It didn’t surprise me that she would twist it and blame Menessos for her own murderous actions.
Beneath me, Menessos groaned and shivered. A spasm rocked him. He whispered, “Call Mountain!”
I turned to the tall line of switchgrass far behind. Waerewolves and Beholders were already racing forward from their hiding spots. “Mountain!”
The big man cleared the tall grass at a jog.
That was when the first shot was fired.
I twisted toward the shore again. The fairies from the small boats were taking to the air, wings speeding them ashore or fleeing into the sky. Of those ready to fight, colorful balls of energy flashed from their palms, magic meant to do harm. A multitude of shots followed in quick succession and their magic died in the iron-filled air. Booming gunshots echoed under the screams of fairies. The caustic odor of gunpowder surrounded me. People are dialing phones right now, reporting gunfire. Police will be here in force in ten minutes . . . They will have to stop. It’ll end before anything can happen to Johnny.
Mountain dropped heavily beside us. “I’m here, Boss.” He offered his wrist to Menessos. Instantly, the vampire lurched upward and took Mountain at the throat, sucking and slurping like a desert wanderer finding the oasis pool. It was beastly and grotesque. It wasn’t anything like the tenderness he showed me. Horrified, I scrambled back.
The scene across the water was macabre. So many fairy bodies dropping on the lake, their frilly costumes rippling on the waves for an instant before body and all disintegrated into slime. Fax was raging, screaming with her scalding voice, demanding Menessos’s head. Injured fairies fluttered ashore.
The buckshot was apparently gone, but it had done its job. If not mortally struck, with iron embedded in their skin, the fey could not work magic. Additionally, blisters were rising, limbs swelling in allergic reaction even as I watched. They could not summon their magical weapons, but clearly a few had summoned theirs before being injured. The waerewolves—I saw the Mr. Clean wannabe and Hector among them—and Beholders clashed with this pitiful fey force, swinging shotguns like baseball bats. It was all carnage.
“Stop,” I whispered.
Menessos lifted his face away from Mountain, but I wasn’t talking to him. I didn’t want to see this anymore. We were winning. We didn’t have to keep killing.
Menessos left Mountain and the big man collapsed to the sand, one hand applying pressure to his neck. Menessos crawled toward me. “Fax isn’t dead, Persephone. They cannot stop until she is dead!”
I stared at the blood smeared across his face. My horror must have been clear. He wiped at his face with his sleeve.
The fire fairy’s voice bellowed, “Elementals!”
The vapors concealing what was behind the tugboats began to dissipate. From the flat surface, dozens of creatures rose up and swarmed toward the shore.
“She brought the elementals!” Menessos whispered.
Unicorns became warhorses, galloping atop the water and racing toward the beach, slashing their horns like swords. Dragons, with broad fan-gilled heads and fanged jaws wide, roared as their eellike bodies slithered into the water behind the unicorns. Griffons sprang to the air crying like hawks and flashing talons, ready to rend flesh. Phoenixes joined them, sparks falling from their feathers like glittering firework trails.
“They all have collars,” I said. Links of chain dangled from each.
“It was bad enough the fey stole them from us,” Menessos growled, “but so much worse for such enchanted creatures to be enslaved.”
Fax Torris fell onto the back of a phoenix, her flaming wings making the bird even more regal. With a flick of her hand, the collar twisted—the bird reacted with a cry of pain and its long wings stuttered in their motion. The chain slapped into Fax Torris’s palm, and the bird flew around the others, as if coming to the front of the horde.
“She’s controlling them with those collars.” My eyes searched the beach for Johnny.
That was when I saw the witches.
Brooms rocketing in from the west, maybe twenty-five in all.
“Do you know if Xerxadrea’s body has been identified yet?”
“What?” Menessos asked sharply.
I pointed to the fast-approaching women, wands at the ready. “Are they coming to our aid or to do more damage?”
The waerewolves noticed the threat of magic zooming in on them. I knew by the uneasy voices calling for Johnny. That, at least, helped me locate him. He was running toward us from the east end of the beach.
He stopped a dozen yards away, shouting, “Do they know waeres are down here?”
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“What about those creatures? They’re magic, too, aren’t they?”
I nodded.
Menessos called to him, “You know what you must do, Domn Lup.”
Johnny and he locked eyes. They shared something. I tried to reach Johnny through the connection Menessos made. I had a sense of the memories they had shared. I heard a whisper, Xerxadrea’s voice. He was remembering what she had said to him in my kitchen: “Perhaps you would learn a few things if you would but try to see beyond your own conflict and see his.”
Johnny nodded, turned, and ran.
I reached for Menessos. “Can the Beholders get the collars off those elementals?”
“Good thinking.”
Johnny gathered the waeres to the east. He must have given them the option of leaving. Over half of them fled the beach. Menessos, for his part, must have given a mental order to the Beholders. They formed a phalanx on the beach before us, four rows deep, ten abreast, and a handful around the circle. All held iron weapons at the ready. Unfortunately, they had no shields. The animals charging them, unlike storybook depictions, were not dainty and frail.
Long pikes would have been better weapons against them, not that I wanted to see unicorns die.
The witches hovered beside us, in formation. Vilna-Daluca sat at their lead. The four members of the lucusi that I had already met were all with her, and nearly two dozen more. “It doesn’t appear the two of you are alone or that you intend to deliver the vampire as WEC commanded.”
“We tried that,” I said. “Apparently there are plenty of sneaky people who thought that was a bad idea.”
“Riiiight.” Vilna winked.
“Your wands-at-the-ready scared off half the waerewolves,” Menessos added.
“I think we can handle this.”
“Where’s Xerxadrea?” he pressed.
It was a good cover move. I hadn’t thought of it.
Vilna’s features flickered with worry, but she covered instantly. “She’s too old for a fight like this. She sends her blessings.”
The unicorns were nearly to the shore. Fax Torris and her phoenix were coming up fast on the outside. These beautiful creatures had served to guard our circles, in spirit form, for decades. Fighting them was so wrong.
Vilna-Daluca nodded. “Witches!” she called. The hair on the nape of my neck rose as they called on the power of the ley and it answered. The crystal tips of their wands flared to life and settled into a subtle glow. Vilna raised her arm to signal.
“Remove the collars,” I shouted to her.
She paused, considering this, then nodded.
Before she could complete the gesture that would send the witches against the elementals, however, I saw a black wolf race along the beach and leap at the phoenix carrying Fax Torris.
The witches flew past our heads, but I didn’t care what they did now. I could not look away from the wolf.
Fax Torris wrenched the phoenix’s chain and leaned back hard. Her wings fanned out as she stood and used her feet to press the phoenix’s body into an angle that put its talons slashing forward.
While the avian’s claws were not as long and sharp as those of a griffon, they were dangerous nonetheless. They raked across the wolf’s chest. His teeth sank into the phoenix’s neck. The fairy’s wings beat furiously, dragging them farther out over the water. Then the wolf yanked the phoenix’s neck to the side, snapping it. All three fell into the water, disappearing beneath the surface.