floor

to get out of the line of fire.

"Get them!" he shouted. "Kill them!"

With a chorus of howls the beast-women surged toward the stairs. Jacqueline

picked up Blood's gun and started firing with both pistols at the attacking

creatures, dropping five of them as they charged her, but there were far too

many for her to shoot. And then Makepeace came up beside her, took a deep

breath, and exhaled. The floor beneath the attacking creatures' feet suddenly

turned to ice, and they fell, snarling and spitting, as they piled up at the

foot of the stairs.

Joey scrambled up the steps of the dais, turned, and fired his gun at Modred

once again, but in that same instant Ian collapsed to the floor as Modred sat

up, blood pouring from the flesh wound in his side, his eyes burning with red

fire, and twin beams shot out from them, converging on the bullet that was

hurtling toward him at thirteen hundred feet per second and incinerating it

in

midair.

Joey fired three more times in rapid succession, and each bullet was

incinerated

the same way. He hurled the empty gun at Modred, and it, too, went up in puff

of

smoke. Then he ran as several of the creatures launched themselves at Modred.

A pencil-thin beam of brilliant green light bisected the chamber and struck

the

jewel in Modred's chest. He hurled the beasts off effortlessly, and a bright

red

beam shot out from his runestone, striking Kira's upraised palm where she

stood

on the opposite side of the chamber, at me end of the dais. As Wyrdrune moved

toward the stairs a bright blue beam shot out from Kira's hand and struck the

blazing green emerald in his forehead.

The triangle was formed.

The three of them were linked by beams of thaumaturgic energy as they drew

upon

the full strength of the ancient spell, the most powerful incantation ever

devised by the archmages of the Council of the White, who now lived on

through

them. They raised their arms over their heads, and the glowing borders of the

triangle extended upward, forming a pyramid of light that spread out from

them

to encompass the entire chamber.

The howling beasts created by the necromancer clutched at their throats and

fell

thrashing to the floor, then, with a sound like air rushing in to fill a

vacuum,

the pyramid of light collapsed back into itself and they all lay still upon

the

floor, set free, reverted back to human form.

"Carfax!" Jacqueline shouted, pointing toward the passageway where Joey had

gone. "He's getting away! Stop him! He's the necromancer!"