Page 180 of Elven Shadow

She didn’t see the soldier charging toward her until he was right beside her in her periphery.

Then it was too late. He barreled right into her, throwing all his weight into her hip and the side of her ribcage before tackling her to the ground.

They fell in a tangle of limbs and clouds of kicked-up dirt while smoke poured from one of the nearby destroyed vehicles.

And Rebecca didn’t have a weapon.

Of course she didn’t. She hadn’t come out here with the intention of needing one. This was only supposed to have been for healing herself with her Bloodshadow magic andmaybedoing a little reconnaissance if she’d found an opening, but this?

She was completely unprepared.

Her attacker’s fist connected with her face, and she snarled at the dull pain blooming through her head before she threw herself right back at him with a hiss. They tumbled together in the overwhelming chaos, and every time Rebecca managed to free herself from the guy’s hold, he somehow closed his other hand around her wrist or ankle or a fistful of her jacket to yank her back into the tussle.

When he’d thrown her on her back and loomed over her, his enormous yellow snarl glinting with something that might have been gold fillings in the darkness, Rebecca did the best she could without a plan or the free use of her Bloodshadow power.

She sent an orb of crackling red battle magic smashing into his face.

Her attacker roared as he sailed backward several feet through the air.

The intensity of her own blast at such close range sent Rebecca flying backward too, bumping across the deadened prison yard and scraping more than a few holes in her black jeans.

By the time she’d stopped sliding across the ground, she’d inhaled a lungful of dust and smoke choking the air all around her. She couldn’t see a thing.

Somewhere not too far away, Maxwell’s terrifying snarl cut through the surrounding chaos, immediately followed by a scream and then a concerning canine yelp.

Shit. For how unprepared this gang had been for a breach in the dark by only two unknown assailants, they were actually handling the confusion fairly well.

The same could not be said for Rebecca and Maxwell.

She tried to call out to him, choked on the smoke, then caught sight of her previous attacker barreling straight toward her out of another thick cloud from the burning vehicles. His face contorted in a sadistic, snarling grin as he raced toward her with a drawn sword in hand.

Who actually usedswordsanymore?

Rebecca didn’t have time to think of the best defense beyond not using her Bloodshadow magic. The guy was almost upon her, and for however strange it was to wield a sword right now, the weapon was undeniably sharp and could do more damage with one hit than Rebecca could afford.

Her hands fumbled desperately in the dirt and dry grass around her for anything she could use as a weapon; she couldn’t risk summoning herBloodshadow spear. Then her fingers closed around something small and slightly rough that gave a little beneath the pressure of her grasp.

She clenched her fist around it, drew it toward her, and had a fraction of a second to recognize the hex doll that must have fallen out of her jacket pocket before her instincts took over.

Rebecca thrust the trinket out in front of her toward her oncoming attacker with a fucking sword in his hand, brandishing the hex doll as if the piece of stuffed burlap was a warrior’s shield.

She couldn’t have said why she did it, other than the fact that she’d seen it wielded against another only once. Plus, it was all she had at her fingertips.

She didn’t actually expect it to work.

But the second she flourished the hex doll in her attacker’s face, the snarling, yellow-toothed goon skidded to an immediate halt across the grass a mere two yards away, his equally yellow eyes wide and instantly glassy as he stared at the old-world artifact in her hand.

Before she could process what was happening, the doll strobed with multicolored light, painting glittering green symbols in the air that swirled in front of her, their light reflected in her attacker’s wide eyes.

Then the circle of old-world casting runes the Cruorcian behind the alley had been trying to manipulate burst into existence in front of the hex doll, and the stuffed canvas trinket in her hand started to vibrate.

A thick, noxious cloud of roiling black fumes sprayed from the hex doll’s head, building into shape and form in the air as it hurtled toward Rebecca’s sword-toting attacker.

It all happened so fast, she wasn't a hundred percent sure what was happening. But she did recognize all the dancing patterns of smoke and light forming another nasty, dreadful creature in the air in front of her would-be opponent.

It looked like a ghost of something drawn straight from nightmare, with the same hints of dancing light and swirling ethereal smoke as the noiseless clown that had tortured the human woman in the empty back parking lot days ago.

It wasn’t a clown this time. This time, the smoke took a form only Rebecca’s current adversary seemed to recognize.

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