Gasping, I hit the ground and rolled to the left. There was a boom, and my hair blew back. I pulled my head up from the floor as the ball of green ever-after spread itself on the wall and down the hallway. I turned. The wisp of a woman was still coming, her face tight and her mouth going nonstop. A red ball of ever-after in her hand swelled, streaked with her own green aura as she tried to bend it to her will.

“You want a piece of me?” I shouted from the floor. “Do ya?” Staggering, I rose to put a hand to the wall to stay upright.

The man behind me said a word. I couldn’t hear it. It was too alien for my mind to understand. It rolled into my head, and I struggled to make sense of it. Then my eyes opened wide and my mouth dropped in a silent scream as it exploded inside me.

Clutching my head, I fell to my knees, screaming. “No!” I shrieked, clawing at my scalp. “No! Get out!” Black-crusted red slashes. Squirming maggots. The sour taste of decayed flesh.

The memory of it burnt itself out from my subconscious. I looked up, panting. I was spent. There was nothing left. My heart pounded against my lungs. Black spots danced at the edges of my sight. My skin felt tingly, as if it wasn’t mine. What the hell had that been?

The man and the woman stood together, her hand under his elbow as she supported him hunched over his broken hand. Their faces were angry, confident—and satisfied. He couldn’t use his hand, but clearly he didn’t need it to kill me. All he had to do was say that word again.

I was dead. The more-than-usual kind of dead. But I would take one of them with me.

“Now!” I heard Edden shout faintly as if through a fog.

All three of us started as the net went down. The shadow of blue hazing in the air fell into itself and vanished. That big witch outside the net was on the floor with his hands laced behind his head. Six FIB officers ringed him. Hope twanged through me, almost painful.

A darting shape drew my eye. Nick. “Here!” I shouted, grasping the cord of the invoked sleep charm from the floor where I had dropped it and winging it to him.

The assassin turned, but it was too late. White-faced, Nick dropped the loop over the head of the woman and backpedaled. She crumpled. The man fumbled for her, easing her to the floor. Mouth agape in surprise, he darted his glance over the room.

“This is the FIB!” Edden shouted, looking awkward in his sling and with his weapon held in his left hand. “Put your hands behind your head and stop moving your mouth or I’ll blow it the hell off!”

The man blinked, shocked. He glanced at the woman at his feet. Taking a breath, he ran.