22 #2
Unease coiled in my chest, tightening with every pulse of magic thick in the air.
A low hum swelled into a vibration that shook the brick beneath my boots, resonating through my bones.
It was calling to me, insistent and insidious, and my own magic couldn’t help but answer.
The response twisted into a tight, uneasy knot, clawing at my chest like it wanted to tear itself free.
“Everyone, run!” I shouted, pushing my friends back and garnering some strange looks from those passing by. A shockwave of light and sound rippled outward from the array. Pedestrians froze mid-step, gasps and startled cries erupting from the crowd of people nearby.
My magic was screaming now, thrumming and sharp. A woman rushed out of a nearby restaurant, clutching her coat as she pointed at me and shouted, “He did it! I saw him through the window! That man and those filthy demons! Call the police!”
Several people pulled out their phones and started dialing, some recording.
Another man lurched out from behind her, trembling just enough to feign fear, but the smirk curling Sly’s lips told a different story.
His posse fanned out behind him, shadows moving with a predator’s patience across the cracked pavement.
“I’ve seen them before,” Sly hissed, voice sharp and venomous, all false panic.
“That demon … he did this to me!” He pointed to the swollen bruise and black eye on his face.
“I came out of the club the other night and saw them roaming the streets, up to no good spray painting buildings.” He jabbed a finger at the empty lot, his words echoing off the concrete.
“I confronted them … and when I told them to stop, I was attacked! It’s all on video! ”
My stomach twisted. I could see it now …
the lies, the exaggeration, the calculated fear meant to manipulate.
Every fiber in me screamed that Sly was baiting me, drawing me out, daring me to react.
It was just like what had happened when the Syndicate had set me up for burning down Carson’s Pizza or poisoning the food supply at Emberheart Place.
They were trying once again to pin me into a corner so that I had no choice but to concede and assist the Syndicate.
Little did they know, I had already chosen that plan.
Ren’s hand slammed onto my shoulder, hard, dragging me back toward the array.
“Don’t let it bother you,” he snapped, pulling me across the icy cobblestones.
“Your emotions can’t spiral out of control or Alex won’t be able to rein you in.
Right now, their minds are as warped as these phantoms. The only thing we can do is stand between them and the danger, whether they want us to or not. ”
The hum from the graffiti didn’t fade. It grew louder, deeper, vibrating through the bricks, the ground, even the bones in my chest. Shadows along the street twisted and elongated, and the air seemed to warp around the patterns on the wall.
Then I felt it: the presence of something else, something cold, vengeful, and hungry.
“W-what’s that?” Someone called out, and upon seeing the crazed half-ghosts converging like a horde of zombies, the crowd reacted instantly. Pedestrians screamed and scattered, slipping on the icy bricks, knocking into one another, scrambling to lock themselves inside any store still open.
“The array … it’s summoning the phantoms and pulling them through!
” Ivy called out as a vengeful phantom emerged from the shadows and lunged at her.
With a burst of power, red flowers swirled through the chilly air, Stella’s magic sending the phantom airborne and knocking into a young woman behind her.
“You … you monster!” the victim trembled, her gaze fixed on Ivy.
Stella stepped in front of her with a sharp laugh. “Oh, shut the fuck up and get out of here, lady. Unless you’d like one of these phantoms to make a meal out of you.”
The woman didn’t waste another second, scrambling to her feet and scampering off.
From the edges of the street, phantoms drifted into view, passing through the barrier between two realms that had finally completely shattered.
At first, they were little more than wisps of smoke shaped like people, flickering in and out of reality, their forms barely tangible.
But as the array pulsed with more power, they solidified, their shapes taking on a more sinister weight.
These phantoms held hatred in their eyes, vengeance at their fingertips.
The closer they came to the array, the stronger their presence grew—alive, but not entirely in control.
“Get away from me!” A restaurant employee wearing a black apron had tripped and gone down hard.
Blood from a small gash on his forehead trickled down the side of his face.
He scrambled backward on his palms as a phantom stalked toward him.
It moved like a predator that knew it had already won—cat-sleek and all four limbs low to the ground, dark hair bristling along its skin, breath steaming in the cold air it didn’t seem to feel.
