“Phoenix feather. To take out the Scourge.” He plucked another arrow from his quiver, one he’d refashion with the feather. Must be straight and true. “Val Hall is filled with what smells like an army of beings. I might need cover.”
“Count us in,” Sian said.
Not wanting to take his eyes from Josephine, Rune began to craft the new flights, his fingers working from muscle memory.
She targeted the cars next. She lifted them all with one raised palm. With her other hand, she flicked two fingers, and a yellow Lamborghini shot into the wraiths. The impact sounded like a missile hitting rock.
The Scourge warbled and wobbled, but returned to formation much more slowly this time. She was weakening them!
Another flick of Josephine’s fingers. A Hummer hurtled toward the tempest.
Once he’d replaced the flights on his arrow, he used his blood to draw new runes on the shaft. Those symbols would connect his magicks with those of the feather.
As he worked, he could perceive the union—one power to direct the magicks and one to boost them.
He finished, taking one instant to gaze over his work before dropping the arrow into his quiver. He’d happily use this marvel to get his female back.
“This grows wearisome,” Allixta said. “How long will she carry on?”
“Till she gets what she wants or drops,” Rune answered, the awe in his voice undisguised. “My mate likes to keep things simple.”
With another volley of cars, Josephine screamed, “Come out and fight me, you bunch of pussies!”
“And she loves a blunt tool,” Rune added, his chest about to burst with pride.
SIXTY-FOUR
Her fury bubbling over, Jo traced to the cyclone, attacking the wraiths with her claws. Spectral matter sprayed! “I knew you could bleed!” She yelled with triumph, then called to Nïx, “You won’t come out?”—she slashed the enraged wraiths over and over—“Then I’m coming in!”
The front door to Val Hall groaned open. Jo forced herself to let up, catching her breath as she floated back to wait. Your move, Valkyries. . . .
Someone unseen tossed a small bundle onto the porch. Jo squinted. A lock of hair. A key. So the rumor was true.
A wraith swooped in, snatching it up. The tempest parted like water around a rock.
They were letting Jo in. She dropped the rest of the cars—upside down, because she was a bitch. Then she floated toward the belly of the beast. What wouldn’t I do?
“No, Josephine!”
Rune? When she spied him out of the corner of her eye, she waved her hand to pin him back.
“Gods damn it, don’t go in there!”
Before Jo could reach Val Hall, pressure collared her throat. How? She was ghosting! The wraiths were still.
Comprehension. No one had intended to let her in; they’d used that key to let someone out.
A figure emerged from Val Hall.
Thad??
He strode past the wraiths, but his boots weren’t touching the ground. Shadowy circles radiated around his eyes. His dark hair whipped over his pale face. His outline was faint.
Phantom faint. He looked as evil as they came. Dear God, he is like me. She reached for him. “Tha . . . Tha . . .”
His power slammed her to her knees, choking her. Her hands flew to her neck. She couldn’t get air!
Rune bellowed, struggling against her telekinesis. He would hurt Thad to save his mate! She directed more force at Rune.
“Harder, kid!” some woman called from Val Hall. “Pop her bobblehead off!”
He was listening to her.
“Take her down, Thad! Come on, like we taught you.”
The pressure increased, and Jo suddenly saw her future:
Thaddie’s going to kill me.
As dizziness overtook her and black dots swirled her vision, memories of the past erupted in her mind. Thad’s eyes were so like that woman’s.
Like their . . . mother’s. Jo had been with her right before her death!
Jo hadn’t been her name then. She’d been . . . Kierra. A little girl. An eight-year-old halfling in Apparitia, the murky realm of the phantoms.
“It’s worldend!” Kierra screamed. The sky was falling. Failing. Wounded stars plummeted to their deaths, as bright as sparks from a flint.
She clung to the edge of a vortex, her claws digging into the ground. All around her, more black holes hissed open, a wall of them, black upon black upon black.
Like spiders’ eyes.
She had no idea where those sucking holes would lead—rifts had appeared in the ether as Apparitia had begun to die—but escaping through one was their only chance at survival. Mother had never teleported to another plane, couldn’t evacuate them.
“Mother, come with me!” Some relentless force was crushing their dimension. A million screams had sounded with the first fires. Then the plains had jutted up into mountains. The nearby sea had risen, a pillar straight up into the sky. Flames had taken its place, blazing red for blue.
They’d heard rumors of a being who could crumble worlds using naught but his will.
With a pale hand raised to the night, her mother was fighting back. Between gritted teeth, she said, “No, I can’t falter! Or we’ll all be crushed!” If she teleported to Kierra, the dome she’d created above them might disappear.
She couldn’t even crawl to her daughter. One of her hands emitted power; the other clung to her wailing newborn son. Her telekinesis was more powerful than most phantoms’, but she was exhausted from delivering her baby just this morning.
Kierra’s telekinesis was weak and unpracticed, but she had to fight like her mother. “Let me help you!” If only she were older!