Page 144 of Stardusted

But Sky had been right; this one looked different from the Enil I’d seen before.

The first creature I’d encountered had looked like a praying mantis made of junkyard scraps. This one wasn’t the same shape. Not even the same size.

Still a disturbing twist on the familiar, though.

It moved with loping, fluid menace on four sleek legs built from piping. It’d come from the boiler room, Sky had said, and sure enough, there were gauges and valves melted and melded together, like some kind of Salvador Dalí painting.

But that wasn’t the horrific part. Its elongated head—like a wolf’s skull rendered in polished steel—swung side-to-side as it stalked forward with predatory grace—despite being forged of clunky metal parts. Tiny grotesque limbs jutted from its chest, tipped in needle-sharp appendages.Fingers.

It had gnarled little arms. Like someone had combined a Mecha T-Rex with the Big Bad Wolf. Surreal and ridiculous and it might have been comical if those arms hadn’t ended in scalpel-like claws designed to tear into flesh. Probably brain matter, too.

I tucked my brightly shining hand behind my back.

The strobe lights bounced off its mishmash of alloys and scrap, casting it in staccato bursts of white and shadow as it prowled from the hallway entrance. There were recognizable shapes embedded in there. An air filter frame, a microscope, a cracked, warped flatscreen. So strange.

The word robot didn’t quite fit. Sky was right. It moved like no collection of random parts should. Like it was part animal, part machine. All really bad news.

The Enil had found me.They were here.And this time, they weren’t sneaking in shadows.

They were coming right for us.

The awful groaning, clanking noise grew clearer the closer it came. A pair of green, pulsing orbs locked on where I stood behind Sky, my palm still burning bright and steady. I tucked my hand behind my back, but it was useless. It gave off enough light to cast our shadows on the tiled floor.

The Enil emitted a sound, all grinding metal and warped modulations. It took me a second to recognize:speech. It was talking to us. Or maybe it was chatting to the other Enil via some alien walkie-talkie tech. Maybe it was cursing in Enilese.

Whatever it was saying, the sound of its language was as terrifying this time as it’d been before. Almost more so now that I knew what this thing was. What it was capable of.

Lungs heaving, I glanced at Sky. If he understood anything the Mech T-Rex Wolf had said, he didn’t respond. He simply adjusted his stance, coming forward onto the balls of his feet and rolling his shoulders back.

Like he was preparing.

Apparently, the Enil took that as an answer.

It angled its massive body. Blade-like protrusions glinted along its limbs.Its serrated jaws opened, and it loosed a digitized roar loud enough to drown out the fire alarm. Loud enough to rattle my teeth and make me slap my hands over my ears. I would’ve staggered back if I hadn’t already pressed myself into the wall.

Before I could recover, it charged.

I screamed as tile cracked under its claws. It moved so fast, it was a blur of metal and death. The crunch of its footfalls mingled with the clanking, groaning squeal of impossibly bending joints.

It was coming right forme.

“Rae, go!” Sky tore his eyes from the charging alien long enough to give me a push.

I wasn’t ready for it.

My ankles tangled, and I hit the floor hard, my backpack taking the brunt of the impact. Air whooshed from my lungs, and stars burst behind my eyes. Dazed, I rolled to my side and looked up.

Sky had planted himself between me and the threat.

But that wasn’t the craziest part.

The craziest part was that he wascoveredin electricity.

Before, when he’d said he could manipulate it, I hadn’t quite grasped his meaning. Now I did. Strands of energy crackled over his hands, crawling up his arms, wrapping him in snaking tendrils. They shone neon against the darkness. The scent of ozone filled the hallway, the burnt, biting scent of a gathering storm.

Except it wasn’t a storm. It was a Pladian in a skin suit.

He’dcaused all that electricity that day in the lab. Not a severed wire.Sky.