Page 6

“Overworked,” I muttered.

We ran around the corner of the building and skidded to a halt.

Ahead of us was Emma’s apartment block, where I’d seen her safely home only a few hours before.

It was fully ablaze, fire pouring from shattered windows, licking up the brickwork as though to swallow the sky.

Smoke billowed thick and black into the night.

The heat hit us even from fifty yards, an oppressive wall, and I threw up an arm on instinct.

Somewhere inside, something collapsed with a rumble I felt in my chest.

There was nothing I could do but stare. Even if Kara could withstand such a furnace, no one could still be alive within.

A growl vibrated through the heated air, and a demon stalked out from under a tree—canine, but stretched and wrong. The size of a car, its hide shimmered in the heat as it raised its snout and sniffed, eyes glowing like coals as they locked onto me with chilling precision.

“Master!” Kara yanked me back. Her grip grazed my burn, but I barely felt it over the spike of adrenaline.

Her horns elongated, protecting her head, and the black flame nimbus I’d seen in the bar flared to life around her.

Her eyes burned red as her whip of shadows spilled from her hand, seeming insubstantial—though I knew it wasn’t.

The demon charged, jaws opening wide. Its long, jagged teeth glinted in the firelight, but Kara didn’t hesitate.

She drew her whip back and snapped it forward, the shadowy tendril wrapping around the dog-like demon’s front leg—a squat, muscular limb with claws that dug into the earth as it ran.

She hauled on the whip with both hands, and the leg didn’t just give way—it ripped free in a spray of black blood.

The demon howled, staggering, but kept coming, thick ooze spilling from the stump. Kara struck again, her whip coiling around its throat, tightening as the creature thrashed then snapped its jaws through the shadowy strands, parting them.

Wings flared from Kara’s back, so dark they gleamed purple. She lunged forward, part-leap, part-flight, her fist wreathed in black fire. She drove it straight through the demon’s skull.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, staring at the succubus who only last week argued epistemology with me in a lecture hall.

Kara hit the demon dog again. And again. It was already dead, crumpled at her feet, but she kept going—sobbing as her fists broke through what was left of its skull. Black blood splattered her face and arms.

“Hey,” I said. “It’s dead. Kara, it’s dead.”

She sobbed—a broken, involuntary whimper—staring down at her hands as she shuddered, then wiped them ineffectually on her corset. Her nimbus of aether flickered out. Her horns shrank down to their usual size, her eyes fading back to green, and her wings dissolved into black mist.

“It’s all right,” I said, stepping closer. “It’s over.”

“It’s not over,” she cried, turning to bury her face against my shoulder, her hands pressing to my chest. The scent of her hit me—smoke in her hair and something unexpectedly soft beneath it, a faint whisper of jasmine that clung to her skin. “We’re never going to survive this.”

“Sure we will.” I feigned confidence, glancing toward Emma’s apartment block. She was dead if she hadn’t gotten out. And if she had? So many bodies littered the campus. Which one was hers?

My jaw tightened. There’d be time to mourn, but it wasn’t now. “We should get inside, somewhere safe. We need to get to the bar.”

Kara gave a sniff and a shaky nod. “I’ve never had to kill before. I’m sorry.”

“What the hell for?” I brought one fingertip under her chin and lifted her face, then wiped droplets of black blood off her cheek with my thumb.

Her eyes glistened with tears—striking in a way I hadn’t noticed before.

“You were amazing just now. I didn’t know you had that kind of power.

” Not entirely true, but she’d expect me to say it.

“I do feel stronger, it’s true,” she said, voice firmer. “The Halloween effect, I guess.”

“Good time to be amped up,” I said. “So … those wings. Can you fly us to the bar?”

She gave me a look like I was a moron. “I’m not a fucking bumblebee.”

Seemed she was back to her usual self after that fleeting moment of vulnerability. “Just checking. Come on—we need to move.”

We turned away from Emma’s apartment block, heading across campus toward the bar. Normally a ten-minute walk, but in unspoken agreement we didn’t dare risk the open paths across the green, instead keeping to the edges near the buildings. I stretched out my senses, searching for any supes nearby.

Three wolves ran across our path ahead, and I yanked Kara behind a tree until they passed.

“I can’t fucking believe this is happening,” she whispered, fingers brushing mine before gripping my hand.

I squeezed back. “We’ll get through this.”

“Will we?”

I had nothing left to offer, no more lies dressed as hope. We were both in over our heads.

The wolves were gone. I pulled her back into motion, and we kept moving toward the bar. But we hadn’t made it far before I ducked behind the corner of a building, sensing a group of elementals ahead.

“What are we—” Kara started.

I placed a finger across her lips, and she fell silent, going cross-eyed as she glared down at it. A little of her earlier defiance would help right now. Deliberately pressing harder, I gave her a wink. She jerked away with a scowl.

The elementals walked by, looking like four norms. If I hadn’t sensed their powers, we might’ve mistaken them for students. They didn’t see us. Kara looked at me with wide eyes, realizing I’d somehow known.

I figured it was too late to worry about staying off radars when we had more important goals—like staying alive.

“You’re no norm, you’re some kind of supe,” she hissed as soon as they passed.

“Nothing to write home about,” I muttered, pulling her along, still holding hands for that strange reassurance despite our shared contempt. My burned arm throbbed, but it was worth it.

“Why didn’t you shield through the flames?” she asked.

“Because I can’t,” I muttered.

She stared at me in disbelief. “Don’t play dumb. I know you’re a supe.”

“Okay, yes, I’m a supe.”

“So why didn’t you shield?”

“I told you,” I said with barely concealed irritation. “I can’t.”

