Life in Shadows (5 page)

“Shit,”
Molly breathed, tugging again. “They’re gonna get us.”

“They
aren’t real,” said Onyx. “Molly. They aren’t real. It’s a trick. It’s an
illusion.”

“No,
it’s not.”

“Yeah.
Yeah, it is. Those aren’t real people. They don’t even have faces.”

Molly’s
eyes, wide with fear already, practically popped right out of her head.
“Ohmygod what the hell kind of spell takes away someone’s fucking
face
?”

Onyx
barely managed to choke down her laughter. Even if the mob was an illusion, its
presence still proved someone was after them. “I’m saying they’re made of shadows
or something. They can’t hurt us. Look, they’d have come in here by now,
right?” She pointed out the window again. “They’d have come in here when we
started running. I don’t think they can do that because they aren’t real.

“This
fear isn’t real, either. Something’s making us scared, Molly. It isn’t natural.
It has to be magic.”

“But
we’re warded,” Molly pointed out. To her partner’s relief, her voice carried a
little less fear and a little more logic even if she stated objections.
“Shouldn’t that protect us?”

“Wards
don’t always block everything. It’s never a guarantee. You taught me that.”
Onyx reached out to squeeze Molly’s wrist. “C’mon, babe. I hate seeing you like
this. You’re the gutsy one, not me.”

Molly
watched the shadows outside. They moved and whispered, but didn’t approach.
“Someone’s fucking with us,” said Molly.

“Yeah.”

The
crows called out another warning outside. Molly looked up at the sound. “It’s
in the air,” she said. “They don’t know how to describe it, but it’s in the
air, and it’s big.”

“Like
another animal?”

“It’s
got wings, anyway.” Molly’s breath steadied out. Her voice returned to
something close to her usual confidence, too. Another crow call turned Molly’s
attention from the street to the ceiling. “Over this building now.”

Illusions
and animals
, Onyx thought.
At least they’re
hitting us with stuff we know how to handle.

Then
the roof caved in.

The
pair jerked away from the collapse—only a few feet in diameter, but still loud
and frightening enough to pull a shriek from Onyx and to leave Molly falling
onto her backside. A dark form broader and taller than any man they’d ever met
shook the floor as it landed amid the broken wood and other debris, blocking
their way around the railing that led to the stairs. It immediately swung one
forearm against Onyx, catching her in the ribs like a baseball bat only much
thicker. The impact sent her stumbling toward the open window. She barely
managed to get her left arm and shoulder up against the window frame before
going right out of the building.

Without
her partner’s enhanced vision, Molly saw only a hulking, silent silhouette
looming over her. The full terror of earlier moments rushed back all at once,
compounded by the sight of an attacker that couldn’t possibly be human. Molly
didn’t consider her options; she reacted with the first practical step
available. She swung her wand out in an arc over her shoulder, ending with it
pointed at the monster while blowing at it as hard as she could.

The
winds summoned through her wand roared through the open window behind her. The
spell had the added benefit of blowing Onyx back out of the portal, but Molly
didn’t even know her lover had been there. Her spell concentrated the air into
a single irresistible blast of force against her attacker.

The
dark figure threw out its arms to steady itself as it staggered back from the
impact. Powerful hands broke the banister on the stairway and smashed through
wood framing and drywall to stop its backward momentum. Each step sent a tremor
through the floor. Molly’s spell pushed her attacker back a few yards, but from
its stance she guessed that she hadn’t hurt or stunned it at all. The air
didn’t last, either. As soon as the rush of concentrated air ended, the figure
took another floor-shaking step forward.

Orange
light flashed through the hallway as a small blast of fire shot over Molly’s
head to strike the attacker in the chest. Once again it seemed unhurt, though
the flash of Onyx’s spell at least allowed both women to identify their
attacker. The gargoyle from the gallery stepped forward again, ignoring Onyx
completely. Its face and unmoving eyes seemed fixated on Molly.

