Chapter Eight
“Ithink we found thedurance,” Darren said.
Kavon's gritted his teeth and held the magic shield as power rained over them. “You don’t say.”
When Darren had felt threatened and had used Bennu’s power for the first time, he had created a storm that had flooded the street with magic, but that had been nothing compared to the power that surged and swirled around them now. Bennu and the monstrous guide clung to each other with huge talons, and ripped at one another. There was no strategy, only the cold fury of two powerful creatures plotting mutual destruction.
“Darren, call him back,” Kavon yelled over the roar of the wind. Several people on the street were holding onto light posts and trees in an attempt to stay on their feet, but Kavon’s shield held off the worst of the storm.
“What?”
“Call him back. He needs to disengage. He's not winning.”
Darren's face twisted with fear, and their bond was suddenly blown open. For a moment, Kavon felt as if he’d been cut in two and existed in separate bodies. All of Darren's hopes and fears and memories, his frustrations and his ambition—all existed inside Kavon. “Pull him back!” Kavon yelled.
Darren tilted his head to the side, and a sense of recognition and awareness washed through the bond. Darren raised his hand toward the sky and pushed against Bennu’s rage. Bennu’s frustration and fury washed back along the bond, and Darren sank mentally under the waves of emotion, but Kavon gritted his teeth and shoved back the cold certainty that Bennu was losing and needed to disengage. They were at an impasse with neither of them controlling the emotions that raged through the bond, but then it was as if Darren came back online. He curled his fingers around Kavon’s arm and added his own determination to Kavon’s. Bennu gave a barking cry and beat his wings against the magical storm.
Bennu wanted this fight. He wanted to kill, to punish this being who he considered so reckless and dangerous. Anger flowed through the bond along with broken memories. Humans scattered across a bloody field, their bodies broken. Children twisted and deformed. Horses wearing rough leather tack from some primitive civilization fled through the carnage. The monster had done this. The memories were rich and powerful. This was the monster’s fault.
Darren touched the tattoo he wore. Kavon followed suit. Bennu had vowed to listen and to give Kavon the right to veto any foolish decisions, and right now Bennu was acting a fool.
Bennu broke away with a cry. Dark gray storm clouds swirled in an impossible pattern, and the wind picked up every mote of dust, every leaf and twig and stray cigarette butt and sent them all airborne where they were torn apart down to the tiniest particles to become a haze so thick it resembled fog.
“Find a blind spot!” Kavon yelled. They needed a weakness. They needed to distract the beast so that Bennu could attack from the rear.
Bennu soared straight up into the sky. At first Kavon thought that he was fleeing the battlefield. Instead, thunder cracked and a new power filled the air.
Darren stood, either to better see the conflict or to better direct the fight. It took every ounce of Kavon’s control not to grab him and pull him back down into the relative safety of the car’s shadow. Instead, Kavon stood next to him and pushed the shield upward. Without his bull or Bennu to channel magic toward him, he would not be able to maintain the shield for long.
The newcomer, whatever it was, had a power that equaled Bennu's own. Kavon still couldn’t see whatever guide had joined the fray, but the monster clearly could. He twisted and screamed, and Bennu attacked its back.
The monster ignored Bennu as it tried to catch whatever enemy was tormenting it from below. It swept its long, flat tail through the air, and Kavon felt the impact as magic was slapped out of somebody. He only recognized Pochi when the small hummingbird righted himself not far above Kavon's head. He fluffed himself up into an angry ball before all of his feathers flattened out and he darted straight for the monster again.
The magic that had separated from Pochi during the attack took several moments to fade from Kavon’s awareness. Seeds sprouted in the earth. Bugs soaked it in, the bacteria in the ground flourished in those precious moments before Pochi’s magic died and became a different power—something magic users could twist into their spells.
As Pochi flew up like an arrow aimed at a mythical monster, the creature dove to meet him. Its face was covered in bone armor that made it look like a living skeleton, a monster out of a children's book. It opened its huge eagle beak as it lunged toward Pochi, but the hummingbird darted away at the last moment, flying backwards in its escape.
Bennu chose that moment of distraction to grab the monster’s long pointed ear.
The monster screamed and so much magic flowed from the wound that Kavon's shields flickered and then died. Without them, the hurricane blasted them. Kavon pinned Darren against the car so he would have some protection.
Above them, the monster twisted in the air, his tail slapping at Bennu before he turned his gaze toward Kavon and Darren. Kavon shouted a warning and then the monster fell straight at them, his beak open.
“Run!” Kavon jerked Darren away from the car half a second before the monster landed on it, crushing the roof as easily as if it had been cardboard. Darren's focus remained on the fight overhead, so Kavon decided to be the sane person on the ground. He dragged Darren to a van and mentally called on Bennu for help.
Pochi came to their aid instead.
Kavon knew that the size of a guide had nothing to do with its power, but he was still stunned at the amount of damage Pochi inflicted. The hummingbird left gashes all over the monster’s stomach and legs. Bennu might’ve been the flashier fighter, but the wounds he inflicted were healing within seconds. Pochi did real, lasting damage.
The hummingbird shared a name with an Aztec war God, and for the first time, Kavon saw the connection. He was fast, confusing the enemy with his aerial acrobatics. But he was also wielded terrible power. When he slammed into the monster, the earth herself rumbled with magic.
Kavon jerked Darren behind a wall.
“Blind him,” Darren shouted over the roar of the storm. “Blind him for Pochi!”
The bond bulged. Kavon didn't have a different way of explaining it. It was as if too much information flowed between them and the connection felt strained, pregnant. But Bennu shifted his tactics.
He angled his body and flapped those twelve-foot wings in the creature's face. Guides learned to experience the world as the animals they joined with did, and this beast was no different. With his eyes covered, he listed to the side and began to lose altitude.
