Page 17 of Midnight Witch

Vlad leveled an accusing scowl at him. “How come you didn’t tell me about this?!”

“Because we don’t know what we’re dealing with yet,” Nikolai replied briskly. “Besides, I don’t recall owing you anything.”

“Now’s really not the time for you guys to be having a lovers’ spat,” Cortes snapped.

Popo leaned forward on his shoulder, Arcane Magic brightening his pupils as he gripped his sorcerer’s flesh with his claws.

Mae followed their unblinking stares. Her stomach lurched.

Darkness was coalescing at the west end of the ballroom.

Vlad’s knuckles whitened on his blades. “Is that a second portal?”

My witch!Brimstone warned.

The fox was looking at the ceiling. Mae’s head snapped up. Her eyes widened.

The glass roof was rippling.

“Shit!”

Heat swelled in her veins as she called upon her magic.

The roof of the atrium exploded just as she unleashedDevour.

CHAPTER9

A shield madeof Moon Magic exploded beneath Mae’s spell as it swallowed the deadly glass fragments and hellbeasts raining down upon them from the third portal that had appeared overhead.

Screams erupted across the garden court when the monsters who’d avoidedDevourlanded on Nikolai’s barrier with heavy thuds. More came from the ballroom, where the other portals had opened.

Vlad observed the creatures attempting to rip Nikolai’s shield to shreds with a heavy scowl. “Those are hellbeasts?”

Tarang’s hackles rose beside him.

“Yes,” Mae said in a hard voice.

Relief shot through her as she scanned the ballroom.

Despite looking shocked at the sight of the monsters, the sorcerers and witches of the South American covens had successfully erected defenses against the beasts pacing the floor threateningly around them. For once, Mae was grateful for the presence of so many High Priests and Priestesses under one roof.

Valentina assisted Bryony and Abraham where they protected the Chateau Monteville employees cowering at the far end of the hall, their barriers shimmering brightly. Though they could not see the magic nor the scores of familiars hidden from their view in the ballroom, there was no way the hotel staff could miss the nightmarish creatures that had emerged from the portals and who were now watching them with hateful eyes.

“Jared is gonna be so pissed,” Mae mumbled under her breath.

A flash of gold drew her eyes. Cortes was holding a whip and an antique sword brimming with Arcane Magic in his hands.

She stared. “Those are new.”

“They’re family heirlooms.” The Columbian met her slightly suspicious squint with a blasé shrug. “I borrowed them.”

Mae directed a questioning look at Popo.

“He totally stole them,” the familiar blurted out shamelessly. The bird’s wings blazed gold as he augmented his sorcerer’s magic. “Ready to kick some ass, Enrique?!”

Cortes’s expression grew pinched. “I’ll have less of that trash talk from you, thank you very much.”

As if responding to some silent signal, the beasts on the ground finally attacked. Cortes’s whip cracked the air as a hellboar charged at him. The beast shrieked when the lashes wrapped around its neck.

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