Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

“Get her out!” Edden exclaimed, his eyes hard on Trent as he pried my fingers off.

Trent’s hold on me strengthened as he began to pull me toward the elevators. “Let’s go, Rachel,” he said, but his worry tripped all my warning flags and I dug my heels in—so to speak.

“Trent, what don’t you want me to see?”

Edden’s expression became almost panicked, and I squinted mistrustfully at Trent as he soothed me with a calm “It’s nothing you can do anything about.”

Nothing I can do anything about?

Jenks’s wings fluttered and he tugged on my ear. “Rache, they’ve got a demon pinned down in the square. My wings are broken, not my ears.”

“Jenks!” Edden exclaimed, and Trent, too, winced.

“At the square?” I looked at the doors, remembering the Weres running that way. Panic slid through me at the thought of what a human, what anyone, might do if they found a demon unable to do magic. My God. Al.

“Way to go, Jenks,” Trent grumbled.

“You said she couldn’t do anything about it!” Jenks shouted, hurting my ear. “Well, she’s not dead, is she?”

“And I want to keep it that way!” Trent argued.

I pushed up from the table, telling myself that my leg didn’t hurt that much now that I’d swallowed those pills. “Is it Al?” I asked, and Trent lifted his shoulders, unhappy. “You don’t know!”

Edden put a hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it off. “You didn’t think this wasn’t going to happen, did you?” he said, brown eyes sad as he looked past Trent to the dark street. “Demons have preyed upon humans and Inderlanders for thousands of years, and now that they’re helpless, what did you expect? That we’d take them to our bosoms and make cocoa?”

“Something a little better than this.” Teeth clenched, I shoved past Trent and headed for the door. It was only half a block. I could hear the noise from here.

“Damn it, Jenks!” Trent swore. “This was exactly what I was trying to avoid.”

“Rachel!” Edden called, following me. “You’re not in any shape—”

I took a step down, pain widening my eyes. Breathless, I leaned against the stairway railing. God help me, I had two more to go. “I just busted my ass getting them to reality. I’m not going to let a mob kill them! Now either get me over there or get out of my way!”

Both men were silent as they looked at me, both with regret.

“Well?” I snapped, pain making my words sharper than I wanted. “Just how serious are you about this, or is it all only if it’s convenient?”

“That’s not fair,” Trent said, and then I gasped when he scooped me up.

“Trent! Put me down!” I shouted. “You son of a bastard, put me down!”

But Jenks was laughing. “Relax, Rache. Look at his ears. He’s taking you to the square.”

“You are?” Blinking fast, I put my arm around Trent’s neck to distribute my weight more evenly. Sure enough, Trent’s ears were red with irritation and his jaw was set. “I knew I loved you,” I said, almost crying. “Oh God. Thank you.”

Trent’s gaze was fixed on the door as Edden dropped back in frustrated defeat. “I hope you still do by sunrise,” he said dryly. “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Kalamack, she can’t even walk!” Edden protested as I used my good foot to shove the glass door open.

The smell of the concrete night rose up around us, gritty on my tongue with the flashing lights and the sounds of an angry crowd. “You sure?” Trent asked.

The sound of gunfire popped. I thought of Al. I had no magic, no safety net, and I couldn’t walk well. “Yes.” I had to, even if fear had me so tense I felt sick.

Trent began to walk, his steps usually so graceful now jarring.

“Okay,” I said more to myself than anyone else. “We’ll finish this, find out where Ivy and Nina are, and then go to Trent’s to check on Lucy. I’m sure they’re fine. Trent, I’m sure she got Lucy out of here before the sun went down.”

“She did,” Trent said as we turned the corner. “I already . . . called. My God . . .”

He stopped dead on the sidewalk as the wall of sound hit us. My mouth dropped as I stared, heart hammering. The square was packed with screaming people, angry, with their fists in the air. The lights were bright and the big TV showed a frightened newscaster, the captions spelling tragedy and fear as the sun went down across the U.S. On the stage in a bright spotlight was a man with a handgun. He was pointing it at a kneeling figure before him, bloodied and beaten. Bound and held from behind by two more men was an androgynous figure with big bony feet showing from under a shapeless robe. Newt.

“No!” I screamed, wiggling until I hit the ground. Trent pulled me up, and I reached out.

“Stop!” I screamed as the man on the stage shouted something. The crowd howled, and then I almost passed out as the flash of the gun and the sound of a shot shocked through me.

A wave of sound echoed between the buildings as the mob cried out. I could not breathe, could not believe it as the bound figure fell, dead, on the stage. I. Could. Not. Believe. This.

“At least it smells better than the French revolution,” Al said at my elbow.

I spun, almost falling until Trent propped me up. “My God,” I said, touching Al in his new suit and lingering on his red, goat-slitted eyes. “Go,” I said, shoving him back toward the hotel. “Go! Get out of here! Trent has a copter coming. Go!”

“It’s her!” someone shouted, and my heart seemed to stop. “It’s her! It’s that demon woman!”

“Shit,” Trent whispered, and I went cold as people in the streets turned, their faces ugly with fear, hatred, and a mad aggression. “Rachel—”

I gasped as someone grabbed me from behind. My leg gave way and I fell. “Trent!” I screamed, fighting the elbows and hands as I was pulled up and away. “Damn it, let me go!” I demanded, and then screamed when they twisted my arm behind me, forcing me through the crowd. Agony numbed my leg and I fell, so they picked me up, shoving me from person to person, pinching my arms, pulling my hair, tripping me. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.

“Jenks!” I called out. He was gone. I fought to be free but someone punched me in the middle and I bent double, unaware and struggling to breathe until they hauled me up onto the stage.

Terrified, I hung in someone’s grip, shocked and bleeding as Al landed next to me in a sliding thud. Men kicked him to stay down, and he sat where he was, his new suit torn and his face bloodied. Newt still stood, her expression proud and a little wild as she waited beside me, her hands bound with a plastic bag.

“You try anything and I’ll shoot you!” the man with the gun screamed at us. The bleeding corpse behind him was dragged off, and the crowd carried it away. My gore rose, and I struggled to keep from vomiting. Trent? Where are Trent and Jenks? Jenks couldn’t fly. He’d be crushed.

“If you have any ideas . . . ,” Al said, sitting cross-legged with his hands laced behind his head.

“No, not really.” I pulled my eyes from the slick smear of blood, wondering how many demons they’d killed so far. What the hell kind of an ending was this?

“Get up!” the man with the gun screamed. “I said, get up!”

Al stood, his expression far more placid than I would’ve expected. “Thank you for our freedom,” he said to me as the man with the gun cavorted before us, whipping the crowd up to bolster his own courage. “I will never understand why you cared.”

“I don’t like bullies,” I said flatly, and Newt smiled. The electric lights caught a glint in her eye, almost anticipatory. I knew she longed for an end, but this was wrong, so wrong.