“What the fuck,” Hail mutters, which I’m guessing means he noticed the shadowkind woman’s sudden makeover too.
A chill ripples over my skin. “She must have come through the rift. Maybe there were a bunch of beings in the flood.”
The crocodile-tailed woman leaps from the smashed truck to the roof of a car parked nearby. She slams her fist into the windshield with a flicker of supernatural energy and then yanks at the driver’s-side door.
It tears off its hinges with a squeal like a dying animal.
Yikes. “She’s strong.”
Mirage has frozen next to me, his ruddy hair even more rumpled than usual. “And cruel.”
The woman hurls the car door as if to punctuate his point. It slams into a nearby store window, smashing through the glass.
I extend my senses toward the higher being, but the only emotion I pick up from her is a dull sense of satisfaction, like a thin layer of peanut butter. She’s pleased with the havoc she’s wreaking. I can’t taste any anger or fear that could tell me why she’s treating the street like a buffet of destruction.
“What should we do about her?” I murmur, a little nervous that she’ll hear us and aim her aggression our way.
It’s hard to imagine I could defend myself against a being that powerful. I’m not sure a full blast of the emotional energy I can gather would make her even wince.
Rollick wanted me out by the rift because he thought I could help… but he didn’t expect that problem to start stomping around and flinging doors. I don’t see how I’m equipped to handle this.
But we can’t let her keep bashing up people’s belongings in full view of who knows how many mortals, can we?
Raze flexes his shoulders. “I’ll subdue her. We’ll capture her and wait until Rollick can come decide how to deal with her.”
He strides forward, merging into the shadows as he does. I watch him vanish with a hitch of my heart.
Is even Raze strong enough to overcome this being? The basilisk shifter has plenty of power of his own, but from what he’s said, his searing eyes and poison skin harm mortals much more than they do fellow shadowkind.
Against the lesser creatures we’ve encountered, he’s mostly relied on brute force. This woman is showing off her own like she’s competing in a demolition talent show.
I drag in a breath, focusing on the churning emotions inside me. Trying to compress them into a blast I could aim at the woman if she lashes out at Raze.
I don’t want to really hurt her anyway, just make sure she doesn’t hurthim.
My anxiety jitters through my concentration. How could any power in my pudgy body be enough to shake her?
How can I make sure I only hit her and not Raze if they’re fighting?
I’m not ready to take on a city-wide catastrophe in the form of a higher shadowkind.
Mirage shifts his weight next to me with a tremor of his own uneasiness. More discomfort pulses off Hail in tandem with my own.
“I could try to encase her in ice—just enough to stop her from moving, not to kill her.” Uncertainty winds through the winter fae’s voice.
I don’t think he’s convinced he has enough power to restrain her either.
“Maybe…” Mirage lifts one hand, and an illusion wavers along the street.
He’s obviously been inspired by the woman’s reptilian tail. Bullrushes and reeds appear to sprout up from the sidewalks and storefronts. The road transforms into a flowing stream.
The imagery expands toward the car the woman is jumping on?—
But before she even notices it, Raze leaps out of the shadows straight at her.
His sinewy body collides with her only slightly smaller frame. They crash onto the road.
I flinch, and Mirage’s growing illusion fractures apart.
