It didn’t matter that Asherah had never met Niko or the angels. Max still held her responsible. If not for the four-armed bitch, Scooter would never have needed Max, and she would have been there to help when the Fury rose. For that, Asherah would pay. All of them would pay.
She, Oz, Tyler, Thor, and Alexander fanned out in a wide arc across several streets to trail their opponents. Behind came Drida and four of his gargoyles. Ilanion had taken Giselle somewhere where she could be safe while following everyone’s progress astrally until they could figure out a place to lay the building trap. The earthworm critters and two remaining gargoyles went with them.
Unexpectedly, team Korvad did not split up but stayed together, heading east. Max wondered if it was just stupidity or arrogance that made them bunch up into a big fat target.
It was seven minutes before the second bell sounded. When it did, the dragon arrowed up into the air, her blue wings pumping powerfully. She gained height and looped around, flying back toward the starting point. She’d probably spiral out from there, searching for someone to kill.
That gave them only a few minutes’ window to attack her friends before she and her bad breath got back. Max ran forward. She stopped at the corner of a building and scanned the street ahead. She saw no movement. She was about to start out again when Giselle appeared, her body mostly transparent.
Max didn’t wait for her to speak. “Go back to Drida. Have him and the earthworms set up an ambush for the dragon on top of those buildings just ahead.” She pointed. “We’ll go bait the ambush and bring her in. Hurry.”
Giselle vanished. Max waited. A couple of minutes later, the witch reappeared and gave Max a nod. Drida and the earthworms were on their way.
“Go tell everyone else what’s up. Team Korvad’s about four blocks ahead. We’ll harass them a little, and that should bring the dragon quick.”
Giselle disappeared again, and Max jogged forward. She encountered some kind of a magical land mine in the middle of the street but easily went around it. The work was fast and sloppy, and she wondered if it was done that way on purpose to make pursuers think they didn’t need to watch too hard for trouble.
She sharpened her watch. The next trap was just as sloppy and obvious, but the third was subtle. She knew it was there more by the slight tingle in the air than anything else. It stretched across the entire road.
Unwilling to test it, Max jumped up to a ledge on the third floor of the squat building beside her. From there, she climbed onto the roof and ran to the edge in front. From her vantage point, she could see team Korvad. They were loosely strung out over a two-block length. She saw Alexander one street over, and then Thor trotted up behind him. She didn’t see Oz or Tyler, but if they weren’t in place, they soon would be.
She leaped to the next building and ran across the roof, then jumped one more time. Asherah’s team wasn’t watching the rooftops. They trusted the dragon to protect them from the air.
Max looked over her shoulder. She couldn’t see the dragon. Although the air seemed clear, Chadaré’s weird shadow atmosphere prevented any long-distance vision. She smiled.
Good
. That would help keep the dragon’s search pattern to small spirals. Drida would have time to get his ambush set up.
She leaped to the next building and then another. She was ahead of team Korvad now. She went to the far side of her building and climbed down, easing around the corner to glance up the street. Asherah and the panther were walking in the middle of the street, with the four ape guys boxing them in. The ghouls and the cat heads were evenly dispersed around them.
Max readied herself. A flicker of movement across the road caught her attention. Thor moved up on the opposite side. He winked at her and grinned. She returned the smile. She nodded, and they both swung around the corner and opened fire.
Oz and Alexander joined in on the other end of the block at almost the same moment. The cat heads died quickest. The Shadowblades fired with deadly precision, and team Korvad wasn’t expecting guns. Astonishment held them still for deadly seconds. Then they started shooting arrows. The ghouls flickered across the ground like skeletal shadows, moving so fast that Max could barely track them.
Poison-tipped arrows clattered around her. She pulled back and popped the clip free of her gun and clicked in another. She glanced around the corner again.
Asherah was facing Oz and Alexander at the other end of the block. The panther was heading for Max and Thor. She frowned, remembering Ilanion’s warning. Pradaku the panther emitted an odor that would turn his enemies into slaves. She pinched her nose shut, calling out a warning to Thor. He looked at her and followed suit.
They both emptied their guns at the enormous black beast. The bullets tinkled to the ground without ever hitting him.
Damn. Shit. Fuck
.