“ Every supe can shield. It’s basic.”

Not me. My powers were too weak, though I wasn’t about to share that fact.

She gave me another strange look, then dropped it, muttering to herself.

We leapfrogged from tree to building, building to tree, ducking behind cover whenever I sensed something. The fighting hadn’t lessened; confrontations erupted wherever we looked, but at least none fought like students. This wasn’t a campus brawl. It was a damn battle royale.

“I wish I knew what the hell was going on.”

“My night turned crazy before all this shit started, Master .”

I glanced at her. “You don’t have to keep calling me that if you don’t want to.”

“I want to,” she muttered, as if she couldn’t quite believe it herself.

I shrugged, leaving her to do her weird succubus thing. The bar was close now; I could see the door.

At least it wasn’t on fire.

But as we started running toward it, a shout rang out from a hundred yards away. Three elementals had been outside my sensing range, but they saw us even in the dark.

A spell zipped past, exploding on a nearby tree.

“Shit!”

They were closing fast, and Kara’s nimbus ignited again as she stepped forward, positioning herself between me and the oncoming threat. Her eyes glowed red, focused and unblinking.

“Can you handle this?” I asked.

“No idea.” She unfurled her whip, horns curling back over her head, tail twitching restlessly.

There was nothing I could do to help her, and ducked as a thin line of fire shot between us, narrowly missing. The elementals were close enough to sense now.

“Two earth, one fire.” The earth elementals had hardened their skin to look like stone, but showed no signs of slowing.

“No shit,” Kara said.

I shook my head. I supposed it was pretty obvious—now that they’d used their powers. “Just trying to help.”

“Help by not dying.”

I ignored her, not needing the reminder of how weak I was. Instead, I offered what little I could. “The pyro is strongest. The left golem’s the weakest.”

She shot me a glance. “How the hell do you know that?”

She didn’t wait for an answer but sprang forward, aided by the snap of her wings. Crossing the ground to the oncoming elementals in a blink, she flicked her whip at the one I’d identified as the easier target.

Our foes shouted, caught off guard by the speed of her attack.

Her whip sliced across the earth elemental, cutting through despite his stone-like skin. She drove a black-flamed fist into his chest, and he was blasted backwards like she’d hit him with a shotgun at point-blank range.

A second later, the other golem barreled into her, and they both crashed to the ground.

“Kara!”

The fire elemental turned on me, raising her hand and firing a line of flames that I barely dodged. It seared past my ear, far too damn close.

I wish I had a shield .

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than the tether to Kara seemed to twang, and black shadows of aether tinted my vision gray, flowing over my chest, arms and hands. I stared down at them, momentarily frozen in surprise.

“You do have a—” Kara began, her tone accusatory, then stopped with a gasp as she realized the shield I’d manifested wasn’t from my aether. It was from hers.

The elementals seemed stunned, too.

“It’s him!” the pyro cried, drawing both hands together, summoning a larger spell. “Leave the demon! Kill him!”

Okay …

The earth elemental sprang to its feet and charged at me.

I didn’t know how strong Kara’s shields were, or if they’d hold up against whatever was coming. I didn’t even know if I’d borrowed any of her other powers—but the stone-skinned golem was nearly on me.

Clenching my fist, I willed the black flames to form like Kara had done, and grinned as they flowed around my arm, dense and inky.

Kara’s whip lashed out, looping around the elemental’s leg, making him stagger just as he reached me. It was too good an opportunity to resist.

I’d never had the power to be effective in a fight. For too long, I’d hid in the periphery, the first to avert my eyes, always choosing to de-escalate.

Not anymore. Not now, with Kara fighting for both of us, and our lives on the line.

I stepped into the swing, my fist crashing down on the earth mage’s skull, the blow maybe powered by Kara’s aether, but definitely fueled by two decades of frustration.

It wasn’t elegant, it lacked finesse, but it sure was effective.

The golem’s head exploded. Stone, blood and brain matter sprayed behind him. His body swayed before dropping.

A cold shock rippled through me, my mind stunned by what I’d just done. Killing like this wasn’t something I’d ever imagined, or ever thought I’d be capable of.

Kara stared up at me, mouth agape in shock—then my world was consumed by flames as the pyro unleashed her spell.

“No!” Kara screamed, springing to her feet. Her whip snapped out, lashing around the mage’s neck.

“Don’t kill—” I cried, but it was too late. A sickening crack rang out, and the fire elemental’s body jolted before collapsing, limp and still. “Shit. I wanted to ask questions.”

Kara spun to me, eyes wide in horror at what she’d done. She swallowed hard. “Are you all right?”

“Just fine,” I muttered. Physically, at least. Borrowing Kara’s shield had apparently come with her flame resistance, entirely negating the mage’s spell.

Emotionally? That was another story. In a few short hours, everything had gone to hell.

The campus looked like a warzone, so many had died, and I’d just killed someone.

It was only through burying that emotion that I was able to run past Kara, grabbing her hand as I went, not stopping until we reached the bar.

It took me a moment to fumble the keys in the lock, then we were inside, slamming the door behind us, shutting out the world.

I double-locked it with a sense of relief.

My gaudy Halloween decorations lit the bar with their green and purple glows, and it was enough to see.

We could manage without the lights—even with the window shutters, I didn’t want to draw attention to the place being occupied.

Kara shot me a venomous look, breathing hard, chest heaving distractingly in what remained of her ruined corset. Her nimbus faded, as did mine, her horns receded into their usual short, polished nubs, and her eyes shifted from glowing red to their familiar green.

“It was you,” she spat. “All along, it was you. You’re a fucking warlock, Master. ”

Oh yeah. That little detail.