Yolanda, perhaps. Or maybe Armando. The sight was enough to bring anyone with a reasonable sense of right and wrong to their knees.
I tried again.
No answer.
I studied the chatty Magnum. Tested the hold on my arms. Still tight as a steel band, staying me in place, at his—their—mercy.
Griffin’s voice was softer than a faint breeze, too weak even to complete his sentiment.
Like a fading pulse. A weakening heartbeat.
The Magnum across from me smiled fondly at the sight of Zoe eating a grown man. A man I’d very much liked and admired, a wonderful specimen of human.
Now gone.
And for what?
“We aredrashneemooshta,” Magnum said fondly. “The pinnacle of creation.”
He dragged his admiration from the meal still in progress over to me. The cacophony of ongoing struggles lessened.
“I am a special kind ofdrashneemooshta. Just as you are a special kind oflushina. The time has arrived for you to give me the rest of your power. I’ve been patient enough. I won’t wait any longer.”
The rest? That implied he had some of my power…
“You refuse to submit by choice, even to save yourlushinafriends. Then you will submit by force. The games are over.”
He brought both hands to my shoulders.
I thrashed and flailed and slammed my forehead into his nose. It spurted blood, a bright crimson as if he were actually as human as he appeared.
Hetsked while I slammed my head back into the face of the one holding me. He yelped, growled fiercely, and gripped me so hard that both my shoulders eased from their joints. A single millimeter more and both shoulders would be fully dislocated. I’d be at their complete mercy, even more than I was now.
I stilled completely.
With blood trailing from both nostrils down his lips, the Magnum in front of me gingerly patted his nose. He scowled angrily at me—like, how dare I?
He boxed my ears with a smack so intense it left my ears ringing, and he aggressively pushed his forehead against mine.
“Iwilltake yourlushe,lushina,” he snarled.
An energy of some sort, which I’d never before known existed within me, stretched toward him through the point of contact. Like taffy being pulled, he sucked it from me.
I didn’t even know how to resist this … this otherworldly shit.
No, I screamed inside.
And suddenly,theywere there.
The Sky People. Thelushina.
In my mind’s eye, in a waking dream, whatever it actually was, light forms that vaguely resembled bodies filled my vision.
Their energy was manic, loud, and most importantly, motherfucking powerful.
27
Dreamwalking, Ba-by!;
