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With the imperator’s men occupied, Loren acted.

Now! She bellowed to Singer. And with an outward thrust of both of her arms, and a burst of rainbow magic, she froze everyone where they stood—including the creatures that had dove through the Veil.

Singer barrelled out of her shadow with a bark. Instead of his usual black form, he was white. She didn’t know how, but he was white. He hurtled straight for the imperator, who was frozen in the moment, and ripped the trigger out of his grip with sharp teeth.

And then Singer was at her side, and they were running.

Loren knew it wouldn’t hold for long. If she didn’t get far enough away from here in time, it wouldn’t just be the imperator and his men she would have to worry about, but also the demons.

With Singer at her side, the trigger for her suit in his mouth, they ran, banking on Loren’s limited memory of this horrible place to find her way back out. Every pulse of the clock in her neck told her that her time was winding down, her life running out.

She did not look to see how many minutes were left.

69

Darien and the others made it below Angelthene Boulevard just as the forcefield went down, the magic of the anima mundi that forever vibrated through the cristala tower vanishing without a trace. The interference from Spirit Terra—or maybe the Well slumbering inside that realm—had caused it to cut out.

Memories from these past few weeks tripped over themselves in Darien’s mind.

The intersection that hadn’t worked properly since Kalendae. The clocks in the downtown core that randomly stopped working, even after changing the batteries.

He remembered the last time he’d walked these tunnels, not long before the Well had exploded. How he’d been able to hear Ivador Langdon speaking in his headset, and had wondered, even during all the chaos back then, how it was possible. It was as if the Well had somehow bent reality; had manipulated things it had no right manipulating.

With the absence of the forcefield, the whole city fell silent and still, as if the beating urban heart of Angelthene had been ripped out and thrown far away. The Blood Moon was climbing high above the city; within the hour, demons of all kinds would be stirring awake, not just in Angelthene, but also in the land surrounding it, coaxed out of their dens by the red light to feed.

And they would be heading straight here. Straight into the city, its citizens left unprotected by magic for the first time during a Blood Moon in…ever.

Tanner couldn’t bring the forcefield back up. He was typing on his tablet as they navigated the dank underbelly of Angelthene, but the look on his face, and the way he muttered under his breath, told Darien his usual tricks were failing.

This was something different than Kalendae. Something worse.

The tunnels lit up with flares of light as Darien and the others emptied bullets into the bodies of the imperator’s men, shots cracking through the tunnels. Their guns were built for efficiency and silence, but down here sound carried, and he knew every shot they fired would alert the other men lurking in the network of passageways. Blood sprayed the cement walls and floor. Corpses tumbled into the water channels, turning the runoff red. There were chunks of ice floating in that water, and some of the drips from the ceiling had solidified into icicles, the tapered points winking cruelly in the light.

Dead bodies littered the ground, many of them not felled by Darien and the others. Men who worked for the imperator and had been slaughtered by the demons that had already made it through.

When they rounded the bend just past the waterfalls, Darien’s mind emptied with shock, his mouth drying out at the sight of the Veil stretching like starry fabric across the far wall.

The thing looked alive. It undulated with a phantom wind, thunder rumbling from deep within the spirit realm.

The men guarding the area spotted them with a shout and raised their weapons.

As the others took down the men guarding the Veil, Darien hurried over to the tables that were pressed up against the left wall, his every movement covered by Travis and Jack.

Darien threw open the briefcases and crates and boxes, searching for the syringes containing the serum of life that would allow him to move through Spirit. He needed it, or he wouldn’t be able to enter Spirit and find Loren. Loren, who was stuck in there, alone—

Darien’s chest tightened, blood thrumming with fear.

None were here. There were no syringes, not a single one.

“No, no, no,” he breathed, shaking his head. He refused to believe it. There had to be one—just one. He searched desperately, throwing things off the table, black crates of bullets containing aura magic rattling as they hit the floor. “No, please. Please, please, please. Fuck!” He launched a black crate off the table, where it soared into the wall, bullets flying out of the boxes inside and pinging across the ground.

Ivy and Travis came up behind him, the tunnels now silent as every necessary shot had been fired, the imperator’s men lying dead on the ground, scarlet seeping across cement.

“Darien?” Ivy inquired softly.

“They’re gone!” he shouted, spinning around, eyes alit with terror that was flattening his lungs. There was no air in here. “The Life Clocks—there’s none left!”

Ivy stepped aside as he stalked up to the Veil, walking over dead bodies and smears of blood.