Eileen Wilks - Ritual Magic

Not that six lupi could do much against twenty-two dworg. “It’s in your hands now,” Isen said crisply into the phone he’d borrowed. He’d left his at the house—bad habit, that, and one he should have abandoned the moment they knew themselves at war.

“Rho, please—” Pete began.

“No.” Isen had neither time nor patience for argument. He disconnected and tossed the phone down. He wouldn’t be able to use it in a moment, anyway.

Isen had used every one of his hundred and thirty-two seconds, but that wasn’t much time. Not enough to devise an entirely new strategy against creatures who weren’t supposed to exist. He had to hope these were traditional dworg against whom a traditional plan might work.

According to the tales, no one could hide from a dworg, for they directly sensed the lives around them because it was life itself they fed on, along with the flesh of their prey. But they had one weakness: their hunger. It held them always in a pack, that being the only way they could maintain focus on their task. Sometimes a few would become distracted anyway and begin to feed before they’d achieved their objective, and then the rest would turn on those few. That could be exploited, though Isen preferred that they not be given the chance to feed at all.

They hungered most of all for children.

Not all of Clanhome’s children were at the day care, but many of the youngest ones were. Four babies, three toddlers, and ten between the ages of three and nine. Seventeen babes and children currently being loaded into a pair of minivans behind the day care. At the last drill, it had taken the tenders just under six minutes to evacuate the day care. The dworg would be here much sooner than that.

According to the tales, the Great Bitch had often sent dworg to kill the Rho or Lu Nuncio of a clan, for dworg could sense the mantle just as they sensed the bright flame of life in children, and so could always find their target. So if these were nice, traditional dworg, they were here to attack Isen. But they’d be distracted. Rushed, wanting more than anything to get to the children.

As the monsters reached the green grass of the meeting field, Isen’s fierce grin broke out. “Now!” he shouted. And Changed.

A second later, Isen led six wolves as they streaked across the green—not running directly away from the charging monsters, but at a teasing slant: Come get me, come get me—you can do it! And yes, praise the Lady, the dworg immediately shifted direction to flow toward them. Their gait was oddly smooth, like a centipede’s. And fast. Ungodly fast.

Lupi in wolf form were faster than any born-wolf, reaching speeds around fifty miles an hour.

According to the tales, dworg were faster.

LILYdidn’t think about raising her weapon. Didn’t have to. Her hand did that all by itself and sited on the dworg standing on the smashed Pinto, though she couldn’t use a proper two-handed grip because her left wrist was either broken or badly sprained. This close, it shouldn’t matter—might not matter if she missed, either, considering how little notice the other dworg had paid to bullets so far.

Cynna shouted a string of nonsense syllables.

The dworg standing on the remains of the Pinto flew backward to crash into the wall of the building in a spray of gore.

On the other side of the dworg twins, an Uzi opened up in a quick, deafening burst.

José had gotten the trunk open. Thank God.

Lily went flat. A big, hairy wolf landed on top of her.

She heard shouts and a howl and a second quick burst from the Uzi, but from a different spot. José had probably fired the first burst high because the idiot who was now trying to shield her with his stupid hairy body had put her in the line of fire, which meant one or both of the goddamn pair of dworg were still alive enough to pursue him. She squirmed over onto her back—not easy with a hundred seventy or so pounds of wolf on top of her—and jammed the barrel of her gun in Santos’s throat. “You will go to Cynna,” she growled. “She probably fainted from saving my ass after you dragged me into the line of fire.”

Wolves’ faces do show emotion, if you know what to look for. This one looked really startled.

“You will Change and get Cynna safely to the Toyota. Then you will get the AK-47s from the trunk”—and why the hell had she thought it was okay for the guards to park so far away? Stupid, stupid—“and come back here as fast as you can.” When he just stared at her she pushed the gun deeper into the fur and flesh of his throat. “You. Will. Obey. Me.”

He must have believed her. He launched himself across the open center aisle in a burst of speed, staying low, not pausing to Change until he reached the limited sanctuary of the space between cars.

Lily took a second to check out the dworg Cynna had sent flying. It lay motionless atop what was left of the Pinto. It looked like its chest had exploded from the inside out. White rib bones stuck out through ripped and bloody flesh.

Turned out their blood was purple.

Lily flipped back onto her stomach and crawled under the nearest vehicle—a panel van with a nice high clearance. High enough for her, anyway, but too low for one of those oversize centaur-bugs. Once she had herself under cover—freeing José to fire as needed, which he may have noticed because there was another burst of fire—she scooted toward the back of the van so she could see what was going on.

There was a dworg blocking her view. A dead one. At least she was going to assume it was dead, because the head, neck, and shoulders had been thoroughly pulped by some portion of the Uzi’s six hundred rounds per minute. The shiny purple blood made the scattered bits of brains and flesh look weird.

Two down, then, and two to go. One was chasing José—another burst of fire from the Uzi, this one closer to the street, and how many rounds did he have left, anyway? And one she guessed was still being harassed by wolves. How many wolves? She’d seen two of them knocked out or killed. Were the rest still . . .

Metal creaked. Something grunted loudly a couple of times, like the huffing grunt of a bear. Something on the Pinto next to her cozy retreat under the van.

Shit. Not two down, after all.

Lily sucked in a breath, trying to calm her racing heart. Trying to think, dammit. And noticed that gasoline smell again.

Now her mind raced along with her heartbeat.

Years ago, Pintos had been notorious for the way their gas tanks ruptured on impact. Lily had read that subsequent studies showed that they weren’t any worse in that respect than a lot of cars in their class, but most patrol cops still approached a rear-ended Pinto with caution.

She needed a match. She didn’t have one. Or a lighter. Cynna’s tote might hold one or both, as she routinely packed it as if she expected to need to camp out for a week. But her tote was on the other side of the central lane and several spaces back. If Lily tried to get it she’d get in the way of the lupi fighting that dworg and could easily get in José’s line of fire again. Besides, she hadn’t missed the way every dworg immediately aimed itself at her when it arrived. Sneaking was likely not possible.

All she had was her Glock and the thirteen—no, twelve—rounds still in the clip. In the movies people routinely shot a bullet into a car’s gas tank to make it go boom. Pity that didn’t work in real life. Supposedly it was possible to skip a bullet across a rough surface like concrete and create enough of a spark to ignite gasoline, but talk about iffy! And while Cullen might have enough juice to light the gasoline, he was back at the fight, and needed. She didn’t—