Like he’d practiced, the Luster soaked from the air into his hand, and he crushed it into this human’s body, dispelling the creature within.
She cried out as it happened, the pained sound piercing the air.
“Bro,” someone yelled. “What the hell?”
“My bad.” Sean retreated with haste.
The girl held a hand to her chest, and the strange inhumanity evaporated from her eyes. Her expression clouded in confusion.
Did the humans remember what they’d done while possessed? Or did they black out and wake up with no memory?
Either way, it would mess a person up. Why was all of this so broken? It was yet another thing he’d need to fix to do this properly. As he headed back to Isobel, Sean decided he’d start with a recovery task force to help humans who’d been possessed and determine further needs from there.
Kywyn gripped his shoulder. “Try it a few more times, and then we’ll move on to distance hunting.”
And so it went. The place wasn’t crawling with purple-eyedfreaks like that club in Vegas, but they were frequent enough that Sean surprised several more over the next few hours. Throughout it, he noted a gradual flag in his energy, like he’d gone too long without eating or sleeping.
Kywyn chuckled at Sean’s yawn. “Takes a lot of energy, doesn’t it? It’s why we don’t allow people to hunt for more than a day at a time.”
“Makes sense. Still feel like it could work, though, if we played it right.”
“You see that man over there?” Isobel gestured toward a guy crowding a girl against the back of a food truck. “Try to get him from here.”
Sean raised his hand toward the man twenty paces away. For a brief moment, he considered everything that could go wrong.
Misfire.
Too little Luster.
Poor aim.
Attacks from somewhere else.
“Aim true,” Isobel murmured near his ear. “And let it go.”
A faint blue light glowed between Sean’s fingers as he drew the Luster in, then forced it away. The moment it hit, the guy staggered, and Sean reveled in his success.
But then the man whirled, searching the crowd for the culprit, his gaze still very much inhuman.
“Shit,” Sean said.
Purplish eyes landed on him, and the guy’s mouth stretched into a slash of a smile. It drew the attention of several others with a strange catcall.
Bel sighed. “And this is when we prepare to fight. This part is always inevitable, unfortunately. Be careful, okay?”
In seconds, the guy was upon them, but Sean was prepared. He’d been training for months, and the Indy went down with a single blow, allowing Isobel to purge the creature inside the human. Another replaced him, spitting insults in Lux.
Glowfreak. Fairy Duster. Lightfucker.
In any other circumstance, Sean would have laughed, but the asshole aimed a fist at his jaw. He ducked and slapped an open palm over his chest, soaking him with the Light until he howled.
Shouts rose from the crowd as the scuffle escalated, and families fled the ruckus. Down the midway, police officers sprinted their way.
A woman jumped onto Sean’s back, her fingernails digging into his neck. Pain like none he’d ever known drove through his skin, somehow cold and fiery all at once. He flipped her to her back, her body thunking hard on the asphalt. Before she recovered, he slammed both hands over her chest and shred the Indy from her body, ignoring her screams. When she blinked up with human, frightened eyes, a well of bitter sadness rose. These people had no idea their bodies were being used. Abused. Wasted.
“I’m sorry,” he said, wishing he could do more. He jumped to his feet, rubbing at the pain in his neck while the midway transformed to pandemonium.
David appeared, sweat dotting his brow. “What did you do?”
