Kevin Hearne - Hexed

As she aimed another kick at my head, I set my arms underneath me and whipped my foot around to sweep her plant foot from under her. I leapt up and fought off a spell of dizziness as she collapsed, howling. I backpedaled to the west as she scrambled to her feet, and I took the few seconds I’d bought to assess the new tactical situation.

These five hexen were still months away from squeezing a demon child through their pelvis, but apparently they were now enjoying all the perks associated with carrying a casting ram to term—abilities awakened, perhaps, by the abrupt deaths of their brethren. They had increased strength and speed, senses that could penetrate my camouflage, and a newfound talent for throwing hellfire. The other four were busy hurling angry orange balls of it at Leif, and he cringed away from them instinctively, retreating back east, unable to recall or trust in the face of so much flame that the talisman I’d given him should render him fireproof.

Fragarach was still lodged in the brain of a dead witch, and if I was allowed the time, I could have created a binding between the leather on the hilt and the skin of my palm, causing it to fly to my hand in one of those sweet Skywalker moves. My attacker, however, had no intention of affording me the opportunity. She charged at me with a cry of apeshit rage, her hands extended and her fingers transforming visibly into blackened claws. Said claws raked at my belly, and I was glad I’d stepped back instead of counting on my flak vest to stop them, because they caught the first couple of layers of it and shredded it as if it were no more substantial than crepe paper. I’d hate to see what they’d do to intestines—especially mine.

I couldn’t counter weapons like that with nothing but my bare hands available. She wasn’t wearing leather like many of the others; her clothes were all synthetic fibers, dead and removed from nature, so I couldn’t pull or push her around with any bindings. My best option was to get out of her way and hope I could retrieve my sword.

She circled around to the center, though, cutting me off. The west end of the building loomed at my back, and a dangerous drop yawned to my left now as I pulled even with the broken glass wall through which the demon ram had plunged. The witch lunged at me, grinning evilly. She took a swipe at my head that forced me to dance back toward the window ledge, then another that I ducked under before scooting to the right, heading for the west wall. She was quick enough to shoot out a foot and catch me square on my bloodied left ear, though, and the detonation of pain sent me reeling into the corner. Through a ringing and buzzing haze, I dimly heard her cackling; apparently she had me where she wanted me—on the ground with nowhere to go.

Flames engulfed me, billowing sheets of it like hellish laundry waving in a dry wind, and I began to laugh too, as I struggled painfully to my feet in the midst of it. It was hot, no doubt, but my amulet protected me. I centered myself—quite a trick with my brains scrambled as they were—and peered through the fire at my target. She was only five feet away, her hands throwing fire and a demonic rictus painted on her face. I shuffled closer, set my left foot carefully—and winced at the bullet wound in my thigh—then I lashed out with a textbook karate kick to her gut, right where the demon grew in her center of gravity. She staggered back, snarling, and her hands quit gushing flame. She didn’t go down but instead stood still for a few seconds, dumbfounded that I didn’t look the least bit crispy or melty by now. I slid to my right, heading in the direction of my sword, and by the time she finally processed that, I already had a decent lead. Just as she tensed to spring after me, however, a familiar red hellwhip sailed through the open glass wall and wrapped itself around her hips. It yanked her screaming from the building, and I didn’t bother to go over and watch; I knew that Malina would finish her off, and there were still four more hexen to worry about.

They were giving Leif all he could handle—probably more, to be fair. He’d run away from their hellfire all the way around the building, circling the great hole in the floor where he’d thrown the golem’s head, and now, as I pulled Fragarach out of the witch’s skull with a loud schluck , the hexen had tacked about to come at him from several angles. Hellfire blazed at Leif from four different directions, and this time he could not dodge it. His inhuman scream ran cold fingers down my spine as I lost sight of him briefly in the conflagration. He came out of it shortly afterward, and while most of him was still untouched, the poufy sleeves of his linen shirt had ignited outside the thin skin of his talisman’s protection. The sleeves were now giving him trouble, as the flames licked up his arms and began to eat away at his pale, undead, and highly combustible flesh. I didn’t see Moralltach in either hand; he must have dropped it somewhere. He ran north, straight toward the massive hole in the wall where a grenade had blown out the glass, and I saw what he intended.

“No,” I breathed, knowing he couldn’t hear me. “That’s hard-packed clay.” He leapt from the third floor, shrouded in spreading flame, his shriek falling with him to the street below in search of earth to smother the fire. I hoped he’d find some in the landscaping between the building and the street; the fight wasn’t supposed to have driven him to such desperate measures. He’d have to dig through dry, clay-based dirt to quench those flames, and I didn’t like his odds.

Neither did I like mine. I was one Druid with a possibly fractured jaw, a missing ear, a wounded thigh, and very little magic against four hexen jazzed on demon energies. They turned as one and hissed at me, understanding that I’d eliminated one of their sisters somehow. They looked a whole lot stronger and faster than I felt.

Well, I thought wryly as I hefted Fragarach and prepared myself for their charge, at least I have my giant, mighty sword.

Inchoate battle cries erupted from their throats as they sprinted at me from maybe thirty yards away. Klaudia chose that moment to burst through the stairwell door, armed with a silver dagger in her left hand and looking like she’d just had fabulous sex somehow on her way up. She raised her right arm above her head—a gesture that seemed to precede most of the spells her coven cast in combat—and said, “Zorya Vechernyaya chroń mnie od zł a.” The immediate effect was a cone of purple light sheathing her form, much like Bogumila’s, but perhaps a bit more solid looking. The charging hexen pulled up and redirected their attention to Klaudia, whom they recognized as one of their old enemies. Two of them let loose with hellfire that bloomed from their arms like time-lapse orchids, and Klaudia calmly ignored them as it washed up against the purple light and found no passage through. The other two kept coming with a physical attack, and those received her special attention.

Her languid manner sloughed off, and suddenly she moved with liquid grace, crouching and then pivoting on her right foot as she swept the blade of her dagger across the eyes of the leader. She crossed her left foot in front of her right, then spun on it and leapt around in a sort of Chun-Li move, delivering first a right boot, then a left to the head of the second witch. Both hexen were down inside of two seconds, though I doubted they were dead. Their demon spawn would heal them up in no time.

Still, I admit that I gawked; I gaped, even. Malina had told me that her coven wasn’t trained for combat, yet Klaudia had just displayed stark evidence to the contrary. But then I thought she must be the exception to the rule; if the dark side of her coven had fought so well at Tony Cabin, more than two werewolves would have perished that night.