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She blinked in surprise then brightened. “So we are!” Resolute, she took a deep breath, shoved the hood back, then gripped the makkas bracelet that kept her from Xharbek’s notice and pushed it up and over her sleeve.
Crouching, I watched and waited, lassos ready in my grasp.
A demon bellow sounded from around the corner, followed by shouts and three shotgun blasts. Rifle fire cracked in the opposite direction as a pair of kehza beat their wings in hard flight toward the cloud cover.
Xharbek’s here, I thought yet still startled when he appeared only a few feet from Elinor. He was in Zack form, but his sneering smile was one the true Zack had never worn. Rakkuhr swirled around him though it stayed at least a foot away, as if he had an invisible rakkuhr-blocking shield. He stepped toward Elinor, but the triumph on his face only lasted a fraction of a heartbeat before it shifted to black fury. I didn’t have to be a mindreader to know he’d sensed the firewall and realized she was ruined
for his purposes.
Elinor backed away. He moved as if to pursue, then flinched, though nothing physical had touched him. Szerain. A second later, Xharbek staggered and gave an incoherent cry that echoed through me with a strangely familiar sense of chaos.
Szerain stood as pale as a corpse, hands raised above him, clenched on Vsuhl. A shudder passed over his body, and I could practically see the bond shredding.
Xharbek stumbled and went to one knee even as Szerain let out a heartrending scream and crumpled. He wasn’t unconscious, but it was clear he couldn’t do anything. So much for Szerain having the advantage by being the one to break the bond.
Xharbek was affected though, which was all I needed. I lunged up from my crouch with the lasso ready to drop over his head. But before I’d covered half the distance, he shoved upright and flung out a hand, smacking me with a blast of arcane that sent me flying back a good twenty feet to land in the street.
The air whooshed from my lungs, but the rubbery concrete saved me from broken bones. I rolled to my side and struggled to get my breath back as Xharbek let out a shriek of pent up frustration and visceral hatred. His face twisted—literally—shifting from Zack to Carl to a rookie cop whose name I couldn’t remember to a state representative to at least a dozen other faces, male and female, none of whom I recognized. Through each change his eyes stayed wild.
“No more,” he shouted, voice hoarse and furious. “Fuck the lords! Fuck all of you! Be it known that the hybrid spawn have destroyed themselves and you human insects with them.”
He vanished.
“Kara!” Bryce was there, helping me to my feet. “What the hell just happened? That wasn’t Zack, was it?”
“Xharbek,” I wheezed then staggered as Elinor threw her arms around me.
“He is vanquished!” she cried. “How brave you are!”
“No, he’s not vanquished,” I said. His Fuck the lords still reverberated through my mind. “He isn’t done with us yet.” I cast a wary look around even though I knew I wouldn’t see him coming.
Elinor released me and cast her own worried glance around. “Is he not restricted from doing us direct harm?”
“Yeah, but he’s also crazy.” Would Xharbek even give a shit about the constraints anymore? Especially since he wasn’t as restricted as the other demahnk. He’d already increased the rakkuhr flow from this valve and added enough mutagen to disrupt life as we knew it. If he cranked it open more, would we be able to stop it?
A faint ground tremor set the crimson vines quivering. Turek let out a croon of worry as he cradled Szerain in both sets of arms. My This Is Really Bad feeling climbed higher.
The street vibrated but not like the tremor. A car engine revved, and I spun to see a military light utility vehicle racing our way, tires squealing oddly on the rubbery street surface as it careened around rubble.
That’s Jill, I realized in shock and dread. There was no reason for her to be driving here like a bat out of hell unless something horrible had happened to the others.
She screeched to a stop less than a dozen feet away then flung herself out of the vehicle, breathing hard.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Bryce demanded an instant before I could say the exact same thing. Worry twisted his face as he ran to her, easing only slightly when he noted the makkas taped onto her arm.
Jill gave him a quick, hard hug that seemed to surprise them both, then wheeled toward me. “It’s Ashava,” she gasped. “She’s practically beating on the inside of my head. She needs to come here, but you have to help her. Now. It’s really important.”
My tongue stumbled over itself in astonishment for several seconds. “Help?” I finally managed. “How?”
“She says to reach for her?” Jill gave a confused shake of her head then seized my hand. “She told me you’d know what to do. So do it. Hurry!”
There was no nexus here to aid me, but I had mega-Mom power instead. Using everything Szerain’s sketches had revealed of Ashava’s spirit and personality, I fixed the sense of her in my mind then mentally reached, as if extending a hand to help someone out of a ditch.
I felt a hand seize mine, both physically and in a ghost-grip of the arcane. The next thing I knew, a lovely young girl with auburn hair and brilliant blue eyes stood before us.
“Mommy!” she cried out with unabashed joy, then she threw her arms around Jill’s waist and pressed her head to her mother’s chest.
Jill let out a choked sob and held her daughter close. After only a few seconds, they stepped apart, as if both remembered the urgency of the situation.
