“Don’t forget about me,” Jerry hissed.
“And Jerry, too,” Cormack said. “As for whatever is down here, I’ll go first.”
Zoe gave him a dubious look and pushed through the group. “Actually, I would like everybody to stay up here for about a minute,” she countered.
“And why is that?”
“Do you trust me?”
Cormack wrinkled his nose. “Do I trust you’re a badass? Yes. Do I trust that you always make the best decisions? No. I don’t think you should separate from the group.” He looked to Aric for backup but the shifter was impassive.
“I’m not separating,” Zoe reassured him. “I’m simply taking the lead ... and making sure I can get off a round of magic without worrying about hitting a member of our group. If all goes as planned, I should be able to stun at least some of them.”
“And then what?”
“And then we lop off their heads. It’s going to be messy. You’re definitely going to need a cleaning crew.”
“I don’t care about that,” Cormack said. “I just don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
Lily, who was pressed against her mother’s chest, continued to wail. The emotions of her family were too much for her.
“I’ve got this,” Zoe promised, her hand shooting out and landing on Lily’s back. She dosed the baby with a burst of blue magic, which didn’t seem necessary because Lily wasn’t in physical pain, but the infant immediately stopped crying and lifted her glassy eyes. “It’s okay, little one. I guarantee this will be over fast.”
With those words, Zoe vaulted over the crook in the staircase, dropping about four feet and unleashing a brilliant magical assault as she turned to cover every angle. When she was finished, she tilted her head and managed a cocky smile that was purely for our benefit ... and then the revenants attacked.
“Crap.” Aric followed his wife over the railing, leaving Sami with us. I was surprised until Sami’s hands caught fire and she aimed her magic at the bottom of the stairs, to where a large revenant was trying to lumber up.
“Say goodnight, hotshot,” Sami barked as she fired three blasts of magic into the creature in quick succession. Unlike the first revenant she took out, this one didn’t explode. Instead, it made a strange face — as if it had somehow swallowed something nasty — and caught fire before vanishing.
Lily laughed.
“Seriously?” Aisling gave her daughter a stern look. “You’re a morbid little thing.”
“She was picking up on my emotions,” Braden replied, hurrying around Sami so he could descend the staircase. “Aidan, stay up there with Sami and Aisling. Everybody else, let’s do this.”
It was a funny war cry, something I was convinced only a Grimlock could utter, but it was effective. Aidan didn’t offer up as much as a single word of complaint as he moved to flank Sami.
The rest of us poured into the foyer.
Zoe, true to her word, was relentless as she fired magic into the revenants. I didn’t know if it was a good or bad sign that we only had to fight one set of monsters, but the wraiths were nowhere to be found.
Redmond, Braden, and Cillian were solid fighters and they effectively hacked at incoming enemies, tireless in their determination to keep the most vulnerable members of their family safe. I blasted as many as I could with my magic and lost count of how many I managed to take out. It seemed we were winning — and handily so — and then I heard a familiar hiss.
From the hallway that led to the dining room, a wall of wraiths appeared. My heart sank when I saw them. I knew the damage they could wreak. I was about to suggest moving back to the stairs when Sami, out of nowhere, let loose a string of curses that would’ve made a sailor cringe. She launched herself from the landing, letting loose a tidal wave of fire magic. It barreled into the wraiths like a tsunami and bowled them over, freezing them in their place for a moment before their heads snapped up at awkward angles ... and then poofed into ash. By the time she landed, the first four were gone and the following wave looked unsure.
“Bring it on, you horror movie rejects,” she taunted, her eyes on fire.
Aric grunted as he sliced the head from a revenant and turned to face his wife. “She gets that from you.”
Zoe nodded, wiping her forearm against her sweaty brow. “Yeah, because it’s awesome.”
Two of the wraiths stepped forward but the others shrank back. They were going to run, I realized. They understood that Sami wasn’t to be trifled with.
Sami flicked her fingers and froze the advancing wraiths, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth as her father slashed them both with one sword swipe, causing them to crumble from a single blow. Then, without taking a breath, she moved to chase the others.
“That will be enough of that.” Zoe caught her by the back of the shirt and dragged her back. “I think we’ll let the boys wrap it up, huh? We don’t want them to feel left out.”
Cillian gave her a salute before disappearing down the hallway with Braden and Redmond. I took a moment to bend over at the waist and catch my breath, and when I glanced to Cormack, I found he was doing the same.
“I guess that could’ve been worse, huh?”
He held out his hands and shrugged. “It’s honestly not the way I would’ve preferred to spend the evening, but everybody is okay.”
“I’ll make sure of that,” Zoe said as she handed Sami off to Aric and headed for the hallway the brothers had disappeared down. “I’ll be right back.”
Aric nodded as he drew Sami close, smiling at me as I chased his wife. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her — I simply didn’t want to miss out on the final smackdown. By the time I caught up, Zoe and
