Free Bitter Night by Diana Pharaoh Francis Page B

he’s come for war, he’ll be prepared and my personal wards won’t stand.”

    “Then I’m about to be as obvious as a sword up his ass,” Max said. “If he’s innocent, then he’ll just have to suck it up and get over it. Don’t come out until I say so.”

    With that she exited the RV. Niko and Akemi were waiting outside.

    “Alton’s coming in with his Sunspear Prime,” Max told them. “He says Old Home’s gone silent and he wants help. It might be a trap. Roust the Blades. I want four snipers trained on the two of them from the moment they enter. You two join Oz in guarding them, and everybody else will shield Giselle. Questions?”

    The two shook their heads and hurried away. Max went to her Tahoe and flipped up the cargo box beneath the backseat. She once again pulled out her shotgun. Flash-bombs would blind her Shadowblades and do nothing against Alton’s Sunspear Prime. Grenades were too indiscriminate. Instead she loaded her .45 with shot shells. The steel pellets inside spread on penetration, and most of the steel remained inside the flesh. Both Uncanny and Divine beings were susceptible to the power of cold iron’which is what steel was mostly made out of. Hollowpoints would blow apart their heads or pulp their insides and tear a hole the size of a bowling ball on the way out, but at short range, the shot shells had enough stopping power to drop both Alton and his Spear Prime and still leave them alive to answer questions.

    She frowned. Alton was a mediocre territory witch, relying on Giselle’s strength to protect his covenstead. His coven was small, with only himself and six other witches. But he was as ambitious as any witch and tended to brag loudly and strut around to hide the fact that he didn’t have a lot hanging between his legs. He was, in a word, a weasel. Max didn’t like him. She snorted. She didn’t like witches. But Alton was barely one of those. His Sunspears and Shadowblades were equally unimpressive. She could break Dorian, his Sun-spear Prime, in half with one hand.

    Ten minutes later Oz returned with Alton and Dorian in tow. Niko and Akemi waited just inside the small side door as it opened. They stood well out of the way of the wedge of sunlight that fell inside, then closed ranks on either side of the witch and his Sunspear Prime as the door swung shut. Oz and the two Blades held their guns ready, though politely aimed at their visitors’ feet rather than at their chests.

    Max stood in front of Giselle with six of her Shadow-blades ranged in a circle around the witch, all of them armed to the teeth. Alton and Dorian both got the message.

    “What is this, Giselle?” Alton demanded as he stopped. “Is this the way you greet your friends?”

    He was a slender man dressed in tailored clothing that no doubt cost more than Max’s Tahoe. He wore a ruby stud in one ear and a silver cuff bracelet on his left arm. His eyes were ringed in dark makeup, which, combined with his heavy brow and lantern jaw, gave him a look of brooding anger’sort of like a pissy housecat, Max thought. He also looked twitchy and worried. But what caught Max’s attention was that he looked younger than the last time she’d seen him four months ago. The lines around his eyes and mouth had smoothed, and he walked more vigorously, his eyes bright with energy. Her shoulders tensed. Only magic could make a witch younger, and plenty of it. More than Alton had, or why would he have let himself age in the first place?

    “Keep him there,” she barked, and Niko, Oz, and Akemi leaped back and spun around to face the witch and his Sunspear Prime, their guns rising to heart height.

    “Max?” Giselle said softly.

    “He’s lost a good ten years,” Max said softly. “You can talk to him from here.”

    “I demand an apology,” Alton called out, his voice rising. “I am here to call on our friendship and alliance and you point guns at me? This is intolerable!”

    “All the same, Alton, the