I clenched my teeth harder. “And you want to do the same thing to Molly.”
“Potentially. She has a talent for verisimilomancy—”
“Versa what?”
“Illusion, child,” Lea clarified. “She has a talent, but I despair of her ever truly understanding what it is to cause terror.”
“That’s what she’s learning from you? Fear?”
“In essence.”
“You aren’t teaching her, Godmother. Teachers don’t do that.”
“What is teaching but the art of planting and nurturing power?” Lea replied. “Mortals prattle on about lonely impulses of delight and the gift of knowledge, and think that teaching is a trade like metalsmithing or healing or telling lies on television. It is not. It is the dissemination of power unto a new generation and nothing less. For her, as for you, lessons demand real risk in order to attain their true rewards.”
“I won’t let you turn her into a weapon, Godmother.”
Lea arched a red-gold eyebrow, showing her teeth again. “You should have thought of that before dying, child. What, precisely, will you do to stop me?”
I closed my hands into impotent fists.
The turtlenecks had been briefly stymied, but not stopped, by the wall of flame. It wasn’t high enough. I saw three of them moving together. Two of them linked their hands while a third backed off, then sprinted toward the other two. The runner planted his foot on the linked hands of his supporters, and then both men lifted while the runner leapt. They flung him a good twenty feet up and over the wall of flame.
The runner flipped neatly at the top of his arc and landed in a crouch, holding a machete in his right hand, a pistol in his left. He calmly put two rounds directly into the shotgun-wielding Molly, and two more into the pistol-packing version. Before the last shot rang out, a second turtleneck had gone over the wall and landed beside the first—the leader, I noted. He carried no obvious weaponry, though his belt had been hung with several seashells in a manner that suggested they were dangerous equipment. He remained in a crouch when he landed, looking around with sharp, steady eyes, while his partner covered him.
Shotgun Molly crumpled slowly to the ground, still fumbling at a pocket for more shells for the weapon, while scarlet blood stained the fresh layer of thin snow. Two-Gun Molly’s head snapped back as a dark hole appeared in her forehead, and her body dropped to the snow like a rag doll. Motorcycle-Chucking Molly screamed and snatched up her fallen sister’s guns.
The turtleneck on lookout raised his weapon, but Captain Turtleneck moved his hand in a sharp, negative gesture, and the man lowered the weapon again. Both did nothing as the newly armed Molly aimed the guns and began to fire. Puffs of snow flitted up from the ground a couple of times, but neither was hit.
Captain Turtleneck nodded to himself and smiled.
Crap. He’d figured it out. Coordinated squads of bad guys are one thing. Coordinated squads of bad guys being led by someone who remained observant and cool in the middle of combat chaos were far, far worse.
“Ah, disbelief,” Lea murmured. “Once the mark begins to suspect illusion is at work, there’s little point in continuing.”
“Stop them,” I said, to Lea. “Godmother, please. Stop this.”
She turned to blink at me. “And why should I?”
Captain Turtleneck scanned the ground, and I saw his eyes trace the line of footsteps Molly had made when she had backed into the center of parking lot, when the confrontation had begun. His eyes flicked around and I could practically see the thoughts going through his head. A trail of messy, backward tracks suddenly ended in two clear boot prints. The only Molly in sight had proven to be an illusion—and therefore the real Molly must be nearby, supporting the still-active illusions around him. Where would she be standing?
That last set of boot prints seemed a logical place to look.
Captain Turtleneck drew one of the seashells from his belt, murmured something to it, and gave it an expert, effortless flick. It sailed through the air and landed only inches from my invisible apprentice’s toes.
“Oh,” Lea said, setting her mouth into a pouting moue. “Pity. She had such potential.”
I gave my godmother my most furious glare and sprinted forward.
The shell began to glow with a urine-colored light.
It had worked for Morty. Maybe it would work again.
I flung myself at Molly, focusing on protecting her, and I felt myself slide into her, merging and mingling from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head. (Which hardly made sense, given how much taller I was than she—one more example of the way physics doesn’t necessarily apply to spirits.)
I suddenly felt utterly exhausted, frightened, and at the same time in a state of euphoric exultation. I could feel the various illusions dancing upon threads of my will, demanding complete focus and concentration. My legs and feet ached. My ribs ached. My face and shoulder hurt.
And then I felt myself choke, then wonder what the hell was happening to me.
It’s me, kid, I thought, as loudly as I could. Don’t fight me.
I didn’t know what the seashell would do, but there wasn’t much time to get particular. I extended my left hand along with my will, and murmured, “Defendarius.”
Blue energy suddenly blazed up around Molly and me in a sparkling sphere.
The seashell shone brighter and exploded into a sphere of pure white fire, as hot and fierce as a microscopic nuclear warhead. It lashed against the blue sphere like a bat hitting a baseball. The sphere went flying, taking us with it. I braced my arms and legs against the sides of the sphere, straining to hold it together. Without my shield bracelet, I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it up.
The sphere struck a car and bounded off it into the wall of the building. Its path had us careening tail over teakettle, but our braced arms and legs kept us from smashing our head against the sphere’s interior. We wobbled and rolled into a corner of the lot, and I realized dully as I looked around that Molly’s illusions had vanished. My bad. The strength of the shield had cut her off from them and ended her ability to keep them going.
I looked up to find the turtlenecks advancing on us in a crowd, and I dismissed the sphere, landing in a crouch. I gathered more of my will together and swept my arm from left to right with a murmured word, and a second curtain of blue fire sprang up between me and the oncoming bad guys.
One of them gave the wall of flame a disdainful snort and calmly walked into it.
Like I said, I’m not much when it comes to illusions.
I am, however, reasonably good with fire.
The turtleneck didn’t scream. He didn’t have time. When fire is hot enough, you never really feel the heat. Your nerves get fried away and all you feel is the lack of signal from them—you feel cold.
He died in the fire, and he died cold. The cinder that fell backward out of the fire could never have been casually identified as human.
Now, that got their attention.
I stood there holding the fire against the remaining turtlenecks, the heat scorching away the thin layer of snow on the asphalt, then making it bubble and quiver, changing it into my own personal moat of boilinghot tar. It was hard work to keep it going, but I’ve never been afraid of that.
Harry, I need some room, came a thought from Molly, hardly able to be heard over the blaze of concentration necessary for maintaining the fire.
I gritted my teeth. It was like trying to hold an immensely heavy door open while half a dozen friends squeezed in around me. I felt an odd sensation and increased weariness and blocked them both away. I needed to focus, to hold the turtlenecks away from Molly.
Once again, the bad guys impressed me. They knew that an intense magical effort could be sustained for only a limited amount of time. They didn’t risk losing more men to the fire. Instead, they played it smart.