Spells

neck.

The half-bodybuilder troll threw a punch at the helpless, hunched David, but it was strangely slow and off center, so it glanced off David’s cheekbone — though still hard enough to split his skin. The troll spun awkwardly, stumbling and landing on the floor.

“Get up, you stupid oaf!” Barnes yelled as the other trolls grabbed David’s arms, but the fallen troll didn’t move. The one with the twisted shoulders pulled out a loop of rope and moved to secure him. David yanked his arm out of the troll’s grasp and shoved him away; the troll fell to the floor as unconscious as the other.

“What the—” Barnes stammered, clearly confused. The redheaded troll forced David’s arms back behind him and secured him, struggling, to the stair rail. David yanked at his arms, trying to free them, but he couldn’t get loose. He looked desperately at Laurel, blood trailing down his face now, but she was studying the troll beside him. Slowly, so painfully slowly, the troll fell to his knees and collapsed on the ground. Then finally, the troll holding Laurel in place collapsed. A few seconds later David stood, tied securely to the railing, with four trolls at his feet.

Barnes swiftly switched his attention back to Laurel.

She had her gun out and pointed right at his head. “It’s over, Barnes,” she said, forcing back the hysteria that was threatening to erupt. “Put down your gun.”

“Well, you’re not the girl I met last year, are you?” Barnes studied her coolly. “You couldn’t shoot me even to save your little vegetable friend back then. Now you’ve dropped all four of my guys.” He grinned. “You’re still waiting for me to fall, aren’t you?”

Laurel said nothing, just focused on holding the gun steady.

“That stuff doesn’t work on me,” he said with a strange laugh. “Let’s just say I made a deal with a devil and now I’m immune.” He paused, meeting Laurel’s eyes. “What now?” he asked, his expression still amused.

Laurel watched her perfect plan come crumbling down around her.

“I want answers,” Laurel said, forcing her arms not to shake as she held the gun up, pointing at Barnes’s chest. She knew she couldn’t really trust whatever he might tell her, but she had to stall. Do something to give her time to think.

“Answers?” he said. “That’s all you want? Answers are cheap. I’d have given them to you without the gun.” He paused, looking at her with interest. “Ask me your burning questions, Laurel,” he said mockingly.

“Where are my sentries? Did you kill them?”

He laughed. “Hardly. They’re off chasing a red herring. A damn good red herring, if I do say so myself. They think they’re saving you from me. They’ll be back when they realize the trail of faerie blood is leading them nowhere.”

“Whose blood?” Laurel said, her voice shaking now.

Barnes grinned. “No one…important.”

“Why now?” Laurel asked, forcing thoughts of dead sentries out of her head. She couldn’t do anything about that right now. “Why didn’t you do this a month ago? Six months ago? Why now, and why Chelsea?”

He shook his head. “Your tiny world is so simple. You think there’s me and my little band against you and your little band. But you’re just a myopic little brat, a pawn, a stooge. When there are only a handful of players it’s easy to arrange everything perfectly. But when you have numberless players, infinite factors, it takes time for everything to fall into place.” He shrugged. “And besides, it was good sport. I wanted to take you right from your carefully barricaded home, but your sentries gave me some trouble. So I stopped trying to do it the hard way.” He petted Chelsea’s hair, his hand tightening around her neck as she tried to squirm away. “Chelsea here was so much less protected than you. It was easy to nab her. And you’re too soft-hearted for your own good. I knew you’d come. So,” he said, pressing his gun a little harder against Chelsea’s head, “now we have an interesting bet. Can you shoot the big, nasty troll before he shoots your little friend? Because let me tell you, Laurel, I think you might really shoot me. But can you do it before I shoot her?”

“Laurel, whatever he wants, don’t give it to him!” Chelsea yelled.

“Shut up, you little brat,” Barnes said. He tightened his finger on the trigger, and Laurel took one step forward.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Barnes said. “I’m not going to shoot her yet. I don’t think this is quite interesting enough.” Then with a movement so quick she scarcely saw it, Barnes released Chelsea’s neck, pulled another gun from a hidden holster, and pointed it at David.

Laurel could hardly breathe as all hope of escape vanished.

“After getting cornered by you last year, I’ve learned to always carry more than one gun, Miss Sewell.” He turned his attention back to her, firearms aimed expertly at Chelsea and David. “See, I suspect you might risk one friend’s life to save yourself and your boyfriend here, but will you risk two friends’ lives just to save yourself?”

Maybe she could bargain. She had to try; she had no other options. “Okay,” Laurel said, dropping her gun to the floor with a loud clatter. “I give up.”

“Laurel!” David shouted. “Don’t do it!” He continued to struggle against his bonds.

“There’s no other way.” She slowly raised her hands over her head just as a loud creak sounded from the stairwell.

Barnes shifted his guns, pointing one at Laurel and one at the top of the stairs. “I hear you!” he shouted. “You on the stairs; I know you’re there.”

Laurel held her breath but heard nothing.

Barnes sniffed the air. “I know you’ve got a gun!” he shouted. “I can smell it. Now I’m gonna give you to the count of three to throw your gun up here on the floor. If I say three, I will kill them all. You hear me?”

A long pause.

“One.”

David’s breathing grew ragged.

“Two.”

Chelsea began to squirm in her seat, and sobs she’d held back this whole time began to shake her shoulders. Laurel stared desperately at the gun on the floor in front of her, wondering if there was any way she could get to it.

Something clattered up the stairs.

An enormous gun slid across the floor, a ribbon of ammunition trailing from it. Barnes looked at the gun with obvious appreciation and slowly reached down, dropping one of his own firearms and switching it for the much bigger weapon.

“That’s better,” he said. “Now show yourself. Show yourself and maybe I’ll let you live.”

Nothing.

“Do I have to count again?” Barnes threatened. “’Cause I will.”

Rapid staccato footsteps ascended the stairs. Laurel turned and shock filled her already frazzled nerves when she saw Klea’s red hair appear around the corner.

Surprise registered on Barnes’s face. “You? But—”

In the split second it took Laurel to blink, she heard the rip of Velcro; when she opened her eyes a wet red circle had blossomed in the center of Barnes’s forehead and the roar of gunfire was ringing in her ears. Barnes’s face shot confusion at the room for the tiniest instant before the force from the bullet snapped his head backward and he crumpled to the floor. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air and matching screams tore from Laurel’s and Chelsea’s throats. Seconds felt like hours as Laurel took a shuddering breath and Chelsea slumped in her chair.

“Now that’s what I call cutting it close,” Klea said ruefully.

Laurel turned toward David and Klea. Klea was gripping a familiar-looking gun, and Laurel could just see the tail of David’s shirt scrunched up against the ropes to reveal his concealed holster.

“S-s-see, Laurel,” David said, his teeth chattering from cold, or shock — probably both. “I knew carrying that gun would come in handy someday.”

Laurel couldn’t even move; her body was frozen with relief, fear, disgust, and shock. Her eyes couldn’t leave the crimson pool slowly expanding under Barnes’s head, his body crumpled in the grotesquely awkward angles of sudden death. And despite knowing the world was better for Barnes’s departure from it, she hated knowing she was directly responsible.

She turned to Klea, staring at those ever-present sunglasses. Her mistrust, her refusal to call her, suddenly