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Why the hell should I care what this lunatic does? I’m only playing hero because of Malik!
No, that was not true. No, that was not her own thought, that was a thought that came from . . . them.
She closed her eyes and looked inward, looked without eyes, with thought alone, at the seething, black, liquid image. She faced it cleanly, straight on.
“What do you want from me? What is this game about?”
Was that a ghostly laugh? Was it a sneer echoing across light-years?
Knightmare seized the moment as the transformed Shade stared into space, frowning with crinkling plasticine features. He did the unexpected, the awkward. He swept his claw toward her, stabbing it at her.
Shade shook off her reverie and sidestepped the blow, but this was what Knightmare expected and he had already begun the sharp, quick forward thrust of his sword arm.
The point came within millimeters of Shade’s chest before she twisted and slipped the blow. The sword arm stabbed past her and right through the thick brick wall of the lighthouse. A narrow shaft of daylight entered through the hole.
It was through that small hole that Shade saw something puzzling: the CHP vehicles were pulling away. Men on foot were running. And from far away she heard voices yelling, “Shade! Run! Run!”
Not the Dark Watchers, not this time. That was Cruz and Malik.
Shade spun and bounded back down the stairs, racing out the door, shot a look over her shoulder, and saw the F-16, high out over the water.
She saw the plume of smoke and fire as the F-16’s Hellfire missile launched, flew, then veered unstoppably toward the lighthouse.
Shade reached the flattened SUV and spotted Malik half in an abandoned CHP car. Cruz was in the backseat. Shade jumped into the passenger seat and began to de-morph as the Hellfire, with an enormous crack-BOOM!, annihilated the Piedras Blancas lighthouse, turning it into flying rubble.
For Shade, the world began to move very fast as she de-morphed and sighed with intense relief when the Dark Watchers disappeared from her mind.
Malik backed the CHP car up, executed an impressive skidding turn, and went tearing away.
“Okay,” Cruz said, breathless as they bounced onto the 101. “That was some serious superhero stuff.”
“And now we’re stealing a cop car,” Malik said. “Better and better.”
CHAPTER 17
Battle of the Lighthouse
THIS IS WHAT Justin DeVeere—Knightmare—saw: the disturbing half plastic, half insect, half girl had suddenly run away.
She was gone. He’d seen her blur-quick glance outside and in a heartbeat she was gone, leaving nothing but a short, sharp blast of air.
Why?
He followed the direction she looked, out through the hole he’d made in the side of the lighthouse, and saw the police pulling back at top speed.
He had a very bad feeling.
Knightmare spun, stabbed his sword through the back side of the tower, ripped it up, ripped it sideways, and beat on the wall with his claw. The bricks clattered away and he was out through the hole and leaping for the ground when he saw the missile, a blur, and actually felt the wind of it inches above his massive shoulder. It hit the tower and the whole world exploded.
There followed a period of blackness. He was vaguely aware, vaguely conscious, but his thoughts were scrambled. He was on his face. There was something heavy on his back. He opened his one eye and saw jagged sections of brick wall piled around him.
Erin was there, yanking at him with her weak hands, yelling things he could not hear for the ringing in his ears. But he could watch her lips, her quite pretty lips, not the time for that, and anyway what was she saying?
Get up?
Thoughts and memories all snapped into place and Justin knew. He shrugged off the tons of debris and struggled to his feet.
Did the Dark Watchers just cheer?
