“You have not made a friend this day, feykin,” she said as she sank under the water.
“I know.” But I didn’t apologize.
She stopped with just her dark eyes and pointed ears above the water. “Perhaps your pursuers wil desire a ride.”
Then she vanished.
Maybe I’d grown jaded, but I couldn’t force myself to care if she ate the goons.
The colectors were waiting for me in the center of the bridge. I didn’t see the cops as I made my way along the bank, but I imagined that wherever they were they could see me. Wonder what they thought of that entrance?
I put PC and my purse under the bridge, tucked away out of sight behind a support pil ar.
“Stay,” I said, pointing at him. He whined, but lay down, the bag shifting with his movement.
If I had to get out of here quickly, it was going to be hard to reach him, but he’d been through a lot tonight. If things to reach him, but he’d been through a lot tonight. If things went badly, I wanted him out of harm’s way.
Death smiled as I climbed the bank, relief making his hazel eyes brighter. I didn’t bother fighting the answering smile that his summoned in me, but joined him and the other two col ectors. The center of the bridge seemed as good a place as any to draw my circle. A circle that I actual y planned to use this time.
“Looks like you made it just in time,” the gray man said, and pointed with the skul that topped his cane.
The water on the far side of the bridge bubbled and whirled as a large shadow expanded under the surface of the river. A giant green head emerged. It looked like the head of an al igator with a long, leathery snout stopping in a flat forehead and thick eye ridges—but the head alone was the size of an al igator.
Sea serpent?
Then another head emerged. And another. I stumbled back against the railing of the bridge as two more heads on long, scaled necks emerged. How many of these things are there?
Seven. Heads, at least. Then the first huge taloned foot grabbed the side of the bridge as the creature hauled itself up, and I realized that al the heads were attached to one beast. Hydra.
And another construct. How many souls are fueling that thing? The mist under its glamoured form was solid, completely obscuring the charmed disk in the jumble of souls.
The police, whom I hadn’t seen, shouted into radios, cal ing for backup. I glanced at the edge of the bridge, wondering if I even had a chance of making it to the bank—
this thing’s reach was massive. Then my senses picked up on familiar magic that was not part of the construct.
I let my eyes fol ow my senses. There, around the center head’s neck was a large col ar, and dangling from the col ar was a ruby saturated with Hol y’s magic. I’d never seen her was a ruby saturated with Hol y’s magic. I’d never seen her without the charm.
The police surged forward, opening fire on the hydra.
Their bul ets were too smal in caliber to do much against the hydra’s thick hide, but the col ectors were a lot more effective as they lunged at heads and jerked souls free.
“Wait! It’s wearing one of Hol y’s charms. Maybe it’s supposed to take me somewhere,” I yel ed, staring at the head with the jewel strapped to its neck. I met its red eyes, looking for a sign of intel igence, of intent.
It blinked large, reptilian eyes at me. Then lunged.
Huge fangs hurtled toward me, but Death reached me first. He tackled me to the ground, his hand behind my head keeping my skul from cracking against the stone. The hydra’s head sliced through the air above him, taking out a section of the bridge railing where I’d been standing. Death twisted, watching the head withdraw. Then he turned back toward me.
“Love, the only way that thing is supposed to take you somewhere is if it passes off the spel in its fangs. Don’t try to reason with it,” he said, his face close enough that his breath drifted over my lips as he spoke. His face wasn’t the only thing close. The entire front of his body pressed against mine. He seemed to realize that fact at the same time I did because a grin spread over his face. “I real y wish there wasn’t a hydra here,” he said, his voice pitched low.
Then he rol ed off me and helped me to my feet.
Damn hydra.
Death stepped away, his focus on the hydra again. Oh, I wanted to destroy that construct. Bad.
I glanced at my dagger. If my reach had been a handicap with the gryphon, it was astronomical y worse with the hydra. The dagger was just too smal . Only one other option.
I dropped my shields.
I could feel graves in the darkness. The essence from smal dead animals, some not so smal , and some that smal dead animals, some not so smal , and some that were most definitely not animals, reached for me. Fresh graves. Old graves. And some graves that felt ancient as the essence clawed at me, trying to sink under my skin.