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And I’an to fade I always figured I’d burn

"No!" Chance shouted, but his voice sounded as if it caan

As I blacked out, I dreaure wreathed in unholy tendrils of smoke God’s Hand carried a sliht in the heavy air Kel muttered, "Go with God," as the warlock raised both ar the outcome

But I was so very cold

The next thing I knew, the whole world lit up with blue-white fire A terrible crack split the porch overhead, and Chance shielded ed, different than the s from the ruined house

Thunder boo Only Chance could’ve made that happen A thousand and one probabilitiesHe spins the coin a hundred times and comes up tails every time

"Oh, God, Corineyour lips are blue"

Three times now, I’d nearly been taken by shadows And three was a weighty number Fire had saved me, just as it clais would coh chattering teeth "We should see how bad it is out there"

The sounds of fighting had either ceased or were overwheled around us, energies snapping like broken electrical wires Chance reached for me, the back of his hands crisscrossed with new scratches and ash, and I let hie raindrops spattered us, rousing a hiss froathered power as if fueled by itswind lashed us, made it difficult for me to keep my balance Chance put an arether, we rounded the house, staying well out of back draft range The open plain assuole direction

WhichFloor

I could hardly wrap my mind around it We’d survived only by virtue of Chance’s luck and e relationship with fire Flames had stolen my mother and nearly slain ift Maybe that , but I didn’t possess the leisure for self-analysis

Behind the house, we found him

Kel lay still as death, covered in more blood than I had ever seen Once I would have screamed like a maniac, but we still had to deal with the master’s meat puppets

And when the dark one showed hiood

Ani farmhouse With his power depleted, doubtless the warlock hoped to wear us down If only we could find the bastard, end this once and for all--but his mindless children would rend Kel limb from limb if we left him where he’d fallen

We stood back-to-back oncethe autoun sparked as he fired into oozing zoirl, beautiful in life, jerked as pieces of her shoulder and ar eyes never rotesque film that spoke of the veil between this life and the next No e we inflicted, their expressions never changed Like inexorable auto but theirin bloody tatters

Adrenaline sang in e My grenade landed in the path of a half dozen figures, and being brain-dead, they didn’t detour around it The subsequent explosion churned dirt all around them as the flash of fire and metal tore them apart The air stank of burnt meat, and still they crawled toward us, if they had li the toback "We need sorin "Chuch would’ve needed to special order it"

I realized that the zo The wounded warlockht kill the bastard, so this warlockBooke didn’t Well, it didn’t hteous anger rose up in renade, sent it skiroup, and then dove for cover When it detonated, the earth churned up, bodies flew to pieces, and the stupid things fell, stu over their own severed limbs Chance unloaded a full clip into thee of auto melons when he hit them in the torso The stench of bodily effluvia joined the bitterness of smoke and charred flesh

Bile rose up in h I hadn’t taken their lives, I despised being forced to decih It would take a field teaure out ho and notify their fae There’d better be a special circle in hell reserved for this son of a bitch

And why? To keep us fro out what happened to Chance’suy work for?

Reaching back, I came up empty-handed, and the last wave swept over us I went down in a foul-sled and screamed as teeth sank into my shoulder They had no appetite, but they would consue itself in soed toto reachsnap of bone

For one shining e and resolve Chance raised his rifle and smashed it into a dead wo His hands slid against mine, wet and sticky as he pulled me up

"Jesus," Chance breathed

He bled from a hundred shallow cuts And I orse off Our fury and deterh, could never be The stream of bodies never seeled to their feet again