Chapter 30
Periwinkle
As we emerge onto the street Rollick picked out to stage our acts of destruction, one thought sits heavy in my mind. I look at my companions—the four men who’ve embraced our connection, the six shadowbloods, Sorsha and her men, Rollick and his various assistants—and my heart sinks.
If my plan works and we tempt Viscera into showing herself, we have more than enough power between us to destroy her in a matter of seconds. But as much as I hate the damage she’s done to the city, more violence was never my goal.
All of these people gave me a chance—multiple chances. If we had a competition for who’s done the most harm to the human world in total, I bet I’ve been responsible for more than Viscera has. I mean, I did have a head start of several years.
“Hold on,” I say.
Everyone’s gaze veers toward me. Rollick motions for me to go on.
I draw my short frame as tall as I can in the warm morning sunlight and aim for a voice that’s more determined champion than cream puff. “I don’t want to murder her if we don’t have to.”
Sorsha’s mouth twists. “It isn’t exactly murder when it’s in defense of other people’s lives, Peri.”
“I know. But the point is, I don’t want to see any more beings die if we can help it. She’s messed up from the weird rift. We don’t know if there might be a way to get through to her once we’re not chasing her around the city.”
Jonah speaks up in his reassuringly steady tone.
“Peri’s right, for more than one reason.
Viscera is the only higher being we’ve encountered so far who came out of one of those new rifts—the only warped shadowkind we could talk to.
If we can convince her to talk with us, she might be able to tell us things that could fix the whole problem of the rifts. ”
That is also a good point, probably a better one than my appeal to emotion as far as Rollick is concerned.
A smile touches my lips. This is why the bonds we’ve formed are a good thing. We really are stronger, smarter, more when we’re together.
A whole food court of buffets with all the flavors any of us could need.
Raze nods. “I’ve been experimenting… I might be able to paralyze her with my powers rather than outright kill her.”
Hail’s eyes brighten. “She didn’t like the wind I conjured before. I can whirl a bunch around her to help trap her. And add some ice to the mix if I need to.”
Mirage lets out a burst of laughter. “And I can reach right into her head and tweak her thoughts. Make her think she’s still free when she’s really caught. Maybe then she won’t fight?”
Rollick’s expression looks skeptical. He exhales in a sigh. “All right. I can’t say I’m hopeful about your odds, but you have plenty of backup. I’ll be here—and Sorsha’s crew and our shadowbloods—to strike the final blow if it comes to that.”
He gestures to everyone he mentioned. “Be prepared to surround the rogue shadowkind and take her down immediately if Peri’s team can’t contain her.”
The uncomfortable weight lingers in my stomach, but his acceptance is the best outcome I could hope for. We aren’t smashing up part of the city just for kicks.
We have to take the opportunity to stop Viscera completely, however we need to in the end.
Jonah passes me a steel bar while holding on to one for himself. Unlike most of our allies, we don’t have powers that lend themselves easily to bashing and breaking. I’d rather not turn myself into a volcano of emotion just to carry out our ploy.
I extend my awareness as far as I can reach it through the strip of storefronts we’ve chosen. Not a single splash of human emotion reaches my senses.
“The buildings are all clear,” I tell Rollick. “Everyone’s gone.”
He sweeps his arm toward our surroundings. “Then let’s begin!”
We don’t want to ruin the whole street all at once. We need to leave time for Viscera to notice the commotion.
That’s not a problem for me. I march up to the front of a clothing shop and whack the display window with my bar, but all that I get for my effort is a crack in the glass.
Frowning, I hit the pane harder. More cracks form.
With my third strike, the glass crumples in a shower of shards.
An unexpected sense of satisfaction ripples through me. There’s something almost… exhilarating about making something fall apart. Maybe just being able to exert enough power to do it in the first place?
But I can only feel that way because I know no one is getting hurt because of what we’re doing. The store owners will be able to recover from the damages with the insurance Rollick talked about.
Viscera is going around trying to harm everyone as much as she can.
Not just for the sadistic enjoyment after all, though. She’s sounded angry, frustrated… almost betrayed.
Pull us in and push us away. Make us twist and twitch. Screw them!
Who was she talking about? That thing about pulling and pushing sounded almost like the impressions I get from the strange rift… but she’s not rioting at the portal.
As I batter my bar against the window frame, leaving dents in my wake, my companions bring their own powers to bear.
Raze snarls and flings a mailbox across the street with a swing of his fist. Hail sends a shower of piercing ice pellets at the upper windows of the buildings, the frigid chunks smashing through the glass and thudding across the floor inside.
Mirage has shifted into fox form. He cavorts through the street, all five tails swishing behind him, scratching up paint and tearing posters from the telephone posts with his teeth. Jonah shatters the pane on a shop’s windowed door and kicks the metal frame for good measure.
