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  Their magick punched through her line—well, her and the elves—like a battering ram. She tasted copper in her mouth. Blood.

  Tyler’s voice pierced the air, sending the mages to the ground, clamping their hands over their ears.

  That was nice, but the boy’s lungs were only so big for a tiny kid.

  Paige didn’t give DoDO a chance to react. She didn’t know how her magick was acting differently. She just knew it was. So, she combined her witch hands, called up all the elements she could, whispered a prayer to the All Mother to give her the boost she needed, and shoved as many of those dressed-in-black sons of bitches into the biggest portal to Hell she’d ever made.

  That certain cleared the field a little.

  It didn’t escape her notice, though, that a few of the wounded and dead elves had fallen through with them.

  She’d feel bad about that another time. She didn’t have time for that emotional shit right then.

  Super Douche rose to his face as Tyler took in a gulp of air. His eyes landed on Tyler.

  Shit. Shitshitshitshit.

  Paige gave him a sick smile of her own and punched him in the face with her witch hand.

  It wasn’t her greatest move ever, but she was getting tired. Like…tired.

  Tyler went to sing again, but his voice cracked.

  “Get out of here,” she shouted at him. Well, at Leah, but who knew of that girl was even going to listen to her.

  Super Douche frowned at the kids behind Paige, but he turned his attention to her and advanced. “You’re going to regret this.”

  She sincerely knew she was.

  She was starting to get tired. Her ability to call up the big things was dwindling. No more hurricane winds for her. No more tornadoes.

  Just her normal magick.

  Which was okay because she was used to just her “normal,” which even for her was pretty damned impressive.

  She charged at him as a massive gorilla, releasing her alpha roar.

  More than a few of the remaining DoDO agents cowered.

  But a lot of them raised their damned guns.

  What a bunch of fucking assholes, bringing semi automatics to a magick fight.

  She morphed into an armadillo, focusing on the shift, slowing it down so that for a brief moment, she was a massive gorilla with armadillo armor.

  Those bullets bounced back at them. Hard.

  Took out more than a few.

  But as an armadillo, she was a tiny target and a slow one.

  So as soon as the best affect wore out and the elves were again the main target, she rose back up again.

  As a t-rex.

  Because why the fuck not. That shit was fun.

  But her roar was like the alpha roar of a sick chicken.

  Not nearly as cool as in Jourasic Park.

  Choose another one, Cawli growled and took over.

  Paige knew quite a bit about dinosaurs. She loved them. They were her favorite part of the museum. Well, that and the space exhibit and never once had she ever thought she’d be able to be any of those dinos.

  The first thing she learned was that they weren’t impervious to bullets.

  That blew.

  But she also discovered that there were other dinosaurs with much scarier roars. Like the triceratops. She’d already discovered that being a hippo was really impressive. Seriously, never piss off a hippo. But being the pokey hippo was even better. And their growl was terrifying.

  She used those DoDO agents as bowling pins, knocking them down faster than they could throw ley-line magick at her.

  But she realized something else, too.

  Each time those mages threw their magick at her, she kind of powered up.

  She should have petered out a long time ago. She should have just died, completely spent, protecting her kids, kids who didn’t even belong to her. All that.

  But with their magick rolling over her, she was able to keep fighting.

  Not with the big stuff. But she was still fighting.

  Her favorite was quickly becoming the flying kronosaurus. Basically, the flying dinosaur crocodile. And, yes, she realized that those things swam.

  But… with her ability to leap high as a gorilla, she transformed midleap into the kronosaurus—and all of those teeth. Seriously, there were a lot of teeth. And the fins? She used those like the wings of a small plane—as she plowed into the men and women fighting them, biting some of them almost in half.

  Not really. She wasn’t that strong. But she had eaten pieces of them. She could tell that for sure.

  She wasn’t going to think about it. The thought grossed her out and she didn’t have time for that.

  Super Douche caught on that their magick was somehow powering her up and he called a stop to all the magick throwing.

  And, as luck would have it, they were finally out of bullets.

  Paige settled on the ground as a gorilla, releasing one more alpha roar, which still had the mages unsettled. Then, she shifted into her human form. “Are you done?” she called out, using her failing witch abilities and her alpha will to make her words go further. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was tired. Really, really, really tired.

  He stared at her, his expression full of fury. “Where are my men?”

  Thank the blessed goddess. Paige just smiled and blinked. “I’m going to let you rub two braincells together and figure that out. Okey-dokey?”

  He narrowed his eyes and raised his chin. “Hell. You sent them to Hell.”

  “Did I?” Paige lost her grip on up and down and almost stumbled where she stood. She kept it together though. She couldn’t afford to show weakness. Not now. Not when her forces—she. She was her forces—were so beyond tired. Not when the elven people still had people to get out of there.

  But there weren’t too many of those left. Well, none that she could see. Bodies. There were still a lot of bodies, both elven and human alike.

  But not her kids. Well, not in front of her.

  There’d better not be bodies of her kids.

