Page 24 of Shifter’s Thunder

Timoki hesitated, pressed a fist to his collarbone in the warrior’s salute, and ran after the basilisk.

Tanner turned and sprinted into the dark, chasing his lightning dragon.

Chapter 12

Avelunne slowed as the corridor widened into the ring-shaped clearing that surrounded the central hub. She could feel Tanner’s presence as he caught up with her.

Tippizoars was already at the lab’s entrance and slapping the door controls with one mid-hand. They carried the unconscious Sazanel like a sack of grain. The wide, bluish metal doors opened, but Tanner was faster. He threw a multifaceted charm that flared bright magic on impact as it shattered against the metal. A shimmering, translucent barrier sprang up, sealing the entry.

“Give us the child.” Tanner held his sword at the ready, but to her relief, stayed at her side.

Tippizoars spun around, their carapace spattered with blood and gore. “Your attack will fail! You cannot even handle time!” Both heads shrieked with inarticulate rage. “The demesne will recycle you! Surasa will destroy all of you and your portals! My legacy will live on!”

Legacy? Avelunne realized with sudden, sick certainty what Tippizoars meant. Repeated rants she’d endured, the surprise upcoming visit from the long-absent Surasa, the special shifter children…

“You have become defective.” Avelunne added as much sneering contempt to her tone as she could. “Surasa wouldn’t bother with a routine delivery unless she was coming to replace you.”

“No! We are fully functional!” Tippizoars’ left head shouted as they backed against the shimmering barrier. Saliva dripped from the insectoid mandibles. “We have served for thousands of years. We are the apex!”

“You cannot stop her,” Avelunne pressed, gambling everything on Tippizoars’ fear of Surasa and erasure. “She will destroy the child to teach you a lesson. Then she’ll recycle you.”

“Give us the child, and we’ll leave.” Tanner’s voice had a subliminal bass harmonic.

Tippizoars’ right head snapped sharp teeth at the left head. The right head snapped back, then the mid-arms hurled Sazanel’s body straight at them.

Avelunne dropped the stolen control box and lunged for the girl. The impact almost toppled her, but she held on.

“I am Surasa’s greatest creation! I will live forever!” A bright, blinding flash and a wave of energy buffeted her as Tanner’s barrier charm failed. Tippizoars slammed a claw onto something inside the door.

The air suddenly tasted of copper. Her sense of lightning told her something was coming from above. A blinding white arc of energy, thick as a tree trunk, lashed out toward them.

Avelunne curled around the child, bracing against a surge of electricity and hoping she could deflect it. Pain drowned her as she smelled burning hair.

Suddenly, Tanner gripped her shoulder, and their telepathic link snapped into place.

His focused, iron will anchored her. Your lightning, my thunder. Like we practiced.

She opened herself up to the power — the arc, his, and theirs. Together, they channeled the lethal surge, the moonwing’s conductivity merging with the thunderbird’s capacity to rumble the sky.

The invisible armor charm on her ankle overloaded and burned out in a scald of heat. Avelunne endured the pain and clutched the girl tighter to keep her behind the killing field.

Tanner took her energy and transmuted it into a sonic wave directed at Tippizoars. The blast hit squarely in their thorax. The lightning power froze them into place, blackening the carapace and exploding the embedded protection charms. The sonic power vibrated the body, the doorway, and the walls.

Tippizoars exploded in a loathsome shower of black ichor and chitin. A charred scorpion tail spun out of the mist, the barb embedding itself in the floor inches from Avelunne’s foot.

The floor around the remaining husk of Tippizoars’ body looked like a forest fire aftermath. The walls hissed and bubbled where blood splatter landed.

Avelunne closed her eyes and listened through the ringing in her ears and past her own frantic heartbeat and Tanner’s stronger one. Relief washed over her when she detected the faint but steady rhythm from the child in her arms.

“Sazanel lives.” Telepathy with him felt clearer than before.

“As do we.” His presence was steady and warm inside her mind. “Let’s keep it that way.”

Erratic magic energy was coming in waves from the tunnels and creating winds in the burned clearing. Probably not a good omen. “I’ll carry Sazanel. You need your sword free.”

He frowned toward the scorched and smoking ceiling where exposed metal poked out. “I don’t like the sound of that. Can you run?”

“Yes. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s running.” She lifted Sazanel’s slender form up over her shoulder and held onto the child’s legs.