Page 21 of Time's Fool

And all while the old bat kept screaming, “I’m sorry!”

“For what?” I snarled, right before the world went hazy.

The bitch had hexed me with something powerful enough to make me drop my human shield. It probably would have dropped me, too, but I was already nose-diving along with her, still lucid enough to know that I’d immediately be a target. The old woman, however, who had been right behind me, got hit with enough friendly fire to set her alight, and she went screaming back into the shop, her gray hair burning.

Meanwhile, I somehow managed to turn the table over in time to take the brunt of another barrage, which set it alight and caused flames to dance in my blurred vision.

Portal, I thought. And go, and now, and I tried. But that old witch’s spell had hit me good, and her sisters were coming to finish the job. I could see them, a bunch of vague outlines and dark shapes, all converging on my location.

Or what had been my location, because I was suddenly airborne.

I had a brief glimpse of the rain-soaked courtyard, of a bunch of dark robed witches highlighted by flaming debris, and of a portal eating itself as some spell interrupted the flow and sent it careening wildly around the space gobbling up people and things before winking out. And then I was pelting forward like a bat out of hell, which wasn’t too much of an exaggeration. Because I had been thrown over the shoulder of a speeding master vamp.

The rumors of vampires being able to fly are mostly false, but he made it seem almost believable; I don’t think he touched down but perhaps a third of the time. Or maybe he couldn’t, because my worst fear had come true, and the theater crowd had returned along with the night. I had blurred glimpses of florid, laughing faces, of the ochre-red lips of a prostitute, of a startled horse, rearing back as we sped past and almost throwing its rider—

And then darkness.

I was so dizzy that it took me a moment to realize that I hadn’t passed out. No, this was worse. This was far, far worse.

“Not the bridge,” I rasped, as we tore under the arch that led into it.

“What?”

“Not the thrice damned—”

But it was already too late.

Chapter Six

As usual this time of day, the bridge was packed with returning revelers, with late shoppers taking advantage of end of day prices, with minstrels and street performers hustling for a coin or two, and with beggars hoping to be tossed enough for an evening meal.

Nobody was in a hurry to get home, as the bridge was the one of the best lit areas in London. The sun sliding below the horizon was not a problem in a place where merchants hung lanterns outside their shops to entice customers, where tall, fine houses on both sides of the thoroughfare had golden light spilling out of their expensive, glazed windows, and where lords and ladies had boys bearing flaming torches running ahead of their litters to light the way.

Some of the latter were a bit dangerous, getting too close to pedestrians and riders as the narrow confines of the bridge threw everyone together. I saw one singe the flank of a horse, which then turned to snap at the boy, who skipped handily out of the way before almost setting a woman’s dress on fire. Nobody noticed; not even the woman.

The bridge was simply too chaotic and loud, with the great wheels that sent water into the city creaking, the outgoing tide rushing, and the people laughing and cursing and yelling and singing.

And all of that was before the attack started.

I didn’t know whether the witches were trying to panic the crowd, in the hopes that they’d trample us, or whether they just didn’t care. But the result was the same. The vampire suddenly cursed and jumped to a rooftop, just as twin spells hurtled past us, streaming down the street before exploding against a wooden buttress.

The buttress spanned the bridge, helping to support a house on either side, which were six stories high and teetered precariously. Supports like it, along with extended galleries that served the same function, were so numerous that they created the feeling of a wooden ceiling in places, cutting off much of the light. But that wasn’t a problem now, especially when the whole thing went up in a fireball, illuminating the early evening sky and sending flaming pieces shooting in all directions.

Including down onto the startled crowd. Who, for a moment, looked up in confusion, the unexpected new source of light spangling their faces. Then someone screamed and they ran, pelting down the cobblestone surface of the bridge like a bunch of animals breaking for a new pasture.

They were spurred on by the multicolored spells that began flying everywhere, something that would have been disastrous had the surrounding roofs been thatched. Luckily, wealthy merchants lived here, on the upper stories of their tall, timbered houses, well above the shops and noise, with their windows open to catch the fresh breeze off the water. They had sturdy shingle roofs, which nonetheless sent fiery blocks of wood scattering everywhere.

Including onto the roof where we’d been crouching before Mircea threw us onto a neighboring one. And then kept on throwing us, ducking and weaving and staying above the packed street as he catapulted us from one side of the bridge to the other. And somehow managed to dodge the barrage of spells that followed hard on our heels.

It worked because he was faster than any vampire I’d ever seen, yet a hex nonetheless set the hem of his expensive cloak on fire, prompting him to curse and throw it off. Another barely missed us, turning the sack on a workman’s back into a portable bonfire. More spells hit a cart, trundling along the street below, sending a burst of flaming grain upward, and then peppering it back down onto the already panicked crowd.

Mircea jumped again, to the roof over the third story of a nearby house, while a river of bodies surged by below. He also went dim, using the vampire ability to cloak themselves in shadows, something that would have worked better without all the fires burning everywhere. And I guessed that a witch thought so, too, because she jumped down from somewhere above, right in front of us.

“Gi’e us the ring!” she yelled, to be heard over the screams of the crowd, which had now been joined by the sound of church bells, ringing an alarm. “Let it go, and we’ll let ye live!”

Mircea said something ungentlemanly in return, and kicked her into the building across the street. I doubted that it hurt her, as she’d been shielded, but it infuriated her sisters. Who came at us all at once.

And not all of them were on the ground.

---