Suddenly, three ghouls came out of nowhere and darted at Max. She twisted away. The move brought her too close to the panther, and she was forced to let go of her nose as she lunged away. She sprawled on her stomach, then rolled to the side and flipped to her feet.
The ghouls were only a few feet away, the panther hanging back to let them work. They were a patchwork quilt of skin, as if they’d been sewn together from the discards in Dr. Frankenstein’s workshop. And whoever had quilted them together hadn’t been neat about it. Bone and dirty gray flesh were exposed here and there. All three were pocked with bullet holes that dribbled black blood. Their mouths were round and lipless, with snapping piranha teeth.
One of them flickered sideways around to her left. She jerked her head to watch him, and another skimmed closer, reaching out with long, skeletal fingers. Max flinched away, but then ice knifed through her side as the third ghoul plunged its fingers through her skin and under her ribs. Blood ran down her side. She gritted her teeth against the pain and the cold and yanked herself away. The other two ghouls rushed at her, making an excited humming sound at the smell of her blood.
But then Spike was there. The wolf snarled and launched itself at the ghouls.
“No!” Max shouted. She dropped her gun and whipped out a sword.
Before she could swing, Spike exploded like a porcupine. Spines drilled through the ghouls, and they staggered back, keening. Then they dropped to the ground like wet rags. Spike shook and nosed one with a growl before wagging once at Max.
Before she could move, the panther prowled forward. His eyes were a sunset orange, and he stood a good eight feet at the shoulder. He sat down just beyond Spike and tilted his head at Max as if waiting. Her lip curled. That’s exactly what he was doing. He expected her to fall at his feet and grovel.
She held her breath. But that wasn’t going to work for long. Spike bared its teeth at the panther. Max reached out and grabbed Spike by the ruff and pulled the animal back. Several spines went through her hand, and it burned with poison, but she didn’t let go. Spike wasn’t going to become a slave to the big cat.
Suddenly, the panther shifted, and in its place stood a giant of a man. His skin was ebony black. He was about ten feet tall and rippled with muscle. Hell, his muscles had muscles. His legs were tree trunks, and his cock was—enough to say that he’d put a horse to shame. He was hairless from the top of his head to his feet. Long talons curved from his toes and fingers. His jaw was slightly elongated. He smiled, revealing long fangs.
“You may breathe,” he said.
Max shook her head. Had he dropped his shields to shift? Was he that stupid? There was no way to tell. A flicker of movement behind him warned her that someone was coming. She had to keep him from noticing. And pray to Mother Night that whoever was coming was one of hers.
She let out the breath she was holding.
Oh, this is so fucking stupid
. But if he was dead, his hold on her would die with it. Wouldn’t it?
She drew a breath. “I’ll never want you,” she said, and a tingling sensation rushed through her. She smelled something like apricot, hot metal, and cardamom. It wrapped her senses and tangled her mind. Gentle hooks dug themselves into her essence, and her body and soul flooded with shuddering desire. She went dizzy, and suddenly, a rainbow aura flared around Pradaku. He looked amazing. She wanted him. She would do anything for just a single glance. Her mouth went dry, and she wanted to crawl on the ground to make him look at her, touch her, smile at her.
His widening smile told her that he knew exactly what she was experiencing. Inside, her Prime scrabbled and snapped at her to wake up. Pradaku gestured toward the ground. Her knees immediately started to buckle in response, but something in Max held her upright. He frowned and gestured harder.
She twitched, and her body shook as if she were having drug withdrawals, but she didn’t fall. She couldn’t. No, she
wouldn’t
. Not to this bastard. But the truth was, she wouldn’t be able to hold out for long. Already, her bones felt like water, and she ached for him to smile at her and caress her. In a few minutes, she’d probably be begging for him to use her like a blowup doll.
He stepped forward, his expression twisting. Magic streamed from his hands in long whips. He snapped them at her, and Max flew back, stripes of fire and blood seaming across her body. But the pain was a gift. It did more than anything to cut through the enchantment of his scent.
She climbed shakily to her feet, looked down at herself, and almost threw up. The flaying magic had cut deep into her, and she clutched her stomach to keep her guts from spilling out before her healing spells could fix the wound.
