No Rest for the Witches by Karina Cooper Page A

die.”
    Violet light flickered along the blade.
    Everything coalesced into a razor’s edge.
    As fury clambered in her ears, a cacophony of howls she didn’t know how to give voice to, Lillian moved. Suddenly, erratic, she jerked her arm back. Her thin elbow collided with the witch’s solar plexus, doubling him over.
    Naomi launched herself forward—screamed bloody, ragged murder as a hand closed on her shirt. Silas was no help; she was dimly aware of his curses as he rammed one of his operative guards into the other, tangling them into a flurry of arms and legs and intentions.
    Naomi whirled, raised her leg, and slammed a roundhouse kick to the side of her guard’s helmeted head. The man, broader than she was but no Silas in weight, staggered into the side of a crate. It gonged, sending echoes across the warehouse.
    The witch shouted something. Lillian shrieked, and obeying the primal instinct rooted deep in her awareness, Naomi folded to the floor. The air split above her head, sliced on a razored knife edge, and the man lunging at her drew up sharply as the point lodged itself in his chest.
    Naomi didn’t stop. As the operative collapsed, she grabbed his gun from his limp grasp and spun.
    The damn thing fit into her palm like it was made for her. Heavier than her usual Beretta, sleeker and sweet, it practically begged her to pull the trigger.
    Lillian stared at her, shock-white and trembling. Blood dotted her lip, but her chin firmed.
    Naomi’s hand wavered.
    This was how Gemma had died.
    Metal clanked against metal; the dull thud of plasteel meeting cement echoed from her left. The witch watched her from behind Lillian’s taller form, his eyes feverishly bright. “What’s it going to be?” he demanded.
    Shit.
    A gun fired, echoed back in mounting report, and Lillian blanched, sobbing at whatever it was she saw beyond Naomi’s field of vision.
    She could guess. Nobody died pretty by bullets.
    Or by witchcraft. Purple power gathered in the witch’s palm, outlined his fingers as he held them inches from Lillian’s chest. Her heart.
    She gasped. Her face reddened. Turned yellow around the edges.
    â€œHow long until her heart explodes?” the witch asked, but there was nothing light about his voice now. His mouth thinned. “Wanna find out?”
    Fuck. Naomi lowered the weapon.
    â€œDrop it.”
    A jerk of her wrist, and the gun clattered to the side. She crossed the circle, arms held out by her sides as he stiffened. “Fine,” she bit out. The words filled her throat. Tore out of her chest on serrated edges. “I give up.”
    His mouth twisted. “Shame, too.” He pushed Lillian to the side. “Go get the rope. Or else I’ll kill you both.”
    Just a kid after all.
    Naomi shook her head. And without warning, without hope, she lunged.
    The witch’s mouth opened, hands coming up, wreathed in violet, but Naomi didn’t give him the chance. His face was a blur, purple light, flickering fluorescent casting the world into a wild dance of motion and sound; nerves and the feral pounding of her blood in her body.
    She collided with her target, bit down on a shriek of pain as her the tattoo lit up so brightly, blue fire spilled from the weave of her torn denim. Lillian collapsed, the world spun around and around.
    Pain shredded her body. Her chest, her fucking soul lit up like a nuclear holocaust. Naomi screamed.
    A gunshot cracked like thunder in the chaos.

 
    Chapter Ten
    P hin was pacing. He couldn’t help himself. Night had long since fallen, and with no word from Naomi or Silas, he didn’t have anything else to keep the anxiety at bay.
    At least his arm was out of the sling. Though still tender, the wound was already showing signs of scarring—and even then, it’d be minimal. As long as he didn’t tear it open, he’d have full use of his arm within the next few days.
    Little comfort. He’d