I inched backwards and around the end of the bar, putting the bar between me and the Bear. People passed behind me into the kitchen, but I never took my eyes off my adversary.
“Everybody out!” Sam bellowed from behind me. He had heard the commotion from his office. In about three minutes, the place was empty except for Sam, Josh, and me, the Bear, and thirteen mages, holding hands in a circle on the far side of the room. I was holding as much ley energy as I could, but I could feel the circle trying to feed me more.
“Josh, he has a sword!” I said. “It’s spelled and invisible.”
Josh took another couple of steps back, and then his shield ignited. Blue and orange flames, flickering no more than a couple of inches from his body, engulfed him. I knew that some pyromancers could augment their shields that way, but I’d never seen it done.
Schottner slid off the barstool and turned so that he could see all three of us. Sam stood in the entrance of the hallway that led to his office, mumbling an incantation. Josh stood a few feet away, with the main room and the mage circle behind him. I stood behind the bar, sketching runes in my mind.
I spoke the Word to call the Sword of Uriel. At the same time, I saw swords of flame appear in Josh’s hands. Schottner drew his sword, and it became visible, flashing as it reflected the lights.
“You’ll never get out of here,” Sam said as the last of our customers disappeared through the front door. “If you kill all of us, you’ll starve to death before you get out. You see, the original wards on this place were cast by a Fae. He took the ley line that passes beneath us and tied it off. Then he gave my mum the spell to renew them, which she passed on to me. But since I didn’t cast the original wards, they won’t dissolve when I die. So, you’re trapped.”
A cruel smile grew on Schottner’s face. “You assume I’m afraid to die. My only fear is of failure, of disappointing my masters. I’ve lived a full life, and if this is my time, then so be it.”
He leaped to the top of the bar and swung his sword at me. But I wasn’t one of his usual opponents. I knew his capabilities, and I was expecting that move. His muscles bunched, and he crouched slightly to gain momentum, but I was already moving backward. I met his blow with my Sword, and just as it had done to the swords of other Hunters, it cleaved his sword in two.
He hesitated, shock showing in his eyes, and I followed my parry with a cut at his legs. Schottner leaped, and my Sword passed beneath him, but as he landed, Josh stabbed at him with his sword of flame. It didn’t breach Schottner’s shield, but he felt the blow and it distracted him, causing him to stumble on landing, fall, and slide away from us down the bar.
I followed him and chopped at his legs, but he moved, and the Sword cut three feet deep into the bar. He rolled off on the side away from me, landing on his feet and reaching for his main gauche. Josh leaped toward him.
“Josh, no! He has another blade!”
Josh pulled up and swung his flaming sword. He had reach on Schottner, being several inches taller, and his sword was longer, but the Bear drew his dagger in time and blocked the blow. The fact that he felt he needed to do that instead of relying on his shield increased my confidence.
I pushed ley energy at him and knocked him off balance. He staggered back but recovered and sent a strong push of his own energy that hit both Josh and me.
“Don’t get too close to him,” I said. “His magic is the same as mine, and he’ll siphon the magic from your shield.”
Josh laughed. “I’d like to see him try.”
Before I could react, the Bear charged, ducking under Josh’s sword, and their shields merged. A ley line mage, such as Schottner or me, could draw ley magic from another mage as easily as from a ley line. I had often used the same trick to siphon energy from an opponent’s shield, strengthening mine while weakening theirs. Add to that, the spelled dagger Schottner wielded had the ability to negate magic and cut through weak personal shields.
But Schottner pulled more than raw ley energy from Josh’s shield. Schottner’s shield ignited. He cried out and lurched away, the skin on his face and hands blackened and his clothes smoking. I realized that Josh Carpenter was a lot more lethal than I’d ever imagined.
Seeing Schottner hurt, I vaulted over the bar and swung low. The Sword took his left leg off halfway between his knee and his hip. Blood gushed from the wound, and he fell.
Even through his shock, I could see malevolence in his eyes, and his free hand started to sketch a rune. Josh stepped forward and swung his sword of flame, slicing Schottner’s skull in half.
The silence was broken only by Josh’s and my panting. As the adrenaline flowed out of me, my healing leg let me know that I had abused it. I stumbled to the nearest chair and sat down.
“Well, that was interesting,” Sam said. “Are you two all right?”
