eyes that told me just what he planned to do to the tanner if he stepped over the line.
“Don’t slam his face into anything,” I warned him. “He’l just start stalking you too and then we’l never—shit. I found it.”
Silence as we stared at the lip of the lid, where the fresh outline of a raven had been drawn with its beak buried in the entrails of a screaming child. The blood Kyphas’s summoner had used wasn’t even dry enough yet to flake.
“Fuck.” I don’t know if I reached for Vayl’s hand, or he grabbed for mine, but our fingers interlaced like we each felt the need for rescue.
“Exactly,” Vayl said with such feeling that his voice seemed to rumble inside my chest.
Sterling’s voice sang into the silence, lifting our shoulders, bringing our eyes to the sky like we could real y see him looking down on us as he said, “If you break that seal, I can throw down a net that wil only let the Rocenz through.”
I’d known he was the best. But to wield that kind of power? Even with al his stores available to him he’d stil probably have to sleep for a week afterward.
Vayl might’ve been impressed too, but he never hesitated. “Do it,” he said.
Cole looked down at the sword in his hand. Took some time to adjust his grip and, maybe, his attitude. Because his voice sounded different, more businesslike, when he asked, “So how do we break the lock?”
I said, “We hit the raven with our blades. Not like we mean to plow through rock, but like we’re trying to kil an actual bird. The fact that we’re attacking with Raoul’s weapons should be enough to split it, but we may have to strike it several times before it gives, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And when it starts to go? Have the sense to get back.”
“No problem.”
I looked up, barely able to see the roof of our lookout building from ground zero. “Sterling? Have you got us covered?”
“Three cooks about to spoil the broth,” he confirmed.
“Al of you bust it back behind a wal as soon as the lid splits. I’m going to light the place up.” I felt Vayl’s powers like icy fingers tickling the back of my neck and knew our warlock wouldn’t be the only
His dimple appeared briefly and then dashed away. “I think that was my line.”
“Naw, ’cause I’m the sexy one.” I pointed back and forth between us. “Beautiful, sexy. Sexy, beautiful. We need to get this straight now, you know, so after we get blown to bits they’l know how to tel the difference between us.”
“It wil stil be no problem,” said Vayl. “Your bits wil be jumping up and down, madly demanding revenge. While mine wil be wafting through the air like a misguided bal oon.”
“See,” I said. “Even your bits are beautiful. They waft.”
“Jumping up and down is definitely sexy,” Vayl assured me. “Would you like to do it two or three times right now before we get down to business?”
Sterling and Cole groaned at the same time. “Ewww!” And then we couldn’t think of a single new delaying tactic. So Vayl unsheathed his sword while Cole and I raised ours.
We took turns swinging, the metal of our blades clanging against the wings of the raven like hammers against an anvil. No way could the demons not hear us.
against an anvil. No way could the demons not hear us.
We’d have to hurry. A rumbling from somewhere so far below us it felt like the other side of the earth made us look down and reset our stances.
“Again,” Vayl said.
We swung. The bird took three more slices to its wings.
I whispered, “Vayl, it’s giving! Armor yourself!” He said, “If I could, we would al be encased in ice by now. But I have lost the abilities I gained after 1770.” Including the one he’d taken from a Chinese vampire during our mission to Corpus Christi that had given him the power to shield himself and others in a blanket of ice.
I took a moment to glance at him, amazed that his expression was as relaxed as if he was waiting for his evening paper to be delivered. Wow.
I gritted my teeth and got back to work, more determined than ever to beat the bastards who’d set us up so neatly.
Cole delivered a blow that cut the raven’s head at the neck. The lid cracked in a dozen places as the ground beneath our feet shifted, hard, to the left. Both of us stumbled backward.
“I can see red between the cracks!” Sterling told us. “Is it getting warm down there?”
I wiped the sweat off my face. “Feels like a furnace.”
“It’s going faster than I expected. Take cover!” Vayl hustled us back toward Yousef’s hiding place. He wasn’t there. We made it just in time for the lid to fail. The sound of it shattering worked like a bugle cal for Kyphas’s crew.
“Demons on the move!” Sterling said. “Coming at you from multiple directions. I suggest you keep a wal at your backs. Or better yet, run!”
