The attack came while we were still in the tunnels less than two blocks from home.

I heard it before I saw it.

A ball of blue flame three times the size of my head sped toward us out of the dark, trailing a blazing tail like a comet.

Agata and I acted in unison. We each spat a well-chosen word, then combined our shields to deflect that flaming death back the way it'd come.

Someone didn't want us going that way, and we certainly couldn't go back.

I chose a third option-get up on the street. Now.

I launched a fireball of my own as cover. "Ladder."

We'd just passed a ladder that led up to an iron grate and the street, so one word was enough.

Agata moved. Fast. So fast that she was halfway up the ladder before I'd even reached it. That was a problem. Street grates were heavy. Without magic, I'd be hard pressed to lift one of the things. Agata was at the top of the ladder, and in my way. I had that kind of magic; she didn't.

Turned out I was impressively wrong. I was wrong, and Agata Azul was impressive.

She balanced her feet in the center of the ladder rung with her arms raised over her head. Her hands were glowing with a silvery sheen as she raised the iron grate enough to displace it from its frame. Then with a heave that belied her size, she shoved it aside.

Damn.

The instant it was clear, she scurried up the ladder and pulled herself out, shooting me a look that asked what was taking me so long.

I shielded and quickly climbed the ladder.

We were one street over from my house. It was lined with trees, tall iron fences, and stone walls. We goblins weren't big on being friendly with our neighbors. We didn't mind our homes being seen, but we didn't want anyone dropping by uninvited. It didn't have anything to do with etiquette and everything to do with paranoia. There was a booming business in the capital for security mages. Depending on the level of protection you wanted or needed, a security mage would ward your gates, doors, and windows. Some of my neighbors even had nets of wards that arched over their houses. I took care of my own security, and I wasn't bragging when I said I put my neighbors' efforts to shame. I wasn't competitive; I simply attracted more trouble than all of them put together.

Needless to say, we wouldn't be knocking on any gates. In Regor, if you had trouble chasing you, you dealt with it yourself.

That was my plan. I just hoped we didn't have more than we could handle.

I spotted a hooded man two houses down. I was sure there were others around us and more on the way.

I pulled Agata into an inverted section of a house wall. "What are you packing?"

"Everything Kesyn taught me."

"Which is..."

In response, she picked up a smooth, apple-sized rock from a flower bed border and threw it at the hooded man. It was a decent throw, but it'd never reach him. The man was two houses-two mansion-sized houses-down the street.

The rock not only reached him, but accelerated before it hit him in the forehead. He grunted and fell face-down on the sidewalk.

Agata turned to me and smiled sweetly.

"How did you-"

She indicated herself. "Gem mage. It covers more than sparkly things. I can hit pretty much anything with a rock. All I have to do is get it started; the rock goes where I tell it."

"Impressiv-"

I heard a whistle of displaced air from behind me and grabbed Agata, taking us both to the ground. A crossbow bolt punched a hole in the exact spot where her head had been an instant before.

Agata saw and blanched. "You're not so bad yourself."

"Not really. Just too much practice. I've gotten shot at a lot."

The bolt had to have come from a tree or roof. Either way, we had entirely too much distance to cover and next to nowhere to hide.

Agata reached out and snagged another stone.

"I'm not trying to be pessimistic," I told her, "but you'll need more than one."

She glanced to where the felled assassin was still sprawled on the sidewalk. The next whistle I heard was the rock she'd hit him with coming back to her upraised hand. She caught it without a wince.

That did it. I grinned. "And you can call them back."

"I can't outrun anything weighted down with rocks. All I need is one per hand. If I'm not ready to catch it, it'll stop and hover."

The next bolt impaled itself in the tree by my head, and the tree burst into flame-an unnatural dark blue flame.

Magic. Black magic.

I swore under my breath. "They're not playing anymore. How strong are those shields of yours?"

The lady didn't seem to have nearly the confidence that she had a few minutes ago. "Blue fire on a bolt might be pushing it."

I reached out and took her hand. "Then we'll use mine," I said as my shields enveloped us both.

"Can I still throw rocks?"

I quickly scanned the street for more shooters. "I wouldn't dream of denying you the fun and me the help. Your rocks can get out through my shields, but they'll have to knock before coming back in."

"Good enough." Agata reached down and grabbed another stone. "Insurance."

I didn't have rocks at my beck and call, but I had a lot of nasty surprises in store for whoever was trying to stop us from getting behind the safety of my home wards. Just because those bolts were tipped with black magic didn't mean a dark mage was pulling the trigger. They could have been prepped ahead of time and held the charge for hours. Whoever wanted me dead knew what they'd have to throw at me to make death stick. I had a sinking suspicion that what I hoped would be a sprint was going to be a fight for every step, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to try running. My goal was to get home alive, not make a statement. Running was perfectly acceptable. I wasn't running away from assassins; I was running toward home and the wards I trusted to vaporize anything that made the mistake of attempting to follow.

"How fast can you run?" I asked Agata.

"Can you shield us both without us holding hands?"

"Not as well as I can with."

"Then I can keep up with you. My legs are just as long as yours."

Yes, they were. I hadn't intended to glance down at her shapely suede-wrapped legs, but my eyes had other ideas.

Cutting loose and meeting fire with fire would be easy. The problem was finding a target before becoming one ourselves.

