Finally, he spotted the last two bargests. They were creeping around the sides of the channel, headed for Will, who was shouting orders to some of the werewolves prowling the edge of the riverbed. His back was turned to the bargests.

“Will!” Jesse yelled, and the werewolf alpha turned around just in time to see the nearer bargest leap for his throat.

Then there was a flash, an agonized noise from the bargest, and the creature backed away from Will with its tail tucked between its legs. The other bargest tried to pounce, but Will extended what looked like a short metal pole, about two feet long.

A cattle prod?

Jesse stared, his mouth open, and Will shot him a grin. “I’ve had to get creative over the years,” he shouted, shocking the first bargest who’d attacked as it came in for another round. Will backed up until his shoulders hit the side of the bridge support, and he was able to fend off the two bargests without much trouble. Eventually the cattle prod would run out of power, though.

The other four bargests streaked down the channel to his aid. Shadow looked completely in her element: confident and sure and in control. Jesse wished Scarlett could see it.

He crouched down again to check on her. Her eyes had closed, but he could see her breathing. “Scar?”

When she didn’t move, he turned on his phone flashlight and gently used his thumb to raise one eyelid. “Shit!”

Her eye was bloody.

Jesse had actually seen this before. Years earlier, Noah had gotten a concussion doing stunt work, and ended up having a subconjunctival hemorrhage, meaning the little blood vessels in his eye had burst, and blood became trapped between the eye’s clear cover and the eye itself. Jesse had seen a couple of cops end up with the same thing: once after a boxing match and once after taking a punch from a suspect.

But Scarlett hadn’t been in the fight, and he was pretty sure she hadn’t hit her head.

He checked the other eye—that one was clear. “Scarlett?” He bent closer to her. “Scarlett, honey, wake up. Talk to me.”

Her lips moved, and he put his ear next to her mouth to hear. “Not sleeping. Trying . . . to hold them.”

Jesse looked up. The fight was still raging, although nearly all the Wild Hunt riders had been pulled off the hellhest. That was something, anyway.

But Scarlett was scaring him. Jesse reached into her pants pocket and took out her phone, a new one she’d collected at Dashiell’s mansion. He was relieved to find that Abby had found the time to transfer all her contacts. He scrolled through and found Sashi’s phone number.

It took a few rings for a sleepy voice to come on the line. “Scarlett?” Then: “What’s happening? It’s so loud.”

“It’s Jesse Cruz,” he shouted, plugging his other ear. “Something’s happening to Scarlett.” As quickly as he could, he described the Wild Hunt and the burst blood vessels in Scarlett’s eye.

“She’s hypertensive,” Sashi said immediately. “Her blood pressure’s rising. Tell her she needs to calm down and relax.”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “She can’t do that! If the riders turn spectral, they can’t be killed.”

“I don’t know what to tell you!” Sashi sounded upset. “She’s too stressed. If she keeps it up, she’ll lose the baby. And she could die.”

“Shit. Call you back.” Jesse hung up the phone and looked around for Shadow. If he couldn’t get Scarlett to stop pushing, Jesse would have to find a way to reduce the pressure.

Several of the lanterns had gotten kicked over, and he couldn’t find her in the chaos. He brought two fingers to his lips and whistled hard. “Shadow!” he hollered. Maybe ten seconds went by before she appeared at his side—with a line of panting bargests behind her like a dogsled team from hell. She’d converted all five.

“Scarlett’s in trouble,” he told her. “I have to help with the fight, okay? Can you watch her?”

Shadow turned her head around, some sort of unspoken communication passing between her and the other bargests. Instantly, they all hurried to form a circle around Scarlett, facing outward. There was some part of Jesse that longed to take a picture to show her later.

Instead, he got to his feet and ran down the channel, pulling out his Glock. From what he could see as he waded into the chaos, the Los Angeles side appeared to be winning, but very slowly. Three Luparii witches, including Petra fucking Corbett, had come to Aldric’s aide, and were fighting Dashiell, who—holy shit, Dashiell could fight?! He was currently human, but he whirled and spun around the Luparii’s sword strikes, knocking Petra down with an open-handed punch to the throat, kicking another calmly in the knee. The third, male witch was hanging back, looking for an opening so he could catch Dashiell off guard, and Jesse recognized the guy who had first shot Scarlett. He raised his own Glock and fired a round at the man’s head.

The Luparii member crumpled to the concrete channel, and Dashiell looked up, surprised. He nodded his thank-you and turned back to Petra, deflecting an overhead strike with some sort of flashing blade. He wasn’t using a gun—he’d been paranoid about hitting his own people in the fray. Dashiell didn’t exactly spend a lot of time at the range in human form.

But Jesse did. He looked for other openings in the chaos, and realized that all the witches still on their hellhest were easy marks. No chance of accidentally hitting the LA people. He put down three of them before one of the Luparii members figured out who was shooting and came for Jesse.

Jesse started to line up the Glock—but he hadn’t heard the Luparii witch coming up behind him. She kicked the weapon out of his hand with her thick work boot and danced away, her hands up like a boxer. Jesse started to reach for the Beretta in his other holster, but she darted in first, landing a quick jab to his solar plexus before he could move away. Even as a human, she was fast as hell. She ducked his next swing—aimed at her head—and danced sideways. He got his elbow up to block her next punch, but it had been a trick. She’d wanted to get close enough to grab the Beretta out of his holster. Jesse fumbled to take it back, but she was quicker—and her movement had put her between him and Scarlett. With a gun. The woman smiled viciously and lifted the handgun, pointing it at his head. Jesse braced himself.

And then the most bewildered look came over the witch’s face. She dropped the gun, and sort of half-heartedly tried to reach over one shoulder. Instead, she flinched again and dropped to her knees, finally falling forward.

Only then did Jesse see the three throwing knives sticking out of her back. And just beyond, Scarlett, standing and swaying in the middle of a circle of bargests. Blood was trickling out of her nose. She gave him a woozy smile and crumpled.

Chapter 46

Despite the pressure in my radius, I managed to struggle to my feet long enough to stop Jesse from being shot by a mean-looking female Luparii. I made a mental note to tease him about letting someone steal his gun . . . then I was falling back down, and I figured I probably wouldn’t remember it.

I managed to sort of catch myself on my hands and knees, rather than face-plant. I was dimly aware that there were other bargests near me, but they weren’t even looking at me, and I figured if Shadow was cool, I was cool. At some point my undershirt must have torn, because the Kevlar vest felt itchy and constraining. I wanted so badly to unstrap it that it was probably good I needed my hands to support myself. I lowered my butt to the ground.

I looked around as best I could, with a huge part of my mind focused on my radius. The fight was starting to wind down, but it wasn’t over. The Luparii witches on their hellhest kept coming to Aldric’s defense, and any number of our people had fallen near his hellhest’s feet and been dragged to safety by the others. Two of the vampires were running around with honest-to-goodness squirt guns, trying to shoot tranquilizers into the hellhest’s mouths.

The squirt guns had been Jesse’s idea, and it seemed to be working: four hellhest were down, and I could see one actually swaying.

Some of the Luparii witches must have tried to run, because there were three naked people trading punches with Luparii witches on the ground. I figured the werewolves had leapt at the riders trying to escape my radius, turning human as they did. I hadn’t even felt the change. It had probably been pretty awesome-looking.