Gasping, I ducked back to avoid the splattering hot spell. Quickly I jammed the gun in the file cabinet before he burst the rest of the spells in the hopper and put me down with my own weapon. Trent was shouting, and Jenks inked when I suddenly found myself pulled backward, falling into the FIB’s shelter.
Eyes wide, I stared up at Trent.
“Take it!” Edden exclaimed from over me, and then I surged to my feet when the dart gun went off with a little pop. Breath held, I watched Bancroft roll to evade it.
“Unbelievers!” he shouted, clearly not hit. “You will twist and die under her power! She comes! She comes!”
“Oh my God . . .” I breathed as Bancroft ran to the edge, a stark silhouette against the bright light, arms spread wide as he faced Cincinnati. He was going to jump!
“She comes!” he screamed, and in the distance, a siren started, then another.
Trent’s face was pale, and Edden frowned as he stood over the man at the keyboard. “Just what we need,” the man grumbled. “A wave. At least we know it’s headed right for us.”
Because it’s coming for me. Chilled, I looked past Bancroft to the horizon. More sirens were lifting into the air, joined by church bells. “She comes!” Bancroft shouted, his robe falling to his elbows as he shook at the edge of the drop-off.
“Captain, can I move forward for a better shot?” the man with the dart gun asked, and Edden nodded. Immediately he slunk forward, stealthy with urban guerrilla tactics.
Trent rubbed a hand over his face, starting at the feel of his bristles. “Rachel, I don’t know what he’s going to do if that wave hits him.”
“He’s going to kill himself,” Landon said, and I spun, having forgotten the nasty man cuffed to the fallen sprinkler system. “Pray that whoever is pulling mystics from your line catches them before they reach Bancroft, or he’s going to take us with him.”
My gut clenched. If I used magic, I’d kill us faster.
“He tried to rescue them,” Landon said, chin lifting to indicate Bancroft. “He was going to put them back in the line so the Free Vampires couldn’t use them to put the undead asleep. But it went wrong. They won’t leave him, and now he’s insane.”
“Here!” the crazed man shouted. “We’re here! Join us!”
“I told him it wasn’t a good idea,” Landon said, but the thread of satisfaction in him made me think he was lying. “You can’t talk to the divine and survive.”
But I had.
“Trent!” Bancroft shouted, spinning to us. “Bring your goat! It’s your destiny! You must make amends for what your mother refused to do!”
Excuse me?
Eyes on Bancroft, Trent took my elbow. “Don’t even think about using this as a way to get near him,” he muttered.
Cackling, Bancroft spun back to the opening, dancing a weird shuffle with his arms waving over his head as if he could fly. “She’s coming. She’s coming!”
“Rache, look at that!” Jenks exclaimed, and my lips parted. Beyond Bancroft was a sparkling cloud. It drifted below us, just over the tops of Cincy’s buildings. Beneath the distortion were little flares as magic misfired, but the sirens were minimizing the situation. I’d seen that cloud before on the bridge, and my fear tightened to a hard pit. Mystics.
Edden chewed on his lower lip, eyes on Bancroft at the edge and his man inching closer. “Edden, call your man back,” I whispered, face cold. “If Bancroft does any magic under that wave, it will misfire! I can protect us, but not if he’s way over there. Get him back here. Now!”
“Stand down!” Edden shouted, gesturing frantically. “Newman, get back here!”
“Dust!” Bancroft shouted, spinning to the opening as the first of the wave sparkled over him. “Oh God! Make it stop!”
He wants to kill himself, I realized, and as Newman ran for us, I yanked Trent closer. “Go to ground, Jenks!” I shouted, then bubbled everyone I could reach before the wave hit us, feeling my power lick up and around the running officer as I fell to a knee and the circle invoked. A molecule-thin barrier swam up, bisected by a hundred cords, a hundred ways in to those who knew. I prayed that the mystics didn’t.
“Make it sto-o-o-op!” Bancroft howled. And then a sparkling lilt seemed to lift through me with the sound of wings as the wave hit us. My skin prickled, and Trent looked at me in shock. I knew my aura was sparkling with them. The Goddess’s eyes, her mystics, were on us.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not knowing what for, and then I cowered as Bancroft’s own spell misfired. He screamed, his high-pitched cries cutting off with a gurgle when his lungs melted, and I covered my ears, trying not to hear him.
Wild magic beat at us, crawling over the surface of my circle for the way in. My heart thudded when it found a resonance in my chi, and the first feelings of tendrils sought me out. Please no, I thought, feeling that same something that was digging through my circle quiver awake—already inside me. A thousand eyes spun, rising up in anger as they recognized me.
Stay out, I begged, knowing it was my aura they were following, tricked into believing I was the way back to her. To take them in would draw Bancroft’s spell into my circle, and they lingered, intensifying his charm as they refused to move on. Fire danced over us as the world burned and the air grew warm. Sparkles skated over the layer of ever-after protecting us. Please, please, please, see us not, I thought as the floor burned, and from inside me—the way made open from the resonances between me and my line—I heard a mocking laugh.
For now, the Goddess taunted, her voice clear as water in the chaos of my thoughts.
Trent yanked from me, mouth open and shock in his eyes. Then he jerked his head up as the insane wild magic darted away, drawn by the sensation of something brighter than my aura.
Panting, I let the bubble drop. For a heartbeat there was silence, and then came the hissing shush of the sprinkler system flicking on. I looked up, glad now that the ceiling was a twisted wreck and we were still dry. The scent of wet carpet rose, thickened, and began to purge the reek of burning skin.
“What the devil was that?” someone said, and I fell back, hiding my face as I sat on my butt and held my knees to my chin, rocking almost. The scent of burning plastic was slowly fading, and I could hear the men moving about in the superhot, increasingly moist air. Whether she was divine or simply a force of nature, it was obvious that the Goddess was real. Her mystics had opened a channel. I’d heard her again—in my head as her mystics sought me out. Trent had heard her too.