“You good? Don’t let go—if you let go, we die.” He nodded weakly in a daze, but he grasped my hand. The tingle of his contact shot up my arm to the shoulder, and adrenaline spiked through. We were going to do this.
The door was locked. I’d have to use energy to open it. I was going to be short, but there wasn’t any choice. I pulled a ball and threw it. The sparking energy was far hotter than I was used to. It was probably whatever the areca was laced with, but the lock glowed red, and the door cracked open.
I popped out my right silver pin and shoved another areca slice into my mouth.
Then we ambled down the hall like twins high on energy drinks.
We made it to the lounge area before two men, born to be linebackers, blocked the door. Both were in solid black, but one had a red bandana. Boots clomped down the stairs behind us.
“What are you waiting for?” Fabra yelled over our heads at them, jumping the last four stairs and landing beside Ranth with a thud. She slammed a metal syringe into Ranth’s arm.
A jolt of pain ricocheted from my arm to my throat, followed by blurry vision and a flood of bizarre images which I was pretty sure weren’t there—but I wasn’t waiting to find out.
I ramped into survival mode and planted a boot in Fabra’s gut. She let go of Ranth and landed against the TV with abang. The screen slid off its base and shattered as I shambled, half mad with visions of neon poster-painted Auruan demons crawling out of the walls toward the linebackers. The non-red bandana guard advanced, tugging what I assumed was a gun from the back of his pants, but he went wide-eyed as the second man cuffed his wrist with silver handcuffs. Then they went downin wrestling holds. I saw everything through eyes with cartoon animation-style blurs, oversetPOWsand swirling demons and ghosts screaming in kaleidoscope rainbow circles.
We stumbled through the door, and I tore down the alley as a biting pain sliced through my shoulder. I stumbled to my knees, dragging Ranth down with me. My fingers slipped off him, but his arm curled around me, and he hauled me up and supported me to the parking lot. His closeness and scent infused me with new energy.
Ori was there, and Fabra’s dark image was the silhouette at the end of a long hall, which was getting longer every second.
“You need to go,” I slurred, half blinded from the pain radiating down my arm from my shoulder.
“You’re bleeding, honey.” Rose pressed some linen against my shoulder, and the fire flared through my body, shredding my insides. Red swirls of hell burst out of my mouth as I stared down the real threat coming toward us and heard the portal pop.
Two in one hour was a phenomenal coincidence, but the pink trails coming out of this one said “Essifer” in big letters.
Fabra was running toward us. I pushed Ori and Rose behind me with my good hand. The other one hung uselessly at my side. Whatever Rose had put on my shoulder might have stopped the bleeding and the fiery pain, but now my right side felt like a balloon full of cotton. Ranth’s fingers closed around my wrist.
Rose lingered behind me. I whipped around and yelled, “Run,” but she stood her ground. I didn’t have time to fight with her. “Jaggery. Now!” I screamed, hoping she’d at least heed that.
There were three Essifers. One of them lunged at Fabra, and the other two locked on to Ranth and I. With my damaged arm, I could only use one of my silver pins.
“You need to hold my other wrist,” I snapped at Ranth through the haze of pain, making sure I didn’t break skin contact with him. Although I’d always done this on my own, this timeI had a partner I could trust. I twisted my hand, palm up, and moved his arm to my useless one. I dipped my head to his bare upper arm and kissed it while his fingers transferred. It was just enough time for the first Essifer to attack. With the colored, animated haze in my brain, the Essifer looked entirely too much like a Saturday-morning cartoon dog, clouded with pink smoke and a detached jaw dripping goo. A cartoon-demon dog.
Ranth kicked out at the demon and missed. The motion of his leg sent pistachio green waves of air at the dog, which sent it off-kilter. The second Essifer made for me, but I had my silver pin out and sliced through its open mouth. It dissipated into pink ooze.
The drug coursing through my system had turned time molasses-slow. My attack was silvery white beams with sparkles. If you’d told me that my energy sparkled last week, I probably would have laughed at you, but today it was beautiful. Like vanilla ice cream with diamond sugar.
The first Essifer Ranth had kicked was closing in on him, and the blurs of motion from Fabra were distracting me. Anything moving caught my attention. Ranth’s hand reached out into the leafy energy gauntlet, but this time, it was tugging the inside of me like it would rip my guts out. Before I could scream “Stop,” the Essifer was covered in some sort of glittery goo.
It shriveled into an ever-diminishing ember, then disappeared with a pop. My attention went back to Fabra fighting the Essifer. Without magic, she was going to lose. Technically, she shouldn’t have been able to see it.
I staggered forward. Whatever Rose had done to my shoulder and arm had numbed them. The effect of the root magic was fading, and Ranth was sucking more and more energy from me. I couldn’t help Fabra without putting us all in danger. I turned to Rose. “Get us out of here?”
By the time Rose got to us, Ori, Freddie, and some man in black with a red bandana around his neck had already half dragged us toward Freddie’s black vintage Plymouth. Then a limo glowing with orange sooty magic squealed into the lot, cutting us off. I pushed Rose away from me.
“Go,” I screamed at her. She ignored me and held her ground. I hauled myself up, using strength I didn’t think I had left, and squared off with the two tunic-clad wizards with faces blurred by soot-tinged orange. The air shimmered beside me, and I blinked to make sure I wasn’t imagining the blue swirl. What I didn’t expect was Harold stepping out of it and beckoning to us.
I glanced between the sooty orange and blue swirl and decided that since Harold hadn’t killed us yet, he was a better choice. Dragging Ranth with me, I bolted at the swirl. A buzzing engulfed us as Harold grew bigger, and mosquito-sized insects swarmed us. I latched on to Harold’s outstretched hand and dug my fingers into his wrist. The fire in my shoulder skittered down my arm into my fingers, turning into a tingle. The blue swirl of the portal twisted my insides, and I clamped my eyes shut.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
We hit the pavement hard. Refusing to release Ranth from my death grip, he’d landed on top of me. My head throbbed like it had been cleaved by a greataxe. I groaned, and he rolled off me. Dry heaving from the pain, I curled up on my side. The sky was a blinding blue. Harold was gone. We were on the street with the canal—again. But safe.
Ranth had pulled himself up against a brick wall; his eyes were closed. I crawled to a sitting position and realized I had two working hands. I rubbed my eyes, the images and sounds flooding back. The wound on my shoulder was gone; my shirt hung in a ragged slice. Ranth’s eyes flickered open, and he shielded them from the glare with one hand. I croaked out, “Are we…”
“Harold’s plane, I think.” He got up, leaning on the wall for support. Then, he reached out a hand. I slithered up his arm, acutely aware of his spicy scent. My teeth chattered. I swayed, and he caught me. The wall against my back held me up.
“Can you walk?” I asked, attempting to stand on my own and failing.
