Luna stood very straight. “I don’t belong to you.”
The jann moved. Claws flexed; slender bodies slipped forward. They were all around me and closing in from every direction; already I could barely see anyone else through the ring of shadowy figures and cold, flat eyes. Yet only half of the jann were surrounding me; the rest were around Luna.
I’d kept up the mental link, and through it I could hear Luna’s thoughts, tense but calm. Alex, if you’ve got any ideas, now would be a really good time.
I felt a weird tug of déjà vu. I’d been in this position before, in Sagash’s castle, an army of magical creatures around with no way out. Except back then Anne had been the one at my side. We’d come full circle.
Try to make it to my cottage, I told Luna. It’s you she’s after.
And the fifty jann in the way?
I’ll do what I can.
“I haven’t told them to hurt you,” Anne said. I could only see glimpses of her through the closing ring of jann. “If you just—”
Luna moved. I couldn’t see through the crowd of jann, but I saw the aura of her curse flash, and a jann gave a weird whining scream. Then my weapons were out and I was charging.
The nearest jann reached for me, claws extending. I evaded easily, shot it through the head, rammed my knife through its body and ripped it out sideways. It staggered, still moving, until two more strikes finished it off. But in the time it had taken me to kill one, five more were on me.
The future narrowed into a whirl of strikes and grasping claws. I slid between the futures in which I was hurt or pinned, finding paths of safety through the danger. I’d lost sight of everyone else. I could sense magic from where I’d last seen Karyos and Luna, and knew that they were fighting, but the press of jann all around me was too close to do more. I ducked under an arm, slashed it in the same motion, kicked another aside, fired into a shadowy face. They were trying to wound and catch me, but not actually kill me, and that gave me an edge. And their sheer numbers were working against them. I knew Anne was near, but she couldn’t see me through the crowd, and any attack spell she tried to use would hit the jann instead of me.
But it wasn’t enough. I’d gone out today equipped to deal with the Council, not a horde of summoned monsters. My knife and gun were poor weapons against the shadowy bodies of the jann—they had no veins to open or vital organs to pierce. Enough damage could destroy their physical form and banish them, but my weapons couldn’t deal that much damage that quickly.
Alex! Luna called.
I tried to dodge past a jann towards where I’d last seen Luna; two more blocked my way and forced me back. I can’t get through—
I sensed something over the miasma of background magic: a gate flicker. Hope leapt within me. Cancel that. Just hold on.
There was panic in Luna’s thoughts. Help!
Hold on!
Three jann attacked me from all directions. I managed to dodge two, contorting; the third hit me, its claws scraping my back. My armour became rigid, deflecting the blow. I spun into the jann, twisted to trip it, but already another was reaching for me.
Alex! There was pain in Luna’s thoughts now, the sense of flowing blood. Too many!
I didn’t have time to answer. Everything was a rush of violence and flashing claws. The light seemed to be fading. I wove through the melee, losing all sense of direction, focused on the future coming closer. Come on, come on . . . The whirl of claws drove me to a halt, and it was all I could do to dodge them, counting down in my head. Four, three, two, one . . .
The sky lit up with fire.
Looking up, I saw a figure descending on wings of flame. Variam. His spell was slowing his fall, and as he sank he raised a hand, fingers extended.
Bursts of heat scorched the clearing, tearing holes in the crowd. Jann screamed, their bodies flaring like paper in a bonfire. All of a sudden I could see again, and I could make out Luna just a little distance away.
Darkness seemed to bloom, and Anne stepped out of the crowd. Her eyes flashed with anger, and behind her I could half see, half feel the jinn, unfolding like a shadow. A green-black wave of death flashed upwards at Variam: he threw up a shield of fire and the spells met with a clap of thunder.
I was already running, aiming for Luna. A jann tried to get in my way and I slashed it and kept going. Luna had two jann trying to pull her to the ground; she’d lost her wand and was struggling to stay on her feet. Hermes blinked into existence behind one jann, sank his teeth into the back of its ankle, blinked away again as it lashed out. The distraction let Luna pull an arm free, stab the second jann, then break away.
I heard a shout from Anne, and turned to see her point at us. “Stop them!” She took a step towards us, but a wall of fire from Variam cut her off and she jumped back with a curse.
Variam had burnt at least ten jann to ash. There were still dozens more. Every one of them charged us.
Luna and I turned and ran. The jann were converging on us, and we sprinted into the trees, running side by side. I couldn’t see Variam or Karyos or Hermes, and I couldn’t spare the time to check; that many jann hitting us at a full charge would bring us down in seconds. We wove through the trees, hearing the crash and snap of foliage behind us as the jann tried to force their way through.
Vari— Luna said.
He’s doing his job; we need to do ours. Get to my cottage—weapons.
We broke out of the woods twenty yards from my little house. The sky was still lighting up from the battle behind, but we’d gained a few seconds on our pursuers. I ran to my front door and yanked it open with Luna right behind.
I took two steps inside and paused. In one corner was my black weapons bag. My MP7 was still lying on top: I hadn’t touched it since last night. It would be better than my handgun, but not by much. The shortsword in the bag underneath might be better still.
But propped in the corner where I’d left it was the spear I’d taken from Levistus’s shadow realm. The long, slightly curved blade glinted in the light from outside, and I could sense something from the weapon, something awake and hungry.
Sometimes you have the time to divine the future and figure out a plan. Sometimes you have to trust your instincts. I tossed my empty gun onto the desk, grabbed the spear, and walked back out of the cottage just as the first jann burst from the tree line.
Time seemed to slow as I strode across the clearing. Three, seven, a dozen jann streamed from the trees, converging on me. Behind them, the sky flashed dark green and fire red in the light of Variam and Anne’s battle. The first jann was a couple of steps ahead of the others, and it charged, claws extended. I brought the spear across—
The spear cut the jann in half. The blade lit up with red light as it carved through the centre of the jann’s body, leaving a dull red glow on the top and bottom halves of the jann’s torso. There was so little resistance that I nearly fell.