Every
step the thing took seemed to make the floor bounce. Molly didn’t have time to
think twice. She tried again with the same spell, channeling more sudden wind
into immense blasts of force, only this time she drove that force into the
floor at either side of her in time with the gargoyle’s footfalls. It all
happened quickly. With the first step that came in tandem with her spell, Molly
felt herself almost lifted off her butt. She felt the same sensation again as
she threw the spell again with the enemy’s next step, only this time it came
with a loud, awful cracking and tearing sound.

“Molly!”
Onyx yelled as the floor gave way under her partner and the monster. The break
ended a few inches from her boots, leaving her with room to stand but no chance
to reach out and grab Molly.

If
the other witch cried out, the noise of the floor crashing into the second
story overwhelmed her voice. The resultant cloud of dust stung Onyx’s eyes and
sent her into a coughing fit. She fought through the irritation to breath and
vision. It was only one floor below, she told herself. Hardly any distance at
all. “Molly!” she called again.

“M’okay,”
grunted the most important voice in her world. “We’re okay, right? We’re okay.”
She saw Molly right where she’d been before, only about ten feet lower, pulling
herself up from that same seated position on the floor with Elizabeth’s book
still tucked under one arm. Not far enough away for comfort, Onyx saw the
gargoyle getting up off its back. “Shit, it’s still alive!” Onyx warned.

One
of its wings had broken off in the fall. Another cracked off as it rose. It
showed no sign of feeling pain from this development. Apparently animated
statues didn’t have much of a sensitive nervous system.

“Aw
fuck!” said Molly as she got to her feet. “My wand snapped!”

Onyx
thought quickly for some way to help Molly. Her earlier blast of fire had been
stupid, she now realized. She could have lit up the whole building while doing
no harm at all to the gargoyle. Self-recrimination didn’t solve her immediate
problem, though:
How do you put down an enemy made of stone?

She
needed a jackhammer, or a missile launcher, or maybe a speeding bus. She had no
such weapon on hand, just her wand and a repertoire of spells for enhancing her
senses, wards, stealth, and lots of helpful domestic bullshit. Onyx blurted out
words in Greek to lay a curse of misfortune on the thing for lack of a better
option, but she doubted it would slip on any banana peels in this building.

The
gargoyle blocked Molly’s route to the staircase. Back on its feet once more,
the thing moved in complete disregard of whatever spells the redhead threw at
it. Onyx didn’t even know what Molly was trying. Her mind focused on her own
options. She doubted illusions would help here. She’d already tried fire. The
only other dangerous spell she knew attacked the psyche, and this thing didn’t—

No.
Wait. There’s a soul in there
, Onyx remembered. She
pointed her wand and focused her will, looking again for those faded, ugly
colors that made up the aura she’d seen earlier that night. Molly’s blast of
wind hit the thing in the chest again, weaker now that Molly had no wand to
help channel her power. The spell only slowed the enemy rather than pushing it
back, but that gave Onyx vital seconds. A single wisp of dull red rippled over
the gargoyle’s shoulder. Onyx seized on that formless bit of color, imagining
herself grasping it in one hand and crushing it mercilessly.

The
gargoyle fell to one knee. One arm flailed around for something to hold onto,
only to break the wooden banister separating the hallway from the stairs. Its
other arm reached out to steady itself on the floor. Lacking vocal cords or
moving lips, the thing couldn’t cry out, but Onyx felt echoes of pain and anger
along the connection her spell established between herself and the last bits of
the soul inside her target. She unwittingly groaned on the thing’s behalf.

Molly
looked up to her lover in surprise as Onyx drove the gargoyle to its knees. “Is
that you?”

“Can
you get around it?” Onyx managed to ask. The stress of her spell came through
in her voice. It was all she could do to focus on the spell and ignore the pain
in her abdomen. The gargoyle had not left her unharmed.

