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I have no idea how many bystanders might have been buried when the criminal shadowbloods attacked. I drag in a deep breath, tasting the air for panicked pheromones, but there are too many lacing the breeze from the people all around us for me to narrow down anyone injured.
Zian’s head jerks around. “I can hear a groan—faint, but it’s definitely someone down there. Come on!”
We hustle after him until he stops near one of the larger heaps of rubble. Dominic takes a quick glance around. He points to a row of shrubs that just escaped the devastation. “I’m going to grab a couple of those so I have energy for healing.”
Jacob is already motioning at the chunks of stone with his hand, his telekinetic powers heaving one and then another slab farther away. As I dive in to heft up one boulder with my supernatural strength, Andreas swallows audibly.
“I’m not sure there’s any way I can really help with rescuing people,” he says. “I—I’ll do a circuit of the scene, peek into people’s memories. Maybe I can find someone who witnessed the attack and can give me a clearer look at the new shadowbloods.”
I shoot him a quick smile. “Good idea.” Then I bend down over the next hunk of rock.
Zian lends both his strength and the cutting edge of his X-ray vision, wrenching one jagged block out of the way with his bulging arms while he cracks another into pebbles with his eyes. Between the three of us shifting debris out of the way, I’ve only just started to break a sweat when I spot the green fabric of a sleeve through a gap.
“There!” I pry up the next chunk more carefully, not wanting to send any others crashing down on the victim.
We’ve uncovered all but the woman’s lower legs when Dominic hurries back to us, dragging a bush he’s uprooted. His tentacles unwind from beneath the thin jacket he hastily threw on over his tee before we left.
When I catch his gaze, he offers a tight smile. “Anyone who notices might as well see thatsomemonsters aren’t out to hurt them.”
He kneels down by the woman, one tentacle twining with the shrub’s branches and the other looping around her arm. She gazes up at him with glazed eyes, blood dappling her cheeks and her sweater.
Dominic aims a softer smile at her, his voice equally gentle. “I’m going to patch you up. It’ll be okay.”
Before our eyes, the bruising on her forehead fades. The hitch leaves her breath.
Jacob casts his gaze around. “There are probably more buried survivors. We should keep searching.”
There isn’t anything more the three of us can do for this woman now that Zian has lifted the last rock from her feet. We prowl off over the unstable terrain, our ears pricked and eyes scanning.
Zian lets out an urgent sound and directs us to another spot where he caught a sound of distress. We dig into the rubble again without hesitation. Despite the chilly winter air, beads of perspiration roll down my back beneath my own hastily grabbed jacket.
“It’s only a small part of the city they destroyed,” Jacob remarks in a momentary pause between shifting boulders.
I think of the footage I watched. “They wanted to be quick, in and out before anyone could pay much attention to what exactly was happening. Before there’d be much evidence forusto see and use to track them. The main point was the message.”
I pause, adjusting my grip on the rough edge of another stone slab. This one is sculpted with lines I can tell were once elegant.
My throat tightens. “And this was a place that meant a lot to people. Centuries of history. They went for size of emotional impact rather than hitting a whole bunch of buildings.”
The fact that I can understand Balthazar’s reasoning makes me a little queasy, even though I don’t agree with what he’s doing. There’s a method to his madness.
Toni’s words from this morning echo through my head.Willa was there. So they tore her apart. Literally.
And now Balthazar is going to tear apart everything the rest of the world cares about until they agree to strike back against the creatures he blames for his wife’s death. Never mind that only a few of them—maybe only one—actually carried out the murder.
Never mind that they would have seen it as self-defense after he attacked them first.
I unearth a shoe without a foot in it—one so small it has to belong to a child. My gut lurches in the second before Jacob’s eager exclamation. “I see him!”
But just as Zian disintegrates the chunk pinning down the little boy’s chest, the boom of a loudspeaker splits the air. “You three near the trees, move off the wreckage now.”
Our heads swing toward the projected voice.
I haven’t been paying attention to the rumbles of vehicles coming and going. A military-style truck has parked near the edge of the ruin, and three men with rifles are standing around it, one of them holding the loudspeaker. Several more figures in police uniforms have appeared, easing onto the rubble toward us.
I glance at Griffin over by the helicopter. His lips are pursed tight, his eyes wide. As if sensing my look, he gives a slight shake of his head.
He can’t push enough emotion on everyone here to stop their interruption. If it wasn’t this group, someone else would be coming after us.
