Gregory stared mutely as Malvia’s body twitched, a finger-bde pushing through her eye.

  Screams broke out. The fake Elise twisted her finger, grinning as the other fingers on that hand elongated. People moved away from the tables while the stant drumbeat of the rain hit overhead.

  Rebecca Barnes went limp, still disguised in Malvia, the smile on her faow a fused frown as her legs gave way. The ger’s spear-finger held the corpse up, another pair shooting forward to stab through the side of the throat and the chest, blood p out of both wounds.

  The st two fingers stabbed at Gregory and he called on the power he’d gathered.

  A trumpet’s call blew across the tea party and his sister’s body flew backward into a table with a howl of e. The fingers fell out of Barnes, forced out as the spell forced the ger back. Gregory went to her unscious body, blood p out of her ned chest, the eye missing, nothing but a bloody socket left.

  “Tarver, your servant calls upon you for healing, that this day does not bee ill-”

  “Don’t bother,” Barnes’ ated voice said in his ear. “I’m alright. They aren’t though, so maybe help with them?”

  Gregory looked up and his heart fell.

  He’d pushed the ger into the Bellman’s table. It rose, finger-bdes tearing through them. They’d been trying to flee, but that didn’t save them as those sword-like fingers cut through flesh and bourning people into pieces.

  Gregory couldn’t look away from Triss Bellman’s face, the look of horror on there. The creature didn’t hesitate to slice through her skull. The expression fell apart as her skull did, brains spilling all over the ground and-

  “Move!” the voi his ear hissed, and Gregory ducked.

  Fingers stabbed overhead, halting where he had been standing.

  “Either stay down or tribute,” the voice whispered in his ear, and a pair of needles flew across the air.

  Gregory’s gut twisted as they buried themselves in Elise’s eyes. It’s not her, he reminded himself. He did not know where they’d flown from, but it wasn’t from Barnes who still y on the grouo him. Blood p from her throat and chest. Her eye y on the grouo her, ripped out by the ger’s finger.

  The voi his head wasn’t Barhen?

  The ger hissed as more needles flew, and a pair of fingers stabbed up into the sky. The borrowed form of his sister melted, dress ripping. Chitinous ptes pushed their way through the fabriing armor that following needles bounced off of.

  Tarver, let yood cheer be instilled in this person, ahem know mirth!

  Warmth suffused him. A lute pyed a ditty and a wave of cheeriness spread through him, but the ger didn’t burst into ughter or even twitched. Not powerful enough. Maybe he o recite out loud or physical tact? He’d never had to use this for more than keeping angry parents off his back while esg bedrooms before!

  The other hand’s fingers lengthened, pointed directly at him, and he quickly began mouthing the words to a prayer of prote.

  The table o the ger flew at them, smashing into their side. It didn’t break, bending as the limbs sprang to life, trying to around the shapeshifter. Hissing, it fell to the ground, smming the table against the ground.

  Gregory cut off the prayer before he drew his god’s attention. He’d ested the limits before of how much power from his god, he’d never had to. Draw too mu your deity’s power, and it could hurt you. Both in the sense of drawing too much divine power through your body if it was uo it and if you had not fulfilled your priestly duties as you should.

  He may have a deficit with Tarver, distracted as ret events had made him.

  The only previous time he’d beeed had been the party, and his body had been sore for three days after. How Malvia could sling around so much power without an issue was mind-boggling.

  Across the tea party, Edward began shaking, limbs ing. His mouth stretched. It howled as Father backed away, yelling for someoo shoot it.

  Two already had, unloading full ders. The bullets did nothing.

  Rain poured down onto everyone as the mage maintaining the barrier dropped the spell. Instead, the Edward-ger stopped shaking, restrained by her magic. Father was already halfway across the street. Most of the rest of his family had disappeared from sight, except Harry, who was reloading his revolver.

  One down. Oo handle. Maybe?

  Wood shattered and flew everywhere as the animated table broke. The Elise-ger surning to look at a space to the right ory. A finger bde shot forward, stabbing the empty air.

  “Oh, poor little monster ’t see through my illusions with those useless eyes,” Barnes whispered in Gregory’s ear.

  His sister’s pale blue eyes split, new glowing green ones pushing forward.

  “Those will. Duck!”

  He flung himself to the ground, something passing just overhead. A finger-bde swung down and he moved to the side. The patio floor cracked where the finger nded.

