I hesitated. Would I be safer in the car? Or out in the open with the supercharged sorcerer? I pushed the car door open and joined her, waiting thirty feet from the van. Safety in numbers, right?

The van doors flew open and two guys in their thirties got out, both dressed like they were on their way to a performance of The Newsies, clad in vests, collared shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and newsboy caps. They fumed with the kind of hostility you’d expect from road-raging assholes.

A groan escaped my throat. Definitely not tourists.

Lienna side-eyed me. “You know them?”

One of the 1900s paperboys glared at me. “Kit Morris!”

I guess that answered her question.

“KCQ goons,” I informed her. “Telekinetics. Jeff and Geoff.”

“What?” She already had her Rubik’s Cube out and was spinning the pieces around.

“Jeff with a J and Geoff with a G.”

She wrinkled her nose as though the very thought of a Jeff and a Geoff residing in the same space was an abomination. “Are they brothers or something?”

“Only in spirit.”

Jeff and Geoff had been up-and-comers in the law firm, but not because they were lawyers or accountants or anything that required brain cells. They had an official title involving the word “consultant,” but in reality, they were muscle. Muscle without principles. The guys my boss had sent after the enemies Lienna had alluded to earlier.

“Quentin told us you got picked up,” Jeff said as he retrieved three throwing knives from his vest pocket and floated them above his upturned hand. “But he didn’t tell us you’d flipped.”

“Ori te formo cupolam,” Lienna uttered, and the same watery blue shield that had saved my face from the volcanomage’s fireball appeared, this time in the shape of a dome that fully enclosed us.

Jeff launched a knife. The weapon noiselessly struck the magical barricade, causing the tiniest ripple, and dropped harmlessly to the ground. If it had penetrated the shield, it would have found a lovely resting place deep in Lienna’s throat.

“Put down your weapons,” she commanded in her most authoritative voice, “or I’ll be forced to take lethal action.”

“You a copper now, Kitty Cat?” Geoff growled, utilizing the closest approximation of a clever nickname he’d ever come up with.

He pulled out his own telekinetic weapons: a pair of spiky, gold-plated spheres the size of croquet balls attached together by a leather strap. I’d told him more than once that they looked like King Midas’s testicles, and he usually responded by punching me in the arm or something witty like that.

“I’ll make you a deal, Kitty Cat,” the bearer of balls growled. “You help us kill the MagiPol bitch and we’ll keep you safe.”

Bristling, Lienna eyed me. I hadn’t missed her palming a couple of her stun marbles in her free hand.

Not wanting her to use those on me, I said, “Counteroffer: you travel back to 1992 and return Christian Bale’s wardrobe, and I’ll persuade Agent Shen not to transform your intestines into vipers that will eat you from the inside out.”

Jeff and Geoff looked temporarily horrified by the thought, then hurled their weapons at the shield. They ricocheted off, the ripples across the blue dome more pronounced. Lienna retaliated by chucking her stun marbles at them. They passed right through the barrier, but the telekinetics easily waved them away with their psychic power—though the effort almost caused Geoff to drop his Golden Globes.

She scowled as the paperboy mafia bombarded her shield again. Was it just me or were the ripples getting bigger? There was no way they were hitting it harder. These guys were slightly above average telekinetics at best; they didn’t have that “dig deep” quality. That could only mean …

“This shield only lasts a couple of minutes,” she whispered.

“Then do something!” I hissed back. “Can’t you shoot them or liquefy their skin or whatever?”

The KCQ goons regrouped their weapons and slammed them once more against the barrier. The ripples were definitely getting bigger.

Another slam. Bigger ripples.

“MPD agents don’t carry guns and the only other artifacts I have are … not ideal.” She showed me another pair of stun marbles, which had already proven to be less than useful. “These are all I’ve got.”

While Geoff continued his telekinetic barrage, Jeff focused on a manhole cover near the van’s front end, wiggling it free with his mind.

“Can’t the cube do anything else?” I asked.

“Not while the shield’s up.”

Geoff noticed his partner struggling with the massive metal disc and added his psychic power to the effort. Between the two of them, the manhole cover easily lifted into the air.

Taking advantage of their joint effort, Lienna threw another marble at Geoff, but he redirected it away.

“Last chance, Kitty Cat,” Geoff warned as they edged the cover closer to the shield. “You can either join Blue Smoke or I can kick your ass.”

Lienna stiffened. “Blue Sm—”

“We can kick his ass,” Jeff sneered, not noticing her reaction.

Shooting glares at each other, the telekinetics heaved the manhole cover at the shield and the entire dome wobbled. The cover hit the concrete with a deafening crash, but Jeff and Geoff had it off the ground again in a second.

“How long does the shield have?” I asked her sharply.

“Twenty seconds. Maybe less—”

The telekinetics lobbed the cover again. It slammed against the dome and the whole thing rippled like glass about to shatter. If the shield died and they had that beast in the air, they’d render Lienna two-dimensional in a blink.

Crap.

“Remember, I’m not the bad guy here,” I told her.

“Huh?”

“And don’t let them squish you,” I added as Jeff and Geoff picked up the cover again. It rose fifteen feet and aligned to drop on our heads.

She squinted at me. “Wha—”

The manhole cover crashed onto the dome, and as the watery wall burst apart, I shoved her hard. She stumbled backward, and the plunging cover smashed down where she’d been standing.

I tore the shark tooth necklace over my head and my powers rushed back. Damn, that felt good.

Lienna darted away, and as Geoff and Jeff co-aimed the cover at her—a more difficult feat against a moving target—I focused on the two men. Or rather, on their minds.

They hurled the cover, missing Lienna by two feet. As it hit the asphalt with an ear-splitting clang, Jeff’s knives rose into the air and Geoff’s golden balls floated upward with a wave of his fingers. They’d abandoned the heavy metal disc for their usual weapons—which meant Lienna had about three seconds to live.

But I was already in motion, striding toward Geoff. I swept right past his spinning orbs, walked up to him, drew my fist back, and sucker-punched him in the gut. As he doubled over, I grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face down into my knee. His nose crunched, and he ragdolled against the concrete.

Jeff gawked as his buddy collapsed, then blinked at me in disbelieving shock. I knew the moment he realized what I’d done. Rage twisted his face, and his knives spun to point at me.

He was so busy preparing to murder me that he didn’t notice Lienna speeding toward him. Her fist struck his jaw so hard I heard the crack, and he was down before he knew what’d hit him.