‘Fuck!’ burst out Jenna. She sent a wave of Movement and it blew up a little table with beverages. Glass shards fell on the floor and colourful drinks were spilled everywhere. 'Fuck!'

Jenna was on the ground floor of the Tate Modern, a big, open space where the party intended to be. There was nothing above but the roof: the other stories didn't cover the ground floor completely, they were more like balconies, some of them even covered by glass.

'Jenna, honey, try to calm down,' said Rose. She was pale herself, and her hands were shaking, but she apparently decided that she had to pull it together for the others.

'Im so fucking sick of this, you know?' Jenna said, pacing up and down angrily. 'That motherfucker is always one step ahead of us, always!'

'I know, sweetie, me too. But Marcus needs us now,' Rose said, still in the voice of an understanding mother, and Jenna felt her stomach turn from that though because mother was the very thing Rose never will be. Because of The Priest.

Marcus and Robert hurried off after the news came. More precisely, Marcus ran to catch The Priest, and Robert went with him because he couldn't leave his best friend alone right now. That was almost half an hour ago, and they didn't call since then: they could have been in a fight or dead by now.

Jenna, Rose, Ayana and Cornelius Blake stayed at the gallery on the off chance that The Priest would show up after all to kill the politicians too. Blake cancelled the party, so now it was just them and about forty police officers who were supposed to secure the event.

'I should've gone with them,' Jenna said.

Rose shook her head.

'No, not at all. We need you here, you are our best chance if that bastard shows up, and you know that. Don't worry about Robert. He is very hard to kill, nobody knows that better than you.'

Jenna scoffed. Yes, Montgomery was a worthy opponent once, but now… Well, actually, he isn't someone you wanna meet in a dark alleyway even now, with most of his magic gone. But still: The Priest wasn't someone easy to defeat either.

'Did you know him well?' asked now Ayana. Jenna looked at her surprised. Up until now she was wandering around in the huge space seemingly aimless, stopped at pictures on the wall to take a look. She even went into the room Robert told Jenna about with the menthol in the air that was supposed to make everyone cry. Ayana didn't shred a teardrop.

'No, not really,' Jenna shook her head. 'Didn't really like him either. It's just… I didn't think he could be killed, you know?'

'And he was kind of… One of the good guys?' risked Rose.

Jenna scoffed again.

'I wouldn't go that far, but he did what he thought to be the best for the city and that's something I guess,' she said. 'Anyway, he didn't deserve to die.'

'Nobody does,' said Ayana and she walked away again. Rose and Jenna looked after her with the same "what a weirdo"-expression on their faces.

Blake was talking on his phone ever since they got in the building, but now he finally put it away.

'I'm sorry for your loss,' he said with a kind voice to the women. He talked slowly and quietly but his tone was deep and sonorous, ever more so than Robert's. Jenna wasn't in the mood anymore but she knew that this voice could make her knees tremble a little if they have met in other circumstances.

'Yeah, erm… Thanks,' said Jenna. Rose just nodded.

'What do you think, will that man appear?' he asked.

Jenna shrugged.

'Probably not,' Rose answered. 'By now he must know that the party isn't happening.'

'How?' frowned Blake. 'Nobody knows that.’

'He has his ways,' answered Jenna. 'Always.'

Blake nodded but didn't say anything. Instead, he went to a table Jenna didn't destroy yet and poured them some champagne.

'I know now is not the time for celebrating but you hit the table with the stronger drinks I'm afraid, Miss Carano.'

'Alcohol is alcohol,' shrugged Jenna and drank up the champagne with one go. She was about to get another glass when her phone started to ring. She basically ripped it out of her pocket. The screen showed Robert's name.

'Yes?' she said. Her voice trembled.

'It's me,' answered Robert. Jenna let out a big sigh. 'We are heading to the hospital.'

'What happened?' she asked sharply.

'The Priest is in the wind as per usual, but Remy's group ran into like two dozens of golems. We went to help and the Ghost showed up too with her friends but a few golems still escaped. We have some cuts and broken bones, nothing serious, don't worry. We are just getting some stitches and heading back out to hunt down the rest of the golems. How does it look on your side?'

'Blake cancelled the party and we are waiting but I doubt The Priest will walk into our trap. How is Marcus?'

There was a moment of silence before Robert answered.

'Hard to tell. I don't even know if they were close or not, he kept that part of his life as a secret. But he looks very angry. In fact, I think I should stay with him tonight, just to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.'

Jenna nodded even though Robert couldn't see it.

'Okay. I will stay here for a couple of more hours, just in case. If anything happens, call, okay? You know what? Call anyway, I wanna know where you are tonight.'

