Page 97 of Junk Magic

“Why can we see them?” Caleb asked, sounding strangled. Because the only good thing about freed souls was that they were usually invisible.

“You’re not seeing them; you’re seeing the spell that binds them,” I said, trying to think of something that might work on these things. And then several of the latest arrivals happened across a half dead mage and—

“Oh, my God,” someone choked out.

It might have been me.

Because the mage didn’t just die. He was cannibalized, his soul sucked out of a dozen wounds that had rent his corporeal form and left him vulnerable. And what remained when the now-ghosts finished their initial feed was . . . not recognizable.

I had a brief moment to see his withered face and gray, desiccated skin, with the dried-out eyes sunken and staring. And to wonder if that was what we were going to look like in a moment, because I didn’t think that shields would stop these things. Not hopped up on necro power and spoiling for a fight.

And then they were coming, the whole wretched, raging, screaming mass, like a furious cloud studded with ghostly body parts.

And neither Caleb nor I had any idea what to do about it.

But once again, someone else did. Because another hazy, blackened mass tore across the sands like an oversized tumbleweed, carving a swath through the battle and crashing into the first one, right before it crashed into us. And, suddenly, the fight was on.

Take a bokor with you, I remembered my old instructor saying, if you have to deal with one of those filthy bastards. Make sure you have another by your side.

And so I had, I just hadn’t remembered it.

I was still thinking of the kids as kids, but I was starting to believe that Caleb had been right about the whole tank thing. Because Jen was pissed, the rational, reasonable, slightly mousy young woman now red faced and screaming her defiance at the knot of necros, while Chris struggled to hold her back. They looked like a supernatural Ken and Barbie, only Ken was looking pretty wigged out, like maybe he’d never seen what Barbie could actually do before. While she . . .

Did not like being challenged.

Her fury had the shadowbinders clutching their bone necklaces and muttering at each other, while the two writhing, clawing masses of horror went careening around the truck, screaming and fighting and finally coming to rest a dozen yards off. It wasn’t nearly far enough. It gave us a front row seat as they cannibalized each other, immediately expending any power they received in the fight instead of storing it up, and spilling their life force like blood onto the unforgiving sands.

They wouldn’t last long at this rate, neither in the fight nor in this realm, but then, their masters could just raise more, couldn’t they?

Or maybe not, I thought, as Caleb suddenly adjusted course again, shifting gears with a savage motion, and taking us straight at the knot of necros.

They tried to redirect some of their latest servants at us, setting up a ghostly barricade. But shades take a few minutes to figure out how this new existence works, and we didn’t grant them that. We tore through the middle of them, while I searched around in Caleb’s coat for something that might help and not put more strain on my magic. Of course, the big leather number shocked the crap out of me for daring to lay a hand on its master, but for once, I didn’t mind.

It felt almost good, the jolt to the system, the buzz in my bones, even the pain. It reminded me that I was still alive, even as the cold, clammy feel of that otherworldly barricade tried to cling to my skin. It gave the impression of bony hands sliding over my body, and was absolutely the worst thing I’d encountered all day.

But then we were through and I was throwing the nasty little device I’d found in an inner pocket through one of the holes in my now tattered shield.

And I wasn’t a softball champion for nothing.

It hit them dead center and the Circle’s dislocators don’t play around. One of the mages got away—the only one who was properly shielded. But the others had been redirecting too much of their magic into the spell trying to counter Jen, and had let their own protection slide.

And the result was just really gratifying. They looked kind of like their creation now, I thought, staring behind me as we swerved away. A jumbled-up wad of heads and limbs and random flesh, with only one torso anymore since everything else had fused together.

I usually hated dislocators and rarely used them, but this time . . .

“Fuck, yeah!” Caleb yelled, pummeling the dashboard like a prize fighter going for the title.

I nodded, feeling almost dizzy from relief.

That was very definitely a fuck, yeah.

And then I realized that someone was screaming.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The sound wasn’t coming from Caleb, who was back to his usual stoic self, and already redirecting us toward our original destination. And it wasn’t Sebastian, who was staring at the monstrosity that had been a bunch of men just seconds ago. But he’d leaned forward slightly in his fascination, allowing me to see somebody squashed between him and the door.

Or make that two somebodies, I thought, spotting the Were father, wild eyed and half crazed, with his son clamped face first against his chest.

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