“Trust me. This is the safest place in range.”
“And how long do we have?” I asked, removing my fingers from my nose.
I watched her eyes shift down as her gaze locked on me with her full force. And that was saying something, because Sarah was a seriously powerful witch. She was the leader of the Bane City Coven, after all.
“That’s up to you, Chi.”
A thrill of nerves escaped down my spine. “You need me to leave, don’t you? I get it. I’m an unacceptable risk—”
She quickly shook her head, bringing a hand up and spreading her stiff white fingers wide. “No. There’s no way we’re going to leave you alone with that monster. Plus, we will need to work together on this. If we allow McCain to ascend to the throne of Bane City – let alone get his hands on you – there’ll be no stopping him. No matter what it costs us,” she said, bringing her hand down and pointing a stiff finger at the gravel below me, “we will stop this man.”
I watched the other witches start to gather around. Even the witches who were attending to Bridgette’s injuries stopped what they were doing and craned their necks toward Sarah.
She turned on her foot, facing everyone in turn until she twisted back to me. “We’re going to pull together. But, Chi, I’m sorry to say this, our fates will ultimately rest in your hands.”
My stomach kicked again. Boy, did it kick. It felt like I had an army down there and they were all trying to tear out of my gut.
I brought a shaking hand up and clutched it over my belly. That’s when I realized I was seriously injured. The wrist McCain had been holding onto felt as if – quite rightly – it had been crushed. It was bruised and bloody from where his short nails had snagged across my skin. I made a face as I stared at the injury.
Without a word, Sarah plunged a hand down her top, drew out one of those strange healing stones, and silently handed it to me.
I accepted it, transferred it to my good hand, and started feverishly rubbing the stone. This time, it took a few seconds until it started to work. Even then, it couldn’t cut through my pain completely. Hell, I doubted an overdose of opium could numb my pain. Because half of it was mental. Total anguish as I fought with my mind to figure out how the hell I was going to stop that asshole.
Sarah continued to face me, and it was damn clear that she was sizing me up.
There would have been a time when I would have doubted I would have measured up to size. Now? I let my hands drop to my sides as I stiffened my back and stood as tall as I could. I tilted my head up and narrowed my eyes. “Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”
There were two witches attending to Max.
For the first time, I flicked my gaze over to him. As soon as I did, nerves cascaded through my gut, gouging up toward my heart, feeling like black holes as they tore away everything from me that mattered.
And yet, they gave me all the determination I would ever need. For as long as Max was alive, I’d find a way. Goddammit, I’d find a way.
“First things first, we have to find a way to capitalize on his weaknesses,” Sarah said.
“And he’s got a lot of those,” I interjected. “His anger, for one. He can’t control his emotions. And I can use them against him.”
“You can?” Sarah said, and she sounded genuinely relieved, for half a second. “But we’ll need more. You may be able to play on his anger, but we can’t forget he’s one of the strongest sorcerer kings we will ever face. That sword of his is formidable, too.”
“Tell me about it. But his anger is not our only weapon. You were right – lying has to be the key. Every time I mention it, he goes ballistic. Not sure if it’s the memory of Mary or if it’s something else. In fact, now I think about it, it has to be something else. It makes him so enraged. Scared, too.”
“You’re doing a good job if you can pick up his fear. The most I could see was violent anger,” Sarah commented. “You’re obviously very good at reading people’s emotions,” she added.
I opened my mouth to say my skills weren’t that extraordinary, but I stopped.
“If we have any chance of riding this out, we need to set up defenses, make this place our last stand,” Sarah said, letting her voice ring loudly as she pointed that same stiff, long, elegant finger at the ground.
Really? I wanted to comment. The dump? We’d have our last battle here? I’d kind of imagined, considering all my other adventures, that I would wind up in a factory somewhere. Preferably with musty, blood-covered plastic on the floor.
The dump, however, would do. For the first time, I tipped my head back and let my gaze sweep across the scene.
The dump was huge. Of course it was huge. Bane City was massive. It was also appropriately far out of town. We were up on a hill, and for hectares around, the green dirt had been gouged away. The dump appeared to have different layers for different trash. From scrap metal, to green waste, to mounted trash that would be dug under the ground.
Suffice to say, the smell wasn’t exactly pleasant. And yet, the longer I hung around – and, more importantly, allowed my senses to settle on something more pressing – the more I was getting used to it.
“You,” Sarah said as she gestured
