“I think it’s safe to say this was a trap,” Liam said, his face pale from blood loss. “The harpies no longer matter. We need to concentrate on escaping.”
I wasn’t listening as the disturbance in the web of the spell grew larger. My eyes widened as the lines warped. My hand dropped from where the gun was concealed.
“What’s wrong?” Liam asked.
My gaze met his in dread. “It seems harming a human isn’t the spell’s only trigger.”
Liam’s blood had started a countdown.
“Can you break it?” he asked in a tight voice as I slapped a hand against the building.
I shook my head. “No idea.”
Fuck. Fuckity. Fuck. Fuck.
And here I’d pretty much stopped using that word since getting out of the military. It seemed tonight was a night for relapses.
I sank my concentration into the spell, feeling my way through. It was useless. The ripples were already out of my control.
“There’s no way for me to stop this, but maybe—” I trailed off as I focused.
Liam scooped me into his arms. “We’re out of time.”
Buzzcut rounded the corner, pointing his gun at us. “Looks like you’re not such a badass after all.”
He pulled the trigger, his gun firing at the same time that I yanked hard on the spell.
A tiny bit of the working unspooled, but not enough to undo what was coming. As a last resort, I shoved sideways, forcing the spell to take a new form.
The building exploded outward, throwing Buzzcut across the street. He hit a trashcan with a loud crash and went still, knocked unconscious by the force of the impact.
Liam evaded the debris, using his speed to move us to safety. He stopped on the other side of the street to stare in horror at the creature pulling itself out of the wall. “Tell me you didn’t wake a sentinel.”
“It seemed like the better option at the time.”
Much better than everything on this block being vaporized. But I could see how he might not agree. Even I was no longer certain I’d made the right choice as chunks of the pavement uprooted themselves to roll toward the creature. They joined the creature’s main body, adding mass to something that was already the size of an SUV.
Gray Hair and Buzzcut opened fire on the creature, forgetting about us in the face of the greater danger.
“Is a sentinel like a golem?”
Please say no.
I’d fought golems once before. They were difficult foes, feeling neither pain nor fear.
“They’re worse,” Liam spat as the metal from the street lamps bent and then broke, flying through the air to collide with the creature’s chest. The poles warped around its body, adding to its bulk.
Seeing their bullets were having no effect, Gray Hair paused to stare in horror. “What the fuck is this?”
Gun fire came from the roof top as the sniper gave his companions backup.
“At least, it makes a good distraction,” I said.
“Except, as the person who woke it, you’re its primary target.”
Bullets pinged off the sentinel’s body, sending chips of concrete and dirt flying but delivering no real damage. The humans might as well have been pesky flies as he fixated on me.
I took a step backward. “I see how this could be a problem.”
