“Wait a second.” Layden doesn’t look up from his phone. “Just wait a second.”
“We might nothaveseconds!” Kharon’s yell makes me flinch. The two dots on his neck where Vlad bit him are still dripping blood, dark drops spattering his shirt. He looks at his wife, then at the baby she’s clutching. “Maybe Luna and I can open another portal. Somewhere we can hide?”
“Wait!” Layden’s shout is triumphant. Actuallytriumphant. “Here!”
“Here, what?” Remus growls. He’s so tense beside me his body feels like marble. Like if I touched him, my hand would crack against solid stone.
“It’s happening!” Layden laughs—actuallylaughs, the sound slightly unhinged.
“What?” Remus starts, but Layden shoves his phone toward us.
I squint at the grainy footage on the small screen. The image quality is terrible, obviously shot on someone’s cell phone from a distance. But the shape is unmistakable—one of those sky-whale creatures, semi-translucent and enormous.
It’s just hard to make out what it’s doing exactly?—
“What is it doing?” I ask, tilting my head sideways like that’ll help me understand better.
It sort of looks like the whale creature is just... sitting on top of a building? Except now, instead of being translucent like they were in the sky, it’s lit up from the inside. Glowing. Like someone stuffed a hundred thousand lightbulbs into its belly and flipped the switch.
“Eating.” Layden’s laugh sounds punch-drunk, delirious with relief. He snatches the phone back, his fingers flying as he pulls up another video. Then another. Each one showing a differentwhale-creature doing the same thing—perched on buildings, glowing from within with absorbed energy.
“They’re everywhere,” he says, still giddy.
“He’s right.” Sabra sounds disbelieving. She’s staring at her own phone, thumb scrolling constantly. “The news is picking it up now. ‘Unknown entities seen attacking nuclear sites in Russia, China, US, Europe.’“ She reads directly from whatever article she’s found. “Some countries actually launched missiles, but they were swallowed by the creatures midair.” Her voice gets higher. “I mean, no one realizes that’s what’s happening. They’re just saying ‘averted missile launches.’ Oh my god, I can’t believe it actually worked.”
She keeps scrolling, and a few moments later breathes out: “Damn, they’re fast, too. They must’ve been really hungry.”
“Great.” Hannah’s voice cuts through the relief, sharp with worry. She’s bouncing her crying daughter on her hip, trying to soothe her. “So where is Abaddon, and why isn’t he back yet?”
Kharon looks at her sympathetically, and it’s startling to see that expression on his usually impassive face. “He will want to ensure you are safe even if it means lingering in the sky and stopping any missiles headed your way himself.”
With his bare hands, I think. Because apparently that’s just something these guys can do.
Hannah stomps impatiently, then starts pacing down the hall. “Everything’s going to be okay, baby,” she murmurs to her daughter, her voice cracking slightly. “Daddy will be back any moment.”
“Come on.” Sabra waves toward an open doorway. “There’s a TV in here. I’ll put it on the BBC.”
We all follow like sheep, desperate for more information. For confirmation that we’re not about to die in nuclear fire.
It feels surreal to just be watching the news with my big monster boyfriend—god, is that what Remus is now?My boyfriend? After everything that just happened?—but I’m grateful he’s by my side for once and not out there in the action. Not flying into danger while I wait and worry.
Sabra finds the remote and turns on the gigantic TV mounted on the wall. She flicks through channels until she finds one in English. I’m not sure if it’s actually the BBC, but there are definitely British newscasters sitting behind a desk, looking shell-shocked.
“Reports continue to flood in from all corners of the globe of the strange creatures.” The male newscaster’s professional composure is slipping. “Initial reports indicate they are not attacking but rather somehow feeding off of nuclear material. No attempts to speak with the creatures have yielded any response. One attempt to fire on a creature only resulted in an explosion at a nuclear facility that should have been catastrophic, but...” He looks down at his notes like he can’t believe what he’s reading. “But no injuries were reported. You have to see it to believe it.”
The shot switches from the news desk to footage—similar to what we saw on Layden’s phone but higher quality. A Devourer surrounds what looks like a nuclear facility, its massive translucent body wrapped around the building like a cocoon. You can see the flash of a missile being fired at it, the bright trail of light as it streaks toward the creature.
But instead of an explosion, instead of destruction, the missile just... disappears. Absorbed into the Devourer’s body, which glows brighter and brighter with each passing second, pulsing with stolen energy.
“Governments are urging citizens to shelter in place at this time until we know more,” the newscast continues.
We sit glued to the TV for what feels like hours but is probably only thirty minutes. The news cycles through the same information over and over—footage of Devourers at nuclearsites around the world, government officials urging calm while experts and conspiracy theorists alike speculate wildly about what these creatures are. Aliens are the most popular theory.
Layden adds commentary whenever the news starts repeating itself, explaining details about radiation and nuclear energy that mostly go over my head. I’m too busy trying to process that interdimensional whale-jellyfish-creatures are currently saving the world from nuclear annihilation.
My life has gottensoweird lately.
About ten minutes in, Sabra starts asking the questions nobody wants to hear. “This is great and all.” Her tone suggests it’s anything but great. “But what about when they’ve finished with the nuclear energy? These things go for the most nutrient-rich sources of power first, but then they move on.”
