Page 95 of Junk Magic

He was being helped by Sophie, who had popped up out of nowhere, her red mane a crackling nimbus around her face. And between the two of them, and the maybe fifty mages they had decided to take on all by themselves, the outside of the shield looked like someone had set loose an entire Fourth of July’s display all at once. And then Aki was yelling in my ear.

I hadn’t even noticed him, but his bright blue hair was suddenly bobbing around in front of my face. “He won’t leave!” he screamed. “I told him I’m a teleporter; I can get him out. But he won’t—”

“I’m not going anywhere!” Sebastian roared. And then grabbed a mage who had foolishly launched himself over top of the shield and ripped him apart.

Aki stumbled back in horror as blood and guts rained down, and I grabbed Sebastian by the fur. “You have to survive! The war depends—”

“Stop telling me to leave my people!” It was loud enough to almost rupture my eardrums, or what was left of them.

I hung on anyway. “There may be a way to save everyone, including you.”

“Talk,” Ulmer snarled from nearby, because Sebastian was too busy fighting to listen.

“The Black Circle wants Sebastian. They know if they get rid of him, it’ll bring down the alliance—”

“I didn’t ask for a summary of the war. What’s your point?”

“—so they’ll follow him. Including into the killing fields,” I said, gesturing at the warren of tunnels leading off of the arena.

“Let Wolf’s Head do its business,” Ulmer said. His maw was dripping blood, but his eyes were calm. I was suddenly glad to have him on our side.

“Yes, the main corridor is big enough for the truck—”

“But can you get him back there?”

That was the question, I thought, as Sebastian tore away from me and I had to use a magical tether to pull him back.

The huge body tried to break it, to leap over the failing shield, to rend and tear and destroy, but I held on. And not only with magic. The strength I shouldn’t have had, which had allowed me to crack a rock over Ulmer’s head earlier, let me wrestle him down. And get into the huge face, because someone had to make him see sense.

“They want you!” I screamed. “Not them! If you leave—”

“They’ll tear everyone to shreds! I won’t risk—”

He broke off because the enemy was coming over top of the now barely shoulder high wall. But some of their protection wasn’t in much better shape than ours, having had to withstand constant assault by Jen’s creatures. Allowing Sebastian to shove his snout through a hole in the nearest mage’s shield and—

Goddamn, I thought, and exchanged a look with Ulmer, while his usually urbane boss ate a man’s face.

Sebastian wasn’t listening and he wasn’t going to. Nothing enraged a clan leader more than seeing his people being butchered in front of him. It was primal, the need to protect; it was like a drug, and he was high as hell.

I was wasting my time.

“How far can you take him?” I asked Aki, who just shook his head. Not far enough to keep the stubborn bastard from coming right back.

“What’s the plan?” Ulmer said as I narrowed my eyes, and looped the tether several more times around my fist.

“The plan is that he gets in the goddamned truck.”

* * *

The goddamned truck had seen better days. But even when new, it had not been designed as a fancy toy to show off at somebody’s high school or to brag about to the guys at the bar. This thing was a workhorse, built for hard scrabble labor on a farm or in a quarry, which was probably what it had been doing before I’d bought its rusted green ass to help with my move to Vegas.

Which was a long way of saying that it was somehow still running, despite the blows it had taken, the raw, red flesh in the tire grooves, and the huge wolf that I was forcibly dragging on board.

Sebastian was fighting me, and he was fighting hard, causing me to expend magic I couldn’t spare in order to throw a half dozen additional tethers over the massive body. Fortunately, Dimas had flung the remains of his shield outward in a narrow band, knocking the attacking horde off their feet and buying us a few seconds. But seconds weren’t going to be enough if I didn’t manage to leash Sebastian, and if we didn’t move faster than a crawling baby!

I gave a final heave, and the furry bastard slammed down into the front seat.

“Go!” I yelled at Caleb, while wrestling with a good eight hundred pounds of furious wolf.

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