Chapter 15
Periwinkle
“What the fuck,” Hail mutters, which I’m guessing means he noticed the shadowkind woman’s sudden makeover too.
A chill ripples over my skin. “She must have come through the rift. Maybe there were a bunch of beings in the flood.”
The crocodile-tailed woman leaps from the smashed truck to the roof of a car parked nearby. She slams her fist into the windshield with a flicker of supernatural energy and then yanks at the driver’s-side door.
It tears off its hinges with a squeal like a dying animal.
Yikes. “She’s strong.”
Mirage has frozen next to me, his ruddy hair even more rumpled than usual. “And cruel.”
The woman hurls the car door as if to punctuate his point. It slams into a nearby store window, smashing through the glass.
I extend my senses toward the higher being, but the only emotion I pick up from her is a dull sense of satisfaction, like a thin layer of peanut butter.
She’s pleased with the havoc she’s wreaking.
I can’t taste any anger or fear that could tell me why she’s treating the street like a buffet of destruction.
“What should we do about her?” I murmur, a little nervous that she’ll hear us and aim her aggression our way.
It’s hard to imagine I could defend myself against a being that powerful. I’m not sure a full blast of the emotional energy I can gather would make her even wince.
Rollick wanted me out by the rift because he thought I could help… but he didn’t expect that problem to start stomping around and flinging doors. I don’t see how I’m equipped to handle this.
But we can’t let her keep bashing up people’s belongings in full view of who knows how many mortals, can we?
Raze flexes his shoulders. “I’ll subdue her. We’ll capture her and wait until Rollick can come decide how to deal with her.”
He strides forward, merging into the shadows as he does. I watch him vanish with a hitch of my heart.
Is even Raze strong enough to overcome this being? The basilisk shifter has plenty of power of his own, but from what he’s said, his searing eyes and poison skin harm mortals much more than they do fellow shadowkind.
Against the lesser creatures we’ve encountered, he’s mostly relied on brute force. This woman is showing off her own like she’s competing in a demolition talent show.
I drag in a breath, focusing on the churning emotions inside me. Trying to compress them into a blast I could aim at the woman if she lashes out at Raze.
I don’t want to really hurt her anyway, just make sure she doesn’t hurt him.
My anxiety jitters through my concentration. How could any power in my pudgy body be enough to shake her?
How can I make sure I only hit her and not Raze if they’re fighting?
I’m not ready to take on a city-wide catastrophe in the form of a higher shadowkind.
Mirage shifts his weight next to me with a tremor of his own uneasiness. More discomfort pulses off Hail in tandem with my own.
“I could try to encase her in ice—just enough to stop her from moving, not to kill her.” Uncertainty winds through the winter fae’s voice.
I don’t think he’s convinced he has enough power to restrain her either.
“Maybe…” Mirage lifts one hand, and an illusion wavers along the street.
He’s obviously been inspired by the woman’s reptilian tail. Bullrushes and reeds appear to sprout up from the sidewalks and storefronts. The road transforms into a flowing stream.
The imagery expands toward the car the woman is jumping on—
But before she even notices it, Raze leaps out of the shadows straight at her.
His sinewy body collides with her only slightly smaller frame. They crash onto the road.
I flinch, and Mirage’s growing illusion fractures apart.
The fox shifter cringes with a trickle of curdled-milk shame. “Not really needed, no harm done,” he says in his singsong voice as if to cover up the fumble.
Raze and the woman tumble over each other on the asphalt. In the first few seconds, I think the basilisk shifter might pin her down and end the fight just like that.
Then her tail whips out and batters his head with its jutting scales. A cry quavers up my throat.
Raze loses his grip. He scrambles to catch the woman’s limbs, but she’s already wrenched both of her legs up. She shoves him away with a kick hard enough to send him soaring into the crushed truck.
And basilisks aren’t meant to fly.
A louder yelp bursts from my lips. Pain jolts from Raze into me, sending my panic spiraling sharper.
The woman cackles hoarsely and bounds down the street. She rams her fist into every window she passes, shattering them so glass rains down on the street in her wake. It crunches under her feet like the sharpest of snow.
For the first few seconds, my legs stay locked in place. Then Raze groans as he pushes himself off the truck, and my concern for him overwhelms my terror.
