Page 83 of Cast in Shadow
“When we find Shay, your only job is to get her out of here. Got it?”
Nguyen glared at me. “We leave together.”
“No, we don’t. She is the priority,” I said, pulling my gun from its holster. “I don’t care if you have to throw her over your shoulder and carry her out of here kicking and screaming.”
He ground his teeth, but I didn’t have time to argue with him. I just had to have faith that he would do the right thing when the time came.
Pulling in a bracing breath, I climbed the last few steps and stepped out onto a sprawling rooftop terrace. The glow of the torches and two stainless steel fire pits warmed everything they touched, but a light breeze had those flames dancing, adding to the wild energy in the air.
A handful of people were huddled at the far corner, trying to disappear into the shadows. A few more were trying and failing to make themselves invisible behind overturned tables and slatted lounge chairs. No matter which ineffective hiding spot they’d chosen, all eyes were trained on the woman in the dark, flowing dress who was locked in a passionate kiss with my daughter.
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“What the…” My voice faded, my brain stalling on the impossible.
Was Megan really kissing Shay?
No. Not even close.
Megan’s hands cradled Shay’s face, but there was nothing tender in her touch. Shay tried to push away and wrench back, but the witch’s fingers and jagged nails dug into her youthful skin, holding her captive. And then I saw it, a barely perceptible stream of energy flowing from my daughter into Megan.
Something inside me cracked. It might have been my heart. My soul. Or maybe my humanity. Whatever fractured, it released an inferno of licking flames that narrowed my vision and burned away the cold that had been sinking into my bones. Until all I could see was a dead woman with her blood-stained hands on my daughter.
“Let the girl go,” I ordered, letting my power roll through the command.
The witch’s treacherous mouth twisted up in a sneer. She spun Shay around and hooked an arm around her neck, usingher as a shield as she walked them backward toward the gleaming infinity pool. “Come and get her,” she taunted.
My fingers twitched around the gun in my hand, but I didn’t raise it.
“Take the shot,” Nguyen whisper-shouted.
“Negative.” I was a good shot, but with the amount of magic charging the air, I couldn’t risk it. Not with Shay in the witch’s grasp. “We need to separate them first.”
“If you won’t do it, I will,” Nguyen growled, raising his own pistol.
“No!” The word was barely out of my mouth before my SIG was ripped from my hands by an invisible force.
Nguyen’s gun went flying too, clattering across the stone-gray tiled terrace.
Shocked, I stared at the smug expression on Megan’s face.
Telekinesis?This witch—this moral abomination—had the power to move things with her mind?
A whimper sliced through my outrage, and the momentary superiority was wiped from Megan’s expression, replaced by a grimace. Behind her, hovering a few feet above the gently rippling water, a sliver of orange light glowed, like a streak of fire trapped in midair, and it was growing.
My heart stuttered to a stop.
She’d actually done it.
Megan Navali had touched the veil with her magic.
She released Shay with a gut-wrenching scream, her hands flying to her head. She sank to her knees as panicked fingers clawed at her temples and yanked out tufts of dull brown hair. “Get out!” she screamed. “Get it out!”
I knew that feeling. Well, kind of. The demon who’d tried to latch onto me all those years ago had never quite made it into my head, but I understood the panic and that sick feeling that went down into the very pits of a person’s soul.
Unfortunately for her, I had no help to offer. No mercy to grant. Either she would keep the thing out or she would fail.
My money was on fail, so I rushed forward. “Shay?” She was dragging herself away from the writhing witch, with a look of horror draining the color from her cheeks.
