The rest of the initiates were slow to react as the creature’s arm lengthened, becoming a thin spear. It stabbed them in the back as they tried to flee.
“Damn it,” Kira ground out.
Every death fed it, enabling it to get one step closer to the next evolution.
“Stay here,” Raider shouted at Elena before dashing toward Joule and Devon.
Kira fought to make up the distance, Finn at her back.
“Don’t you dare,” Kira shouted when it looked like Elena wasn’t going to heed her father’s advice. She reached her niece in the next second. “Protect Ziva.”
With them cut off from the oshota, they were going to have to rely on themselves. As the youngest, Ziva would be the most vulnerable. The face changer would target her.
Elena gave Kira a sharp nod, reversing course and racing toward the girl who was already trying to follow Kira into danger.
By now, the arena floor had descended into chaos. The initiates scattering in several directions.
Raider was almost to Devon and Joule as the pair raced in his direction. Behind them, the face changer finished with its victim.
Slowly. So slowly that it was terrifying, its face turned in Devon and Joule’s direction. The same smile it had worn when it was covered in its Renata-skin formed. This time with needle-sharp teeth.
For all that it had two slits where its eye sockets should have been, the face changer looked blind. There was no nose. Its face flat except for the protruding curve of its forehead and bald head.
“Shield!” Kira screamed as it slammed its hands and feet against the ground, loping after Devon and Joule almost too fast for the eye to track.
Devon broke away, lifting his blade to meet the face changer head on.
“No!” Kira shouted as Devon struck.
His blade sliced through the air, sinking into the creature’s shoulder. There it lodged.
The creature’s face split in a rictus grin.
Devon let go of the sword, one hand sketching a symbol before he whistled. The sound piercing.
Two invisible blades of wind cleaved the air in front of him. Blood spattered as the creature’s arms fell from its body.
That wouldn’t be enough. Not by a long shot
“Kira, hold out as long as possible,” Jin said through the lu-ong. “I’m coming.”
Kira didn’t get the chance to answer as a spear made of bone shot from the face changer’s chest. It pierced Devon’s upper torso.
He staggered, held upright by the spear.
Kira cursed the distance that still lay between her and Devon as he reached up to grab the spear with one hand.
She was too far.
Raider reached them in the next second, a glowing blade in his hand. He sliced the spear, breaking it and grabbing Devon’s shoulder in the other hand to shove him backward.
Joule was quick with a shield. It bubbled around them as Devon collapsed. His blood spread in a pool across the sand as Raider stood over him, blade in hand. Joule was beside them, his face arranged in lines of concentration.
It bought Kira the time she needed to reach between them. She shoved a hand forward, mustering every bit of ki she could.
It deflected off the energy field that suddenly surrounded the face changer, most of the force rebounding.
Kira dodged, but Joule had to take the brunt of the impact since he couldn’t abandon Devon.