'Are you worried about me, Miss Carano?' Robert asked with a cocky grin in his voice.

'I am,' said Jenna honestly.

'Oh,' replied Robert. 'Okay. That's… Nice.'

Jenna grinned.

'Be safe out there, Professor. See you soon,' she said.

‘See you,’ he answered and hung up.

‘It was Montgomery,’ turned Jenna to Blake and Rose. ‘They missed The Priest but killed most of his little pets. They are trying to find the rest.’

Blake nodded.

'Is everyone all right?' asked Rose.

'They've got some scratches,' shrugged Jenna. 'Robert said it's nothing serious.'

'Thank God,' murmured Rose. '

‘So I suppose we wait now,’ said Blake. He looked around but couldn't find what he was looking for, so he simply sat on the floor and put his back against the wall. He pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around them.

Jenna did the same, and Rose settled down on the other side of the man. Ayana was nowhere to be seen: she probably went to see the displays. Might as well: there won't be a better time for that than now when the gallery didn't have any loud tourists. The police officers stayed on their posts or were patrolling the corridors. Some of them seemed shocked or angry, some of them seemed sad, and a few looked like they didn't care about who died.

'So, why are you here, Agent Blake?' asked Rose. 'I mean, the MAGE has Marcus because he knows Robert and the Commissioner,' her voice trembled a little but she swallowed and continued. 'Ayana is something of an expert or the closest one to it we can get. What about you? What qualifies you to be here?'

Blake looked like he never even thought about that before.

'It is my luck, I suppose,' he said. 'Good or bad, we will see. I was with Marcus in Egypt when he got the call and since we finished our business there anyway, I tagged along. We are free to go wherever we want between missions.'

'I see,' nodded Rose. 'Speaking of getting lucky, do you want to have dinner later?'

Jenna scoffed.

'Keep it in your panties, Blondie,' she said.

'What?' she leaned forward to look at Jenna with a grin. 'You said it: a girl needs her fun.'

Blake laughed. He had a contagious, happy laugh.

'Sure, why not?' he said. 'My bosses ordered me to stay, observe and help out for the moment being, anyway. I've only been to London once before, for like a busy day, I'd love to take a look around.'

Oh yeah, Jenna thought, Rose will give you things to observe… She was a little jealous. Not necessarily because she wanted to date Blake, more like because she didn't have the opportunity. Being in a relationship was all fun and laughs so far (well, except for the parts when people and other things tried to kill them), but this whole monogamy thing was a pain in the ass, and not in the fun way.

Hours went by, but nothing happened. Robert called every now and then: around midnight he said that they found another group of flesh golems, most likely the ones that escaped earlier, but it was hard to tell, given that all the characteristics they had was "nightmare-ish". This time they managed to destroy every last one of them. Robert believed that they were the last ones and the exhausting but fruitless police search seemed to back up his theory.

'I don't think anything is gonna happen here, want me to catch up?' Jenna asked.

'No, it's all right,' Robert answered. His voice was tired, but he was up for almost 24 hours, so no surprise there. 'You should call it a day and get some sleep.'

'Yeah, I think I might… What the…?' it sounded almost like a firework, but not quite. Jenna's ears weren't trained to hear the difference for sure, but Blake jumped on his feet and an extendable baton with Runes was on his hand by the time the "bamm" of the second shot rolled over the floor.

'What's wrong? Jenna?'

'I don't know, it's like the coppers are shooting at something in here, but I can't see…'

A long, fearful cry and an officer landed on the ground with a too loud thud. He didn't move anymore. Jenna flinched.

'Jenna, you okay? Can you…' Robert's voice was cut. The girl looked at her phone: it died. The screen wouldn't turn on.

More shooting. Another policeman fell into his death from the highest floor.

'Up there,' pointed his baton Blake. He was right: the tall figure in the duster coat and the white wooden mask was fighting with another policeman. He didn't bother with magic, simply just reached out, through the copper's bulletproof vest and chest. Rose cried out and covered her mouth with her palm and even Jenna groaned.

Blake let a spell fly: it was nearly impossible to hit a moving target across the huge distance, but the agent managed it nevertheless. The Priest's coat lit up. Then something big and smoke-like appeared and pushed the man over the handrail. It was a demon and once it was gone, Ayana showed up in its place, looking down.

The Priest fell silently and Jenna hoped it's because he was already dead. Maybe Ayana's demon killed him and it's over. He looked like an oversized fireball with his burning coat. Then another thud, and he was on the floor. Jenna stared at his body, waiting for the blood slowly making a pool around him as it did around the dead policemen.

