A branch cracks somewhere in the distance. Then I hear the crackle of crunching pine needles.
They’re still coming.
Beneath my hands, the girl is shaking, but her cries have tapered off to whimpers. She’s still not awake, not in any real sense. I swallow as worry engulfs me.
She’s defenseless like this.
I lean toward her and whisper an incantation under my breath, one that feels as old as the language I’m speaking in. “I offer you my protection. My magic will defend you. My blood will spill before yours does. This I vow.”
The oath feels like a memory, like déjà vu.
The footsteps draw near, no doubt because the witches heard the girl’s cries.
I can still sense the slick poison slipping through her, but I have to let her go and hope the magic I pressed into her will be enough.
I force myself up on shaky legs, turning to face the approaching witches.
In the darkness I can barely make them out. There aren’t as many of them now, maybe five or six. And the monster is still unaccounted for.
I pull magic up from the earth and draw it down from the dark moon, and I siphon still more from that magical river flowing into me. My power gathers and builds, forming just beneath my skin as I face the witches.
They’re no longer wearing masks, but unfortunately, the darkness hides their features.
“Attack,” I whisper, releasing my magic. It snaps out of me like serpents. The mental visual must be doing something because I see my magic pull back, then strike much the same way a snake would. Witches yelp and cry out.
A spell hits me, one that causes my attack to dissolve. Another follows, striking me square in the chest and knocking me back into the earth. This second spell locks up my muscles, and in mere seconds, I’m frozen; I can breathe but not much else. I can’t even move my eyes.
A third spell hits my hip as I lie there, this one a dirty crimson color. I know just by the look of it that this one is bad. And then I feel it.
If I could scream, I would.
It’s as though I’m being stabbed in twenty different places. Maybe I am. I’m choking on blood, or maybe my lungs are simply seizing up.
SELENE! STAY WITH ME. Memnon forces his magic into me, and I reach for it, letting it slip through me and fight off the curse that’s flaying me open.
DO YOU SEE YOUR ENEMIES? MARK THEM, EST AMAGE, THEY ARE NOW MY OWN.
“She’s hit,” one of the witches says.
“Does it look like I care? That fucking cunt nearly ripped off my leg.”
“Enough,” a third one says.
Memnon’s power must be working because the pain from the curse is dying down, and I’m able to move my eyes.
So I can see one of the witches prowling over, her toenails painted a soft pink color. For some reason, that strikes me as ridiculous, given the situation.
She crouches next to me, her straight black hair brushing my cheek. “When the others get to you, you’re going to wish you hadn’t done shit tonight,” she whispers, looking down on me.
She lifts her hand, and I’m not sure if it’s to slap me or strike me with another spell, but I want to scream because I can’t do anything but lie here, prone.
The witch flashes me a nasty smile. “Payback’s a bit—” A black shadow collides with her, and I hear her scream. It cuts out, replaced by the meaty sound of ripping flesh.
There are more screams and more meaty sounds. Now I’m able to tilt my head just a little. A massive shadow is pinning one of the witches, and it jerks its head, tearing out a section of flesh. The creature pauses to glance over at me, its eyes glinting eerily in the darkness.
I recognize those eyes.
Nero!
I want to cry because he’s here, defending me. He roars, then lunges toward another witch.
I see a flash of cobalt-blue magic whoosh toward him.
In an instant I’m in his mind. Get down!
His body lowers, pressing flush against the ground, and the spell whizzes harmlessly past him.
I’m out of his head in an instant, dragging as much of Memnon’s magic into me as I can, until it’s flushing out the last of the spells that cling to my body.
I thought I was panicked before, but now knowing that my familiar is taking on a group of bloodthirsty witches all on his own—I’m petrified for him.
My fingers and toes twitch, then my hands and wrists, feet and ankles. I want to scream at how painfully slow it’s going.
Before I get full motor function back, I sense one of the witches grabbing the shifter girl behind me.
No!
I fling my magic out without a spell, letting the cords of it find the witch. As soon as they do, my power wraps around the witch’s ankles and yanks her off her feet.