Page 211 of Cherish

“You use these hunters to get whatever you want,” I continue, “which in this case is all the power that your sister and her mate wield.”

“That’s a very simplistic viewpoint,” she tells me with a sneer.

“Sometimes simple is the best and truest answer.”

“And sometimes it’s just grounds for annihilation,” she shoots back, right before she reaches in her pocket and pulls out one of the red pouches the hunters are using.

My grandmother takes one look at it and rushes her, knocking the pouch from her hand and sending her spinning across the stage.

The Crone screeches in outrage and comes back with a roundhouse punch to the Bloodletter’s cheek—which earns her a kick in the stomach even as the Bloodletter reaches a hand to the sky and sends lightning careening across the stage.

“Ten thousand years, and you haven’t learned a damn thing,” the Crone tells her, voice clearly audible above the din of combat around us. “If you go for lightning right out of the gate, you’ve got no weapons to use later.”

As if to prove her point, she holds a hand out and absorbs the lightning, then sends a stream of it flying straight toward a group of gargoyles racing across the snow.

“Plus, you make it even easier for me.”

“I think I can keep up,” the Bloodletter answers with a smirk. And this time there is no warning before lightning strikes the Crone right between her shoulder blades.

She screams then, a combination of rage and regret, as she gives up on the lightning and races straight toward my grandmother. As she does, the smell of sizzling flesh permeates the air around us, but she doesn’t let that slow her down. Instead, she plows headfirst into the Bloodletter and sends her flying off the stage and straight through the air into the twilight around us.

Seconds later, the two of them are rolling across the sky, locked in the closest thing to mortal combat two gods who can’t die can get, while Alistair races to join the fighting on the ground.

“Should we go after them?” Hudson asks as we both stare at the sky.

Part of me wants to say yes, if for no other reason than to see the Bloodletter finally kick a little ass. But it looks like my grandmother has the situation well in hand, and we have bigger problems to deal with than one spiteful god.

“I think we need to help the others,” I tell him as three hunters race toward one of the wolf shifters, yellow pouches raised.

Two gargoyles rush to intercept them, but they are a couple of seconds too late. And as the yellow pouch hits the wolf, a scream of agony splits the air. Moments later, the young wolf disintegrates in a flurry of what looks like a strange, powdered version of silver.

The gargoyles finally reach the hunter, swords raised, but before they can stop him, he reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a purple pouch, which he throws straight into the face of my soldier Rodrigo.

I have one second to think he’s going to be okay—one second when nothing happens at all. But before Rodrigo can so much as try to restrain the hunter, he—quite simply—blows apart, his stone shattering into a thousand different pieces.

120

Twist and

Get Out

Everything inside me recoils at the sight, and even though one of my other gargoyles, Cooper, strikes the hunter down, it’s too late to do anything to help Rodrigo or that wolf.

Hudson sees it, too, and before I can so much as shift, he’s already faded halfway across the field and snapped the neck of a hunter preparing to launch a green pouch at one of Imogen’s ladies-in-waiting.

I jump off the stage, grabbing my platinum string as I do, so that I can shift into my gargoyle form. The only problem, however, is this damn dress. It was beautiful when I put it on back at the Witch Court, but right now it’s nothing but a hindrance. So I reach down, say a silent prayer that Imogen forgives me, and rend the hemline in half, splitting the dress so I can fight and move and generally kick a lot of ass.

Three hunters run toward me, and I give the first a spinning concrete fist to his weak chin. He goes down instantly. A second hunter reaches into her pocket and pulls out a purple pouch that she aims straight at me, and though I manage to knock her hand away, in a flash she’s got a purple pouch at the ready again.

I kick up the way Artelya taught me in practice several months ago, but as the hunter’s hand comes forward, I brace myself for whatever pain comes next—and then suddenly, all three of them are gone, poofing out of existence between one blink and the next.

I whirl around to find Hudson staring straight at me, unadulterated rage on his face as he rips a hunter in half with his bare hands.

“Grace!” Macy screams from behind me, and I turn to see her running toward me at top speed.

As soon as she gets within range, she waves a hand in the air, and my dress transforms into my trusted battle gear. Leather leggings, T-shirt, leather vest.

Immediately, it feels like a weight is lifted, and I take off running straight toward Artelya, who is in the middle of decimating a contingent of hunters with several other members of the army.

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