Molly
didn’t answer, opting to watch their enemy rather than distract her partner.
She still held Elizabeth’s book close to her with her left arm. Debris covered
the floor, making it difficult to maneuver, and Molly didn’t want to
underestimate the monster’s reach. Even driven to its knees, she knew it might
still have the wits and strength to reach out and grab her if she came too
close.

Then
the gargoyle bowed its head. Molly ran forward. She had only a few yards to
cross before reaching it, but that at least let her build up a little steam.
Rather than going for either side of her moving obstacle, though, Molly planted
one foot on the gargoyle’s broad shoulder to launch herself straight over it.
The gap in the ceiling offered her plenty of clearance. Molly escaped the
gargoyle’s reach before it could thrash about in reaction. Though her landing
wasn’t graceful, she stayed on her feet and absorbed her momentum with a few
steps further down the hall.

She
looked back up through the gap in the ceiling at her partner. “Okay, now what?”

“Huh?”
Onyx huffed.

“I
thought you had a plan!”

“Fuck
if I know what to do!” Onyx gasped. The spell threatened to drain her
physically as she tried to chase around the fleeting bits of the gargoyle’s
consciousness and crush them out. Each shred of success filled her with
loathing. She was half-convinced that killing it was as much an act of mercy as
violence. That didn’t make the experience any less ugly. “Find a sledgehammer
or something!”

“Those
are for wrecking houses,” said Molly, “not building—gah!”

She
didn’t see him come up the stairs. The man in the black suit had Molly’s wrist
twisted around her back in the blink of an eye. He pushed her up against the
nearest wall. “Either of you says a word of magic and she dies,” he said,
pressing a pistol against her head with his other hand. “I know how magic
works. You drop the book, and you,” he said, looking up at Onyx, “let the
gargoyle go. Now!”

Onyx
winced, looking from the gargoyle to the man she’d seen with Hypatia and
Archimedes before leaving the store. “Molly?” she asked.

“Steve!”
Molly replied.

Onyx
blinked. “Wait, Steve?”

The
driver shrieked without a shred of dignity. His gun went off as he fell back,
but the bullet flew up into drywall and wood framing rather than into Molly.
One second, he had the situation in hand; the next, he was on his back fighting
against a snake attached to his inner thigh.

Molly
kicked him hard in the face, stomped on his ankle for good measure, and scooped
up his gun as soon as she saw it on the floor. “Holy shit,” she grunted. “You
carry around a fucking Desert Eagle? Seriously?”

“Aagh
shit get it off me!” wailed the driver.

“Oh,
hush, it’s already off you,” said Molly. It slithered close to Molly’s boots.
“Seriously, you run around with this in your coat? I mean I only recognize like
four different guns, but Jesus. Talk about a sign of crushing inadequacy.”

The
driver plainly didn’t care about her opinions. He crawled away from her and the
snake at her feet, still clutching his wounded inner thigh. “Oh fuck what the
fuck is it poisonous?”

“Oh
yeah. Burmese python? Totally poisonous,” Molly outright lied. She turned the
gun on the gargoyle. “Sorry, buddy. Turns out I’ve got the right tool for this
job. Unlucky break for you.”

The
big pistol kicked fiercely as she expected. Molly’s experience with guns was
limited to trips to the shooting range and renting guns with her uncle, but she
knew how to hold it properly. The same spell that silenced her footsteps and
the rustling of her clothes muffled the boom of each shot, though it still put
out as much noise as a hammer banging away on a board. Molly emptied the
magazine into the gargoyle, shattering stone and kicking up a cloud of dust and
gun smoke. By the fifth shot, the statue lay in big, broken hunks on the floor.
Molly devoted the remaining shots to breaking up the biggest pieces further,
then switched her grip on the empty gun so she could shake her aching right
hand. “Ow,” she complained. “Onyx? You okay?”

The
other witch sat against one hip on the broken edge of the third-story floor
above Molly. “Think so,” she answered wearily. “I don’t feel good.”

“Babe,
we gotta go.”

“You
gotta help me!” wailed the driver.

“Oh,
shut up, you’re not gonna die,” Molly grumbled.