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“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I shouted back. “Saved the best part for you.”

“Ah, you’re so sweet!” He grinned, sharp and bright, the threads still wrapped around his knuckles, and I’d never seen anything more beautiful in my life.

A tentacle reached for him. I yanked my Bastion form from the ether. No pain. No strain. Just the smooth, seamless slide of skin to shadow, muscle to void. Jude’s reweaving had done more than heal me—it had remade me. I wrapped myself in shadows, launched myself at the limb rising toward Jude, and landed on it with all four paws tipped in dagger-like claws.

The thing writhed beneath me, dark and slick, but I dug my claws in deep and tore. It burst into a cloud of motes that scattered into the night like startled fireflies. And I snarled at them, as if daring them to reform the nightmare while I pressed myself to Jude’s side. He leaned into me, and I felt him through the bond, relief, exhaustion, love, all of it tangled together and pulsing with the same rhythm as my own heart.

The ground beneath us shuddered, and I feared the nightmare monster was digging into the earth—until the dirt erupted with vines and plants, a shield forming around us in an array of giant flowers, glowing mushrooms, and twisting roots that pulsed with green light.

Ivan appeared from between the row of broken cars, Beau at his side, kitsune twins at his back. The kid practically vibrated with energy, and he traced glowing runes in the air, a dozen more shields erupting across the yard. Several thick stalks latched onto tentacles, cuffing them, and dragging them down.

Bobby nodded to himself as if deciding something, then burst around the shields of vegetation, racing to another fallen soldier.

Victor pushed himself up with a grunt. “I hate mortals,” he muttered, but he followed Bobby and Wade, who was already back on his feet, roaring, into the fray anyway, saving people and tearing apart the monster.

I leapt at another waving tentacle, latching on, and dragging it down, leaving me almost giddy as it writhed and wriggled, as if trying to find its way back to the whole. I pounced on the piece again, ripping it to shreds until it burst into an explosion of motes around me. Maybe we had a chance after all.

Okay then. Tear this fucker into pieces it was.

49

JUDE

Chaos had a pattern, and it was one I knew well. Angel claimed it followed me, and for once, I thought he might be right. But maybe I could use it to my advantage.

Erlik writhed, trying to pull himself through a growing tear like some patchwork Godzilla-sized ooze, tearing the Veil wider the more it dragged itself through.

Wade ripped chunks off him, and once they were small enough, they burst into motes, strands tiny enough that willing them back into the weave was little more than a heartbeat of influence. Nox pulsed with warmth from his perch on my shoulder, delivering magic and healing as he swatted at anything coming our way.

Angel latched himself to my side, shifting from his beautiful human form to the sleek dark shadow of his Bastion, and sank his claws into a tentacle sweeping my way. The bond between us flared, hot and bright, and I felt him like a second heartbeat.

I reached for the next chunk, fingers brushing against the frayed edges of a stolen life, and pulled. The strands came apart easily. Almost as if they’d yearned to be released for a long time. Erlik wasn’t a singular being. It was a hoard. Thousands of stolen pieces crammed together into a monster. The more I unraveled, the more I realized how fragile it was. A patchwork nightmare. A quilt made from stolen lives and shattered dreams. Held together by nothing but hunger and will, now it unraveled.

“Incoming,” Bobby shouted.

The tear in the sky was pulsing faster now, the purple and black heart beating like a wounded animal. Things were crawling through, smaller monsters, shadows with too many limbs, creatures that didn’t belong on this side of reality.

“Well, that’s not good.” I grumbled.

“You focus on the shadow monster,” Kerry said as she ran across the lawn with the rest of Victor’s team in tow. “We’ve got the little guys.” She cracked her knuckles as if gearing for a fight, and I was glad she was on our side.

Vines exploded from the edge of the lawn where the array of beasts tried to escape, and I glanced back to find Beau throwing what looked like seeds everywhere, Ivan behind him, tracing rune patterns with glowing fingertips. The kitsune twins circled my kid brother in their fox forms, larger than tigers and ten times as deadly.

“I think the cat’s out of the bag,” I remarked to Angel as I waved at Ivan. “No way to hide the glowy hands and supernatural bodyguards.”

Angel chuffed what I took as agreement, and tore off another piece of Erlik.

The assault from all angles was breaking off larger pieces than I could weave, and I was the one falling behind. Wade ripped a chunk the size of a car free, and it hit the ground writhing, trying to crawl back to the whole before I could unravel it. Bobby sliced through a tentacle, and it dissolved into motes so scattered I couldn’t catch them all. Even with Nox feeding me power, I couldn’t keep up.

Erlik was too big.

Some of the motes were dim, grey, barely there. Others pulsed with faint color, like they were trying to remember what they’d been.

A single mote paused, as if hesitating like a person. It flickered, then another mote drifted toward it, and another, and another. They gathered, slowly at first, clumping together like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

A shape formed. Hazy. Translucent. But unmistakably human.

A woman, barely visible, and little more than the faintest breath of a ghost, stared at her hands, blinking amidst the chaos.