But the phoenix’s flight was erratic, and the surge of corrupted fire it had released to propel itself into the air was having consequences. Dimensional energy spiked at the facility, wrong and twisted and hungry.
The explosion hit like a physical wave, even from two miles away. I felt it through my electromagnetic senses first — a massive surge of dimensional energy as the phoenix’s corrupted fire punched a temporary breach between our world and somewhere else. Then the shockwave reached us, a pulse of heat that rattled the SUV’s windows and sent a flock of birds erupting from the trees.
Ben fought to keep us on course as the ground trembled and the big Suburban lurched from side to side. “What the hell was that?”
“Dimensional breach. The phoenix’s fire surge opened a temporary rift.” I cut off as my senses picked up new signatures. Not human…and definitely not natural. “Oh, shit.”
Ben’s voice tightened with worry. “Sidney? What now?”
“Shadow creatures. The breach is pulling them through.” I gripped the dashboard, although I wasn’t sure that would be enough to keep me upright. “Ben, we need to keep moving. The phoenix escaped, but it left chaos behind.”
“Will it find us?”
At least I thought I had some confidence in answering that question. “Yes. It’s following our connection. But we need to get as far away as we can before DAPI regroups.”
He was right that I was in no condition to help. I was useless right then, barely able to sense beyond a few hundred yards, my abilities pushed so far past their limits that even breathing took concentration.
But the phoenix was coming, and shadow creatures were manifesting in the forest near the facility. DAPI was probably getting exactly the crisis they’d engineered.
The SUV lurched to a stop. Ben killed the engine and the lights, plunging us into darkness broken only by faint starlight filtering through the canopy.
“Why are we stopping?” I whispered.
“Because I thought I heard something.” He pulled a flashlight from his pack but didn’t turn it on. “Movement. Large…close.”
I reached out with my senses and immediately wished I hadn’t. The effort sent fresh blood flowing from my nose and made my vision blur again. But I found what Ben had heard.
Something was approaching through the trees. Something that radiated clean, pure electromagnetic energy — so different from the corrupted signals I’d been tracking that it felt like cool water after hours in the desert.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know this signature.”
The unicorn stepped into the small clearing where we’d stopped, and even in my depleted state, its presence made me want to weep. The creature was exactly the same as I remembered from weeks ago — white coat that seemed to generate its own light, silver horn that hummed with dimensional energy, eyes that held intelligence and purpose and something like compassion.
Ben sat very still beside me. “That’s a unicorn.”
“That’s the unicorn. The one that drew you to Silver Hollow.” I opened the door and climbed out on shaking legs. “The one that brought us together.”
The unicorn approached slowly, its hooves silent on the forest floor. When it reached me, it lowered its head and pressed its horn gently against my forehead.
Clean energy flooded my system at once, not exactly healing the damage I’d done to myself, but stabilizing it. My vision cleared. The trembling in my hands eased, and the splitting headache that had been building since the drone incident faded to a manageable throb.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
The unicorn pulled back and looked at me with those ancient dark eyes. Then it turned and knelt, a clear invitation.
“It wants you to ride,” Ben said from behind me. He’d gotten out of the SUV and was watching our interchange with open wonder. “Sidney, I think it’s offering to take you somewhere safe.”
I looked back at the SUV, then at the distant glow of fires from the facility, and finally at the unicorn patiently kneeling before me.
“What about you?” I asked. The unicorn was tough, but it didn’t seem quite sturdy enough to carry two full-grown adults.
“I’ll drive,” he said. “But the unicorn showed up for a reason, and I don’t think we should ignore it.”
He was right. The luminous creature had saved us from Victor Maplehurst, had appeared during the shadow stalker crisis to help us. Whatever its reasons now, it was clearly on our side.
I climbed onto the unicorn’s back, and its coat was warm beneath me, almost hot, like its body was generating more heat than normal biology would allow. The moment I settled into place, I felt our electromagnetic fields synchronize — not the way Ben and I resonated, but something that felt far older, infinitely reassuring.
The unicorn rose smoothly to its feet and looked back at Ben.
