Reap the Wind (Cassandra Palmer 7)

And yeah, he probably could. But I didn’t know for certain that these men didn’t make it out of here. And while I wouldn’t waste any tears on a bunch of child killers, I was risking the time line enough as it was.

“I could shift us inside,” I said reluctantly, as the approaching boots hit the second floor.

“You sure?”

No. Furniture could have changed position, more of their friends could still be in there, a thousand things could go wrong. Like me not having the power to shift us back out, which wouldn’t be fun.

But then, neither was this.

And then it got worse.

“Hey!” came from the stairs behind us. “Hey, up—”

“Here” went unsaid, because Rico’s knife was buried in the speaker’s throat.

Shit!

“Check it out,” a voice growled from below, and the stairs started to shake under multiple boot heels.

And then we were stumbling out into the hallway, because the odds were better here, although the mages hadn’t moved. And they still didn’t, even to look up, when four strangers emerged from a wall just down the hall. The panel slid shut behind us, and then I noticed Fred, staring intently at the men bent over their bags.

“Got it?” Rico whispered.

“Think so,” Fred muttered.

“Be sure.”

“You be sure,” Fred snarled in a whisper. “Three’s damned hard!”

“Not if they’re distracted,” Rico pointed out. And a second later, one of the mages turned around and slugged the guy next to him.

“What the hell?” His buddy looked up, a silver candelabra in one hand and his bulging cheek in the other.

“That’s mine!” the first mage said, grabbing the candlestick.

“Get your own. I found this!”

“And I want it.”

“What you want is a fat lip to match that head,” the second guy said. “And you’re going to get it if you don’t let go.”

“Fuck you” was the elegant reply.

Which is why mage number one had his nose bashed in a second later.

“Hurry, before they start flinging spells,” Rico said, and started pulling us toward the scrabbling duo.

“They’re going to see us!” Rhea said, pulling back.

“They won’t see anything.”

She looked at me, and I nodded. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I could guess. All vamps could do suggestions, but based on recent experiences, I was assuming Mircea’s bunch were better than most. Which meant that Fred could probably make them swear the sky was red if he wanted to.

At least for a while. But it looked like maybe that kind of thing was hard, because he was already sweating. And considering that vamps don’t, that wasn’t a great sign.

“Let’s go,” I told her, and we started down the hall, just as someone began scrabbling at the paneling behind us.

“Don’t. Run,” Fred said tightly, pulling Rhea back as she darted ahead.