“Blood Casters,” I say. “Go find cover.”
I hit the gray button that opens the shuttered panel in the domed ceiling, designed to allow celestials to accelerate their healing by sleeping under the night sky. I need to get outside faster, so once the clearing is open wide enough, I levitate to the edge, slide down the side of the dome, and dive off the building. Wind roars in my ears as I keep my hands to my sides, and I must look like a missile. When I’m near the ground, I activate my power, thrust backward a few feet, and glide down in a circle. I drop into the parking lot, and when my psychic sense signals that there’s danger, I dive behind a car, catching myself in the air so I don’t slam on the concrete. More spells are being shot into the car, and I move away before it can explode and take me with it.
The front doors open and Iris and Wesley run out alongside three more security guards. Even though it’s clear that the acolytes are directly across from them, they keep looking around. Iris points—Eva and Ruth are here, and they’re helping Carolina out of a green van. None of them have the offensive powers needed to take on the acolytes. Iris yells at them to stay inside the car, but they don’t seem to hear her. She runs across the path as spells crash into her, simply slowing her down, until Dione charges across the lot and tackles her.
Acolytes fire spells at the green van as it begins to drive my way. Ruth is in the driver’s seat, but another Ruth is also still helping Eva and Carolina. It’s unclear which one is the clone until the one on foot vanishes in a purple glow. Four acolytes hop on their motorcycles and chase after the van. I knock down one acolyte with a fire-arrow before he gets too far, but everyone else vanishes from sight as they go out of the exit. Wind blasts past me; it’s Wesley chasing after them to protect his girlfriend, maybe even their daughter if Ruth brought Esther along.
I run for Atlas’s car, knowing my skin can’t resist the spells like Iris’s can. I grab my power-proof vest from the front seat and put it on, quickly like my parents trained me, and I grab the oblivion dagger.
I jump and glide into the battle, hurling fire-arrows at the acolytes. I land behind Dione, and before she can hammer Iris with her six fists, I slice her back with the dagger. Dione screams, whirls around, and punches me four times. Spit flies out of my mouth, and she snatches the dagger from me. Dione hooks one arm around my head, flips me over her shoulder, and slams me on my back. She hovers over me, pinning down my arms with two of hers and twirling the oblivion dagger with another. I try kicking at her head, but a fourth arm catches my foot. She drives the dagger down toward my throat, but Iris’s hand slides underneath, and the bone blade goes through her palm, her glistening blood spilling onto me. Iris punches Dione in the face with her other hand, and I can hear bones cracking as Dione flies backward.
Iris bites down on her lip as she slowly pulls the oblivion dagger out of her hand, the bone clattering as she drops it to the ground. We take cover behind a pillar. Iris examining the blood gushing out of the hole in her hand reminds me of when we were children in the park and she jumped on my back so she could experience what it was like to levitate. We ran toward the edge of the staircase and I carried us into the air, but I couldn’t hold her for very long. We fell, and she landed on a pile of broken glass that pierced her skin. At least Iris isn’t crying this time.
“Fly after Eva—she’s with Carolina, Ruth, and Esther.”
“Ruth drove off,” I say.
We peek around the pillar to see Eva and Carolina being pursued by acolytes.
“We have to get them,” Iris says, taking off at a sprint.
But that’s when I see June standing by the driveway’s entrance sign—and she’s staring at me.
I grab the dagger and go straight for June, ignoring Iris shouting for me to help her because she’s not in charge of me. I don’t owe her just because a dagger was driven through her hand for me. If she hadn’t kept my true lineage a secret from me, I would’ve understood my powers better and saved our parents and Atlas. Iris will rescue Eva and have her hand healed. I have to kill June while she’s stupid enough to show her face.
I glide after June as she takes off running through the bushes and heads downhill. June darts into the street and has to phase through an oncoming car, though it’s too late for the driver, who swerves to miss her and crashes into another car. June stands in the center of her chaos as the other cars honking masks the sounds of spellwork back at the hospital. I drop down onto the street, swinging the dagger. June fades out and kicks me from behind, and I crash into the hood of a car. Then my psychic sense goes into overload as she keeps reappearing around and attacking me. Punch to my back, elbow to my neck, kick to my ribs. She punches my shoulder from behind so hard that I think she’s dislocated it, and I don’t have Atlas around to pop it back in. My eyes flutter from dizziness as she slams my face against the hood.
She tries to wrestle the dagger away from me, and my arm is too busted to keep a tight grip. Dark yellow flames burst from my fist and burn her hands. Is this why she and the Blood Casters came back—for the dagger? Or did they hunt us down to get revenge for their creator? I don’t know if June even has enough humanity in her to care for Luna like a mother, but I hope she was forced to watch Luna choke to death on her own blood.
I cast a stream of fire at June, obscuring her vision as I levitate about ten feet high, and when she walks through my flames, expecting to find me still on the ground, I hurl the dagger down at her with my good arm. June sees me just in time, and the dagger phases through her, clattering against the ground. She’s untouchable. . . .
June slowly turns to her shoulder, eyeing it curiously. Gray-and-red blood drips down her solid body.
The oblivion dagger can harm her when she’s incorporeal.
We both learn this at the same time.
I drop down, grab and throw the dagger again, but June vanishes through the ground this time. I wait for her to pop back up, but she doesn’t. The gray-and-red blood on the bone dagger is the most promising sight I’ve seen in days.
There’s a crack in June’s armor, and I’m going to break her apart.
Ten
Poison
BRIGHTON
There haven’t been a lot of times that I’ve missed being that ordinary Brighton who was college-bound about a month ago, but I would give a lot right now to be healthy in some dorm room watching a TV show with some roommate I low-key hate. Instead I’m staring out the window in a hospital as a battle unfolds, and I think someone may be coming to kill me before I can die of unnatural causes.
An alarm blares, and against every practitioner’s instructions, I run. I’ve just made it to the door when I crash so hard into Emil that we collapse on top of each other. He groans and I rub my forehead.
“We got to go,” Emil says as we help each other up.
“You think?”
I’ve got nothing on but the hospital garb. There’s no time to even put on the socks Emil took off me when I got too hot, or grab my sneakers in case we make it outside. My body is aching, but Emil drags me down the hall. Overhead lights are flashing yellow and orange, which I know is an emergency signal from this zombie horror movie that took place in an abandoned Gleam Care facility.
“Where’s Prudencia?” I ask.