But there was no blood. The man's right arm moved, then he groaned and slowly got up. The fire on his coat died out.

'Ouch,' he said. His mask was shattered, had a spider-web of cracks on it.

Jenna exploded. The shadow hound leapt at the man at the same time when all the broken glass-pieces her earlier anger made jumped in the air. She also made a cloud of white smoke using the Runes of Poison and Air, and the smoke forced its way under the mask, into The Priest's body. Blake was on the move too, he hit the masked man with his baton and it must have been enchanted because The Priest flew a couple of metres backwards. The shadow dog travelled with him, fangs sank deep into his flesh.

It wasn't enough. The dog disappeared in a big flash of light, the poison had no power over him and if the glass shards ever reached him, they were pointless too.

Now it was the police's turn. The Priest was finally far enough from everyone else's to take aim on him, and that's what they did: the gunfire was deafening. It didn't last: The Priest closed his gloves-covered hands and all the guns became wrinkled, useless pieces of metal-junk. There was no sign of any injury on the man.

'Now, where were we? Oh yes. Where are my politicians, Miss Carano?'

'I'm afraid you will have to do with my company tonight,' answered Jenna.

'Might as well,' The Priest shrugged and waved lazily. Jenna's silver bracelets turned into ash or something similar. She felt hands grabbing her, invisible, irresistible hands and she was flying now towards the wall. But it wasn't a wall anymore, it was a huge stake emerging from the stone of the wall, pointing at her. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine Robert's face one more time, and then she stopped with a hitch. She felt something very hot and assumed that must be her brain tricking her before the pain would arrive.

Jenna opened her eyes and was happy to see that she wasn't dead. She wasn't even impaled on the giant spike, she was levitating in front of it. The girl looked around trying to understand what happened.

Rose happened. She was wielding two wands now, using simultaneously both of them which was a neat trick on its own. One was pointed at Jenna, and she felt her body lowering onto the floor as the wand lowered. The other one was aimed at The Priest, wrapping him in a beautiful, multicoloured, roaring thunder of fire. The fire couldn't touch him just yet, but he had to fight it, and was slowly retreating.

'Catch!' Rose shouted and threw one of her wands to Jenna. She grabbed it in the air.

There was no sassy comeback this time, only brutal force. It was three versus one, and The Priest might have been one of the strongest sorcerers alive, but it wasn't enough. Especially after Ayana made her way to the ground floor too and joined the fight. The police, unarmed now, blocked all the possible exits in case they would lose.

The necromancer tried all his tricks. He tried to destroy their weapons, but they were ready for that now and used the Rune of Denial. He tried to control their mind but every time he was close, someone hit him with a curse, messing up his concentration. He even raised the dead police officers, but Jenna and the others knew only too well how to deal with zombies by now.

Jenna didn't know how long she could keep this up; she used a lot of magic that day already by the time she even arrived at the Tate Modern. She saw Rose's knees buckling too. Blake looked tired as well, his once deadly precise curses missed their target more often. Ayana fought as she did everything else: in a daydream, with an expressionless face as if she wasn't even fully there.

The Priest must have seen the signs too because he decided to do something desperate.

Every glass broke at once with a crack that was so loud that Jenna's ears started to ring. All the windows, the glass wall covering one of the balconies, even the glass ceiling above. There were shards falling everywhere. In the chaos, Jenna lost The Priest, and she saw Blake jumping and grabbing Rose right before she could get impaled by a piece of the ceiling, and Ayana was down, her shoulder red from her blood.

Something exploded into tiny shining things at Jenna's feet. She looked up and saw a shard, as big as herself, falling towards her. Jenna cried out the name of the Rune of Movement and everything stopped.

Everything, even the smallest crumb of glass, even her hair in the air, even Rose and Blake while rolling on the floor.

Even The Priest, frozen in the movement lifting his bare hand to look at them; Jenna paid her due for her bracelets and destroyed his gloves. The Priest fought, Jenna could feel it, but he didn't stand a chance. Not now. Jenna didn't even have to concentrate to "unfreeze" Blake, who continued to roll trying to protect Rose from a danger that wasn't there anymore.

'Agent Blake,' said Jenna in a strange, far-away voice. 'If you have a Signum, please use it. Don't worry, he can't move or do magic. Everyone is safe now.'

Blake did as he was told. It was kind of beautiful, the tall black man walking through the waterfall of unmoving, sparkling glass. He branded The Priest with the Signum then got out a magically enhanced pair of handcuffs. Jenna made a move, similar to when a conductor ends the music. Every broken piece turned into sand and they were standing in a snowfall of sand now. Jenna didn't feel anything, not even exhaustion. She did it. It was over.