Dim Sum Asylum(83)

The second dragonfly didn’t give me time to do much more than bring my gun up. One moment it was having difficulty weaving through the pergola’s posts, and then it snapped its head up, its attention pinned on our location. I felt like it should scream or make some kind of noise other than the chitter of its massive feet digging into the gravel when it broke into a dead run. It seemed too alive—too terrifying—to be mute, and its fury escalated when its momentum lasted only for a brief moment before it hit the smooth walkway, its hooked claws unable to get good purchase on the slick surface.

“Looks like someone woke up,” Trent grumbled. “Okay, MacCormick, time for us to break a few spells. The first one’s gone limp, so maybe the asshole who made them can’t fuel both of them at the same time or that spell you threw around it is confusing the Hell out of it.”

“Nice.” A flicker of concern sent a dark thread into my confidence, but I shoved it back down, unwilling to let myself get flustered. “Like an old kung fu movie. I don’t think I have enough for both of them. We didn’t think… these things are huge.”

“If we take one out, that’s fine.” His reassurance was meant to be a warm balm, but the dragonfly’s mandibles gnashed wildly as it fought to right itself, and it snapped off a length of pipe jutting up from the fountain’s base. “That was solid metal, Leonard, and did you not see that guy’s face fall out of the other one’s mouth?”

“Just… start the spell, Roku.” He locked his weapon down, making sure its safety was in place. “Sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get out of here.”

I wasn’t going to let panic ride me. I couldn’t. Not with this. Sure, my throat still hurt a bit from the scorpion, but that was mostly muscle memory. I knew what I was facing this time around—probably around three thousand pounds of caster-fueled fury—but I had Trent on my side, a handful of salt, and a cup of rage I’d been storing up inside of me ever since I’d first thought Jie’d been killed. This would be the biggest rite I’d ever cast, and if I fucked it up, things would get dicey for both of us. Or we’d be diced. Either way, it would be bad.

“Okay, starting now,” I whispered. “Hope the Gods are listening.”

The mobile odonate skidded, hitting the wet, smooth walkway from the entrance buildings to the house, and I gave a small sigh of relief when it tumbled. Any second we gained was a help, especially since the spell was iffy, something I’d concocted on the fly with the help of a librarian from the archives. But I knew we’d have to face another one of the mage’s creations before long. There hadn’t been time to test it, and we were going to go in blind, hoping the caster followed traditional lines.

“I’ve got to put my hands on it to ice it up.” Trent squared his stance, firming his jaw. The look he gave me was hard to read, or it could have been I was avoiding the concern in his eyes. “I can give you some cover while you do whatever mojo you need to do to stop it.”

“Can’t promise much. It’s iffy.” I met his gaze, my hands full of what I needed to stop the monster. “Just don’t get your head bit off. Or anything else. I’ve got plans for all of you later.”

“Good. Looking forward to it.” He grinned and holstered his gun. “Let’s see if I can slow this bastard down.”

He’d left his contacts in the car, murmuring something about them sticking to his eyeballs when he used the powers someone’d spliced into him. Without the thin cloudy lenses, his eyes sparkled, vibrantly blue and electric behind his lowered lashes, and the air around us grew colder, our breath turning into white plumes in front of our faces. Stealing a quick kiss from my already trembling lips, Trent left me with a bit of a burn along my mouth, and then he was off, sprinting through the pounding rain toward the animated insect struggling to cross the walkway.

I glanced over at the spell-raptured, treed odonate. Its stiffened form looked as inert as the sculpture around the fountain’s support pillar, but once we took out the one in front of us, the caster’s power probably would flow into the other, fueling another attack. We’d have to take them down quickly without much loss of strength or we’d be dead before we could catch a second wind. Trent reached the middle of the courtyard and skirted the dragonfly’s right flank, probably to draw its attention while I worked. Keeping one eye on my partner, I mingled the components we hoped would bring down the caster’s creations.

A plastic sandwich bag was serving as my makeshift cauldron. Most hedge witches and mages would have sneered at the sight of me cradling a spell in a bit of flimsy plastic, but it worked as well as iron or wood, especially when throwing things together in the field. I didn’t have the talent or discipline to be a full caster, but I had one thing going for me: I was a natural hybrid who could juice a spell like nobody’s business. Using the alternating currents of my genetic lines, I had limitless, if not powerful, energy and, in a pinch, could hammer through even the strongest cast. It was like chipping away at a mountain with a toothpick at times, but with the right combination of materials and a solidly crafted rite, I could get things done.

I just didn’t like casting something without knowing it was going to work. In this case, we had everything to lose if it didn’t.

Casting one final glance to the stormy heavens, I said, “Kuan Yin, kind of need a little help here.”