  What were the elves going to think as they were mourning their kids?

  Had the toddlers made it through? Shouldn’t she have fought harder to save more?

  How much harder could she have fought?

  She was too tired. Time for her to retreat. “I’m leaving now.”

  He nodded slightly, refusing to take his eyes off her. “And if I say no? If try to stop you?”

  She didn’t know if she had it in her. She hoped to the goddess she did. She called her on witch hands and pushed, trying to open a door.

  That didn’t work.

  Well, there was one door that was always open.

  So, she grabbed his gaze and held it in a vice, and dragged the one agent forward.

  It was a young woman. Fear filled her eyes as she was dragged toward Paige. She raised her gun.

  It was empty. Thank goodness because Paige would have been dead otherwise.

  She pulled out a knife.

  Okay. That wasn’t going to be good.

  Cawli growled and unraveled the door embedded in her bones.

  The woman disappeared before her knife could find a place to slice.

  Cawli growled again and sealed the door shut. He was pissed.

  She could understand, but she didn’t have time to care. “Do you really want to? I mean really?”

  Super Douche’s eyes widened with alarm.

  He had to know Paige was pretty close to falling the fuck over. She’d taken on his entire army while he’d stood around and pulled a fucking trigger.

  Something shifted on his face. “We have your husband.”

  They weren’t married yet. “I know.”

  He raised his eyebrow in surprise, a slow smile slithering into place. “Aren’t you going to ask where he is?”

  “Nope.” Because she didn’t have the resources to go save his ass right then.

 
“You’re not…” He chuckled a little, shifting his weight to one foot. “Concerned?”

  Oh, she was. She was raving mad inside the tiny room of her tiny heart she allowed herself to be mad. “You should be.”

  His smile blossomed. “Because he’s so powerful.”

  She shrugged. “You can underestimate him if you want to, but he walks beside me as my equal.” She gestured to the battlefield.

  His expression clouded a little around the edges. “We both know he’s not…” He sighed and looked out over the battlefield that had once been homes. “This.”

  Maybe not, but he was Dexx Fuckin’ Colt. “Do you? Do you really?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You will return my people.”

  Not lilkely. Oh, wait. Yes. Yes she would. “When you return ours.”

  “What do you mean? Your what?”

  She let a pained smile flash across her face. Well, she didn’t let it. It just flashed and fell away as she thought about throttling his stupid, muscle-head neck. “The people you’ve been taking? The paranormals who have been disappearing?”

  “If anyone’s disappeared, they ran away.”

  “Okay. Well, when they’re returned, I’ll return your people.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  She sucked her head into her shoulders in a deep what-the-fuck-you-want-me-to-do shrug. “I guess they’ll enjoy Hell then.” And hopefully not take it over.

  “You’re going to regret this.”

  Yeah. Probably. “I already do. And you will regret starting this war.” Paige turned around, her body sagging with tired as she limped back to the one remaining door. “I assume you can find your own way out.”

  Super Douche raised his fist, turned it ninety and sharply tugged down. “Move out.” He barked the command, and trotted away to his own door.

  She just hoped it didn’t involve firing at her because she’d be dead.

  Eldora waited for at the door. She pulled the corners of her aged lips down and nodded approvingly. “That was something.”

  It certainly had been. “Do we have the doors open?”

  “Like you said.”

  Good because Paige knew DoDO would be back and the elves would need places for refuges.

  But before she left, she had one more thing she needed to do.

  She turned, surveying the field of the dead. Super Douche was leaving through his own doors, and when the last of the DoDO agents she could see had left, she reached down and dipped her left hand in the blood of a dead elf.

  She didn’t know blood magick. That wasn’t her thing. Leah had inherited it from her father. Paige had, however, learned a thing or two from working with Merry Eastwood and her blood witches.

  And Paige had life magick.

  With the blood of the elf on one hand, she reached to one of her several wounds and dipped into her own blood.

  Then, she walked to the door. She didn’t understand how, but the door connected to this plane, this dimension. And it was the only thing she could touch, physically touch.

  She closed her eyes and prayed.

  Blessed Mother, help me find a way to protect the people here, seal them away where they can remain safe until such time we can unlock their realm and return their world to them. Help me keep DoDO out.

  Paige rarely got an answer in return in the form of words. The answers or replies were almost always in the form of feelings and images. This time was no different, but the emotional response that came back was in the form of a question.

  Are you sure?

  Paige knew that with the Blessed All Mother, there were a million different ways this could go wrong, a million different ways it could be interpreted, but Paige just didn’t have anything more to give.

  I don’t know what else to do, Mother. If you have a better idea, please give it.

  The All Mother smiled—not with a face and lips. She smiled with warmth, understanding, and a sense that things would work out. Of course.

  A power far greater than Paige, greater than all the witches and other paranormals she knew, reached into her, through her, pulled on the life energy of the blood on her hands, pulled it through her skin, her hands, her arms.

  The power ripped out of her back in a way that was painful and withstandable at the same time.

