"You hold the haze and keep them hidden," I said, drawing a shot and a puff of dirt of my own. I sidestepped judiciously. "Shooter's mine."
She nodded, but her eyes showed something of wounded pride as she said, "Hurry. I can't hold it for long."
I nodded to her and looked up the mountainside—and then I shook my head and drew up my Sight.
At once, my vision cut through Luccio's bewildering haze as though it had never existed. I could see the mountainside in perfect detail—even as it was in turn partially veiled by the vision my Sight granted me, which showed me all the living magic in the world around us, all the traces of magic that had lingered before, including dozens of imprints made in the past few days, and hundreds of ghostly glimpses of particularly strong emotional images that had sunk into the area during its heyday. I could see where the girl who now lay shuddering with a bullet in her had tried to call up raw fire for the first time, near a scorch mark upslope. I could see where a grizzled man, desperately addicted to opium and desperately broke, had shot himself more than a century ago, and where by night his shade still lingered, leaving fresh imprints behind.
And I could see the little coiling cloud of darkness that formed the inhuman energy of the attacking ghoul, running hot on the emotions of battle.
I marked the ghoul's location, lowered my Sight, and took off at a dead sprint, bounding up the slope and bouncing back and forth in a wavering line. It's damned hard to hit a target like that, even one growing steadily closer, and even with Luccio's haze to cover me, I didn't want to get shot if I could possibly avoid it. It was hard going, uphill, rough terrain, but it hadn't had time to get hot yet, and I practiced running regularly—though admittedly, I did it to give me the option of running away from bad guys more ably, not toward them.
More shots rang out, but none of them seemed to come near. I kept my eyes locked on the spot on the slope where the ghoul lay shooting, probably behind cover. I couldn't see a thing through the haze, but as soon as it began to clear I would present the ghoul with a clear target, either as I came through or when Luccio's power faltered and the spell fell. I had to get closer. I didn't have my blasting rod or staff with me, and without them to help me focus my magic, the range and accuracy of any spell I could throw at the ghoul would be drastically reduced. That's why I had to get closer before I took my shot. I couldn't hold a shield against bullets and attack at the same time—and the ghoul had to be taken out. I'd get only one shot, and if I missed I'd be an easy target.
I ran, and watched, and began to gather the power to throw at the ghoul.
The haze abruptly cleared as I bounded over a patch of scrub growth.
The ghoul crouched behind a rock maybe twenty yards upslope, his face only barely distended as he held mostly to his human shape while employing the human weapon—a freaking Kalashnikov. Thank God. The weapon was tough and serviceable, but it wasn't exactly a sharpshooter's tool. If he'd been toting something more precise, he probably could have inflicted a lot more damage than he had.
I was over to one side, and the ghoul was squinting hard down the rifle's sights, so that I was only a flicker of motion in the periphery of his focus. It took him a second to recognize the threat and whip the weapon toward me.
I had time, and I threw out my hand and my will, and snarled, "Fuego!"
Fire bellowed forth from my right hand—not in a narrow beam, a jet of tightly focused energy, but in a roaring flood, spilling out from my fingertips like water from a garden sprayer. A lot of it, way more than I had intended. The fire got the ghoul, all right—and the ground for twenty feet around him in every direction—more on the uphill side of him. The roar of flame gave way to a hideous shriek, and then a steady, chewy silence shrouded by black smoke. A low breeze, a herald of the day's oncoming heat, nudged the smoke away for a moment.
The ghoul, now in its true form, lay outstretched on the scorched earth. It had been burned down to little more than an appallingly blackened skeleton, though one leg retained enough muscle matter to continue twitching and thrashing—even then, the creature was not wholly dead. It didn't surprise me. In my experience, ghouls hadn't done much that wasn't disgusting. There was no reason to expect them to die cleanly, either.
Once I was sure it wasn't getting back up, I scanned the mountainside, looking for any other sign of movement, but found nothing. Then I turned and hurried back down the slope to the encampment.
Luccio was fully engaged in treating the wounded. Three had been hit by gunfire, and several others, including one of the other adult Wardens, had been wounded by shards of shattered rock or splinters thrown from the folding tables and chairs.
Ramirez came hurrying up to me and said, "You get him?" His eyes trailed past me to the enormous area blackened with smoke and half a dozen patches of brush still on fire, and he said, "Yeah, I guess you kind of did."
"Kind of," I agreed. "You said they had two of our kids?"
He nodded once, his face grim. "The Terrible Twosome. They were heading up the slope to find a spot above the camp for the lesson. Wanted to show off, I expect."
"Sixteen," I muttered. "Jesus."
Ramirez grimaced. "I was yelling at them to Come back when the ghouls hopped up out of the bush and brought them down, and the three assholes who had sneaked into the old smithy opened up."
"How are you at following tracks?" I asked him.
"Thought they taught that Boy Scout stuff to all you Anglos. I grew up in L.A."
I blew out a breath, thinking fast. "Luccio's busy. She'll call in help for the wounded. That leaves you and me to go get the twins."
"Fucking right we will," Ramirez said. "How?"
"You got prisoners?"
"The two I didn't blast, yeah."
"We'll ask them."
"Think they'll rat out their buddy?"
"If they think it'll save their lives?" I asked. "In a heartbeat. Maybe less."
"Weasels," Ramirez muttered.
"They are what they are, man," I said. "There's no use in hating them for it. Just be glad we can use it to advantage. Let's go."
Chapter Twenty-Three
The ghouls lay covered in grey-white dust as fine as baby powder—the remains of the wall Ramirez had blasted, their companion, his weapon, and the right arm and leg of one of the captive ghouls. The wounded ghoul, body shifted into its natural form under the stress of injury, lay panting and choking, spitting out dust. The second ghoul still looked mostly human, and was dressed in a ragged old set of sand-colored robes that looked like something out of Lawrence of Arabia. Another Kalashnikov lay several feet away, behind Bill Meyers, the young Warden now standing over them with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun pointed at the unwounded one of the pair.
"Careful," Meyers said. He had the rural drawl that seems largely common to any town west of the Mississippi located more than an hour or so from a major city, though he was himself a Texan. "I ain't searched them, and they don't 'pear to understand English."
"What?" Ramirez said. "That's stupid. Who bothers to sneak ghouls into the country as covert muscle if they can't pass as locals?"
"Someone who doesn't have to worry about customs or border guards or witnesses or cops," I said quietly. "Someone who takes them through the Nevernever straight here from wherever the hell they came from." I glanced back at Ramirez. "How else do you think they got past the outer wards and sentries and right up to the camp?"
Ramirez grunted. "I thought we had those approaches warded, too."
"Nevernever's a tricksy kind of place," I said. "Tough to know it all. Somebody was sneakier than us."
"Vampires?" Ramirez asked.