Ritual Magic

him, sort of bent over, Toby wasn’t sure if she was trying to shield him or trying to make herself little enough to be shielded. Either way was annoying. It was his particular job to keep any kids near him from being too scared, and how could he do that if Julia could feel how he was shaking?
    So he shoved at her. “You’re squishing me!” he whispered loudly.
    “Sorry, I’m sorry.” She loosened her hold but didn’t let go. “Should we stay here? If they’re blowing things up and the tunnel collapses—”
    “It didn’t collapse, and that’ll be the only explosion.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because we only had one trap laid. I
wish
I could see how many it killed!” Some, anyway, because they wouldn’t have set it off if they hadn’t been able to maneuver some of the dworg near what looked like a utility box near the driveway. But how many?
    “But—”
    “Shh!” Toby listened intently. He’d been able to follow what was happening a little bit by listening, even if his ears were still only human. There’d been shouts and, once, horribly, a scream. Lots of gunshots. The coughing roar of a tiger.
    Now he heard his dad. He couldn’t hear what Dad said, but it didn’t matter. His eyes filled up with tears. Dad was alive and he was giving orders and . . . and then he didn’t hear much of anything. Silence for several long moments, but his dad was
alive . . .
    “Toby!” his dad shouted. “Toby, answer me!”
    “Here!” he yelled, shoving to his feet. “I’m down here, Dad, and so’s Julia, and we’re okay!”
    * * *
    S EVEN floors up at St. Margaret’s Hospital, Benedict cut off another foot.
    On the floor beneath the hole in the wall, a collection of toes, claws, and now three grisly feet lay in a spreading pool of purple gore. Some of his own blood mixed in, too. Nothing major.
    A machete would have been better, but his hunting knife did well enough. He was damn glad he’d worn his leg sheath. At the moment, he had the advantage. In order to widen their hole, the dworg had to expose their weakest spots—their legs and feet—and they couldn’t get at him well enough to do much damage.
    The advantage was temporary. He’d slowed them. He couldn’t stop them.
    A clawed hand gripped the edge of the hole and pulled. Benedict sliced at it. This time he didn’t do much more than hurt the monster’s feelings. A little blood, that was all.
    In the hall outside the room, he heard all sorts of commotion. They were trying to evacuate the hospital. They weren’t going to have even just this floor emptied in time, rate they were going. “Time for you to—” Benedict interrupted himself to dodge one of those clawed hands, swiping at him through the hole, and immediately lunged. This time he got a chunk of flesh. “—pull back,” he finished.
    “No,” Bill said.
    He’d kept Bill with him as communicator. Bill had Ruben Brooks on the line now, keeping him posted. He’d sent Tommy with Nettie and Arjenie. They ought to be out of the building by now. “Not room for both of us in here, once they’re through.” Another grabby claw. This one connected, laying his skin open along one forearm—and keeping him back long enough for the other dworg to pull a chunk of masonry away. “They’ll be through soon.”
    “You need me to—”
    “Fall back.”
    As Bill reluctantly obeyed, one of the dworg hammered the wall with its hind feet. That was something Benedict couldn’t counter. He didn’t dare lean out the hole himself—
    That would be a bad idea,
a cold voice said in his head.
Stay back.
    The entire building shook as if there’d been a quake. Through the hole Benedict glimpsed black scales and one enormous, taloned foot as it closed around a dworg. Even Sam’s feet weren’t large enough to fully encircle the monster, but the talon pinned it long enough for his other foot to come up—and rip off the dworg’s head.
    That took about one second. Then Sam was falling away, there being no perch for a dragon on the side of the building. The great wings beat hard. Benedict felt the wind from those buffets.
    The other one flees. I will stop it.
    The mental voice was as crisp and cold as ever, yet something else reached Benedict along with those words—a single flick of delight as keen as the blade of Benedict’s knife. Delight he recognized as the heady bloodlust of a predator watching his prey run.
    Benedict moved up to the wall and looked out the hole. The remaining