“This has the ammo you’l need.” Handing her gun over to her friend, Chloe set to work on the incendiaries.
“Okay.” Tess’s face was milk white, which made her mottled bruises stand out in ugly contrast, but her tone was serene. “So, we’re burning my uncle’s house down?”
Chloe focused on the chemicals she was mixing, letting magic slip from her as she worked, tweaking the compounds to do exactly what she wanted. “No, the people wil burn, the building wil be fine.”
Both women studiously ignored the shouts, grunts, and gunfire from other parts of the house. Tess swal owed audibly. “How is that possible? A magic spel ?”
“A magic potion, actual y.” A flicker of skepticism crossed the Normal’s face, and Chloe managed a grin.
“Trust me, this is what I do.”
Tess flinched a little and looked away, checking her weapon. “Trust. Right.”
The smile slid off Chloe’s face, and she sealed a few of the containers. This was the worst possible way Tess could have found out, and Chloe didn’t have a clue what to say to her best friend. So much had happened since they’d last seen each other, so many changes for both of them. Luca and Merek, for starters. She wanted to talk to Tess, connect like they used to do with just a glance, but this was neither the time nor the place. It would have to wait— if they ever got the chance. If the Council didn’t have Tess’s memories wiped. If they survived this at al .
A shadow moved to their left, someone slipping through the shafts of sunshine coming from the hole Luca had made in the wal between the kitchen and the living room.
Beware. danger. Beware! Chloe’s clairaudience kicked off right on cue, letting her know for sure it wasn’t someone on their side of this fight.
“Heads up,” Chloe whispered when that ominous shadow flickered again. She hoisted one of her concoctions.
“I saw it.” The redhead flipped her damp hair back over her shoulder with a nonchalant shrug. “Ready when you are.”
They didn’t have long to wait. Agony burst in Chloe’s skul , and she wailed. Pain screamed along every nerve ending in her body, and though she knew it wasn’t real, she would have sworn fire ants swarmed over her flesh, biting and burning. Tess writhed on the blood-smeared linoleum beside her, caught in the same evil telepathic spel .
Spasms racked Chloe’s muscles, and her hand clenched and unclenched around the plastic canister. A man moved into the light, his hands outstretched as he focused more of the spel on Tess. She lifted in a hard arc off the floor, an inhuman sound ripping from her throat. Chloe forced her fingers to move through the pain, pointed the container at the man, and used the tiny spurt of magic she could muster to pop the lid off.
The potion exploded forth, spraying the man from head to toe in a quick shower. He blinked down at her for a moment, his spel slacking off until both women col apsed to the floor. Chloe could tel the moment her potion took effect. His eyes widened, and then he gave a guttural shout, slapping at his clothes, dancing in a frenzied circle as his skin began to melt like wax.
She didn’t stop to watch the carnage. Crawling through the drying pool of Merek’s blood, she grabbed Tess and shook her hard. The Normal woman gasped at the touch, bolting upright with a cry. “Tess, honey, it’s okay. We—”
The sharp report of a gun cut her off as Tess swung the pistol around and dropped the melting man with one shot. Hot crimson splattered them as he hit the floor, stil twitching and groaning. Tess swayed where she sat, sweat making clean trails down her face. “That was not an exploding magic potion.”
“No, that one was more corrosive than combustible.” Chloe gathered up her other containers, ignoring the way her hands trembled and the shocks of pain that continued to fire through her nerves.
They both flinched when something heavy crashed into the wal beside Luca’s makeshift doorway. Tess pointed the gun at the opening and Chloe hefted another canister, ready to launch it at anything that came through.
Instead, they saw Luca rol by, wrestling with a vampire and a half-shifted werewolf. The scene was appal ingly clear, each man bleeding from multiple wounds, clothes slashed to shreds from jagged claws, Luca cursing in fluent Italian as he grappled for the upper hand against his two opponents.
The house grew brighter by the minute as morning light managed to filter around the shades that Merek and Chloe had drawn to keep out prying eyes. At the moment it was also keeping out the sun that would burn Luca and the other vampires in the house. Much as she’d like to torch the hel out of the terrorists, she couldn’t do that to Luca.
The bad guys didn’t have those kinds of scruples.
The vampire terrorist hissed and ducked away from the sunbeams, but he opened the front door while the enormous wolf launched a struggling Luca outside.
Slashes of fire carved burns on his face. Every exposed inch of skin boiled and sizzled, and an animalistic shriek of sheer agony assaulted Chloe’s ears as he writhed in the sunlight.
Tess bolted forward, a horrified cry on her lips. Chloe managed to hit the vampire with her flame potion before he touched her friend, and he hit the floor, rol ing to try to put out the fire. As if Chloe would have made it that easy for him. Tess emptied the rest of her bul ets into the werewolf, two shots to the heart and three to the head. He fel , his body contorting as his bones snapped and retracted back to human form.
Chloe stayed where she was, ready to use her potions on anything that moved.
Throwing herself on top of Luca, Tess did her best to shield him from the light, and somehow managed to pul , push, and heave him back into the house. Chloe slammed the door closed behind them. The stench of scorched, blackened flesh made her stomach turn.
Tess’s eyes were wide, blank with utter shock as she watched her lover’s fangs protrude from his gums.
“Luca? Luca! ”
He choked, his eyes little more than slits in his swol en, distorted face. “Mia diletta.”
A tear slid down her cheek. “I’m here. Tel me what to do. Tel me what you need.”
“Leave me.” He closed his eyes and turned his face away, but not before Chloe saw his hungry gaze lock on her friend’s throat.
“What?” A short sob racked the Normal woman, disbelief coloring her words. “No, Luca. You’re hurt. You need help.”
Chloe put her hand on her friend’s shoulder, her heart breaking as she saw the ugly truth. One of these two was going to die, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. “He needs to feed, Tess. He’d need a lot of blood to heal from this, and if you stay close, he’l attack you and drain you. He won’t mean to, but he won’t be able to help it. Come away, honey. You need to leave him.”
A bril iant explosion that sounded like fireworks brought her head around, and she saw Merek and Alex locked in a deadly showdown with four other Magickals. Gods, there were just so many of them. They took out two and three more seemed to be ready to take their place. An exhausted sob caught in her throat when Merek’s bloodshot gray eyes met hers.
Chloe looked as drained as he felt. Every muscle and tendon in Merek’s body ached. His very bones ached. He’d burned through more magic in the last hour than he’d known he possessed. He was spent.
Shoving that thought away, he made himself keep moving and blocked a punch by a beefy elf. He rol ed his shoulder, brought his knuckles up in a quick jab to the big man’s kidneys, adding as much magic as he could to the blow. It wasn’t much, but it made the other man grunt and stagger backward into a werewolf terrorist, giving Merek precious seconds to breathe.