“So you’d like us to think.” Hueber motions to the people around him. “Gentlemen?”
There are a few women in the crowd of sorcerers and hunters too, but I guess Hueber isn’t worried about accuracy. They all jerk to attention anyway.
The hunters brandish their gleaming weapons. The sorcerers open their mouths with a chorus of deep breaths that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
A warning bursts out of me. “Don’t let them use their magic!”
I didn’t need to point out the obvious. Raze has already lunged forward from where he cushioned Hail’s fall.
His eyes narrowing, he aims his deadly black glare at the crowd of sorcerers.
One topples over unconscious before any of them even manage to speak. With the first sorcerous syllable passing over their lips, another crumples to the ground.
My pulse jitters with the sense that it’s not enough, but Raze isn’t alone. A sudden spurt of water forms in the air and smacks into a few of the open mouths, leaving the sorcerers sputtering instead of ensorcering. Fen lets out a timid but bright crow of victory.
Nearby, Vim has hunched her shoulders with an impression of strain. Beneath a couple of the other sorcerers, the layer of asphalt erupts. They fall on their asses amid puffs of dry dirt.
And Jonah’s voice is ringing out louder than we could hear any of the farther-off sorcerers. The power resonating through his supernatural words tingles through my bones, uncomfortable but steadying at the same time.
Don’t listen to any other sorcery,he’s commanding, like the defensive orders he gave our small team months ago when we were investigating the rift up north and stumbled on my former captor.Ignore all other magical commands.
I don’t know how long that instruction will last against a full force of opposing sorcerers, but he’s put all his strength into the attempt. The power of it crackles across my tongue like smoky chipotle.
As the sorcerers fall into disarray, the hunters march toward us. Whips lash through the air.
A few of them are holding those strange guns I noticed before—one fires at Raze before I have a chance to yelp a warning.
Raze dodges to the side, but he pulls Hail with him, and that slows him down. A projectile splats into his shoulder like a glittering paintball.
Whatever’s in the stuff, it’s obviously not friendly to shadowkind. Raze roars, a burst of essence puffing up from the spot the noxious paintball hit him.
It looks as if the substance is eating right into his flesh. Pain blares through our bond.
My throat constricts, but I have to do whatever I can to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“I’ll try to help him!” Gracie calls to me, and sprints over to where Raze is crouched.
Girding myself, I swish my hands through the air. More light pours out of them. Our enemies stumble in momentary blindness.
With a battle cry, Sorrel charges into the hunters’ midst in centaur form. Her well-muscled haunches heave one and another aside before their weapons can do more than graze her.
Flames leap up around the military force, penning them in. I spot Sorsha coming to stand on the top of the base’s wall, her phoenix wings flickering like streaks of fire from her back.
She isn’t incinerating our opponents, though, only caging them. She’s trying to keep the peace, like I asked.
Colonel Hueber’s face has reddened for reasons I don’t think have anything to do with the fiery heat. As if he’s annoyed that Sorsha now appears to outrank him, he hefts himself onto the hood of one of the SUVs so he can bellow at all of us from a little higher up than before.
“This is an act of war! You’ll all stand down, or we’ll bomb the bunch of you to smithereens too!”
I thought that was already the plan, not a new development. He’s threatening us with what he was going to do anyway? I’m shaking in my boots.
Not that I’m wearing boots. Mary-janes go much better with my dress.
A tremor of supernatural energy passes through the air, and any hairs on my body that weren’t already standing up get with the program fast. Is Rollick about to make an appearance—and make good on his offer to simply level this base and all the humans in it?
Before I can worry much about that, an unexpectedly familiar figure strides out of the base’s nearest building.
The sunlight gleams off Major Yin’s short black hair. He lifts his chin and folds his arms over his chest, staring at his boss from across the distance.