Pradaku laughed and lifted his arm again. Before he could move, something struck him in the back, and he pitched onto his face with a startled yowl. Instantly, he was back on his feet. He whirled around. Beyul faced him, the Grim’s head low. Spike got into the action and rushed in to chomp his arm. Magic crawled over the Calopus, but it didn’t let go, shaking its head and tearing out a chunk of Pradaku’s flesh. He screamed and swung a massive fist at Spike.
Tyler’s Grim slammed against the black giant’s chest. The force carried them both to the ground. Beyul and Spike leaped in to help. The panther-mage disappeared under a violent mass of furry bodies. The air filled with the sounds of snapping, biting, and growling. The mage screamed and struggled under the beasts, but it was no good. Suddenly, his shouts cut off, and he stiffened. As Max watched, his skin faded to gray, and he stopped moving.
Alexander and Thor got to Max at the same time. They put their arms around her.
“Are you all right?” Alexander demanded, his hand covering hers in an effort to help close the wound in her stomach.
“Been better,” she said, gasping.
The tentacles of Pradaku’s scent were sliding away, and she no longer felt like she would die without him.
She looked at Beyul and Spike, who had flopped down on top of the body. Tyler’s Grim had run off. “I’m alive, though. Thanks to them. Guess they came to fight after all.”
The words sounded bubbly in her throat, and the two men frowned at her. “We have to get you out of here,” Alexander said. His eyes were hot with emotion, and his mouth was bracketed with white dents.
“No, we have to go finish this,” Max said. “I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”
Before Alexander could protest, the spectral Giselle appeared, and her face went cold with rage at the sight of the blood-drenched Max. Instantly, she winked out and disappeared. The witch-bitch was on her way, Max had no doubt.
“Where’s Asherah? And the dragon?” she asked.
“The dragon flew off. Heavily wounded,” Oz said, coming around the corner. He stopped when he saw Max, his nostrils flaring. “Thought we were going to do the guerrilla hit-and-run thing, not a full-on battle,” he said.
“I didn’t move fast enough,” Max said. “Then I figured if I distracted him, one of you would take him down. But I accidentally pissed him off.” She looked down at her wounds. They were closing.
“Where’s Tyler?”
“Tracking them.”
“Get going after him,” she said, spitting blood onto the ground. “We need to finish this. I’ll catch up. Asherah isn’t going down easily.”
Just then, Giselle and Ilanion dropped down out of the sky with powerful gusts of his wings. Giselle wordlessly strode to Max and grabbed her shoulders. Magic poured through her, bolstering her healing spells. Max tried to pull away, but Giselle’s fingers were like claws.
“You’re wasting energy,” she told the witch.
“Shut up. I’m doing my fucking job,” Giselle snapped. A minute later, she pulled away. “That should do it.”
The wounds were entirely closed now, and the pain had mostly faded. Max twisted and cracked her back. “Feels better. How many did we get rid of?” she asked, returning to business.
Ilanion had knelt down beside Pradaku. Beyul and Spike made low growling sounds and moved away as he turned the dead man over. Beyul sat beside Alexander and leaned heavily into him. Spike shook before sitting down and nonchalantly licking its paws. Ilanion looked up at Max in awed disbelief. “How did you do it? He hardly looks hurt.”
“You’re the one who said the Grims had mysterious powers. Looks as if you were right.”
“I never thought anybody could take Pradaku down so easily. You’re . . .”
“Not as hopeless as you thought we’d be?” Max supplied when he seemed at a loss for words. “Thing is, I’m betting we’ve had more practice at killing than any of you have, and besides, it wasn’t actually all that easy. I nearly got gutted.”
She straightened, testing her body. It felt bruised like she’d been in a good bar fight, but she was ready to go.
“Let’s get on with it,” she said. “How many did we take out?”
“I counted eleven. Thirteen if you count the dragon and this guy,” Oz said, nudging Pradaku with his foot.
“And us?”
“Horngate is accounted for. I don’t know about the gargoyles or the earthworms.”
“I sent them to finish off Kucedre if she still lives,” Ilanion said. “The dragon,” he clarified when the others looked confused.
“That means we’re down to Asherah and six minions. Do who have a count on them?” Max asked.