Eileen Wilks - Blood Magic

“In the tunnel. She was in the tunnel when the ward pulled everything down. Mel says she’s fine. He says gnome tunnels do not collapse. No,” she corrected herself with a faint grin, “he sniffed, very superior, and said, ‘Our tunnels is never collapsing. Real earthquakes is not collapsing. This bitty shake is not collapsing.’ ”

Now Rule was the one blinking. “Mel?”

She grimaced. “I can’t say his whole name. The little elder who saved me.”

“I thought he was . . . Never mind.” Rule heaved to his feet, but stayed bent over so he wouldn’t provide a target. He gave Lily a tug to get her on her feet. The cavity was deep enough that she could stand straight.

Carl poked his nose over the edge. He yipped happily when he saw Lily.

Behind him, an explosion made the ground shake again, followed quickly by a second blast.

Rule looked at his friend. “The ones in the house didn’t surrender.”

Carl shook his head.

Rule had a quick flash of the kind of devastation the grenades must have wreaked. He shut it away. No time for that now. “Okay. Go back to Remy. He’s in charge of your group. I’m heading around front.”

“What’s happening?” Lily asked.

“My father, your grandmother, Cullen, and six clan are fighting the sorcerer and the Chimei.” He gave the steep side of the cavity an appraising look, found a likely handhold, and started up. Dirt crumbled and he shifted, got close enough to get an arm over the edge, and heaved. “Five of us tackled the gang members in and near the house,” he continued, reaching down to pull Lily up. “They’re either dead now or very close to it.”

She helped as much as she could, scrambling with her feet. Once again they ended up tangled together in the dirt. “All of them?” She was slightly winded. “How many is all of them?”

“Thirty-six.”

She looked at him for a moment, then gave a quick shake of her head. Like him, she’d deal with that later. “What’s the plan?”

“As soon as Remy makes sure there aren’t any left to pursue, he and Carl will take you to the cars. They’re a couple miles away—we couldn’t risk being spotted. The gnomes know the spot. They’ll take Cynna there.”

“Did you take a blow to the head? I’m not going to the damned cars.”

“You’re unarmed. You’re a potential hostage. The Chimei—”

“You’re not just unarmed, you’re unclothed. And the Chimei is a lot more likely to kill you than me.”

“Lily, the whole point of tonight’s mission is to get you and Cynna safely away. No one can leave until you do.”

“And you think Johnny—”

“Johnny?”

“The sorcerer. He goes by Johnny Deng. You think he and the Chimei are going to say, ‘Okay, you can all go home now,’ once I’m not around?”

He scowled, furious. And unsurprised. “Come on,” he said roughly.

BUTRule didn’t lead her to the front of the ramshackle house. He took her first to the place he’d left his weapons. As they ran, he briefed her in a low voice about who was here and why.

Charms made by the Rhej using an ancient spell. The Lady speaking. Nokolai at war. “How can you win such a war?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“We’ve made plans,” he said vaguely as he handed her a nice little semiautomatic Glock. It wasn’t her SIG, but it would do. “There’s a chance the Chimei can hear us, if she tries, so I won’t go into detail now.”

She stuck the plastic knife she’d held on to all this time in her pocket. “Sam somehow lured the bad guys away, you said. How?”

Rule stepped into his jeans. “He made it seem his lair was unguarded. He thought the Chimei wouldn’t be able to resist trying to get at Li Qin. Apparently he was right.”

Lily shivered. If the Chimei hadn’t been so eager to collect another hostage with which to torment Grandmother, she might have tried to force Lily’s “freely made offer” already. “But Li Qin—is she all right?”

“Madame Yu assured me Li Qin would be safe. If she believes it, I’m inclined to.” He shouldered an assault rifle.

“Where is Sam?”

“He RSVP’d his regrets.”

“What?”

He grabbed her hand. “Come on. We’ll come at them through the woods.”

The ground was rough and it was dark among the trees. Lily couldn’t go fast without tripping over something. She was making noise and slowing him down. “You could go ahead.”

“No.”

“Did Sam say the treaty wouldn’t let him help?”

“Something like that. Shh.”

The Chimei had claimed Sam was lying to her, using her. Lily figured that was partly true—the black dragon was manipulating all of them. But the Chimei had even less reason than Sam to speak truth to Lily. She had wanted Lily cowed and fearful, and persuading her she couldn’t trust the dragon would help that along.

Only . . . Sam should be here, dammit. The sense of betrayal was strong. Treaty or no treaty, he should have found a way to be here. If nothing else, he could soak up extra magic, leaving less for the Chimei and Johnny to grab and use.

Rule stumbled. She stopped. Alarm made it hard to keep her voice soft. “What is it? Are you okay?”

“I take it that means everything didn’t suddenly go dark for you.”

“No. Aren’t the mantles working?”

“Only one mantle, and I grew careless.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “I wasn’t relying on it as I should. I hadn’t needed to until now. The Chimei was focused on the others, I suppose.”

“What do you mean, only one mantle?”

“Later.”

Lily took the lead for the next part. Rule said his vision was clearing as he got used to leaning on the mantle, as he put it, but her sight was unaffected.

The woods ended abruptly—more so than they probably had an hour ago. Where there must have been brush and grass there was now burned stubble.

Lily stopped. Rule stopped beside her, one hand on her shoulder.

Perhaps twenty yards down the road, a white van lay tilted in the ditch. Lily didn’t see anyone there. Not Isen, not the other lupi.

Closer, three people stood where a dirt road dead-ended in a baked earth yard. Two were together—Grandmother, as erect as always. Cullen, not so erect. He was on his knees, and looked like he was fighting to keep from hitting the ground with his face.

Ten paces away from those two, the Chimei paced. Or one version of her did. Kun Nu, Lily had called her. Bird woman. Now she was all bird.

She wasn’t the size of a dragon. Not even close. But as birds went, she was huge—at least the height of an ostrich, but shaped something like a crane or stork, with a raptor’s strong beak and a long, forked tail. She was white still, pristine white and glistening in the moon-drenched darkness.

LILei stood with her hand on Cullen’s shoulder, turning to keep Kun Nu in view as the enormous bird circled them. He had fought hard, the lovely Cullen, fought well and valiantly. No blame to him that he was not as strong as a being who had been gathering power for three centuries. “You cannot break my circle,” she said in Chinese.

The great bird’s beak melted, along with the rest of the face, so that a woman’s face looked at Li Lei from atop that bird body. A familiar face, though Li Lei had not seen it outside her nightmares in so very long. “I can,” she said in her high, pure voice, using a dialect Li Lei also heard in her dreams at times. “I will, eventually. I have time.”

She spoke truly. Given enough time, she would undoubtedly figure out how to break the circle, though it was set specifically against her. That was a warding so old Li Lei should have forgotten it. Perhaps she would have, if she hadn’t practiced it faithfully every decade for all these years.