“Quiet, please,” I ordered. I listened, turning my head back and forth for the sound of movement. There was a bit of rustling, but it wasn’t loud enough for me to pinpoint. “Can you throw something at it?” I called out to Lily, referring to the combat magic she’d used against Morgan.
“Not if I can’t see it. And not upside down.” She made a small grunt of exhaustion in the back of her throat, and I realized she wasn’t going to be hanging on much longer anyway. The fall wasn’t high enough to hurt her, but if she dropped down, there’d be nothing protecting her from this thing. If I could just see it—
I heard a tremendous hiss that seemed to come from an inch behind my head. Acting on pure reflex, I dropped and rolled sideways as fast as I could, just as the fox sprang at me. Its body, rigid with rage and madness, went sailing over me like we were playing a demented game of leapfrog, its legs scrabbling for purchase. Even out of the corner of my eye I could see the flash of its exposed teeth as it snarled.
I popped up and raced across the basement, away from the stairs, heading straight for the washing machine. I jumped on top of it, hearing the small thud of the fox hitting the side of the machine below me, but not as far below me as I would have liked. It could jump.
It pulled back and leaped again, tiny claws scrabbling impotently. It came close, but I was pretty sure it couldn’t jump high enough to get on top of the machine. It hissed and barked with frustration, and a wave of stench rolled over me: the smell of old death. I almost gagged. My dogs had rolled around in dead animals, and I’d smelled repugnant things in Iraq, but this was different. What the hell had this thing been eating?
I looked around for something heavy that I could use to stun or kill it, but I was distracted by the screeching of its claws on the washing machine and the mad, high-pitched noise exploding out of its throat, drowning out the muted barking from upstairs. The fox had to realize I was out of reach, but it was like it couldn’t stop itself from pursuing me anyway. I was awed by the intensity of its desire to kill me.
Then the fox suddenly paused, going still, and as I looked at it one word popped into my brain: unnatural. Then its head turned away and I realized what the fox was looking at. Only ten feet behind it, Lily had dropped to the ground.
“Lily, run!” I cried, and my friend took a few halting steps toward the stairs. Her legs must have been numb, though, because she stumbled over one of the water bottles and went sprawling onto the floor.
With unbelievable speed, the fox shot toward Lily.
Chapter 2
I didn’t think; I just jumped down and banged on the side of the washing machine. “Here, here!” I yelled, and the fox paused for a moment, looking over its shoulder at me in confusion. Then it looked back at Lily, who was struggling to stand on numb feet. I could practically see the fox reach the obvious conclusion: of the two of us, she was the easier target.
I grabbed the nearest thing at hand—a small bottle of stain remover—and hurled it at the fox, managing to clip its left back leg. It turned its head for long enough to send me a perfunctory hiss, but immediately turned to creep toward Lily. She limped backward, but not fast enough. I started toward them, and like a dog being chased by its owner, the fox sped up.
When it was less than a foot from Lily, I panicked, and my instincts took over completely. I dropped to my knees and reached for my magic.
It took less than half a second—thank you, Simon—to drop into my boundary mindset, the trancelike state that lets me see the spark of living creatures. When I opened my eyes, it was like staring at the world through thermal-imaging goggles. Lily’s life force was brightest—a huge, humanoid blue glow. The little fox’s essence was much, much smaller, the size of a matchbox, and it should have been blue as well, but there was something wrong with it. The color was swirling with black, which I’d never seen before. What the hell?
No time. I reached out a hand and visualized the tattoos on my wrist sprouting into long, snaking extensions of my fingers. My phantom fingers encircled the fox, tightening around its essence. Then, as my real fingers curled back toward my body, the invisible fingers pulled the life spark of the fox away, separating it from its physical body.
I’d done this with animals before, but for a moment the fox seemed almost to resist me, which was a first. I pulled harder, and the spark of swirling light came away in my fingers, immediately turning a sickly, yellowish-brown color, the color of death.
But it was still swirling with black.
I could absorb death magic into myself for a power boost, but I instinctively knew I didn’t want that blackness anywhere near me. Gritting my teeth with concentration, I allowed the vaporous color to dissolve through my ghostly fingers until it was gone. Then I blinked away the mindset and climbed to my feet.
Well, that was the idea, anyway. I’d forgotten how much playing with death essences affects me. As I tried to stand, the surge of power hit me, and I stumbled, pausing to savor the dark sweetness of boundary magic. Mine, mine, mine pumped my thoughts, and I felt a great burst of exhilaration and greed. More. I wanted to do it again, but this time—
“Lex?” Lily’s voice was tentative, a little weak, almost . . . afraid. Of me?
I shook my head violently, clearing the fog of death magic from my mind. When I looked at Lily, she was standing near the fox’s corpse, staring at me with concern and, yes, a little fear. My insides twisted with guilt. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Haven’t done that in a while. Caught me off-guard.”