She reached for the back of my hand, gripping it tight. “Think of the animals. Think of Priscilla.”
I was careful not to let Dionysus see us on the way out. I’d had enough of gods and goddesses for one night, and I really didn’t want to get into another conversation about tattoos. I was just reaching for my phone to call for a car when Prudence tapped me on the shoulder.
“Bathroom,” she said. “Too many beers.”
“Same,” Romira said. “We’ll meet you boys up front. We won’t be too long.”
That left me and Bastion alone outside on the sidewalk. I hugged my elbows against the mounting chill of the night, and Bastion stuck his hands in his pockets, looking everywhere but in my direction.
“So,” I said. “Tonight feels a lot like that time we went to see Hecate.”
Bastion shrugged. “Every communion is functionally the same, if you think about it.”
“I guess that’s true. You’ve got to draw your circle, make the right offerings, and spill a little blood.”
He chuckled. “You never did replace that knife that Carver destroyed. I was pretty fond of it, too.”
“Oh my God, have you really not forgotten about that thing? Fine, one of these days, I’ll get you a replacement. Such a baby.”
Something silver flashed in the darkness, and in a grim kind of way I figured that Bastion was about to get his replacement after all. He’d just have to pluck it out of my chest.
“Duck,” I shouted.
Bastion’s instincts took over, going from neutral to full, arrogant Scion in a second flat. He didn’t duck, but I guess he didn’t have to. The air shimmered as he erected a wall of force in front of us, the shield gleaming faintly like glass. The projectile heading towards my throat slammed into the wall of magic, then clattered uselessly to the ground.
It was a knife. Even from a distance I knew. But closer, seeing it on the concrete, I could tell that it belonged to Donovan Slint. I curled my hand into a fist as I looked for any sign of him – across the street, down the sidewalk – but nothing.
“It’s that fucker again,” I snarled. “Donovan, your renegade Hound. He’s around here somewhere.”
“Sneaky little bastard,” Bastion muttered. His free hand was digging into my arm protectively, the other upraised as it supported his shield.
“I appreciate the effort,” I said, “but you’re going to have to expand your force field’s reach to cover our backs. Otherwise – ”
I’d forgotten how quickly Donovan could move. I’d hardly finished my sentence when a blow struck me in my lower back, making me reel from a sudden stab of wrenching pain. Did the fucker just punch me in the kidney? Was that my kidney?
“Dust,” Bastion sputtered. He swiveled around, the air twinkling as his shield changed positions with him, but still no sign of Donovan.
I was getting pissed. My fist shook as flames gathered in tiny, barely contained motes in the palm of my hand. It frustrated me knowing that I hadn’t really learned all that much since my first encounter with Donovan Slint. But maybe I never needed to. I stilled myself, waiting for any telltale signs of motion – a scraping of shoes against cement, the sound of breathing. In our first encounter, Sterling spat blood on Donovan to help us mark his movements. Vanitas could have helped with perceiving his invisible body, too, but we were out in the open. We still needed to uphold the Veil. The last thing we needed were normals panicking over a flying sword.
Ah. There it was. A wrinkle in empty space, rippling like the air over a hot pavement. I took my shot, slamming my open palm directly into thin air – except it wasn’t thin air, but a part of Donovan’s body. It felt like his chest. I thought I felt his heart thump against my hand. I released the flames.
Donovan screamed. There was no flash of orange fire, because all the power that I’d collected in my hand had been launched into a single, terrible gout directly against his skin. His body flickered in and out of existence, long enough for me to catch the smoldering edges of his burnt clothing, the smoking, hideous crater in his chest. He flickered again, the magic keeping him invisible fading, and he fell to his knees.
“Holy shit, Dust,” Bastion muttered.
“I’ve had enough of this crap,” I said. “Knives flashing in the dark, always having to look over my shoulder? No more.” I went down on one knee, tugging on Donovan’s hair, bringing his face up to mine. Tears streamed from his eyes, his face creased with pain, his skin beaded with cold sweat. The smell of burnt flesh and fabric wafted up into my nostrils.
“Someone could see,” Bastion said, his voice uncharacteristically shaky.
“Then hide us,” I hissed. “Cover us up so no one sees.”
Bastion began to mutter, raising a dome of force around us, infusing it with camouflaging properties to hide us from any passing normals. To anyone outside our dome, we would be effectively invisible. Bastion snapped his fingers as he finished his incantation. His eyes were still on me, staring as if I was someone he didn’t recognize.
But I wasn’t going to apologize, and I wasn’t going to explain myself, not for fending off someone who only meant me harm.
“Talk,” I told Donovan. “Where’s Jonah, your boss? Where’s the Scion?”
Donovan grinned, a thin trickle of blood spilling down the corner of his mouth. “Fuck you, Graves.”