We managed to cover half a block before all hell broke loose.

Literally.

They were demons.

We were screwed.

They were bipedal, and the resemblance to the mortal assassins ended there. They appeared to be unarmed. I wasn't fooled. They didn't have weapons because they were weapons.

Agata and I instinctively went back to back.

"I don't think rocks are going to work with these," she said.

"You'd just piss them off," I agreed.

Since our backs were touching-even though it was through cloth and leather-I could release her hand and still keep the shields around us both.

I lobbed my best incendiary spell at the closest targets to see what would happen. They were standing close together; I was going after a two-for-one. In a flash of red, the demons were vaporized. I turned my attention to the next one-just as the demons I'd vaporized reappeared.

No, not reappeared. They had moved before my spell had arrived, and had been so preternaturally quick that my eyes hadn't registered it.

That was not good.

Chapter 11.

A dark figure stepped forward. Not just dark in that I couldn't see his face; dark in that I wasn't even sure that he, she, or it had one. The bottom suddenly dropped out of the temperature and I could see the frosty puffs of my breath. The things surrounding us didn't make puffs, frosty or otherwise.

That was bad.

Demons breathed. These didn't. Undead demons? Demon zombies? Regardless of what they were, they had been strong when they had been alive, and it was all too obvious they had retained that power in death. Regardless of how they had been brought back and by whom, they had been chosen because of strength and impermeability. Their skin glowed from within. And they were fast. If I so much as twitched, the demons darted in a blur to cover the opening. Nothing alive or mortal was that quick. I'd found through unpleasant experience that things that weren't alive to begin with were next to impossible to kill.

The demon zombies parted and the hooded and cloaked figure glided through as if it didn't need feet to walk. The demonic minions closed ranks behind their leader.

"Give me the gem mage, Chancellor Nathrach, and I will make your death quick."

Agata's voice rang with indignant anger. "Give?"

A decidedly female voice. Our adversary was a woman. A woman with mortal assassins and undead demons at her command. It wasn't Sandrina Ghalfari, but I didn't recognize the voice.

"You have me at a disadvantage in more ways than one, madam," I said. "You know my name; I do not know yours."

"And you do not need to."

"You'll let me die not knowing the name of my killer? There has to be a rule against that somewhere in the Khrynsani handbook."

"I am not Khrynsani."

She didn't sound happy about that or insulted that I even suggested it; she was simply stating a fact. That was more than a little concerning. If there was a club of evil worse than the Khrynsani, I didn't want to run into them in a dark alley, or residential street, especially not when they had their undead minions in tow.

Just because she wasn't Khrynsani didn't mean she wasn't a goblin, but I couldn't see her face or any skin at all.

As we talked, the demons began tightening their circle around us. Normally, I'd obliterate a few of them, make my own exit, and take my chances, but I saw more waiting motionless in the shadows. As soon as we made a run for it, they would be on us. If it had been just me, I would take the chance if all other options failed. Agata Azul was with me. I wouldn't risk her being injured.

"If you will not release her to me, then I will be forced to take her." Again, not a threat, just a promise, a statement of what the mage was about to do.

The street darkened.

It was already night, but that didn't stop the dark from coming at us from all sides, like a black mold sliding over everything in its path. The dark smoothly flowed up the lampposts around us, seeping inside the glass and consuming the flames that flickered there. I wondered if it even covered the stars overhead, but I wasn't about to take my eyes off the dark and the mage who had conjured it for one instant.

I was a goblin, by nature nocturnal. Darkness was comfortable. The darkness creeping toward us was neither natural nor comfortable.

Ominous power whispered from the shadows just beyond my sight. Normally, I could see all the way to the street corner. Not now.

The assassin Agata had hit with a rock began to stir. He pushed himself up with his hands, saw the darkness coming at him, and cried out. That cry rose to a scream as the dark flowed up his arms, and abruptly silenced when it reached and covered his face and body.

The same light- and life-consuming darkness was coming toward us.

There was only one thing left for me to do.

The spell qualified as black magic and it would take all of my strength to employ. If it failed, I'd be all but helpless, unable to stop the mage from taking Agata Azul. Her shields were good, and she had a few defensive tricks up her sleeves, but the mage standing before us wasn't using merely black magic, she was using demonic black magic. Agata would be defenseless. The mage wanted Agata. She wouldn't kill her. Me? I had a feeling I was expendable. If I didn't stop the dark tide before it got too close, I wouldn't get another chance.

I quickly focused, and a dark shimmer formed around my extended hands. My shoulders bowed under the weight of the spell's power. A shadow quickly spread like oil from my hands to coat the cobblestones all around us. My body was racked with chills from the cold as the darkness I created suffocated not only the light, but what little warmth the air held. Emptiness spread from my fingers, radiating from my body. In the sphere of my spell, in the spreading shadows, was a void, an emptiness where magic was not, where life did not exist. Death was the absence of life; what flowed from my hands was the absence of everything.

The demon zombies shifted uneasily, and a few stepped back. None fled.

My shadow magic met the mage's darkness and stopped.

I pushed, testing the barrier.

The mage's darkness held.

Dammit.

I could only hold my shadow barrier in place for a few minutes. I could gain a little more time-if I dropped the protective shield I held in place around us.