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Blue lights strobed the night Shots echoed as cops fired into the hedge I saw a cop fall, Sa into the dark I didn’t kno long the spilled blood would hold the Raven I didn’t kno long I had been trapped I didn’t knowexcept that I needed the pink blood-diamond The Raven had been suether--

Gunfire erupted to my left I pivoted on the balls of elina struggled, lit by flashes of light, obscured by a swirling darkness the color of old blood He was inside the hedge of thorns He had a blade, and he was stabbing at the witch She was bleeding on ar the sword sooire dashed and cut, see to parry sooire was burning

Red-orange flames rippled across his arht fire Flaoire screa sound they e with his blade, but where it had parted for Grégoire, it resisted Leo

Grégoire thrust and parried Silver flashed against the hedge He’s using a silvered sword A weapon designed to kill his own kind Outlawed by the Vae of thorns I pulled my last blade, my favorite va The blade pressed in to the ward Pierced through Hedge of thorns shattered againstflayed withwhen I landed inside Stuelina

The blade slid into her No resistance at all Deep All the way Hilt deep Eighteen inches of silver Heated by the hedge as the ward died

My eyes tracked the dah her aorta--even as I screa her beforeover my hand I rode her down Onto the leather seat My moer floor Caughtmyself up with the hand that was coated, painted, with her blood

Jane is killer only Jane even kills her friends

Beast!

She didn’t reply I levered off the floor Evangelina lay on the seat, one hand to her stomach, as if to hold in the blood that purabbing at air Seizing the necklace around her neck The blood-diaic, with the brilliance of flickering lights The geerous as the hell the demon came froht His goal froelina ripped down on the delicate chain Breaking it I lunged toward her, pushing off with hthrust into thighs, hips, spine Too slow She dropped the blood-diamond into her wound

The earth screa, everywhere, was nothingness But I had been here before, in this place of emptiness It could be defeated Blind, I finisheddown Into the void of the warm, wet, bloody wound

I took the diaht Her blood sizzled Her blood boiled My hand scorched and froze in chorus, a duality of agonies that raced upAirborne Out of the car To land and stand, poised on the paveem in ies of the Raven Mocker, the blood sacrifice of countless witch children over centuries It was powerful beyond anything I had ever touched And if I destroyed it, Icry sounded behind me Slowly, I turned

The Raven Mocker stood on the back of the car, illuhts from a van And this time he threw a shadow He was real He was here He was free Evangelina’s blood had bought his freedoe, clawed feet dented in the trunk lid with dull thu, a hooting, warbling, tocking sound, his head back Throat exposed Then he reached doith his beak toward Evangelina And she reached up to hione The last one was buried in the witch Move toward rimace Carried a knife in his fist It was a twin to mine, the silver brilliant as ain Thick as clotted creaht It tuht hand The one with the necklace in it The chain wrapped around and around ht in the force of my move Evan opened his mouth, started to speak the round, fluid syllables of the ancient witches I pushed off hard, leaping To the back seat of the car