Page 71 of Blood and Bells

“Is this seriously what kills us?” he asks, incredulous. “Elves? Rogue elves?”

“A soothsayer in the thirteenth century predicted something along these lines. I assumed she was drunk. Or knitting.”

We raise our fists as the elves regroup and close in again. We’ve done damage—considerable, festive damage—but it makes no difference.

There are too many of them.

The circle tightens, and I brace for the next rush, already calculating how long we can hold before something important starts detaching.

Holly should not be part of that calculation.

I was meant to keep her out of this. Keep her somewhere sensible, preferably far away from weaponized sparkles and homicidal holiday décor—and instead I’ve managed to lose her in the middle of it while I get myself thoroughly, and somewhat humiliatingly, overrun.

Ronan and I share a look as the next wave gathers itself. We’re both breathing hard, clothes in ribbons, bleeding from what feels like a thousand paper-cut assassins.

“I always hoped I’d go out in a blaze of glory,” Ronan says. “Slightly more tinsel than anticipated, but I’ll take it⁠—”

The front wall of the factory explodes.

What was once a structural wall is abruptly replaced by a truck, a great deal of noise, and the sort of impact that removes one’s feet without consultation. Ronan and I hit the floor in tandem as elves scatter in all directions, the air filling with dust, splinters, and the consequences of poor planning.

I push myself up through the debris, coughing, waving a hand through the haze. “I would like,” I say, to no one in particular, “one problem at a time.”

The dust settles enough for me to make out what is coming.

The coven.

The truck idles where the wall used to be, and Crinkshaw steps down from the driver’s seat wearing an expression so profoundly unimpressed it may, in fact, be celebration. Behind him, the rest of my brethren pour through the gap like a particularly well-dressed disaster.

Wes first, baseball bat over his shoulder and grinning like this is exactly the sort of evening he’d hoped for.

Damian, one of the first to join us, wields a mace laden with spikes.

Ranu, a dark-haired former priestess, moves beside him, her staff angles just so, the blade at its end already promising unpleasant outcomes.

And more behind them—my coven, my thoroughly unreasonable, deeply competent coven—fanning out across the factory floor with the sort of calm that suggests this is not their first festive ambush.

Something in my chest loosens. Just a fraction.

Even Crinkshaw joins the line, straightening his cuffs as if preparing for a particularly aggressive dinner engagement.

They advance as one.

Armed.

Decided.

The rogue elves groan, which I take to be a positive development.

“I don’t have a clever line,” Crinkshaw says, surveying the scene with mild distaste. “Ghouls do not, as a rule, do quips. However,” he adds, adjusting his sleeves, “I am prepared to make an exception.”

He cracks his knuckles.

“I guess you must have…a crink in your neck.”

A rogue elf coughs into the silence.

The fight resumes.