Rooster’s harpy self revealed to Tessa.
He launches into the air with a shriek that cuts through Prophet’s chanting, circling above us in formation with Scout.
Then Blade shifts.
The president’s transformation is more controlled but no less impressive.His body expands, muscles rippling and growing, fur the color of dark earth spreading across his skin.Within seconds, he’s a Kodiak bear standing ten feet tall, paws the size of dinner plates tipped with claws that could tear through steel.
He roars, a sound that shakes snow from the surrounding trees, and slams both paws into the ground.The impact sends shockwaves through the earth, disrupting the ice shades trying to form at the circle’s edge.
“Here they come!”Rooster shouts.
The shades pour out of the darkness in a wave of frozen malice.Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, all converging on our position.They know what we’re doing.If Prophet completes the ritual, their master won’t be able to fully manifest.
They’re trying to stop him.
Fury meets the first wave with hellfire, incinerating shades by the dozen.But more keep coming.
Scout’s silver light lances down from above, each beam obliterating a shade on contact.Rooster dives and wheels, talons raking through frozen forms, his harpy shriek disorienting the creatures long enough for others to strike.
Chrome wades into the mass, with claw, and teeth, he pivots, slices and bites.He’s a whirlwind of violence.
And Blade is unstoppable in his bear form.He tears through shades with savage efficiency, each swipe of his massive paws reducing them to snow and screams.
But it’s not enough.
For every shade destroyed, two more take its place.They’re learning our patterns, adapting, finding gaps in the defense.
One slips through.
It materializes inside the circle, three feet from Tessa, clawed hand reaching for her face.
I’m faster.
My hand closes around its throat or what passes for a throat on a creature made of frozen mist and I rip it apart with my bare hands.The shade dissolves with a shriek, but the damage is done.
They’ve breached the perimeter.
“Prophet!”I snarl.“How much longer?”
“The ritual needs time—”
“We don’t have time!”
As if to punctuate my words, the ground splits.
Not a crack or a fissure.The earth simply opens, peeling back in sections around the circle, revealing darkness beneath.And from that darkness, cold rises in a wave that freezes the breath in my lungs and sends ice crystallizing across my skin.
Prophet’s chant falters.
“Don’t stop!”Blade roars from outside the circle.“Whatever happens, don’t stop!”
Prophet’s voice rises again, steady despite the fear I can smell pouring off him.The words come faster now, more desperate, building toward some kind of crescendo.
The darkness beneath us moves.
Something massive stirs in those depths, something that makes every supernatural instinct I have scream to run, to flee, to put as much distance between myself and this place as possible.
Tessa gasps, and through the bond I feel the mark on her shoulder ignite with pain beyond anything she’s experienced before.She drops to her knees, hands clawing at her shoulder, and I’m beside her in an instant.
