The sneer became more pronounced.
Zheng glared some more but he put his toy away.
“Can’t you just throw a spell on one of these bastards and call it a day?” he demanded.
“War mages in the field vary their shield’s resonance constantly. Spells slough off in seconds. Not to mention that we have to touch skin in order to place the charm—”
“You can’t do a spell for that, too?” It was Zheng’s turn to sneer. “Some of my mages can.”
John didn’t bother to comment on the skill set of his mages, which probably matched his gun—flashy but ineffective. But he did answer the question because he wanted the creature to shut up. “Layering spells is tricky, especially with this much magic floating around. The Return to Sender has to be strong, to override the strength of the compulsion. Putting a tracker on top of that risks it fritzing out, meaning that if we lose him—”
“My boys aren’t gonna lose him.”
“—then we’re out of luck. Not to mention that we still need his shields down for the hex!”
Zheng scowled, but didn’t say anything else. Maybe because, like John, he wanted to get this over with. John stared down at the little alley again and tried to concentrate.
It wasn’t easy. The street behind him looked like a Leni Riefenstahl film, all rain slick leather, eerie lighting, and tramping boots. While in front of him was a bare stretch of cobblestones that seemed to be mocking him, and in his fist was a twig that wasn’t doing a damned thing because this was Earth, not Faerie, and fey magic didn’t sing here!
But the covens’ did, he reminded himself. The bastardized version of fey magic they used was dangerous, glomming onto the wild magic of Earth and bending it—hopefully—to their will. The plus side was that it didn’t require much of your own power, just enough to serve as a lure, which was perfect since that was all he had left. The down side was that, unlike in real fishing, if the lure was taken by too big of a fish, you didn’t just lose your equipment, you lost the hand that was holding it.
And possibly more, John thought, glancing up at the angry sky.
Zheng sighed. “Are you sure—”
“Shut up!” John hissed, and waggled the damned twig about some more, a little more forcefully this time.
And felt something tug back.
“What?” Zheng said, glancing around, as all of the hair on John’s arms stood at attention.
All right, he thought, concentrating. All right. You caught something. Now just . . . reel it in.
How? The more logical part of his brain asked, and he felt the tug lessen.
Stop it! Stop it! Don’t think. Feel.
Coven magic was intuitive, riding emotion more than logic, and instinct more than reason. It was why most of the Circle didn’t use it, and couldn’t learn it. They wanted rules, guidelines, bullet points. But coven magic didn’t work that way. John couldn’t have said exactly how it did work, because then he’d have to think about it and he couldn’t think about it. He just knew . . . that if you opened up . . . and invited it . . . seduced it . . . enticed it . . . in, that sometimes . . .
It came.
“What is that?” Zheng said, jerking, when what looked for all the world like a tiny white fairy appeared on the end of John’s twig.
It wasn’t, of course. But the electric sprite that jumped and danced and flickered sometimes gave that appearance. He stared at, mesmerized, turning it slowly around and splashing the vampire’s face with leaping shadows. He could almost see it, the miniscule face, the fluttering wings, the—
The way it was growing bigger.
“—do something, you crazy bastard!” Zheng said, his voice a little high, and John realized that half the wand was now engulfed in pale flames. Not hot, and not consuming the wood, because it wasn’t fire. But John didn’t think it would be a good idea to let it touch his skin.
He flicked it instead, using the springiness of the wood to send the fiery mass flying down into the alley, where it hit the ground and spidered across the stones—but not for long. Because with it had gone the tiny seed of his own magic he’d used as bait. The latter being imprinted with an idea but no substance.
It quickly found substance.
The little alley was slightly lower than the surrounding streets, and had therefore gathered not only its own share of rain, but the runoff from both directions. It had gone from damp to flooded, with the picturesque cobblestones completely submerged at this point. Giving his spell plenty of his favorite element to work with as the wild magic fell into line.
And brought a new creature into existence.
A moment later, John was watching a colorless body slowly emerge onto the road, feet first. It looked like a glass vase filling up with water, if the vase was the size and shape of a man. And was able to flex its feet and move the hand-like protrusions that had now materialized at waist height even before the rest of it filled in.
The rainstorm had given John the idea, but he hadn’t been sure it would work. It seemed to be working. Because, within minutes, five more manlikans shuffled and shifted below, the rain drops plinking onto their almost transparent bodies like ripples in a pond.
That shouldn’t have been the case; a proper manlikan’s “skin”—the magical ward containing its element—was tough and resilient, to the point that water would bead and run off.
These were not proper manlikans.
The first ones looked better, but by the end of the half dozen John had made, his spell had weakened and its precision had gone to hell. The later versions were considerably less Adonis-like as a result, with comically overlarge feet and alien-looking heads with only slits for eyes. But they still packed a punch.
More importantly, they could absorb one.
John had left them somewhat permeable, so they could heal damage by absorbing more water. They would continue to do so until the rain let up—which according to Zheng wasn’t likely since a typhoon was headed for Hong Kong—or until the magic wore off. And hopefully, by then, he would have a solution to this mess.
“That . . . is some fucked up shit,” Zheng said, staring at the nearest of John’s creations. It was the last, and John should probably have quit while he was ahead.
It was short, stout and stubby limbed, looking vaguely like the Pillsbury Dough Boy if the advertising icon was made out of water. It turned its round, mostly featureless face up to John, awaiting instructions, and he felt the big vampire beside him shudder. Zheng seemed to find the creatures disturbing, John didn’t know why.
They were running with the red and yellow neon of some signs down the road, as if an artist had dragged a glowing paintbrush over them, and they occasionally flashed with reflected bursts of lightning from overhead. Other than that, they mostly showed a distorted version of the bricks behind them, or the vaguely horrified faces of the vampires at either end of the alley awaiting the signal to begin. John found it odd that creatures who didn’t so much as flinch at seeing a man literally ripped in two had a problem with his little helpers.
“They’re just water in a warded skin,” he told Zheng. “Like water balloons with legs.”
“Uh huh.” The big vampire didn’t look convinced.
Maybe because the features on the doughboy—a gaping cavern for a mouth, a couple of vague indentations for eyes and a blob for a nose—had not fixed into position properly, causing them to drift about the face. The “mouth” was currently on the forehead, with the eyes roughly where the chin should be, giving it a strange, upside down effect. Meanwhile, there were no ears in evidence at all, until one came floating around the side of the head and bumped gently into the “nose”.