The phantom lifted a hand, claws lengthening into curved blades poised to tear through the man’s chest.
He screamed, squeezing his eyes shut, bracing for pain. I didn’t think. I moved.
My magic detonated out of me in a violent rush, raw and unfiltered.
It slammed into the shifter phantom with bone-jarring force but then kept going, catching the man in its wake.
He was thrown back just as hard as the phantom, the spell’s backlash ripping the breath from his lungs as he hit the pavement and stopped moving.
“Fuck.” I clenched my fist. Controlled by my emotions, this new magic intensified my attack and shot out of me like a speeding bullet.
Although the man was awake but barely conscious, the phantom shook off the blow like it was nothing more than an inconvenience. Whatever pain I’d inflicted didn’t linger as he rolled to his feet. Perhaps in his half-crazed state, there was nothing left that remembered how to hurt.
Sirens wailed in the distance, red and blue lights flickering from down the street. About thirty seconds later, rift wardens were pouring out of their cars and flooding the scene.
Derby Square became a chaotic hell. Rift wardens beat phantoms with clubs, shot them with magic bullets, and subdued them with silver chains.
The cat-like shifter went after his target again, but before I could intervene, a rift warden stepped in.
He hit the phantom with something that stunned him, his limbs locking up as electricity sizzled through his muscles.
The dazed man looked up at the rift warden like he was an angel that just descended from heaven.
“Theo!” Ren’s warning came just as I looked up to see several phantoms racing toward a group of young students pressed up against a closed door, begging to be let inside. The people on the other side simply looked out the window, refusing to open it to let them in.
I made a sign with my hands. Merging my magic, dark threads lashed outward, snapping around the phantom’s limbs and pulling them back, away from the teens.
My chest burned, the living magic coiling and thrashing like a caged animal, screaming at me to do more, to protect them all. It was … hurting. It wasn’t just my pain, but the phantom’s as well. It surged all at once, my body trembling under the weight.
Ren’s voice cut through the chaos as he approached me.
“This must be the intended center of the array.” He slammed a hand onto the nearest phantom, twisting her wrist and sending her writhing backward into the wall.
Ren’s eyes were sharp, calculating, already scanning escape routes and weak points.
“Take control now before it’s too late.”
“But—” I took in the scene unfolding around me. Ivy’s summoning magic flared. Talis, her shadow assassin, burst onto the scene, snarling and subduing the phantoms. Yet she could only summon one person at a time, and Talis, as terrifying as he was, was soon overpowered.
A monstrous creature made of garden flowers and vines stomped around Derby Square, roaring as it batted phantoms away with its massive hand, but a phantom with the ability to use fire had burned off the other.
“Theo,” Ren said with sincerity, “You have to trust us to protect you, trust that Alex and the others will support you. You can’t send these phantoms back one at a time, and this is your best chance at repairing the veil.
” He gripped either side of my head and forcefully kissed me. “Do your thing, Theo. Save the city.”
“O-okay.”
Amid the chaos, I knelt on the cold brick. My heart hammered against my ribs. Every scream, every crash, every burst of magic threatened to pull my attention away. The city was falling apart around me, and every instinct I had screamed at me to get up and help.
But repairing the veil was helping. I closed my eyes, breathing in and out, reminding myself that Ren and the others wouldn’t let me down. I didn’t have to endure this alone.
The thought settled something inside me, and I released my magic. I felt it intertwine with Alex, stabilizing and calming even though he was miles away.
It flowed from me in unseen waves, spreading through the city, brushing against every fractured phantom that had slipped through the veil. The moment I opened myself to them, I knew I had made a terrible mistake.
Pain exploded through my skull. I doubled over, a strangled gasp escaping my throat as thousands of voices crashed into me at once.
They weren’t words, but emotions, raw and unfiltered.
A tidal wave of grief slammed into me so hard my chest ached.
Before I could recover, it was swallowed by panic.
Then rage. Then loneliness. Then terror.
My hands hit the pavement. I couldn't breathe. It felt like someone had reached inside my chest and wrapped their hands around my lungs.
“Theo!” Ren’s panicked voice reached me and I pushed myself up to continue.