Page 20 of Time's Fool

“She’s not surprised,” I said. “She expected it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We’re being hunted!”

“Surprisingly astute,” another voice commented, and I turned to see the shop girl with the half-frozen face—a glamourie, I assumed, designed to make people uncomfortable, so that they wouldn’t look too closely. And it had done its job.

Until now, when it melted away to show me the witch I’d been looking for, and who I’d been in the same room with for the last ten minutes.

Gods, I hated magic!

“Not here!” the old woman was yelling. “Ye promised me—”

But no one was listening. Least of all the blue-eyed witch, who lashed out with a spell that might well have incinerated me, but this time, I knew it was coming. Her reflexes were lightning, but mine were better, if only by a fraction.

But that was enough. The spell hit the caldron instead, as I was no longer in front of it, sending the heavy thing tumbling into the far wall where it sent an explosion of beer over the already wet stones. And I grabbed the witch from behind, having moved with speed that would have done a master vamp proud.

I had a reputation to rescue.

“Leave her alive!” Mircea snarled, just before I had a chance to see if the bitch had a spell against a broken neck.

And she did. It hit me like a runaway horse, slamming me back against the shop behind us as if I’d been blown out of a cannon. But if I couldn’t take a hit, I’d have been dead a long time ago.

I came off the wall tasting blood, but in better spirits than I’d been all day. Because I could have killed her in the split second before that, if Mircea hadn’t intervened. She wasn’t invulnerable, then, and I had a master vamp on my side.

I liked my odds.

Until the air shimmied all over the courtyard, and a dozen more witches stepped out of nothing.

I didn’t know where they’d come from, but they hadn’t portaled in. It was some type of concealment spell, perhaps the same one used on this place, as they weren’t going to risk the Circle showing up and ruining the fun. Something that I discovered no longer bothered me.

We couldn’t take these odds; there were simply too many to watch. Throw magic into the mix, and it spelled death for one of us. “Use your portal!” I told Mircea. “Do it now!”

But he was ahead of me. A swirling gray vortex appeared in the middle of the courtyard before the words had finished leaving my lips, and I ducked under a spell the leader aimed at my head. The deep thrum, thrum, thrum of the portal echoed off the walls, shivered the water in the puddles scattered across the ground, and shook the leaves off the tree peering over the wall.

Some of the leaves and a startled pigeon ended up being sucked in, but a witch danced nimbly out of the way. And I hit her leader a blow that was hard enough to make her feel it even through the shield she’d thrown up. She went down on her arse and I sent half a dozen knives into an equal number of witches heading our way.

Most hit their shields and glanced off, but several of them hadn’t bothered with protection, thinking we were too outnumbered. I wondered if they’d ever fought a dhampir before. It didn’t look like it, and I saw one go down with my knife in her chest.

That prompted the rest to shield and four of them to send a combined spell at me, which hit the leader instead when I abruptly pulled her in front. Her shield snapped with a satisfying pop and I started to drag her over to our exit. Which would have worked better if she wasn’t fighting me every step of the way.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” the old herbalist was screaming, although to who I didn’t know.

And didn’t care, because I was suddenly surrounded on three sides by furious witches.

“Spell me and she dies,” I told them, my last knife at her throat and my back to the wall. “I’ll gut her like a fish!”

And it would have been a pleasure, because the next second, the bitch bit my hand.

I didn’t know why she didn’t use a spell, but maybe I’d hit her hard enough to rattle her. So, I did it again, upside the head with the blunt end of the knife. She slumped in my arms, which saved my hand but made getting her to the portal more of an issue.

Something that wasn’t helped when half the witches went dim, probably intending to flank me as soon as I stepped away from the wall. I could see them when they moved, leaving vague ripples on the air. But they were damned vague, and it wasn’t raining enough to help me by limning them with water.

Not to mention that it was hard to concentrate with the vamp throwing everything that wasn’t nailed down.

But I wasn’t complaining because he was defending the portal and because it kept some of my attackers busy. Explosions were going off everywhere as the witches targeted the pieces of firewood that he was slinging at their heads. One missed her spell and the log caught her midsection, hard enough to crunch ribs and to send her sailing over the wall.

That infuriated her sisters, who charged Mircea en masse. Only to have the cauldron that one witch had slung at his head detonate in midair when his power slammed into hers, turning the huge pot into so much metallic rain. Which then pelted down onto the witches, with red hot iron pieces that burned through their shields with a combination of fire and magic.

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