Ritual Magic

didn’t give them specific orders, except to obey me. She made her orders to me more explicit. I can’t give orders that counter hers.”
    The knife was still enforcing Miriam’s orders, but was that all it would do? It was alive, in a sense. Able to act on its own. Any second now it might tell one of them to slit Rule’s throat.
    Hardy had turned to listen to them. Now he cocked his head, then nodded. He turned back to the body that had been a woman moments before and gripped that black hilt. He grimaced as if in pain.
    “Oh, shit. Are you sure you should . . .” But he was the saint. Lily had to hope he was getting instructions from someone who knew a lot more than she did. Maybe taking the knife out would cancel Miriam’s orders. Maybe if a holy person held it, it wouldn’t be able to compel people.
    Hardy placed one hand on Miriam’s chest and pulled the knife out. It came free slowly, glistening with Miriam’s blood. He looked at it with the expression of someone holding a fistful of stinking, oozing shit.
    A gun went off inside the house. Hardy’s eyes went wide in astonishment. His hand opened and the knife clattered onto the deck as a red stain spread across his chest. He toppled over.

FORTY-TWO

    R OBERT Friar darted through the open French doors. Gauze still wrapped his chest and leg, but the son of a bitch wasn’t even limping.
    Lily launched herself at him.
    He got there first and scooped up the knife, but he didn’t have time to do more before she piled into him. He went over on his back. She gave him a quick, hard chop with the heel of her hand, delivered under his chin. It snapped his head back, but didn’t discourage him nearly enough. He struck at her with the knife and she had to roll off, but she grabbed his arm and tried to wrench it behind him. Any second now he’d go
dshatu
. He’d phase out, and she might still be able to see him—she’d seen Gan in that state, back when Gan was still a demon—but she wouldn’t be able to touch him. To get the knife away from him.
    To
kill
the bloody bastard who’d shot a saint.
    But he stayed solid. All too solid, as he used the arm she held to flip her up and over him with inhuman strength. He sent her sailing right off the edge of the deck to land in the dirt four feet below. She landed hard and badly. It knocked the breath out of her.
    As she struggled to get her paralyzed diaphragm to work, Friar jumped down beside her, grinning nastily. He pulled a gun from the waist of his ruined slacks and took aim. And eighty pounds of determined nine-year-old boy hit him from behind.
    The gun went flying. Lily’s diaphragm suddenly remembered what to do and she sucked in air as Friar flopped onto his knees, but he didn’t go all the way down. He twisted and knocked Toby away.
    Someone was yelling. More than one someone. She didn’t have time to look. She got her feet under her and sent a kick at Friar’s head. He ducked and tried to grab her foot, but missed. It kept him busy for a second, though—giving her time to go after the gun he’d dropped. It was right beside Rule. She got her hand on it—and Friar landed on top of her, knocking her flat on her stomach.
    He grabbed her hair and jerked her head back, exposing her throat. Toby screeched and must have done something—Lily couldn’t see what—because Friar let go. She bucked hard, trying to dislodge him, keep him from hurting Toby. He fell off and she turned over quickly.
    A flash of searing pain sliced through her leg. And she was sucked away—away from her body, from the world, sucked off into . . . gray. Endless gray, where she floated for a time without time . . .
    Slowly the gray resolved into trees. Black trees. They were tall, impossibly tall, and they were made from shades of darkness. They loomed over her where she lay in the dirt. Glowing dirt. All the light in this place came from the ground, not the sky.
    Fear sank talons into her heart and ripped. She whimpered. Was she dead? She remembered fighting, but not . . . who had she fought? What had happened to her? What was this place?
    “Welcome to my domain.”
    The voice was rich and fluid, a mellow and very male voice, one that captivated. That made her want to hear more. She didn’t trust it, not at all. She managed to shove herself up, though her arms and legs shook. She felt weak and dizzy, but she got to her feet.
    He was a god. She knew that the moment she saw him. He stood about twenty feet away in a