Astrid whined. I turned to find her nose was bleeding. It made me think she was still awake somewhere behind that sleepy mask. Her struggling caused blood to seep onto the floor. Blood.
I could punch myself for my stupidity.
Biting the skin of my forefinger, I began to draw runes on the floor. The necromancer watched me with curiosity for a second before he raised his right hand. It was a command to charge. The ghouls went berserk. They came at the circle with an intensity I hadn’t even seen from the shifters. In the small space they were all collateral. They struck each other just as much as they did my circle. There was no way to tell if the gargled sounds coming from their vocal cords were screams of anguish or pleasure. It didn’t matter. I was in for a world of hurt.
The blood runes thickened the magical barrier, but even that wouldn’t last forever. Thanks to Lucifer, my blood was stronger than a human’s should be, but I was still human nonetheless.
The necromancer stepped back a few paces. He crossed his arms over his chest. For all intents and purposes, he was completely at ease. Something simmered beneath the layer of apathy in my mind, but I couldn’t reach out to it. It made the runes flare hotter. Where the ghoul’s claws hit the circle, it now seared them blunt.
I met their crazed hunger with my tempered rage. And then the necromancer flicked his palm. The force that gathered outside of the circle was far beyond anything the ghouls could produce. It was a magical battering ram.
I heard the rushing sound of wind building into a storm. It snowballed into a crescendo. Gritting my teeth, I tried to counter with the blood magic Basil had taught me. I made the rune signs for protection, for aid. But it didn’t come. Two seconds later, I heard a crack inside my mind. The circle broke.
I screamed as the claw of a ghouls slashed across my cheek. Without the tension of the circle to buffer its hit, the ghoul’s punch caught me and slammed me back against the wooden closet in the corner of the room. The back of my head bumped into the door handle. I heard a lock unlatch as I blinked back stars. At the same time I raised my arms in front of my face. With the last of my strength, I drew a blood circle around Astrid. Ghouls piled onto her to be rebuffed momentarily. I estimated the circle would last another thirty seconds.
Something latched onto my ankle. The ghoul dragged me forward. I kicked out wildly. It did all of nothing. My elbow hit the closet door that had fallen open with my struggling.
Something inside reflected the moonlight coming from the broken wall. I slammed the heel of my boot repeatedly into the nose of the ghoul who was dragging me along the floor. It snapped its teeth and tried to take a chunk out of my calf. I twisted to the side, and then let it pull me forward. My shoulder smashed into a table leg. The impact caused the jars to knock against each other. They began to tumble off the top, breaking as they hit the floor.
I snatched a piece of broken glass. My hand burned from the liquid coating the glass, but it was the better alternative at the moment. At the closest angle, I drove the pointy end of the glass into the ghoul’s eye. My aim was terrible. If Diana were here she would be groaning. Missing the mark, I dragged the makeshift weapon across the ghoul’s cheek. It did more damage to my hand than to the ghoul. Blood, my blood, spatted into its eye. It reacted as though burned and gave up its prize. It didn’t matter. There were plenty of other ghouls waiting to claim me.
My head felt like it was being weighted down my rocks. Something flashed behind me. Stupidly, I turned my attention away from the ghouls in front of me to take a peek. A mirror! A fricken floor-length mirror!
I dove for the thing at the same time the necromancer threw a shot of blackened magic at me. The power grazed my hip causing my limbs to spasm. The left side of my body stopped working. Mid-step, my leg collapsed. I went tumbling down and crashed into the mirror that had been my target.
The necromancer came charging towards me. I slammed my hand onto the mirror and screamed Basil’s name. Of all the people I knew, Basil was most addicted to the MirrorNet. If anyone would be online right now, it would be him. My gamble paid off. The mirror swirled into a bulletin and Basil’s face appeared.
“Lex!” he screamed. And then the necromancer caught hold of me. He ripped me from the mirror. Basil’s image disappeared. The protective circle around Astrid shattered. A ghoul bit into her thigh. She didn’t make a sound.
The necromancer clutched me by the throat. I couldn’t look into his eyes, but that didn’t matter. Seeing Astrid attacked had dispelled the lethargy that held me captive. I slapped my hand against where the necromancer’s face should have been. What I felt was the swirl of unimaginable despair. I had felt the same numb defeat in the icy cavern below the Fae forest. I blinked and the image in front of me changed. I was on an open battlefield once more.
To my left, a horde of demons scrambled over each other to get to the oncoming charge of supernaturals. It was ten-to-one odds in favour of the demons. There were so many of them, I could count for weeks and not make a dent in their numbers. A lone Nephilim materialised in the sky above the advancing supernaturals. The green of Kai’s angelfire haloed his body. I drew