  A loud crack sounded over the land. The trees swayed with the force of it. The vines crackled and twitched.

  Then they rose toward the sky, growing and talking, and chittering.

  And devouring the bodies of the fallen, taking the sustenance they needed to grow.

  Eldora touched Paige’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  Paige was spent. She let Eldora guide her, her eyes barely working. Her ears barely registered what was going on.

  When they stepped through the doorway, she was greeted with chaos.

  Reporters. Refugees.

  And Leslie.

  A fully pissed off Leslie.

  “I just won one bloody battle,” Paige muttered, holding out a bloody hand. “Can we not do this right now?”

  Leslie’s eyes widened with alarm.

  The last thing Paige felt was Leslie’s arms—and a few other arms. She didn’t know where they’d come from—surrounding her as she fell, fell, fell into darkness.

  19

  The next day, Paige was felt like she’d been hit by a truck. She hurt in so many places, and when she went to sit up, she discovered a sharp pain in her abdomen.

  Right. She’d been shot.

  But wasn’t she a shifter? Wasn’t that supposed to have healed by now?

  Well, after questioning a few shifters—Margo. She questioned Margo—she discovered that they did heal faster, but that they still needed time to heal. It wasn’t magick.

  It was. It really was, but Paige got the hint that she needed to cool her jets.

  She’d spend quality time with her kids. Jet cooling couldn’t be any better than that.

  The twins were ready to nurse—thank the goddess because so was she. Boobs sucked, and then Bobby was ready to play.

  Of course, Paige wasn’t. She was ready to lay down and take a nap because getting up, having one conversation, drinking one cup of coffee—after having making it herself because Dexx wasn’t there to save her—and sitting on the couch to nurse had worn her out.

  Which, seriously, was about right. Right? She’d just single-handedly defeated a DoDO army.

  Not quite single-handedly, but yeah. Pretty much. There’d been a lot of magick slinging.

  She invested a few more hours into sleep. She watched a few episodes of Into the Badlands because it was a good visual show that didn’t require a lot of brainpower, though, there was something going on and she was beginning to realize that maybe she should have been paying attention longer.

  The next day, she felt a bit more like herself.

  Venturing into town, though, was still a chore. She didn’t want to shift shape. She was tired. She hadn’t even realized that there’d be a “doing it too much” tax put on shifting, but it made sense. Like anything else, it required energy, and she had certainly expended that.

  But it also meant driving and she hadn’t filled up her tank.

  Also, when she was tired of shifting, the twins were a little too. They were remaining as humans, which was nice because it was easier to keep track of them and harder because that meant she had to carry them and their fifty-pound car seats as well.

  There were people in town to help. She mifght have driven a little like Dexx to get there.

  She pulled up to the mayor’s offices and began pulling the kids out. A random stranger walked out with groceries offered a hand with the twins. Just some random stranger, which… yeah. By the end of the siege,T there would probably be a lot fewer random strangers.

  he dark-haired woman with the darkest skin Paige had seen in real life.

  “Thanks. These things weigh a ton.” She
gave the woman a grateful smile.

  The woman set Ember’s car seat on the floor inside the door. I “It’s not a problem, we all got to stick together right now, don’t we?” She smiled back at Paige, and then continued on her day.

  Once inside, it was a matter of pushing Ember’s seat with one foot while she carried Rai with two hands.

  For about two seconds. Then the receptionist—whose name Paige was really going to have to remember—came in and saved her, taking both the sleeping twins and stashing them by her desk. “She’s just about ready for you.”

  ’How are you doing? I’ve been watching you on the news.”

  “I seem to be getting some air time lately, don’t I?”

  The receptionist shook her head. “You look great for having kicked so much ass out there. She’s ready for you now.”

  She was going to put that down as one of the classiest compliments ever.

  But when she got into the mayor’s office, Suzanne was in a snit. “Can you believe these assholes?” She pointed to the TV which was playing one of the news stations at a low level.

  Paige could barely hear it. Something must have knocked out some of her hearing. She didn’t even remember what it might have been. “I’m sure I can.” Believe the reporters would say whatever they were paid to say, not that she believed the news. “What’s going on?”

  “The President is stating that you attacked her agents.”

  Right. Well, she would say that wouldn’t she? “In a different world. “We attacked. Nothing about how they were causing a ruckus on a different plane?”

  “We had no cameras going that entire time,” Suzanne said, turning on Paige. “You can’t ever do that again.”

  “Go out and help people?”

  Suzanne looked at her like she’d lost her damned mind, her blazing blue eyes daggering Paige with the intensity. “Go in there, be the hero, and then forget your cameraman.”

  “Well,” to be fair, “I hadn’t realized we were going to be saving people.”

  Suzanne gave Paige a frank look. “Since we have no idea what’s going to happen for the next few days or weeks or whatever, I’m assigning cameramen on you at all times.”

  That was a bad idea. “I can’t promise to keep them safe.”

  “They’re scrappy.”