To Lucien, the air sort of wavered around them as if from heat. Some had eyes that glowed red while others had talon-like nails that sliced and left behind a poison in the skin. Clay had told them all of an encounter he’d barely escaped, but not without first suffering four long slashes on his chest that even now were white scars despite Dane’s attempts at healing him.
Reaching inside his chest where his power burned behind his heart like a living flame, he sent it down his arms in an almost liquid rush until matching balls of flames appeared in his open hands. He tossed them like overripe grapefruits at the two monsters. The fire splashed across them, instantly enveloping both pestilents. As evil and deadly as they were, Lucien still winced and cringed at their screams. He wished he knew how to make their deaths quick and painless, but he doubted they had the same worries for him.
Lucien slowly closed his fists, extinguishing the flames on the pestilents and calling the flickering energy back to himself. He started to turn, when the ground rumbled under his feet. Without thinking, he called on the fire again, holding a ball in one hand, ready to throw it.
The tree on his right lashed out with one thick branch. It shot over his shoulder, narrowly missing him. He jumped away from the tree. The fire disappeared as he hit the ground and rolled straight up to his feet. Looking at where he’d been standing a second ago, he found the branch had stabbed through the chest of a pestilent who had been sneaking up on him.
With rising nausea in his stomach, he watched as the tree limb jerked from the pestilent and sort of shook itself, as if it were trying to get rid of the nasty gore. The pestilent flopped to the ground, a forgotten rag doll.
“What the hell are you doing? And watch the flames near the trees,” Clay grumbled behind him.
Lucien didn’t know if becoming the Earth Weaver had turned Clay into a tree-hugger or if he’d always been that way, but he was constantly hearing how he needed to be careful with fire around the trees.
Turning to Chippewa Square, Lucien spotted Clay striding toward him from the other side of Wright Square. “I told you to protect Grey.”
“And Grey said that he couldn’t keep cleansing brainwashed humans forever. He sent me to get rid of pestilents while Calder protected him,” Lucien shot at him.
Clay grunted, which was probably the best he was going to get from his fearless leader in terms of agreement. There were times when Lucien rankled at following commands from Clay. He was his own man, independent and more than capable of making his own decisions. However, Clay had been fighting the pestilents as well as using his powers far longer than any of them.
And as much as he hated to admit it at times, Clay did make pretty good decisions most often. It wasn’t like he was a dictator. He listened to all their thoughts and opinions. But when battle started, Clay was the undisputed leader, and if someone put the brothers in danger, he wasn’t afraid to knock some sense into a person. Literally.
“Let’s get to them. I cleared out Chippewa.”
“Wright is clear now,” Lucien murmured. Hopefully, Calder had things under control at Telfair.
Together, they jogged the couple of blocks separating Wright from Telfair, but things had worsened considerably since Lucien had left. On the plus side, the humans had left the area. But Grey and Calder were now ringed by nearly a dozen pestilents.
Grey stood with his back to Calder, a metal folding chair gripped by the legs in both hands. While the Soul Weaver’s gift was terrifying in its own right, it couldn’t do much in a physical fight, leaving him dependent on weapons such as knives and guns. Two things he hadn’t brought to his book signing.
The Soul Weaver swayed slightly on his feet, and his eyes were narrowed as if in pain. Calder didn’t look much better. His skin was pale, and he also swaying on his feet.
Lucien cursed himself for forgetting that Calder had been blessed with his powers for only a few months. Not that Lucien had enjoyed his for much longer, but he should have remembered—it took time to get used to wielding powers and building up endurance. It was like strengthening a muscle. And right now, Calder was clearly at his limit.
In the blink of an eye, both he and Clay called on their powers. The remaining pestilents were removed in a matter of minutes, lost to flames and the earth simply swallowing them up whole. Anger gave way to swamping relief when Calder at last released the water. It splashed noisily on the paving stones.
Jogging over, Lucien reached Calder as he took a stumbling step to his left, looking as if he were about to fall. He caught the man, keeping him from hitting the ground. Calder slowly blinked impossibly blue eyes up at him framed by thick black lashes. For a moment, it was like he wasn’t really seeing Lucien.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
The question seemed to wake him from his momentary stupor. Calder jerked from his arms and quickly moved away from him. “Of course I’m okay.”
“Whatever. Fuck you! I thought you said you had it under control.”
“I did, but we got swamped the second you disappeared. I’d like to see you handle a dozen pestilents on your own without breaking a sweat.”
Lucien made a scoffing noise in his throat and waved a dismissive hand at Calder. “Whatever.”
“Silence.” That single hissed word from Grey had enough venom in it to feel like a cobra’s strike.
The Soul Weaver had been kept upright by leaning heavily on Clay, but he shoved away now. He took a couple of wobbly steps toward Lucien and Calder. The man’s face was a sickly pale and the shadows under his eyes were dark, looking as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.
“I have a migraine bigger than both your egos right now,” Grey continued in a harsh, pained whisper. “I swear, if I don’t have silence the entire ride to the house, I will make you both fucking chickens for an entire month.”
Lucien gulped loudly but said nothing. From the corner of his eye, he could see that Calder had frozen as well. It didn’t even look like he was breathing. They’d both seen Grey practice his powers on unsuspecting delivery people who dropped things off at the house. He’d convinced plenty of them with very little effort that they were chickens, having them clucking and scratching the dirt in the front yard. He didn’t think Clay would let Grey leave them as chickens for an entire month, but he didn’t want Grey doing that to him for even a second.
Seeming to be convinced that they were going to keep their mouths shut, Grey turned and staggered to Clay. The larger man wrapped an arm around Grey’s shoulders, supporting most of his weight as they walked toward the car. He thought he heard Grey mumble something under his breath about never doing a book signing again.
“I thought you gave a very nice talk,” Clay murmured in the softest voice he’d ever heard the man use. Lucien couldn’t see Grey’s expression, but the exhausted Soul Weaver patted Clay a couple of times on the chest.
Lucien glanced over at Calder to find the Water Weaver watching him. His expression quickly turned into a scowl, and he stomped off after Clay and Grey. Lucien threw his hands up. He nearly told the man to fuck off yet again, but the words died in his throat. He was not going to piss off the Soul Weaver any further.
He just needed to get home, get a shower, and preferably stay the hell away from Calder for a few hours. If he was lucky, days.