Eileen Wilks - Blood Magic

No one could be left alive at their backs.

Rule raced past the point he’d been told marked the first ward. Nothing happened. He raced past the place the second ward was supposed to be. Nothing.

The sorcerer or the Chimei set very good wards, more sophisticated than anything Cullen could do—one to keep out small objects like bullets. Another that would repel humans.

Didn’t do a damned thing to slow down a wolf. Rule heard a shot as he leaped for his first target. His teeth slashed through the man’s jugular. Blood sprayed everywhere, including down his throat, hot and sweet.

Then the other four wolves were amid the men.

A HUNDREDyards away, an erect old woman stepped out into the middle of the dirt road, just where it met the yard, and began drawing a circle in the dirt.

She wasn’t alone. On her left side stood a beautiful young man, a trifle pale, wearing a diamond in one ear and another around his neck. On her other side an older man planted his feet. He was grizzled and bearded and looked like some minor forest god.

A white panel van trundled down the road toward them. The driver must have seen them. He hit the gas.

“Chimei!” the older man boomed as the van raced toward them. “Sorcerer! You have offended my Lady, and we are at war!”

The niceties had been observed. From either side of the road, the six two-legged Nokolai warriors opened up—with machine guns.

The van was riddled. It veered hard right—a tire blew out, and it skidded into the ditch.

The shriek of some vast bird of prey split the air.

TWENTYfeet belowground, rock groaned. Dust sifted from the cracked ceiling. Lily gripped her makeshift spear tightly and looked at Cynna.

Rule was here. Almost here, anyway—close, so close. He’d been close for hours. She’d woken up to feel him near and had let Cynna know—or hoped she had—by setting her makeshift spear close at hand and handing Cynna one of the magically enhanced knives.

Since then, she’d lost another five hundred thousand at gin. It would have been more, but Cynna was distracted, too.

Moments ago he’d rushed closer. She’d sprung to her feet, spear ready. For what, she didn’t know—but God, she was so ready for something .

The earth grumbled louder. And trembled.

Cynna bit her lip. “Maybe we should get under one of the b—yikes!”

A big chunk of the cement block wall closest to her had turned to dust. Peering out of that dusty hole was a small gray man.

No, a gnome. Three feet tall, weird little snoutlike nose, no chin. Baggy fuchsia shorts with yellow suspenders. A gnome.

“Bad thing is coming!” The gnome beckoned urgently. “Hurries you!”

The hole—the tunnel—was sized for a gnome, not for adult human women. “You heard the gnome,” Lily said. “Hurry.”

Cynna didn’t argue. They’d long since settled that protecting the baby came first—and the baby wouldn’t get out on his own. She got down on her hands and knees and started crawling.

Lily got down on her hands and knees, too, while the little gnome fairly hopped with fearful urgency. “Hurries, hurries!”

The lights winked out. The damned glowing bulbs they’d been unable to shut off went out on their own, leaving her in absolute darkness, blacker than any night.

The little gnome shrieked—and shoved Lily hard, toppling her on her side. He pounced on her, curving his little body over her as if those fragile bones could shield them both—as earth and rock shrieked along with him. And everything overhead collapsed.

THEagony and bliss of the Change whirled through Rule. When it ended he stood two-legged and naked in mud sticky with blood. He grabbed one of the weapons on the ground—an assault rifle, the reason he’d picked this spot for the Change. The model was unfamiliar, but it was similar enough to what he’d used. He fired a quick round.

The man at the window who’d been firing at them fell back. “Carl!” Rule snapped at a wolf streaking for the window, clearly intending to leap in. “Wrong way! Go get the damned package!”

Carl skidded, whirled, and raced the other direction.

Rule hit the dirt as someone else began firing from the house, rolling until he was behind the picnic table that still held playing cards and beer cans. It wasn’t much cover. “Remy, Jones—take cover and Change. We need weapons to keep them busy until Carl gets back.”

He didn’t call Mike. Mike lay still and unmoving in the bloody dirt. One of the gangbangers had gotten lucky—briefly. Very briefly.

Rule sprayed another round, providing cover for the others as they Changed. Remy was almost as fast he was, but Jones took a little longer.

Seconds later, a naked man with pale Irish skin stood in full view—for less than a second. Then he was rolling. He ended with a SIG Sauer much like Lily’s in one hand, and snapped off two shots quickly. Around the corner of the house, Jones finished his Change and dived for the nearest weapon—a sub-machine gun clutched in a dead man’s hand.

And a large tawny wolf raced up beside Rule and dropped a small, Bubble-Wrapped bundle from his jaws.

“Good.” Rule ripped at the Bubble Wrap to reveal a pair of grenades. They’d been stashed just the other side of the first ward, ready to be retrieved. He raised his voice. “You in the house! You have ten seconds to surrender! Throw your weapons out!”

On the other side of the house, fire bloomed. And vanished. Something white and almost transparent flowed overhead.

The earth shook and screamed. It shimmied against Rule’s belly where he lay prone. He raised his head to look over his shoulder—and a rectangular section of ground twenty feet away gave way, collapsing into itself like a sinkhole.

“Remy! Take over!” And he was on his feet, running bent low. That was training, not conscious thought. So was the zigzag he used. He barely noticed the bullets kicking up dirt around him.

At the edge of the cavity he once again hit the ground. She’s alive, she’s alive. I can feel her . . . but so fragile, so human, beneath that load of earth and crumbled masonry.

He climbed down carefully—not thinking of his own safety, but desperate not to send anything shifting. He knew where she was, exactly where she was. Should he Change again? A wolf digs well through dirt but lacks hands to move any large stones.

Hands first, and quickly. He went to hands and knees—would have gone flat so as to spread his weight out better, but the spot over her was too uneven. He began digging, scooping dirt and small rocks away with his hands.

When the ground beneath him shifted he cried out in rage.

A hole appeared right where he’d been digging. A small gray head poked out, looked around—blinked when he saw Rule—then popped back down.

“Wait!” Rule cried. “Wait! Is Lily—”

Then a very human hand gripped the edge of the neat, circular hole. Another hand. Rule leaned forward, grasped those hands—and stood, lifting.

“Ow! Shit! Pull!” Lily exclaimed as he pulled. Her head appeared, dusty and brown, her eyes blinking. He let go of one hand to quickly slide an arm around her shoulders as they emerged. She wriggled—and came out of the ground.

The two of them ended up lying in a tangle on the crumbled earth. “That was tight,” Lily said. “That was way too tight. He only knows one size for tunnels, and that’s his size. He saved my life.”

“You’re all right.” Rule ran his hands over her frantically. “You’re not hurt.”

“Scraped and bruised, that’s all.” She stopped to cough.

Sudden dread made him freeze. “Cynna?”