Luis and Claudia threw themselves at the double doors and slammed them shut. While Claudia flipped the locks, Luis dragged heavy furniture over to block the doors. Shouting sounded in the hall. Heavy pounding boomed on the doors, echoing through the room like a thunderclap.
“What about the windows?” Luis asked.
“They’re barred, and the curtains are drawn,” Bel called out. “All the windows on the first floor are bullet and magic resistant.”
While Claudia and Luis had acted so fast and decisively, Linwe, Sidhiel, Melly and Bel still stood frozen in the center of the room.
Sidhiel strode to the door. “Let me out of here,” she ordered. “I’ll talk to them.”
“Not on your life,” said Luis. “As wound up as they are, they’ll kill you soon as look at you.”
“Do you know who I am?” the Councillor demanded.
“Doesn’t matter who you are,” Claudia said breathlessly. “To them, right now anybody in this room is a traitor.”
“They’re right, Sidhiel.” The authority in Bel’s voice made the other Elven woman pause.
“A little help would be nice,” Soren informed them.
Bel spun to look at the Djinn and her son. Ferion fought the hold Soren had on him with a mindless ferocity. It was clear Soren tried to hold onto the male without hurting him, but Ferion acted like a rabid animal.
His torso arched. He went into convulsions, foam flecking his lips.
Soren gritted, “The soul lien was booby-trapped.”
Oh, shit, shit.
Bel leaped at them, as did the others. She shouted, “Get him down on the ground! Turn him on his side!”
Soren flipped Ferion in midair and laid him on the ground. Bel gripped Ferion’s head. Linwe laid the weight of her torso over Ferion’s legs, while Melly wrestled to get his flailing arms pinned. Luis ran at the heaving group, fell to his knees and slid across the floor to help Melly.
Strangled sounds came out of Ferion’s twisted lips. Bel shouted, “He’s choking on his tongue. Somebody get me a pen or something flat like a stick!”
Sidhiel dove at her, offering a dagger in a leather sheath. Bel ran a frantic gaze down the length of it. She recognized the workmanship. Ferion couldn’t bite through the leather to the blade underneath. It would do.
She forced it between his lips. Extreme terror gripped her by the throat. When Ferion stopped breathing, so did she. She whispered on a strangled gasp, “Soren.”
“Almost there,” the Djinn said. He knelt beside her, both hands flat on Ferion’s chest.
A blow hit the double doors so hard, the wood cracked from top to bottom. Claudia had been bracing against the furniture. She skipped back, calling out, “Another blow, maybe two, and they’re going to be in.”
Soren’s Power flared hot and bright.
Bel could sense deep inside Ferion’s body that hateful, darkened smear. With a snap, it disappeared.
The convulsions stopped. Ferion sucked in a huge, audible breath. His watering gaze flew to hers. She saw sanity in his gaze. The terror eased its grip on her throat. She wiped his face and pulled the dagger from between his teeth.
Another blow at the doors knocked a large hole in the splintered wood. “I don’t want to shoot at these people,” Claudia called out in warning.
“I have to go to Hart Island,” Soren told Bel.
“Wait!” she cried out, as the Djinn began to dematerialize.
He paused. Conflicting urges tore at her. She swept the room with a glance. It had all happened so quickly. Claudia had fallen back to the group surrounding Ferion’s prone body. In a moment or two, guards would pour into the room.
On the one hand, there was still so much to do here. If she were a betting fool, she would lay money on Malphas having spies in the household.
On the other hand, her heart and soul was on Hart Island, fighting to the death.
There was no real choice. Grabbing her son by his collar, she hauled him up to her face and demanded, “Are you good to go now?”
Still coughing and sucking in air, his eyes widened at the harsh command in her tone. He nodded.
“Then don’t just lay there. You’re the Elven High Lord.” Wild-eyed, she flung out a hand and pointed at the door. “Get on your feet and clean up this mess, mister!”
“Yes, ma’am,” he wheezed. He reached out, and Sidhiel, Linwe and Luis helped him to his feet.
Bel whirled to Soren. “Take me with you!”
Launching from a crouch, Melly flung herself at them, her pretty face desperate. “Take me too!”
Soren didn’t waste time on any more words. He swept the two women together, and whirled them away.
EIGHTEEN
They left one chaotic scene behind, only to plunge into another.
For the first in many long years of travel, Bel experienced a rough landing from a Djinn transport. Soren all but flung the women at a narrow strip of rocky, icy beach. Melly grabbed for Bel, and both women staggered and fell. Landing with both hands splayed, Bel sliced one of her palms on jagged ice.
Too many details—too many sensations—pummeled her. Gasping, she pushed her hair off her face and struggled to make sense of what she saw. Beside her, Melly did the same.
Brutal cold and wind bit at her exposed skin. Peacekeeper troops poured over a hill, onto the beach. Something that looked like a giant, bizarre monster but felt like Malphas’s Power, whirled and struck at nearby troops that flung spells at it.
She sought Graydon but didn’t see him.
The monster’s physical form dissipated into pure, incorporeal Power. Malphas had dematerialized, which meant Julian had fallen. Instead of arcing away with the normal speed of a Djinn, like a shooting star, Malphas lifted into the air with a ragged lurch.
Soren had solidified enough to drop Melly and Bel onto the ground. As Malphas began to retreat, Soren melted into pure Power and launched after him.
The two Djinn collided overhead. A concussion of Power burst out like a bomb blast, exploding nearby trees and knocking everybody to the ground. With a huge, yawning noise, a nearby chimney stack collapsed, throwing billows of snow and dust into the air.
A screaming whirlwind rose as the two Djinn fought. Hurricane force winds lifted a column of water out of the Long Island Sound.
Carling and other Peacekeepers struggled to haul a lax body out of the heaving, foaming water. Once again, Bel’s stomach bottomed out. She caught sight of Rune trying to lift his head. He was alive.
Melly grabbed Bel’s arm so hard, she left bruises. Her expression agonized, the younger woman shouted something, but Bel couldn’t hear the words over the shriek of the noise.
Melly raced away, slipping and sliding over the treacherous ground. Bel followed the trajectory of her sprint. As her perspective shifted, she realized there was a figure prone on the ground. The figure wore Elven armor, which made it blend into its surroundings. Shaking convulsively, it held up blackened hands. Julian.
But where was Graydon? Bel stood on tiptoe, straining to find him.
A Peacekeeper raced past, yelling at her, “Get down! Get down!”
Ignoring him, she stumbled forward, driven by the need to find Graydon. Debris whistled through the air, shards of bricks and trees turning into deadly missiles as the Djinn’s battle raged overhead.
Inside, hope had twisted into a despairing cry. If she didn’t find Graydon alive, she would lie down right then and there, and die.
Then, as the swirl of running figures parted, she saw two men, sprawled together, covered in blood.
So much blood.
Two tawny heads, so different, and yet so alike. Pain exploded in her chest. Blind to everything else, indifferent to the gargantuan fight tearing apart the night sky, she lunged toward the men.
As she drew close, details struck at her.
Constantine lay on his back. His body was soaked with blood from neck to groin. Graydon crouched over him, cradling the other sentinel’s head in his arms and shielding him from the deadly debris.