Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

She could see Mark, who had climbed the face of the granite hill and was perched on an outcropping, stabbing downward with his blade. She began to run toward him. She dodged a lashing foreleg, arcing Cortana up to sever the limb as she ran. She heard the Mantid shriek in pain.

One of the taller Mantids was reaching up toward Mark, jagged forelegs grasping. He brought Remiel down, hard, severing its head--and as it collapsed, a second Mantid appeared, its jaws biting down on the blade. It fell back, shrieking its high insect shriek. It was dying, but it had taken Remiel with it. They subsided together into a sizzling puddle of ichor and adamas.

Mark had used all the weapons Emma had given him. He pressed his back against the granite as another Mantid reached out. Emma's heart lurched into her throat. She raced forward, flinging herself at the wall, scrambling toward Mark. A massive Mantid loomed up in front of him. He reached for his throat as the Mantid leaned in, jaws gaping, and Emma wanted to scream at him to back down, back away.

Something shone between his fingers. A silver chain, gleaming arrowhead dangling. He whipped it forward toward the head of the Mantid, slashing open its bulging white eyes. Milky fluid burst forth. It reared back, screaming, just as Emma leaped to the ridge beside Mark and slashed Cortana forward to cut it in half.

Mark dropped the chain back over his head as Emma swore and pressed her only seraph blade into his hand. Ichor was running down the blade of Cortana, burning her skin. She gritted her teeth and ignored the pain as Mark raised his new blade.

"Name it," she said, breathing hard, pulling a knife from her belt. She clutched it in her right hand, Cortana in her left.

Mark nodded. "Raguel," he said, and the blade exploded with light. The Mantids screeched, crouching down, wincing away from the glow, and Emma leaped from the rock.

She fell, whipping Cortana and the dagger around herself like the blades of a helicopter. The air was filled with insectile screeches as her weapons connected with chitin and flesh.

The world had slowed. She was still falling. She had all the time in the world. She reached out, left hand and right, severing head from thorax, mesothorax from metathorax, hacking through the jaws of two Mantids to leave them drowning in their own blood. A foreleg reached for her. She slashed through it with an angled twist of Cortana. When she hit the ground six Mantid bodies tumbled after her, each landing with a dull thud and vanishing.

Only the foreleg remained, sticking into the ground like a strange cactus plant. The remaining Mantids were circling, hissing and clicking, but not yet attacking. They seemed wary, as if even their tiny bug brains had noted the fact that she was a danger to them.

One of them was missing its foreleg.

She glanced toward Mark. He was still balanced on the rock outcropping--she couldn't blame him; it made an excellent fixed position to fight from. As she watched, a Mantid lunged toward him, swiping a razored limb across his chest; he brought Raguel down, stabbing into its abdomen. It roared, staggering back.

In the bright light of the seraph blade, Emma saw blood bloom across Mark's shirt, red-black.

"Mark," she whispered.

He spun gracefully. His seraph blade cut the Mantid apart. It fell into two pieces, vanishing just as the night exploded with light.

A car burst from the road and hurtled into the center of the clearing. A familiar red Toyota. The headlights burned through the darkness, sweeping across the field, illuminating the Mantids.

A figure knelt on the car's roof, a light crossbow raised to its shoulder.

Julian.

The car shot forward, and Julian rose to his feet, lifting the crossbow. It was an intricate weapon, Julian's crossbow, capable of firing multiple bolts fast. He pivoted toward the demons, firing off a bolt, then another, all the while riding the roof of the car like a surfboard, his feet firmly planted as the Toyota bumped and hurtled over the rough ground.

Pride swelled in Emma. People often acted as if Julian couldn't be a warrior because he was gentle in his life, gentle to his friends and family.

People were wrong.

Each bolt connected, each sank home into the body of a demon. The bolts were runed: As they struck, the Mantids exploded with silent screams.

The car screeched through the clearing. Emma saw Cristina at the wheel, her jaw set. The Mantid demons were scattering, vanishing back into the shadows. Cristina gunned the engine, and the car rammed into several of them, mashing them flat. Mark leaped off the rock, landing in a crouch, and dispatched a twitching, spasming demon, grinding his blade into its anvil-shaped head and smearing it across the grass. The front of his shirt was dark with blood. As the demon vanished with a wet, sticky sound, Mark collapsed to his knees, his seraph blade tumbling into the grass beside him.

The car jerked to a halt. Cristina had just flung the driver's door open when one of the Mantids slithered out from under the wheels of the car. It bounded toward Mark.

