Ritual Magic

dworg was scuttling down the wall, trying desperately to find cover before death stooped upon it.
    Benedict smiled.
Not going to make it, are you?
He spoke to Bill, who had stopped in the doorway when Sam hit the building. “Tell Ruben we won’t be needing the army, after all.”
    * * *
    B ATTLE still raged at Clanhome. Not for much longer, Isen thought, grinning through a beard sticky with sprayed blood— some purple, some red. Twenty-two nightmares from another time had rained down on them. Two remained.
    There was much to be said for the traditional, he thought as he watched one of the last two dworg pitch to the ground. Especially when it was your enemy who fought traditionally. The natural weaponry of the dworg, combined with their unholy healing, inborn armor, and resistance to magic, had been devastating three thousand years ago.
    But the world had changed since then, hadn’t it?
    It had been a near thing. Four of the six from his squad were injured, and Rob was dead. He’d lost some blood himself—head wounds do bleed like crazy—but nothing important. But he and his squad had drawn the dworg within range of those he’d sent to the barracks. The grenades had killed about a third of the dworg outright. When they were followed by devastating fire from six Uzis, those dworg still alive and mobile had tried to flee.
    Uzis have an effective range of about two hundred yards. They hadn’t made it.
    The machine guns had run out of ammo, however, so his men were finishing the last two monsters the old-fashioned way—tooth, claw, and swords. “Don’t rush,” Isen had told them. “No point in taking chances. There are sixty of you and two of them. Take your time.”

TWENTY-SIX

    S ANTOS returned with the pair of AK-47s while Casey was chopping off the head of the last dworg José had shot with the Uzi. The one that had started eating. It certainly didn’t look alive, but no one was willing to take chances. He used the sword Cullen had found in the depths of the tankmobile’s trunk.
    Cullen was too busy to wield that sword himself. He was trying to keep José alive.
    Lily looked at Santos for one long moment. “How are you in hospitals? Is your control up to spending time there?”
    “My control is good.”
    “First, go get Cynna. Take the AK-47s back with you. Then you’ll ride in with Cullen. He has to go to the ER with José and Andy. I don’t want him unguarded.”
    Santos’s expression didn’t change, but she saw his throat work when he swallowed. “What about Steve?”
    “Steve’s dead. So is Agent Fredericka Parker.”
    * * *
    R ULE wasn’t answering his phone. Lily tapped in a quick text—
I’m okay. Cynna’s okay. Attacked by dworg. Casualties.
Call
me. She’d just hit send when her phone chimed. It was Ruben. “You’re being psychic, I guess.”
    “I’ve had no hunches today, unfortunately. I’m calling to tell you that Benedict, Arjenie, and Nettie were attacked at the hospital by a pair of what I’m told are called dworg. Benedict held them off until Sam arrived. Sam dispatched them.”
    Lily was silent for a long moment. “He held off a pair of them? All by himself?”
    “They had to break through the exterior wall. That provided him with a tactical advantage, and he had a hunting knife.”
    A second ambulance pulled up next to the first. “I have to go. We didn’t do as well as Benedict. We’ve got two dead—one Bureau, one Nokolai—and several wounded, three of them critical.” Andy, who’d been the black-and-gray wolf who’d leaped to attack the first dworg with Cullen. José, whose guts Cullen had packed back inside the hole a barbed tail had ripped in him. And Fielding, whose heart had stopped once while they were loading him into the first ambulance, due to shock from blood loss. Fielding hadn’t been injured by a dworg, but by shrapnel from the RPG.
    Lily knelt beside Andy. He’d just come around, which was both good and bad. Bad because the pain had to be terrible. Good because it let him change back into a form the hovering EMTs were willing to transport.
    Andy didn’t look as bad as Fielding and José. No blood. But his chest was caved in. One lung was collapsed, and Cullen thought there was damage to his heart, too. If he hadn’t been lupus, he’d be dead. He still might be. At any moment, he could lose this fight.
    They’d brought in a helicopter for José and were loading him now. He was still alive, too. That counts for a lot with a