Just how much emotion is Viscera trying to conquer with the way she rampages around the city?
Unless I’m being too optimistic in my interpretations, and she’s simply psychotic to the core.
She did freak out about the wind that one time. She isn’t impervious.
We have to find a way to get through to her, a crack to open up so we can reach a part of her that cares about more than just spewing harm, however deeply it’s buried.
Farther down the street, Sorsha’s winged giant of a mate and the one who’s turned into a huge, eerily glowing dog smash more windows. The phoenix shifter sends spurts of flame inside that light up the shop furnishings.
Zian rams his shoulder into a telephone pole and sends it toppling across the street. Riva dashes to and fro, wrenching fixtures off the fronts of the buildings and hurling them toward others.
There’s no sign of Viscera so far. I ease farther down the undamaged part of the street and break another window with a couple of determined swings. Then I smash the front of a newspaper box for good measure.
How long will it take the rogue shadowkind to pick up on the destruction being waged without her?
What if shedoesn’tnotice?
It’d be just great if she’s decided to snooze on her self-appointed job now.
A few of the shadowbloods cross the street to tackle the shops along the other side. Mirage joins them, shifting into humanesque form and swinging from one store’s awning until it tears.
I stretch out the carnage by hitting every shard of glass still clinging to the window frames. They fracture off into tinier fragments like spiky snow.
When I’ve completely cleared the two windows I destroyed, I walk to the next shop. Cakes dolled up with elaborate whorls of pastel icing pose on the other side of the glass.
My stomach lurches as if I’d just swallowed one of those cakes whole.
They’re so pretty. It doesn’t seem right to bash them up.
Maybe if I smash the windowcarefully, I can manage not to get any glass in the fondant?
I’m raising my bar to make a valiant attempt when a surge of emotion hits me from out of nowhere.
A treacly mush of anguish clogs my throat. My head jerks around.
The sensation isn’t emanating from any of my marked men or my other companions. None of my allies are over in the direction the unnerving flavor is wafting from.
I think the source is close, though. It tastes… maybe only a block or two away.
Did I miss a civilian in my initial search, or has a human ventured nearby that Rollick’s people weren’t able to redirect?
The swell of misery hits me harder. Whoever it is, they’re definitely not having a good day.
I lower my bar, hesitate, and then slip away into the shadows.
I’ll go take a quick look. There’s no reason to distract everyone else from our mission. If Viscera does show up and most of us have abandoned our rampage, she might leave again without revealing herself.
Of course, there are four companions I can’t help signaling inadvertently. I’ve only made it around the corner when I sense my three shadowkind men rushing toward me through the shadows, with Jonah loping along on the sidewalk behind me.
When I pull myself into physical form, the men follow me.
“What’s going on, Peri?” Raze asks. “Why did you leave? It feels like something’s upset you.”
“Someone else is upset.” I motion toward the neighborhood ahead of me. “I’m just making sure we’re not accidentally causing more harm than we meant to. You don’t need to come.”
Hail makes a dismissive sound. “Like you said last night, you’re stuck with us now, Cream Puff. Where you go, we go.”
I don’t think I phrased it quite that way.
