Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

Ready, I looked at Ivy, waiting by the door. Jenks was hovering at her shoulder, and I knew we had this. “Go,” I said, and Trent shifted Lucy on his hip.

“Thank you,” he said, eyes glinting as he hesitated briefly in front of me before putting a hand on Ellasbeth’s back and hustling her out the door and down the hallway. We followed them in case there was trouble. Lucy was whispering loudly, but I didn’t think it would make it past the thick doors and soundproofed walls.

“Just like old times,” Jenks said, and I couldn’t help my smile as I checked my hopper.

“Old times,” I scoffed, relishing the adrenaline scouring through me. “We’ve only been doing this for three years.”

“Yeah, but for a pixy, that’s like a decade.”

Ivy was testing the edge of the knife Trent had given her. Her head came up and she tossed it, catching it again to hold it properly. She looked at the door and then cocked her head. “After you, Jenks?”

Jenks shrugged. “I can’t open it. It’s a manual.”

“Manual it is,” the vampire said, and with a soft grunt, she planted a side kick on the lock, exploding the door inward.

The thick, supposedly kick-proof door took two blows of Ivy’s boot before the lock broke free of the studs and the door slammed into the opposite wall. Men shouted, and Ivy dove in, hands in fists and screaming. Jenks was a hot sparkle of dust after her, and I followed as the thuds of fists into flesh exploded into the snap of a wrist or knee and a masculine bellow of outrage.

Yep, it was going to be one of those days.

I slid to a halt in the well-appointed, low-ceilinged, brightly lit room, half of it arranged as a dining room with a small kitchenette, the other half a comfortable living room complete with big TV and two couches. Ivy was rising from the man she’d just downed, her eyes full and black and her shirt torn. She grinned at the two men by the couch, beckoning them forward.

“Rache!” Jenks shouted in warning, and I ducked, falling to a crouch and spinning with my leg extended to hit the man coming out of the bathroom. He was good, stumbling to avoid contact and going down into a controlled fall and rolling free of me.

I stood up—right into the arms of another man. He smelled like cheese as his arms wrapped around me, pinning my back to his front. Bad idea; I flung my head back, breaking his nose. The man bellowed but didn’t let go, and my eyes widened as the first man pointed a handgun at me.

Adrenaline pounded. My head snapped back again as I broke his hold. Breath held, I spun him to stand between his buddy and me. The gun seemed to explode in the small room, and I shoved my living shield at the shooter, not knowing if he was shot or I was shot or we had both lucked out.

Arms flailing, my would-be attacker fell into the shooter and they crashed into the small dinette table. Drawing my splat gun, I shot them both. One last spasm, and they were still.

“Ivy!” I spun, then went down on one knee as another gun went off and fire engulfed my leg. My breath came in with a gasp and my free hand clamped over my thigh. A man across the room was pointing a gun at me. Shit.

Howling, Ivy blocked a swinging lamp to jam the palm of her hand into someone’s jaw. Hair swinging, she planted her right foot and plowed the other into the man who’d shot me, sending him pinwheeling back into the window. He hit with a thud, shaken but not out. The lamp hit the floor and shattered.

Agony crept up my thigh, throbbing to my skull as I hobbled forward, splat gun pointed. Two puffs of air to put him out—and then I fell almost as fast as he had, my hand clamped to my leg. Light-headed, I sat on the couch, not letting go of my gun as Ivy took a last look around the room and strode forward. Blood was a slow but steady leak from my leg. We’d gotten them all, but where was Landon?

“You okay?” Ivy asked, winding her hair back into a bun as Jenks dusted my leg. There was no exit wound. It was still in there.

“I don’t know.” I strained to see the other side as the pain retreated into a heavy throb.

Ivy reached to touch it, and I jerked away. “It doesn’t look bad,” she said.

“Well, it hurts like hell.”

“That’s good then,” she said, her worry lines beginning to ease. “Where’s Landon?”

“Look out!” Jenks shouted, and my heart thudded. One of the men I thought I’d downed was aiming another one of those stupid guns at us.

“Move!” I shoved Ivy and brought up my splat gun. Please let there be enough propellant, I begged. I lunged for the floor, aim never wavering as I squeezed. The bang of the man’s gun echoed, drowning out the puff of my weapon. I hit the floor, my shoulder taking most of the force as the ugly sound of the bullet burrowing into the couch slid through me.

Heart pounding, I lay on the floor, watching the man’s eyes roll to the back of his head. I’d gotten him.

Ivy stood as the man’s head hit the floor with a thud. “Should have double-tapped him,” she said as she extended a hand to me.

“I was a little busy.” With a heave, she had me back on the couch. Where was Landon?

Ivy wiped her hand under her nose as Jenks flitted over the room, verifying that they were all down. “None of them used any magic,” she said uneasily.

“You noticed that too?”

Jenks’s wings clattered as he rose up. A door slid open and Landon strode out, flanked by two men with guns. “Because very shortly there won’t be any and I wanted to be prepared,” Landon said. “Shoot them.”

Ivy lunged for the cover of a fallen chair. I yanked her back to me, tapping the line and throwing a circle of protection around us. Bullets pinged off it, and Landon motioned for them to stop. His lips were in a tight line, and I thought he looked ridiculous in his traditional robes and that stupid flat-topped hat. Newt could get away with it, but not him.

“Landon, you’re an idiot!” I shouted, the scent of spent gunpowder making it through the barrier where bullets couldn’t. “I’m not letting you do this!”

Ivy grimaced. “Let me out.”

She darted her gaze to the doorway, and I dropped the circle.

Ivy was a blur, leaping to the doorway to hide behind a wall as they sprayed it. I rolled to the broken coffee table, peeking out to see Landon standing alone as his men advanced on Ivy. I didn’t know where Jenks was. If you’ve hurt him, Landon . . .

Vampire fast, Ivy burst from hiding, diving between the men with guns. One man accidentally shot the other in the chest while trying for her. He froze in shock as his buddy went down in a spray of blood—and then Ivy was on him. A kick to the back of his knee sent him to the carpet, and she tackled him. One leg wrapped around the last man’s neck and she began to squeeze. The man fought back, sending them crashing into the walls and furniture.

My leg throbbed as I stood. I had to lean heavily on the couch, pointing to Landon, then me, as if in invitation. Ivy could handle two men with automatics. Landon was mine. Where is Jenks?

“Trent chicken out?” Landon said, and I lurched a step closer as the unfocused magic in the room began to build.

“He’s taking his daughter and ex-fiancée out to lunch.”

His lip twitched as he followed the ramifications of that. “Call your vampire off and maybe you live.”

“Oh, I’m dead already,” I said, ignoring the pain as I pulled myself up straight. “It’s just a matter of how much damage I can do first.”

“Call her off, and maybe she lives,” he amended, and in the split second my eyes flicked to Ivy, his hand flamed with a white-hot fire.