ass smile quirked his thin lips as they shifted in whatever dream he was in. He was alive and breathing, deep under a ley line spell. Relief poured through me. I hadn't killed him.
"Tag!" I screamed into his unconscious, narrow, ratty face. "Do you hear me you sodden sack of camel dung? Tag! You're it!" I hadn't killed him.
Edden's scuffed brown shoes scraped to a halt beside me. My face went tight, and I wiped a blood-smeared hand under my eye. I hadn't killed Francis. Squinting, I ran my gaze up Edden's creased khakis and his blue arm sling. His hat was on, and I couldn't seem to take my eyes off the blue letters spelling out FIB glowing against the yellow background.
A satisfied harrumph came out of him, and his wide grin made him look even more like a troll. Numb, I blinked as my lungs pressed against each other. It seemed to take an awful amount of effort to fill them.
"Morgan," the man said happily, extending a thick hand to help me up. "You okay?"
"No," I croaked. I reached for him, but the floor tilted. As Nick gasped a warning, I passed out.