The energy ripped from my hands and exploded like a grenade when it crashed into the ceiling, burning through dirt and cement and laminate, burrowing a hole into the bedroom of my trailer. Debris and dust rained into the basement, as did two Ravens. They landed with a thud on the concrete, bones snapping—that wouldn’t really hurt them, but it would slow them down a second. One of the fallen Ravens crawled onto its hands and feet, staring right me. Half its face had burned off from the explosion.
“My god,” I said. “Let me help you with that ugly.”
I threw another chaotic fireball at the Raven, not worried about missing. The creature crouched seven feet from me. The flame hit it hard, removing its head clean from its body before crashing into the far wall and igniting the boxes and old keepsakes I had stored. I don’t know if decapitating the vampire helped with the ugly, but that’s how it happened. Dr. Hunter, some called me. Specializing in Raven facial reconstruction.
The heat and pressure from the blast pressed me against the wall and threw some of Callie’s old boxes at me. Shirts and shoes lay spilled across the floor. The spreading fire must have kicked the second Raven into gear. It stood and bumbled toward me, hissing and spitting. I allowed it to get within arm’s length, and then I reached out and grabbed its wrist, pumping heat from my palms into its leathery skin. It screeched and pulled away from me, its skin sloughing off and sticking like glue to my hand.
“What the—” I said, rubbing the mess on the ground. “You’re nasty.”
Two more Ravens leaped into the smoky, fiery basement, landing softly and moving toward me. I put my palms together and spoke the Nephilim word for fire, then stretched my hands apart as if pulling two ends of a rubber band. A string of flame appeared from thin air. With my arms spread wide, I pushed the magic forward. It flew in a straight line, catching the two Ravens in the chest and melting through their bodies. They collapsed onto the boxes near me, lighting more of my wife’s belongings on fire. But I didn’t have the time to salvage Callie’s old stuff.
The Raven whose arm I had burned had recovered enough to make a move. It lunged toward me, hissing.
Five years had passed since I had last accessed my magic. I wasn’t conditioned for big fights like this. My body had already fatigued from the spent energy, as had my mind. I don’t think the burning boxes and the heat and the smoke helped any. Thankfully, I had punched a hole through the ceiling or else I would have passed out from the exhaust. As it was, I only had a very hard time breathing, not an impossible time.
The remaining Raven swiped at me, scraping its talons across my chest. I still wore the armor that Xander had provided before we entered the parking garage. It wasn’t Kevlar, but a material that warded against attacks from magic wielders. The deflection allowed me enough time to gesture for another spell. Before I could, the creature screeched, collapsing onto me as dead weight. A dark, molasses liquid leaked out of the creature and soaked onto my shirt.
“Fuck,” I said, straining to get the massive beast off me. Who knew what it looked like in its human form, but as a Raven, it stood taller than the average human and weighed about twice as much. The flames around me grew hotter, crawling closer.
Xander appeared above me, standing in my bedroom and staring down the simmering hole. Despite the smoke clouding his features, I could make out his patented scowl. He wasn’t too pleased about something, which didn’t surprise me at all. I moaned and strained as I rolled the Raven off me. I moved away from the flames, choking on smoke.
From above, Xander leaned over the edge and asked, “Need a hand?”
The ceiling was only eight feet high. I could stretch and touch it. Pushing his helping hand away, I jumped and gripped the edge and tried to pull myself up, kicking my legs through thin air. With the energy I had already spent, I didn’t have enough left in the tank to perform a simple pull-up. It definitely wasn’t because I had decided to store my workout equipment in the basement for the past four years. I mean, was I out of shape? Yes, very much so, in the magical and the physical sense. I didn’t look like it, since my demolition job required a lot of physical exertion, and I was still young enough to have a decent metabolism—thirty, to be exact—but from what I hear, these next few years might be rough on my waistline. Too bad the workout equipment was about to burn down. Maybe this would have inspired me to utilize it once again.
I kicked a leg over the ledge and crawled up to my bedroom floor, panting. My heart raced and sweat drenched my body. “It’s from the flames,” I said, out of breath. “It’s hot down there. And that scuffle… took it out of me. Sapped my strength. Otherwise… you know. Pull-up would’ve been easy.” I turned my head and met the wild, yellow eyes of a Raven. I screamed and scrambled away—more as a preemptive defensive maneuver than outright terror. I mean, you think I would fear a measly Raven? No way.
“It’s dead,” Captain Obvious clarified as he wore the dictionary definition of a frown. “I killed them all.”
“Not all of them,” I said, sitting against my bed. “I killed three of them. Wounded the fourth. So, I’ll take credit for that one, too.”
“You found your guns,” Xander said, stating the obvious again, as they were literally strapped to my body.
“Wow. You’re pretty observant. Did your
