Page 78 of Witch Queen

“Anya,” Miles whispered, his tone full of misery.

The witch wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve and took a shaky breath. The magic in her eyes brightened as her face set in hard lines. Sable made an angry sound on her shoulder.

“I want you to tell me where you think his spells are about to strike next,” she ground out. “I’ll try and get as many people away from there as I can.”

Jared’s scowling stare stayed locked on the dark portal flickering through the clouds above them. “And if you can’t?”

They could just about glimpse Vedran’s figure insideVoid.

Anya’s tone grew steely. “Then I will make sure they do not suffer when they die.”

Movement in the sky had Violet’s head jerking up. Miles sucked in air.

Jared paled. “What the hell are those?!”

Violet’s mouth went dry at the sight of the gruesome army descending upon the city from the Sorcerer King’s portal. It wasn’t just demons, devils, ghouls, and hellbeasts she detected amidst the swarming mass sinking out of the clouds on a wave of black magic.

Outnumbering the fiends were grotesque monsters she couldn’t take her eyes off. They looked deformed and disproportioned, as if they had been stitched haphazardly together from mismatched body parts.

Miles gagged. “Oh God!”

Ice filled Violet’s veins as she finally made out the details of the creatures. They were the amalgamation of several species that had been mutilated almost beyond recognition and fused together. The upper body of a witch. The trunk of a hellboar. The tail of a devil. The legs of a sorcerer. A ghoul with the head of a hellbear.

Black magic throbbed along the coarse stitches holding the chimeras together, the Sorcerer King’s vile power the only thing keeping them alive.

Violet swallowed past the lump in her throat.Alive is a questionable term!

Fear knotted her insides as she watched the dreadful army separate into distinct troops that began making their way to locations in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens.

CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT

Black magic madethe air shiver above Yankee Stadium. Roman’s pulse pounded wildly as he observed the fiendish regiments darkening the sky to the south. One was headed straight for them.

“Here they come!” he shouted at the sorcerers and witches standing on the field with him.

Heat licked Roman’s veins and roared through Filomena’s core as they prepared to unleash their magic. “Fire Shield!”

A wall of flames exploded above the venue. It expanded rapidly to form a veil that dropped around the arena where thousands of New Yorkers who hadn’t been able to escape the city huddled silently. The Fire Magic users Ludmila had brought to New York augmented the shield he’d raised, their eyes and those of their familiars reflecting the blaze bathing the stadium in an orange glow.

The first monsters slammed into the barrier a moment later.

Exhilaration shot through Roman.Yes!The shield is holding!

Fire Magic engulfed dozens of demons and hellbeasts as they tried to smash through the defensive wall. Their screeches pierced his ears, the sounds making the masses flinch even though they were under the influence of Anya’s Illusion Sorcery.

His elation was short-lived. Dread knotted his belly when a scream sounded behind him. Roman twisted on his heels. His eyes rounded.

A monster the like of which he’d never seen before had successfully breachedFire Shieldand was tearing a man in the upper bleachers from limb to limb.

“What is that?!” a sorcerer gasped.

Roman swallowed and lowered his brows. “It doesn’t matter! We need to get rid of it!” Magic warmed his blood. He raised his hand. “Ignite!”

The spell engulfed the creature in a blaze of Fire Magic. Still it moved, its claws sparking as it reached for its next victim, seemingly heedless of its burning flesh.

Filomena hissed angrily on Roman’s shoulder. He clenched his jaw.

The next spell left his lips on a snarl. “FROSTFIRE!”

---