Ethan nudged her with his shoulder. “You take me to all the best places.”
She snorted. “I—” But before she could finish, she noticed a movement down the street. Several boys, all about fifteen years old, were lurking in the entrance to a small garage just a little way from the gates.
Ethan followed her gaze. “What is it?”
“That group of boys over there. They look like they’re up to something.”
“Just like every group of teenage boys in the history of humanity, you mean?” Ethan replied.
She leaned forward, trying to see. “What do you think they’re doing?”
“Smoking and talking about girls?”
Kay frowned, feeling her muscles tense as her Shadows squirmed. “No, something isn’t right. Look at how dark the entrance is. It’s too dark. There’s a streetlight just over the road; the light should reach them.”
Bollocks. She had wanted David to see this and to add his Guardian skills to hers. But he wasn’t there, and they couldn’t risk leaving it. She looked at Ethan. “Can you fight?”
He shrugged. “A little.”
“Okay.” She would just have to cover for him. “Stay behind me and watch your Shadows.”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
They strolled closer, doing their best to look non-threatening, while Kay scanned the surrounding buildings, looking for something, or someone, to explain the dark Shadows lurking around the boys, and finding nothing. She cast a sideways glance at Ethan’s shorts and sweatshirt, wishing he had something more protective to wear. She could have done with her usual biker boots and leather jacket herself.
She stepped into the garage, Ethan close behind her, to see six boys huddling close together, riveted by a large box on the ground between them. A pool of Shadow seemed to surround them, oily and viscous and wrong.
One of the boys looked up, noticing them for the first time. He unfolded, stepping forward to block their view. He was almost as tall as her, but not yet filled out, his hair slicked back, and his mouth twisted in a bitter sneer. His hand was wrapped around the back of his neck, covering part of his throat, as he flicked his eyes over her. “Get out of here, bitch.”
Kay opened her mouth to reply but Ethan got in before her. “That’s not how you speak to a lady. Be careful before you open your mouth again.”
“Fuck you,” the boy answered, revealing his neck as he lowered his hand to form a fist. Squirming ink-black tentacles pulsed up the side of his throat, over his jaw, and into his hair.
Kay glanced back at Ethan, the tight lines bracketing his mouth showing he’d seen it too. “It’s the same as what I saw in Oxford Street,” she whispered.
The boy in front of them took a step closer, his bloodshot eyes narrowing viciously. “Jack, Henry—give me a hand here.”
Two boys straightened and sauntered over with twin smirks. Neither of them was remotely bothered by Kay or by Ethan standing right behind her. Jack and Henry both had the same black Shadows wrapped along the back of their necks.
The first boy, obviously the leader, poked her roughly in the chest with his finger. “You were told to go.”
Kay felt as much as heard Ethan’s angry rumble behind her, and she looked back up at his scowling face, smiled serenely, and winked. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ve got this.”
She turned back and in one smooth movement, grabbed the offensive finger, pulled the boy’s hand closer, and then twisted it around into a lock that brought him to his knees.
The second boy retaliated, swinging a rough roundhouse toward her head. Kay stepped sideways, deflected the punch and wrapped her hand around his wrist, then pulled hard so that he stumbled into the boy already on the ground. The boys tangled together and collapsed in a flurry of arms and legs.
Their enraged howls spurred their friends into action, and suddenly the remaining boys were up, launching themselves forward, kicking and punching and cursing. Kay groaned. A group of violent teenaged bullies was a nuisance, and particularly frustrating because she didn’t want to seriously hurt any of them.
The boys attacked with the brutality of adolescent rage, but with no skill. Unlike Kay who had been fighting nearly every day since she came into her Shadows, and, it turned out, Ethan, who clearly had plenty of experience himself.
He stepped up beside her, fighting stance relaxed as he confidently subdued the boys around him, incapacitating them with efficient throws and locks without doing any lasting damage.
Within a minute, all the boys were either flat out or on their knees on the concrete, but the dark Shadows still pulsed around their throats, and their eyes widened in panic as the tentacles embedded themselves even deeper.
Slowly, limbs jerking, the boys pushed themselves back up. The corrupted Shadows were somehow forcing the boys back into the fight.
Kay flung open her hands, sending out heavy waves of blue-black Shadows, spreading them as wide as she could to encompass all the boys as she plucked at the darkness burrowing into their skin.
