Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires 12)

She dropped, and the water—now forty feet high—hovered above the plaza.

Sweat popping across his brow, Catcher took one step forward, then another, blue sparks flying around his hands as the water shivered, lifted. He sucked in a breath, as if gathering up his resources, then gave the water a final shove.

Loud as a train, the water flew back toward the river, but unevenly, rushing across the Michigan Avenue Bridge—pushing CPD cruisers into one another with another mighty crash—before falling back to the river again.

Catcher fell to his knees, body limp with exhaustion. That was the downside of being a sorcerer; you had to recharge.

“Hey,” I said, running toward him and crouching in front of him. “You all right?”

“Took a lot out of me.”

“Yeah, saving a few thousand people can do that. That was a pretty good Moses routine—you know, parting the waters and all.”

He looked up at me, a half smile on his face. “Are you making a joke at a time like this?”

“Catcher Bell,” I said, offering a hand and helping him climb to his feet, “if you can’t make a joke at a time like this, what’s the point of living?”

“I guess.”

“Are you going to be able to help Mallory? I could call Paige, get her out here.”

“I can manage it,” he said, testy as ever. “Paige has to stay on the House ward.”

“In that case,” I said, and pulled the slightly squashed PowerBar from my pocket, handed it to him, “you’ll need this more than me.”

Catcher accepted it, looked at me with a warm smile. “Did you bring a battle snack?”

Since he’d already ripped open the package and bit in, I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to respond.

Ethan ran toward us as a different magical pas de deux occurred behind him—the QE and the countermagic battled for control, the green tendrils in the sky waving erratically as power fought power.

“We’ve got a path toward the building,” Ethan said.

“Then use it,” Catcher said with a nod, stuffing the wrapper in his jeans as he ran back toward Mallory. “And thanks for the battle snack!”

“Which are a brilliant idea!” I yelled back as Ethan rounded up the troops to head inside.

“Get to the elevators!” he called out, waiting until the rest of the team had acknowledged the order. Stairs would have been cooler, but that was the tricky part about having to battle on the top floor of a would-be high-rise.

We made it into the building—Gabriel bringing up the rear in his wolf form—just as another bolt of magic flashed outside the building. It hit the pavement like Thor’s hammer, putting a crater in the plaza as big as a car, and sending shrapnel into the air.

Down! Ethan said, covering me as shards of granite crashed against the glass, burst through to litter the lobby floor.

As if sensing us, the supernaturals who remained outside began to run toward the lobby. Magic flashed again as Gabriel shifted from gray wolf to naked and sun-kissed human. Eli tossed him a backpack, probably filled with clothes.

“Get to the elevators!” Gabriel said, pointing to the bank of them. “Reed’s sorcerer is fighting the countermagic. You don’t do this now, he’ll take down the goddamn building and everyone in it!”

“We got this,” Eli said, a curl falling over a gash on his forehead.

“Let’s go while we can,” Morgan said, and with a nod from Ethan, we ran for the construction elevators and slipped into a car.

• • •

We’d decided to take the elevator to the floor beneath Reed and the others.

There was only red steel mesh between us and the sky as the crude digital display ticked off one floor after another. The wind blew ferociously through the car, which made the ride bumpy and my knees a little shaky.

Ethan pushed a hand through hair dampened by exertion and magic. He glanced at me. “You all right?”