Silence Fallen (Mercy Thompson #10)(103)

I don’t know what it was, but I thought from the tone, he’d decided Lars was right. Instead of hiding their people from her, he was going to lure her down.

“Witch,” I murmured. “Witches can kill you from a distance, and they are sneaky. Are you sure you don’t—”

And the golem attacked her spells again. This time when the first wave hit, I blacked out. When I opened my eyes again, I could tell that I wasn’t the only one.

Mary had collapsed on the stairs and rolled to the bottom. Lars was flat on his face in the dirt. Dagmar was getting to her feet. Vanje had a hand under Kocourek’s elbow, pulling him upright.

Mary reached out and wrapped her hand around Lars’s wrist. Her voice hoarse, she started chanting. I was pretty sure it was the same thing she’d used before when she tortured the screaming-clanking vampire with her magic. I couldn’t understand her, but the rhythm was the same.

“Stop her,” I said as Lars twitched convulsively.

And the ghost formed right next to Mary and dug her fingers into Mary’s wrist. I don’t think Mary saw her, but the ghost’s fingernails drew blood as she wrenched at Mary’s wrist, breaking her hold on Lars.

Mary stopped chanting to say something ugly. She flung her bleeding hand up, and a drop of her blood hit Vanje. It didn’t seem possible that she’d done it on purpose—but I could feel the wave of magic that hit Vanje, sending him to the ground with a cry.

His skin erupted in reddish bumps with black centers that grew with hideous speed. The little black circles in the center grew, too, spreading out and lightening to purple on the edges. He thrashed and twisted, his movements sluggish.

My ghost hit Mary on the shoulder with both hands, causing the vampire to stagger. Mary turned to see who had hit her, and I could see by her face that she still couldn’t see the ghost.

And the golem hit the spells again.

Mary screamed in agony—which made my own pain somehow hurt less. She reached out and pulled her magic back from Vanje, who lost his horrible, plague-like lumps. I couldn’t tell for certain, but it felt as though she was able to pull more magic back than what she’d sent at him. She used that magic to do something that changed the shape of the power of the golem’s attack for just a moment—enough to make my ears ring.

Then there was nothing. The golem’s attack just stopped. I wondered if she’d destroyed him.

Mary rose unsteadily to her feet. She kicked Vanje and spat something at him.

Kocourek staggered out of the shadows near the staircase, sword in hand. With a lunge and a twist of his upper torso that would have done credit to Babe Ruth, he cut off her head while she kicked Vanje a second time.

We all waited for something to happen. In the movies, when someone killed the spell caster, all of their spells just go away. There were some magics like that. I’d seen them myself. But according to Elizaveta, if the witch was good enough to set spells that were self-sustaining, then they actually had to be broken.

I have to admit, I was waiting for her to get back up and kill us all. Even the ghost seemed to catch the worry; she kept touching Mary’s decapitated head and making it roll.

The third time she did it, Vanje noticed and rose to his feet with a yelp.

“Don’t worry,” I told him. “It’s only a ghost.”

Galina, the ghost told me. My name is Galina.

And though I knew better, I said, “Galina.”

“What?” said Dagmar.

Kocourek said, “Don’t you remember Gary? He always was talking to dead people—and I don’t mean vampires. Galina is the ghost.”

Galina tried kicking the head this time, and it rolled about three feet, coming to rest about six inches from Lars.

“Tell her not to do that, please,” said Lars. He was still sitting where he’d fallen, cradling the hand Mary had grabbed against his chest.

But I didn’t have to because Mary’s head and body collapsed into dust.

“Okay,” Lars said. “That works, too.”

The golem attacked again, and this time it broke Mary’s spells. It didn’t hurt this time. It didn’t hurt me, anyway. The vampires all cried out. It didn’t take them long to recover, but by that time the golem was entering the apartment house. He made a lot of noise tearing down the door.

“Can everyone see us now? The building, I mean,” I asked. I was stuck in the stupid cage and unable to do anything. But if the humans could see us, then soon there would be police and firefighters and all the good people who help others. And they would be coming into a place filled with vampires.

Humans could not find out about the vampires. No one sane wanted a panic war where all the supernaturally gifted people—and anyone else who might be thought supernaturally gifted—were killed by their neighbors with whatever weapons they had handy. There was no way something like that would not be a total disaster.

“No,” said Dagmar. “I don’t think so anyway. Two different spells. Mary designed it so the veil magic would last a month or two before it faded. She was planning on moving into Kocourek’s seethe, assuming Guccio killed Bonarata.”

“You gave the golem back its body,” said Vanje, listening, as we all were, to the sound of something very heavy moving over our heads. Then the screaming started.

“It won’t hurt you,” I told him. “You’re the good guys.”