hellfire into their left hands and threw them at me as they tried to change direction.
I lunged right through them, heedless of the flames from which my amulet protected me, and beheaded them both with one stroke. The others now realized I was armed and slowed their approach, moving more cautiously and trying to surround me as I backpedaled away from their spear tips. Leif leapt up through the hole behind them and cut down two more. The remaining two divided their attention between us. One of them threw his spear at me as he charged. I ducked under it and then he was on me, his long knife drawn, and we each grabbed the other’s sword arm as he bowled me to the floor. We rolled around, each trying to gain advantage.
His breath was hot in my face-fiery, as a matter of fact-and those bulging muscles weren’t an illusion. I had to draw on some power from my bear charm to keep him at bay.
“You killed my father,” he snorted in a basso profundo rumble. “Prepare to die!”
“Inigo Montoya? Is that you?” For a moment I had no idea who he was talking about, then I realized he must have been referring to the large ram that escaped during the battle at Tony Cabin. “Oh, I know who you mean now,” I said as we grappled. “Hey, I didn’t kill him. That was Flidais, I swear. You can find her in Tir na nOg, or I could send her a message if you like. No?”
Moralltach hacked through his spine before he could answer, and he fell lifeless on top of me.
“Oof. Thanks,” I said to Leif as the vampire kicked its corpse off me; the demon had already begun to soften and dissolve into sludge. Leif had sent the other ram back to hell as well.
“Well, get up,” my lawyer said impatiently. “Remember the clock.”
“It might not be ticking anymore,” I said. “I think these fellas were the demons necessary for the ritual. Look along the wall there.” I pointed to some dimly glowing runes around the stairwell. “And check out these markings on the floor. These rams were bound here, and judging by the amount of filth, they’ve been here for some time.”
“There could be more of them upstairs,” Leif pointed out.
“You’re right. Better safe than dead.”
“How many grenades do you have left?”
“Three.”
“Very well, we will follow the same procedure as before,” Leif said, sheathing Moralltach and walking over to where the golem’s head had fallen, sagging dangerously into the floor, “but do not hold anything back this time.”
He was about to pitch it from where he stood, near the center of the building, but I cautioned him that perhaps we should move back to the far eastern edge and proceed from there. “I’ll toss my grenades all toward the elevators and stairs, clearing out the middle of the floor, and when we go up, we make sure to clear out these back edges first so we can’t get taken from behind. If they’re smart, they will have stationed someone there at the corners.”
“I am chill with that,” the vampire said stiffly, tossing the half-ton boulder up and down like it was a tennis ball as he walked to the far edge of the building with me.
“You’re trying to be cool now, Leif? Seriously?”
“I am the shit, home slice, straight up,” he replied.
“No. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is a great effort, but you still need to use more contractions. And your tone is so formal, it’s like you’re complimenting the pudding at a duke’s dinner party. No one’s ever going to believe you’re from the hood. But let’s work on it later. Right now there are some witches up there in dire need of just deserts.”
“Fucking H!” the vampire shouted, shaking his free left fist. He enunciated the g very clearly and projected his voice from his diaphragm, like a trained opera singer.
“It’s fuckin’ A, not H, but yeah, Leif, go ahead, let’s throw down.”
Leif paused and frowned. “Do you not mean we should throw up?”
“No. See, when you throw up you’re vomiting, but when you throw down you’re starting a fight, as in throwing down the gauntlet.”
“Ohhhh,” he said. “I thought you were speaking literally.”
“I do beg your pardon. Let’s literally throw up, but figuratively throw down.”
Leif threw up. He hurled the boulder through the ceiling with so much force that it plowed not only through the third floor but also through the roof. I don’t know where it landed. I lobbed my three grenades after it to the left, center, and right and waited for them to explode. Once they did-and this time we heard screams, along with more shattering glass-Leif chucked me through the hole and I faced the northeast corner.
A witch was standing there, as I predicted-and it was the brunette who’d killed Perry, whose nose I had broken at the widow’s house. There was no attempt to sling any spells my way; she had a handgun pointed at me and proceeded to fire without ceremony, her teeth bared in a feral snarl as she did her best to kill me. I dropped and curled my legs tight, arms up to protect my head, and let my flak jacket take the punishment, but the whip of a bullet on the left side of my head and a sharp sting told me she’d winged me good. Hot blood dribbled down my neck and sharp blows punished my back, and then a slug tore through the outside of my left thigh before she had to reload. I blocked the pain there and started to close up that wound with some of my stored power, enduring the throbbing in my back and the sting on the side of my head as I got to my feet. I put up a hand to check the wound and realized with horror that she’d shot off my left ear, and in my adrenaline rush I hadn’t realized how bad the wound was.
“The gods damn you, look what you’ve done!” I cried as she fumbled with her second clip and I charged, drawing Fragarach. “If I want to grow this back I’ll have to endure the most terrifying sex imaginable! Gaahhhhh!”
She was frantically trying to get her gun reloaded, but the crazed Irish lad coming at her with a blade covered in black demon’s blood had a deleterious effect on her fine motor skills. With as little ceremony as she’d afforded me, I ran Fragarach through her abdomen and out her back until the point scraped against the glass wall. The gun and ammunition dropped from her hands, and a soft, keening sigh escaped her lips. I twisted the blade, and a more satisfying scream gurgled forth. I’m not the type to say, “That’s for so-and-so!” as I deliver well-deserved punishment unto an enemy, but I was sorely tempted to say something in this case. Still, why bother? She knew what she’d done. She aged before my eyes as the life left her and her cosmetic facade sloughed away. I yanked Fragarach loose and beheaded her to make sure she wouldn’t rise again.
Off to my right, Leif had already ascended and was engaged with someone in the southeast corner. I hoped they were still ignorant of what he was and would try slapping him with that necrotic spell. Perhaps, before he cut them down, they’d have time to realize they couldn’t stop the heart of a man who was already dead.
Nothing had come after us yet from the direction of the grenade explosions, but as I turned to check, I saw there was an awful lot of dust and debris floating around right now, and there was no telling what awaited us on the other side of the cloud. Flashes of violet light drew my attention to the street below. Bogumila was busy doing magical battle with a heavily bearded man in Hasidic garb; she was the source of light, a torus of purples and lavenders whirling around her right hand, which was raised above her head and casting a bright cone of protection around her. The light illuminated the man’s face-it was the Rabbi Yosef Bialik, sure enough, and he had finally tracked down a witch. Problem was, he was fighting the wrong one. His absolute definitions of black and white were causing him to take down friends as well as foes.
Much as I might have wished it, I was in no position to help Bogumila, and I couldn’t get into position without clearing this floor first. I had to start my count: The brunette was one down, twenty to go. I reluctantly left the window to see if I could help Leif and clear our backs before we advanced. I’d taken only a few steps when I saw him slice a woman clean in half with Moralltach. As her torso slid greasily off her hips and the two halves crumpled to the floor, he whipped around at my approach and grinned when he saw me. “Nice ear,” he said. “Would you like me to lick your wounds?”
“Shut up. How many did you get here?”
“Two,” he said, gesturing to another still form, now wrinkled and gray, lying behind him.
“Okay, three down. Let’s go. We need to count and make sure we get them all.”
I turned on my faerie specs and peered west into the dust cloud. There were figures moving on the far side near the stairwell, barely perceptible through the choking haze. A crosswind through the shattered walls of glass to the north and south was clearing some of it out, but full visibility was still a few minutes away.
“Shadowy figures,” the Morrigan had said. I’d do battle with shadowy figures. Well, one of the figures wasn’t
