I dodged reflexively, but whatever it was hit my shoulder, bounced off, and then blew a hole in the wall.

Well, not entirely bounced off. I could feel a bruise forming. That had been meant to kill me.

Clara’s eyes widened. “Jane!”

“Get out of here. There’s an ally upstairs. Go with him. I’ll deal with this.”

The high priestess was looking at her hands as if not sure what had happened as Clara ran. “She still violated an oath.”

“As you meant to violate her. Lust imps to make somebody gay for you? Really?”

I closed my hands around my sword and stepped forward.

“You wouldn’t…”

“Didn’t you just try to blast me? You lost your right to civilized treatment with that.” It would have killed a normal person. I was sure of that.

The ironic thing was, of course, that I was pretty sure Clara didn’t need lust imps to turn her gay, not from the way she’d looked at me. The priestess tossed another spell blast.

I parried it with my sword. It ricocheted and turned a stray, remaining imp into a red smear that evaporated almost immediately.

I didn’t want to kill her, really. The entire point of this operation had been to expose her. And in a world where most people didn’t believe in magic I couldn’t exactly press charges against her for attempted murder.

She could against me. Instead of pressing the attack, thus, I backed up the stairs into a fighting retreat, idly beheading an imp as I did so.

Up the stairs and out of there. We’d get something on her. I was sure Clara’s phone had something we could use in it. As I did so, I felt the faintest sensation of wings and, I was sure, approval.

Hunin. I didn’t have time to acknowledge the raven outside the depths of my thoughts, though. I had to get out of there.

Clara and the efreet were already beating a retreat from the house. I followed them, carefully, trying not to turn my back on the imps. Or the witch.

“She tried to kill you,” Clara said, her voice a little ragged.

“You’re going somewhere…”

“No,” the efreet said firmly. “She’s staying with me.”