I sprint down the road to join him, the other men following behind me. The being who attacked him is just hurtling around a bend in the road up ahead. Another metallic screech follows moments later.
I tune out her concerto of destruction as well as I can and grasp Raze’s arm. “Are you okay? How much did she hurt you?”
Before I’ve even finished speaking, I spot the smoky essence wafting from a few gouges in his back.
Raze shakes himself, emanating a mix of consternation and pain. “It’s not that bad. We can’t let her keep going. She’s bashing up the whole city.”
She is, out in the open for anyone to see. She’s that confident no one will stop her.
I have no idea what the mortals watching from their high windows over the road must think is going on. Are they really going to convince themselves that a regular human put on a fake crocodile tail to rampage through their streets?
As Raze spins toward the new series of smashing sounds, Riva and Zian dash into view.
Riva is already talking. “The rift sucked all those weird shadows back in, so that’s okay for—”
She halts to stare at the broken cars and shattered windows. As she catches her breath, she sets her hands on her hips. “What the hell happened here? It looks like a herd of pissed-off elephants stampeded through.”
I point toward the road ahead. “There’s a higher shadowkind who must have come through the rift—she’s warping like the lesser creatures we’ve seen. And she doesn’t seem to care about much except wrecking everything she can. She… she’s part crocodile, not part elephant.”
“Not much better.” The shadowblood woman lets out a huff and glances at Zian. “Come on. We might need you in wolfman form for this.”
The big man grimaces, but then he rubs his hands together.
With a tensing of his form, his muscular body expands even bigger. More dark hair sprouts from his pinkish-brown skin—down his neck and across his shoulders under the collar of his stretching T-shirt. His nose and jaw protrude into a canine muzzle.
I knew the shadowbloods had their own supernatural abilities, but I haven’t seen them reveal anything so visibly inhuman before. Maybe a wolf-man will be enough to tackle a crocodile-woman.
A little relief trickles through me at the sight of them marching toward her, but it doesn’t wash away all my fear.
I motion to my marked men. “We should go with them, see if there’s any way we can help.”
Even if the possibility of pitching in feels increasingly absurd, at least for me.
We all set off, Raze pushing into the lead. When I look at him, I can’t help flashing back to the moment the being flung him into the truck.
My heart skips a beat, and Raze’s muscles twitch. The determination I sensed from him dwindles with a tang of his own nerves. “Maybe we’ll only get in the way. We shouldn’t press too close while the shadowbloods are dealing with her.”
Why is he saying that now? A moment ago, he seemed totally prepared to go at the hostile shadowkind alongside Riva and Zian.
Until I turned chicken about it.
My stomach sinks more than it already had, which means it’s about to hit my heels.
Of course. Our emotions are all intertwined through the bond I forced on these men.
When I get nervous or outright afraid, the feelings seep into my companions as well. It might even be my fault that Mirage’s illusion faltered, that Hail didn’t believe he could work his icy powers effectively.
I’ve spent my whole existence tasting the difference between the emotions that hit me from the outside and the ones that form within me. My teammates aren’t used to making the separation.
The turmoil inside them must be even more muddled than what I experience.
None of us will get anything done if I let my nerves and doubts get the better of me… and so overwhelm all of my marked men as well.
Recognizing my latest mistake doesn’t erase my doubts. If anything, the realization makes me want to shrink into one of the cracks in the road where I can’t screw up anything else.
No. I need my men to feel better, not worse.
Even if I’m worried that I can’t contribute to solving this disaster, I believe that they can.
Maybe the only way I can contribute is by making sure they believe in themselves too.
I raise my chin, summoning every scrap of confidence in me. Let’s just pretend it’s real.
“This is a difficult opponent, but we’ve defeated dangerous villains in the past!
” I declare. “She’s a shadowkind like us—she’s probably confused after coming through the rift.
She might think the mortals are the enemy.
We need to restrain her so we can talk things through and make sure no one else gets hurt. ”
A slight smile returns to Mirage’s lips. “Reason with her until she’s reasonable.”
Raze lets out a grunt, but there’s a hint of amusement to the sound now. “After we shut her away from all these things she wants to demolish.”
My spirits lift for the time it takes us to hustle around the corner. At the sight of the battle waging on the street before us, I stall in my tracks.