Josh dissolved his shield, and the flames disappeared. I noted there were scorch marks on the floor where he had stepped. “Yeah, I’m fine. Erin?” He knelt down beside me.
“Just the leg. It really hurts.”
“Did you pull any stitches?” Sam asked, coming to join us. “Let me see.”
My modesty was the last thing I was worried about. “I don’t think so,” I said, as I undid my belt and pulled my jeans down so he could see my leg. He pulled the gauze off, which showed the leg was swollen around the wound and seeping a little, but the stitches held.
“Let me get something for you,” Sam said, rising and walking around behind the bar.
Once there, he stopped, hands on hips, and surveyed the damage I had done. “Oh, my. That bar is a hundred and forty years old, and pfft! Gone in an instant.”
“Sorry.”
“No problem. At a hundred dollars a week out of your check, you should be able to pay it off by the time you’re a grandmother.”
The look on my face was evidently priceless, because Sam and Josh broke out laughing.
Sam came back around the bar holding a little jar of cream and a vial. “Of course, if you can dream up a lie my insurance company will swallow, I’ll let you off the hook.”
He handed me the vial, and I sucked down its contents as he began dabbing the cream on my leg.
I motioned toward Schottner’s body. “We’ll blame it on the thief with the big sword.”
“Aye, that will probably work.”
“And after he damaged the bar, he cut off his own leg,” Josh said. “Man was deranged.”
Sam called the police. We covered Schottner’s body with a sheet from upstairs, then Sam let our employees and a few of the customers waiting outside in to collect their belongings. Then he hung a ‘closed’ sign on the front door, the first time he had done that in my four months in Westport.
“You know, Sam, she didn’t break the rules,” Josh said, pointing to the sign hanging at one end of the bar. “He didn’t order anything, let alone pay.”
Sam chuckled. “Being the owner, I have some discretion on enforcing the rules, but you’re right, he wasn’t a paying customer.”
Dan Bailey and Cindy Mackle showed up about five minutes after the crowd outside disbursed. Other than the kitchen staff, who were performing the unaccustomed task of turning everything off and putting everything away, only Sam, Josh, and I were left to receive them. Frankie Jones arrived ten minutes later.
“That’s the guy from Winslow’s,” Bailey said. “The one your friend showed us in her projection. You’re lucky he didn’t bring all his friends.”
Josh shrugged. “We had it covered. He messed with the wrong people. I had a full circle of mages augmenting my shields, and there was a full circle of witches outside at each exit waiting for him if he escaped.”
“Wet, cold witches,” Sam said. “Believe me, he got off easy.”
A search of Schottner’s body turned up a Minnesota driver’s license—not in Fritz Schottner’s name, although the picture was him—a cell phone, a set of keys to a rental car, and a keycard for a local hotel.
“If all of his buddies are staying there, you might have a fight on your hands if you try to search the place,” I said.
Frankie looked thoughtful. “I wish your mages and witches had stuck around.”
“We can put together a force if you need it,” Sam said. “It would be better if we plan it for tomorrow. Have all our ducks in a row and get the right people together.”
“Just like that?” Frankie asked.
Steve Dworkin stuck his head out of the kitchen, a scowl on his face. “This is a safe place, and no one screws with that and gets away with it.”
Josh gave me a ride home. His dhampir girlfriend Arabella had waited around for him, and the three of us walked to the parking lot of the nightclub down the street to get his car.
“I heard that you might join the police force,” I said as I got in his car.
“Considering it. Why?”
“I think you have just what they need. Josh Carpenter, you are a total badass.”
He beamed. “Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment. What about you? Did Frankie tempt you with a truckload of money?”
I shook my head. “I turned her down. I really don’t want to spend my life fighting and killing people. I want to travel and have a quiet little house with a white picket fence to come home to.”
“Family? Kids?” Arabella asked, and I thought I detected a wistful note in her voice. Dhampir were genetic mules, and she would never have children. She and Josh had been dating since they first met, and seemed to be very happy with each other. I was still trying to get all the names, faces, and hair colors of the dhampir matched and settled in my mind. Arabella was a redhead, like Josh, and actually looked more likely to be his sister than Jolene did, with her dark auburn hair and short stature.
The question embarrassed me, and I wasn’t sure why. “I don’t know. Maybe someday. I’ve never really thought about it.” Seeing as how I had zero experience or understanding of what a family was, I didn’t know if I wanted one or not. I’d never even held a baby.