  The two fingers she’d shot at him formed knuckles. One on each side of him.

  “Tarver, protect your servant in his time of need!”

  He barely got the desperate prayer out before the two fingers swung at him from the side, f a sharp edge as they closed in.

  They scraped along the sides of a formed shield, golden divine energy humming through an opera. The bdes failed to find purchase, instead halted ihe ger hissed as it tried to close them like the world’s rgest pair of scissors.

  His sister’s face split in half, flesh forced to the side as an armored mask forced its way through. Bone-white and with eight holes dotting its oval surface, it moved to the side, something moving inside. His shield fred as the dart impacted, failing to pee.

  Something rumbled underh, the crack from the finger spreading. Vines shot out, stabbing into ks in the chitin. Thorns burst from the gers skin as the vines burrowed, cutting through skin and chitin.

  Gregory overturned a table between them just to be safe. The creature snarled and writhed, finger bdes cutting at the vines for now.

  Oher side of the party, the Edward shifter had gone limp. Two guards and the mage approached the tter, gesturing. Trying to tighten the bonds.

  His brother’s stolen head lolled to the side, fag her. His mouth opened, and his tongue shot out, growing in size. It ed around her head, muffling her screams. Her entire head was covered in grey flesh. One guard hacked with a sword, trying to cut through. Something cracked, and the screaming grew only louder. The sword parted flesh.

  It was too te; the mage’s tration was already broken, and the restraints with it.

  The ger grew with flesh puffing up, swallowing the limbs. More tendrils emerged, holes opening up in flesh as they seized nearby guests and pulled them ihe creature swelled, already past an ogre in size. They finally hacked the tendril restraining the mage, only for what was left of her cracked-open skull to gush out.

  Something. There has to be something-

  Gregory’s cover broke as a single bde-finger pung through before expanding, splitting the table in two.

  Gregot to his feet, footing unsure on the rain-slicked patio.

  Fingers stabbed out. No prayer, just instinct, and suddenly he was off his feet. He hit something, breaking wood, then an impact that drove the breath from his lungs.

  Finger bdes crawled over his shield, trying to find a weakness as the warmth in his body grew. He gasped, the heat feeling like a fire being pressed against his insides.

  The operatioises rose in pitd the shield thied, the color of gold blotting out anything beyond it. His veins burned as he tinued repeating the prayer over and ain as the shield sparked and whined iunes of a cello.

  The back of the shield shattered, his bading on the soaked patio floor. The front stayed solid, only to suddenly turn opaque as the bdes withdrew.

  The Elise-ger writhed, vines and animated chairs grappling all over it. Shattered wood and shredded vegetation flew all over the pce.

  Off in the distahe ger that had impersonated Edward had half a dozen people partially pulled into its fleshy body, some still struggling, one limp.

  Please let no one be fully ihe creature’s body.

  Ane had emerged, the one trolling the weather. Spikes of ice stabbed into the ger at different arying to avoid stabbing auside meant only a dozen icicles had been driven in. Would they even slow it down.

  Meanwhile, Barnes harassing the shapeger here seemed to be slowing down, the vines and animated furniture slowing. The shapeger however was bag away, additional eyes opening and closing all over its body.

  The ger hissed, looking around as more eyes opened along its chalk-white skin. It shrieked as two needles flew from up above, puncturing the eyes.

  Gregory took the opportunity. Attempts to influehe minds weren’t w. They’d shift out of restraints. Bsting with divine magic wouldn’t have the same effect it did on Infernals. All he had was raw force, and that had to be enough.

  A bst of the trumpet again and the ger jerked back, the mask-face crag. Pus poured out of those cracks, falling onto the ground. It hissed, bde-fingers pulling in. Would it try stabbing him with them? It hadn’t worked when it tried cutting, but the force behind those sshes hadn’t seemed a tenth as powerful as its finger extending in instances.

  More animated furniture swarmed it, while across from them both guards had surrouhe Edward-ger. Ice had frozeions of the ger while guards pulled those captured out. The ice shuddered, then broke apart, ks sent spying as the creature colpsed in on itself. It thinned, wings emerging from its back.

  Wings burst from the Elise-ger’s back as well. They uhemselves into the sky, bits of furniture and spikes of ice flying through the sky after them.

  No one else was really on this side of the destroyed party. Nothing but the dead as Gregory sat down in the middle of it all. He’d dohing that had helped.