Eileen Wilks - Blood Lines

Good thing they weren't really trying to sneak up. He wanted to get closer before engaging the enemy, though, if they could. He motioned for them to follow and started across the field, crouching low, his rifle held ready.

All at once Cullen straightened and sang out, "Incoming!" He flung out a hand.

Fire bloomed in the night. Something screeched in pain. In the sudden glow Rule saw what looked like darker masses of air speeding toward them from the north end of the fence line.

"Hennings—Robbins—now!" He fit his rifle to his shoulder and fired into the almost-visible demons charging them. The loud crack from his gun was followed quickly by others, even as the two he'd named Changed.

"Holy shit!" Cynna cried. Rule spared her a quick glance and saw her looking straight up—at a nightmare diving at them out of the sky.

The creature's wingspan was easily forty feet. It was fanged and leathery, the reptilian head made up mostly of jaws. It had a compact body and muscular hindquarters powering short legs that ended in huge talons, and Rule had seen its like before.

In hell. Gan called them Xitil's pets. "Hit it with your spell!" Rule yelled, aiming up.

"It's not a goddamned demon!"

Holy shit was right. "Hennings, Robbins," he called to the two wolves. "Keep the others off us. Everyone with weapons, fire at the big guy. Cullen—the wards." Rule shot at the creature's head, but it was diving so fast he missed.

At the last minute it swerved to the north. He tracked it with his weapon, firing again—and he hit it. He was sure he did, and the others were firing, too. It never faltered, swooping and grabbing one of the wolves in its talons.

The wolf's weight didn't bother it any more than the bullets had. The enormous wings beat strongly, and it soared up.

The red-eyes were almost on them, though Hennings ran in front, trying to draw them off. They popped into full visibility twenty feet away even as Robbins's dying howls faded overhead. Rule howled, too, in sheer rage and charged the red-eye in the lead. It checked, disconcerted, but only for a second. Then it leaped.

He fired right into the gaping jaws. The back of its head exploded.

He spun, rifle ready, but the other two red-eyes were circling, not attacking. He fired anyway.

"Stop! Stop, or she dies!"

That shout came from the house. Rule darted a glance that way—and froze.

A small man, dark-skinned and dapper in a brown suit, carried a bundle wrapped in a blue cloth of some sort over his shoulder. He led four other humans across the field toward them. Those four wore the hooded robes of the Azd and carried rifles… rifles pointed at Lily, who walked in front of them, her hands behind her back.

"He was waiting for me," Lily said. She spoke quietly, but he heard her easily across the twenty yards that separated them.

They'd been betrayed.

"DROP your weapons," the little man in the brown suit said, "or the sensitive is dead."

The flying nightmare swooped lower, releasing the bloody carcass in its talons. Robbins's half-eaten corpse splatted on the grass ten yards away. And Jiri's huge demon strode out of the trees with Jiri straddling his shoulders. Her supple figure swayed with the motion. She was smiling.

Lily was captured, and Toby—God, Toby! He'd failed his son, failed Lily, failed—

Rule was scarcely aware of raising his rifle, but there it was, fitted snugly to his shoulder, aimed at the dapper man's forehead, his finger on the trigger…

… he stood motionless, the rank odor of demon filling his nostrils, his arms twisted cruelly tight behind him—held there by the demon standing behind him, its breath audible and sour behind him. Jiri's demon.

Rage and fear flooded him, thick and noxious as smoke from a chemical fire. The emotions almost triggered the Change, but he fought it back, frantic to understand what had happened in the lost time.

Apparently he hadn't shot the little man… Cordoba? Probably. He stood directly in front of Rule but several feet away, talking to Jiri, with the two red-eyes sitting on their haunches behind them, their eyes glowing faintly.

That wasn't a bundle on Cordoba's shoulder, Rule realized. It was a child. A small child wrapped in a blue blanket.

Lily stood twenty feet to his left, still held at gunpoint by the two of the robed Aza. Rule's breath caught, broke, but he willed himslf to stillness. He had to stop reacting and think.

Where were the others? He was alive—why, he didn't know. But the others?

Cynna stood near Lily. One of the Azd was fastening her hands behind her back while another kept a gun at her temple. She was telling them things about their ancestry they might have taken exception to, but they ignored her.

Cordoba handed Jiri the child, a little girl maybe two or three years old, her rows of braids fastened with brightly colored rubber bands, her soft, round face slack with sleep. Jiri cradled her close and turned away, bending her head over the child… hiding her face from Cordoba, maybe? For it twisted suddenly, ravaged with emotion. Her lips moved as she whispered endearments, mixing English with a language Rule didn't know.

That much had been real, then—the desperation and the love.

He twisted to the right as much as he was able in the punishing grip and glimpsed the winged creature on the ground. The folded wings poked high into the air, like a bat's; the toothed jaws were closed, the eyes half-closed.

Two still forms were pinned beneath the talons: Brady and Cullen.

Brady he recognized mainly by the pale hair. He was farthest from Rule and facedown in the dirt, most of his body hidden by the talon imprisoning him. But Hennings was the only other blond in their party, and that motionless body was too slim for Hennings.

Cullen's face was turned toward Rule. Blood made a mask of it, but not so thoroughly that Rule didn't know him. But… yes, his eyes were closed. Relief rushed in. The eyes of the dead were always open.

What about Alex? And Hennings, and Bryan? The mantles stirred in him, urging him to take action. He was responsible for them. But he couldn't see them, couldn't look for them—couldn't remember, damn it all to hell. Maybe he'd known what became of them ten minutes ago. He didn't now.

"Is that the daughter we were supposed to rescue?" Lily asked in her cool, cop's voice. "Looks like you cut your deal with Cordoba before you talked to us, Jiri. Is that why Cynna's binding didn't work?"

"Very good, Miss Yu," Cordoba said. Though he spoke perfect English, there was a Spanish flavor to his voice. "You couldn't bind Jiri to her word, for she's wholly mine." He smiled. "I heard it all, of course."

Jiri straightened, her face smoothing until it held only a light, mocking smile. "Tommy's a far-hearer. A rare Gift in a rare man."

"Jiri." He shook his head. "Do they need to know that?"

"Why not?" She turned that mocking smile on Rule. "Almost everything I told you was true. I simply fudged a bit on the timing. When I was unable to recruit the sorcerer, I accepted Tommy's terms. I'm bound to him now."

Cynna made a small, choked sound. When Rule looked at her, though, her face was impassive. "It's not the same kind of binding I did. She means that she's his creature, just as the demon is hers. She's unable to act against him, or refuse to do what he tells her."

Cordoba ran a possessive hand up Jiri's arm. "She fought me, didn't you, queridctf I knew she would. Just as I knew I would win in the end. But it's not so bad as you expected, is it? I let you have your way with some things—though I would like to know why you didn't want the unnecesary ones killed."

Jiri shook her head. "So wasteful, Tommy. You really must learn to plan ahead. A sorcerer—he is still alive, isn't he?—has obvious uses."