Riva and Zian are racing to and fro at incredible speeds, their shoes squeaking on the asphalt. At times, they pick up such speed their limbs blur.
But no matter how they close in on the shadowkind woman with her scaly tail, she manages to dodge. As I watch, she dives into the shadows, emerges beyond their reach with a ragged laugh and a smash of an innocent postal box, then slips away again as they lunge at her.
The shadowbloods can’t follow her into the patches of darkness.
Riva’s face has tightened with frustration. Zian’s lips draw back from his wolfish fangs in a silent snarl.
Hail narrows his eyes. “She’s toying with them. Mocking them.”
The being reappears to slash claws she’s shot from her fingertips through a van’s tire. A lance of burnt-caramel defiance pierces my chest.
I shiver. “She doesn’t want to let anyone tell her what she can do or where she should go.”
Raze’s expression turns hesitant. “I could try to ambush her in the shadows where they can’t…”
Crap. My wobbly emotions are setting him off-balance again.
But what if he rushes in there and she hurts him much worse than the first time?
I’m about as much use here as a fork in a bowl of broth. I could retreat like I wanted to before, let Rollick see that I can’t fix this problem after all, have him send us back to the academy where the men would probably rather be.
The longing to give up sweeps through me—and Raze takes a step back as if I’ve compelled him.
My heart squeezes with a spurt of my own defiance. A being that fierce shouldn’t be forced to crumple.
We’ve kicked butt together before, and we can again.
I don’t think any of us really wants to disappoint Rollick or see what destruction this warped woman will cause if we don’t step in.
I need to bring more happiness to the world, and right now I have the chance to stop a whole lot of unhappiness. It’s basically the same thing.
Spinning toward Raze, I grasp his hand with a quick squeeze. “Go do what you can. You could help tire her out. She can’t keep moving like that forever, right?”
His stance straightens. “Exactly.”
With a flash of a smile, he springs into the shadows.
I can’t leave it all to him. If we’re fighting together, I need to hold up my end.
So I’ll tackle this being with the one skill that’s never failed me.
I train all my attention on my awareness of her presence in the shadows, tracking her as she pops in and out along the street. Taking in every splash of flavor that leaps from her to me.
She’s determined and rebellious, yes. She enjoys the sensation of breaking all these objects around her. A shot of lemonade-sweet exhilaration rushes through her when she evades the shadowbloods yet again.
Then she materializes next to a lamppost halfway down the street. As she slams her fist into its side hard enough to crack the cement and send the pole teetering over, a brisk gust of wind sweeps across the road.
It blows through her hair and the baggy clothes she’s wearing—and she goes rigid for an instant with a smack of icy terror.
It’s the first hint of weakness I’ve sensed from her. Urgency grips me.
“She’s afraid of the wind!” I shout out. Maybe that’s not surprising—it’s an invisible but potent force that doesn’t exist in the shadow realm, not like the mortal version anyway. “Can we trap her with that?”
Hail’s eyes light up. He steps forward, extending his arms. “I’ll take care of it.”
As a frigid breeze laced with snowflakes whirls from his hands, Mirage perks up too. “We can make it a real blast!”
A warbling roar fills the street, amplifying the natural whoosh of Hail’s wind. The fox shifter must be creating an illusionary impression of fast-moving air to enhance Hail’s efforts.
Riva aims a thumbs up our way. The errant shadowkind ducks into the shadows again, but she squirms into view just seconds later with a hiss that makes me think Raze must have pounced on her.
Hail’s wind blasts her from all sides and swirls around her. A sharper shriek bursts from her lips.
Riva and Zian dash in. Riva produces a chain of silver and iron from the bag slung across her back.
Just as she moves to throw it around the rogue shadowkind, the crocodile-tailed woman hurls herself through the whirlwind and into the shadows.
Riva and Zian pivot, searching for our target. Hail keeps his wind coursing through the streets, ready for her to reappear.
She doesn’t. After a minute, Raze materializes at the far end of the block.
He sighs. “She ran off—too fast for me to keep up.”
Riva shakes herself as if dispelling the tension of the battle. “Fine. At least we stopped her from trashing this street. Now we patrol and see if she shows herself again.”