Cym was one hundred percent done with this day. All he wanted was to be somewhere warm while he curled around a healthy and happy Fourteen. Everyone else could just fall right the fuck down a well, for all he cared.

But Fourteen wasn’t safe, and Sterling was only slightly less unsafe. He was going to have to soldier up and get this over with before he could have his well-earned and hopefully taco-laden snuggle.

By the time Cym made it to the edge of the forest—right where he could feel the demon—his bones ached with the cold, and his fingers were completely numb. He shuddered to think about how he would feel if Fourteen hadn’t thought to bring him more clothes.

He was about to take a short rest, but when he emerged from the forest, he saw a young man lying prone at the feet of his aunt. In the firelight, Cym could see his features twisted in agony as something bright tried to force its way into his body.

Time slowed as Cym raced toward the young man. Snowflakes pelted his cheeks and clung to his eyelashes. The wind shifted, and a wave of heat from a nearby fire melted them away.

Three feet from his destination, his ankle folded under him, and he slipped, skidding until he landed on top of the man. Cym braced himself on the stranger’s chest with one hand and put another hand up to push Stella and Sekt away. The man’s hand shot up to wrap around Cym’s wrist, and he was plunged into chaos.

Chapter 23Fourteen

Turn. Dodge. Strike. Twist. Kill.

So much killing. Fourteen had never been more in his element.

Side by side with Jack and Adelle, he felt free, powerful, and in complete control of himself. If he could only get to Cym and get him out of here…

Well, he was getting to that part.

“On your six, Adelle!” Fourteen called out.

A black, formless shape had stolen up behind Adelle. It crept over her shield, flesh sizzling as it made contact. In front of her was an older man, roiling with the white, cancerous rot of a nightmare, trying to overwhelm her shield with raw magic. Angry white and yellow lightning burned at her shield, trapping her against the black sludge at her back.

Both guardians had stopped using their shields offensively once the sheer numbers against them forced them to begin conserving magic. Both had adopted a fighting style more akin to Fourteen’s. It took more finesse, but it had combined the three of them into a lethal fighting unit.

Adelle’s whip lashed out at the man, grabbed him by the neck, and snatched him off his feet. She ducked and rolled under him, using the momentum to throw him into the demon behind her.

It swallowed the man whole without slowing down.

“Keep them off our backs!” Adelle shouted to Fourteen.

As Fourteen swung his new favorite weapon ever in a wide arc, a trail of rainbow fire drove back a crowd of nightmare-infested witches straining to get at Jack. Now their attention was on him. He wasn’t worried—Fourteen only needed to keep them occupied until his team managed to exorcize the demon. There were only eight of them, after all.

No problem.

Fourteen spun his glorified poleaxe, enjoying the play of colors as it moved through the air, waiting for someone—anyone—to be brave enough to attack.

He wasn’t in the best surroundings for such a confrontation. The building beside him was putting off enough heat to make his pants burn hotly against his left leg. The smell of overheated leather coming from his jacket let him know he wasn’t too far from being cooked in his own armor.

It was irritating, but Fourteen was grateful the fire kept too many witches from ganging up on him at once. Between the occasional gusts of flame bursting randomly from the window between them, to the wall of unconscious bodies he’d formed on his other side, he was able to keep his opponents down to reasonable numbers.

A man dressed like an accountant lurched through the flames, hands outstretched and spitting orange and white fire at him. Fourteen allowed the magic to roll over him as he angled his poleaxe—friendly side pointing at the man—and scored a direct hit to his solar plexus.

Fourteen didn’t wait for the white energy of the nightmare inside the man to fully escape him. With a twist of his wrist, Fourteen lobbed the unconscious body he’d just made onto the pile.

Fourteen had made a lot of those this evening. It was the best night he could remember having. Cym had made such a positive impact on his life that Fourteen didn’t think he’d ever be able to properly express his gratitude.

Fourteen was keeping him no matter what.

A smaller figure vaulted over the pile of bodies, trying to catch him off guard, and Fourteen twisted his body to kick at the teenage girl he recognized from the cemetery. His enchanted boots no longer had the initial power from his first jump, but they still had enough juice to send the girl sailing back into the crowd of Blaikes, causing her head to smack against the head of a young man. Judging from the amount of blood pouring from both of their faces, they would be out of the fight for some time.

Fourteen smirked. He could do this all day.

He had the next wave of witches onto the pile with little effort, and the three remaining Blaikes hung back, unwilling to engage.

Pent-up energy buzzed under Fourteen’s skin and begged to be released. Normally he would pace while he waited for an attacker to try their luck, but with each step he took, his boots lost momentum. He’d rather save what magic they had left for the fight.

He risked a look back at his teammates and saw Jack kneeling, hands outstretched, with Adelle standing behind him, her hands on his shoulders as she pumped orange fire into him.

A loud groan at Fourteen’s back had him turning around to see the wall of bodies undulating.

Shit.

An arm at the bottom twitched and smacked frantically at the press from above it. A woman’s eyes stared at him hatefully from under the arm. To his magical sight, the pile of bodies had been giving off nothing more than static feedback, but now a white aura filled person after person, starting from the bottom and moving toward the top like a wave.

He took an involuntary step back and called over his shoulder, “I hope you guys are almost done doing whatever the fuck you’re doing because things are about to get messy on my end.”

The wall writhed and pulsed as bodies fought to untangle themselves. Fourteen took the opportunity to stab the friendly end of his weapon into as many bodies as he could but had to jump away as four witches, still somewhat entwined, flailed their way off the top of the pile to come at him, snarling and spitting with fury.

Fourteen managed to dispatch them, fighting his instinct to simply fling them into the fire on his left. There was a small chance some of these people were unwilling puppets, and he’d rather not have more innocent blood on his hands than he already did.

Now, evil blood? Don’t threaten him with a good time.

With a tortured groan, the wall of bodies tipped over, spilling a mess of nightmare-possessed witches across the alley. They struggled to break free of the mass of writhing limbs, kicking and clawing as they went. The wet pops of dislocated joints and cracks of compound fractures followed them as they fought their way to freedom.

Fourteen exorcized them, nightmare after nightmare, as they came for him. Most bodies were far too damaged to be effective, but they kept coming, trying to bury him with sheer numbers.

He faced an unstoppable onslaught as more and more bodies managed to untangle themselves from the pile.

Thought ceased. Cold poured in.

Thinking was certain death. Training was all.

He sliced, stabbed, kicked, spun, thrashed, cut, disemboweled—the bodies piled up around him until he couldn't breathe.

He was failing, failing. Must keep going no matter what.

An unending wave of death and destruction rushed over him. He’d keep going, he’d never stop. Stopping meant losing. Losing was not an option. Swing, slice, kick, stab, slash.

Pain. Ignore. Keep going. Never stop. Never. Stop. Protecting. Him.

“You can stop now.”

Behind him.