Julian shouted aloud, leaping down from the car. The Mantid reared up over Mark, who shoved himself up on his knees, reaching for the chain around his neck--

Energy poured through Emma, like a jolt of caffeine. Julian's presence, making her stronger. She jerked the severed foreleg out of the ground in front of her and flung it. It whipped through the air, spinning like a propellor, and punched into the body of the Mantid with a thick smack. The demon shrieked in agony and disappeared in a cloud of ichor.

Mark sank back into the grass. Julian was bending over him, Emma already running. Jules had his stele out. "Mark," he said as Emma reached them. "Mark, please--"

"No," Mark said thickly. He batted away his brother's hands. "No runes." He dragged himself to his knees, then his feet, and stood swaying. "No runes, Julian." He glanced toward Emma. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Emma said, sheathing Cortana. The coldness of battle had faded away, leaving her feeling light-headed. In the moonlight Julian's eyes were a coldly burning blue. He was in gear, his dark hair a mess from the wind, his right hand clasping the stock of his crossbow.

He put his other hand up to her face. Her gaze felt dragged up to his. She could see the night sky in his pupils. "Fine?" he echoed, and his voice was rough. "You're bleeding."

He lowered his arm. His fingers were red. Her free hand sprang to her cheek; she felt the ragged cut, the blood. The sting. "I didn't realize," she said, and then, the words spilling out: "How did you find us? Jules, how did you know where to go?"

Before Julian could answer, the Toyota backed up with a roar, spun around, and drove back toward them. Cristina leaned out the driver's side window, her medallion gleaming at her throat. "Let's go," she said. "It's dangerous here."

"The demons have not gone," Mark agreed. "They have only retreated."

He wasn't wrong. The night around them was alive with moving shadows. They clambered hastily into the car: Emma beside Cristina, Julian and Mark in the backseat. As the car sped away from the cave, Emma reached into her cardigan pocket, feeling for the hard square of leather.

The wallet. It was still there. She felt a burst of relief. She was here, in the car, with Julian beside her, and evidence in her hand. Everything was all right.

"You need an iratze," said Julian. "Mark--"

"Stay away from me with that thing," said his brother in a low, intent voice, glaring at Julian and the stele in his hand. "Or I will leap from the window of this moving vehicle."

"Oh, no you won't," said Cristina in her calm, sweet voice, reaching to depress the button that locked all the car doors with a firm click.

"You're bleeding," Julian said. "All over the car."

Emma craned around in her seat to look back at them. Mark's shirt was bloody, but he didn't seem to be in much pain. His eyes flickered with annoyance. "I am still protected by the magic of the Wild Hunt," he said. "My wounds heal quickly. You need not trouble yourself." He picked up the edge of his shirt and mopped at the blood on his chest; Emma caught a quick glimpse of pale skin stretched tightly over a hard stoma

ch, and the edges of old scars.

"It's a good thing you showed up when you did," Emma said, turning to look at Cristina and then Julian. "I don't know how you figured out what was going on, but--"

"We didn't," Julian said shortly. "After you hung up on Cristina, we checked your phone's GPS and realized you were out here. It seemed weird enough to follow up."

"But you didn't know we were in trouble," Emma realized. "Just that we were at the convergence."

Cristina gave her an expressive look. Julian didn't say anything.

Emma unzipped her cardigan and shrugged out of it, transferring Wells's wallet to the pocket of her jeans. Battle brought on a sort of numbness, a lack of awareness of injury that let her go forward. The aches and pains were coming now, and she winced as she peeled her sleeve away from her forearm. A long burn reached from her elbow to her wrist, red-black at the edges.

She glanced up at the rearview mirror and saw Jules registering the injury. He leaned forward. "Can you pull over here, Cristina?"

Unfailingly polite Jules. Emma tried to smile at him in the mirror, but he wasn't looking at her. Cristina pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of the seafood shack Emma and Mark had flown over earlier. A massive neon sign reading POSEIDON'S TRIDENT hung over the ramshackle building.

The four of them piled out of the car. The shack was nearly deserted except for a few tables of long-distance truckers and campers from the sites down the road, huddling over coffee and plates of fried oysters.

Cristina insisted on going inside to order them some food and drinks; after a moment's argument, they let her. Julian threw his jacket on a table, claiming it. "There's an outdoor shower around the back," he said. "And some privacy. Come on."

"How do you know that?" Emma asked, joining him as he stalked around the building. He didn't answer. She could feel his anger, not just in the way he looked at her, but in a tight knot under her rib cage.

The dirt path that circled the shack opened out into an area ringed by Dumpsters. There was a massive steel double sink, and--as Jules had promised--a large open shower with surfing equipment stacked next to it.