Matching trickles of exhilaration and an airy tang of relief stream through our connection. The tension that gripped my men for most of the past few weeks is seeping away with every slash and bang.
Maybe they’ve needed a chance to let it out. All our own frustrations and fears can be poured into this unnerving act.
Just how much emotion is Viscera trying to conquer with the way she rampages around the city?
Unless I’m being too optimistic in my interpretations, and she’s simply psychotic to the core.
She did freak out about the wind that one time. She isn’t impervious.
We have to find a way to get through to her, a crack to open up so we can reach a part of her that cares about more than just spewing harm, however deeply it’s buried.
Farther down the street, Sorsha’s winged giant of a mate and the one who’s turned into a huge, eerily glowing dog smash more windows. The phoenix shifter sends spurts of flame inside that light up the shop furnishings.
Zian rams his shoulder into a telephone pole and sends it toppling across the street. Riva dashes to and fro, wrenching fixtures off the fronts of the buildings and hurling them toward others.
There’s no sign of Viscera so far. I ease farther down the undamaged part of the street and break another window with a couple of determined swings. Then I smash the front of a newspaper box for good measure.
How long will it take the rogue shadowkind to pick up on the destruction being waged without her?
What if she doesn’t notice?
It’d be just great if she’s decided to snooze on her self-appointed job now.
A few of the shadowbloods cross the street to tackle the shops along the other side. Mirage joins them, shifting into humanesque form and swinging from one store’s awning until it tears.
I stretch out the carnage by hitting every shard of glass still clinging to the window frames. They fracture off into tinier fragments like spiky snow.
When I’ve completely cleared the two windows I destroyed, I walk to the next shop. Cakes dolled up with elaborate whorls of pastel icing pose on the other side of the glass.
My stomach lurches as if I’d just swallowed one of those cakes whole.
They’re so pretty. It doesn’t seem right to bash them up.
Maybe if I smash the window carefully, I can manage not to get any glass in the fondant?
I’m raising my bar to make a valiant attempt when a surge of emotion hits me from out of nowhere.
A treacly mush of anguish clogs my throat. My head jerks around.
The sensation isn’t emanating from any of my marked men or my other companions. None of my allies are over in the direction the unnerving flavor is wafting from.
I think the source is close, though. It tastes… maybe only a block or two away.
Did I miss a civilian in my initial search, or has a human ventured nearby that Rollick’s people weren’t able to redirect?
The swell of misery hits me harder. Whoever it is, they’re definitely not having a good day.
I lower my bar, hesitate, and then slip away into the shadows.
I’ll go take a quick look. There’s no reason to distract everyone else from our mission. If Viscera does show up and most of us have abandoned our rampage, she might leave again without revealing herself.
Of course, there are four companions I can’t help signaling inadvertently. I’ve only made it around the corner when I sense my three shadowkind men rushing toward me through the shadows, with Jonah loping along on the sidewalk behind me.
When I pull myself into physical form, the men follow me.
“What’s going on, Peri?” Raze asks. “Why did you leave? It feels like something’s upset you.”
“Someone else is upset.” I motion toward the neighborhood ahead of me. “I’m just making sure we’re not accidentally causing more harm than we meant to. You don’t need to come.”
Hail makes a dismissive sound. “Like you said last night, you’re stuck with us now, Cream Puff. Where you go, we go.”
I don’t think I phrased it quite that way.
Mirage whirls around us with a swish of one of his tails before it vanishes. “We can see more of the city and keep our Rainbow safe.”
I don’t think I’m in any danger, but at least they can help if the person I’m sensing needs more than I can offer on my own.
“All right,” I say. “But be gentle. We don’t want them thinking we’re terrorist gangsters from outer space too.”
As I hurry onward, the anguished sensation spreads up my throat and down to my chest to squeeze at my heart. It’s coming from just around the next corner… Somewhere along this next street…
Right above me.
As my head snaps up toward the shifting impression, a gangly figure with a mane of silver hair careens onto the street inches away from me. I stumble backward, and my men press closer around me.
The miserable feeling vanishes, replaced by apple-streusel amusement as Viscera aims one of her jagged grins at me.
“So you did come,” she says, poking me in the chest. “You acted like you wanted to tear the city down, but as soon as you thought someone was bothered about it, you came running.”
She tricked me—she figured out my ability and used it to catch my attention?
My gut squirms with disappointment, but that’s okay. It’s okay that I made a mistake.
Because my plan still brought her to us.
My voice bursts out of me. “Hold her!”
Raze’s green contacts dissolve, revealing the full ominous black of his basilisk eyes. As he fixes his gaze on Viscera, a chilly wind whips up from the ground, sending a flurry of snowflakes swirling around her.
Jonah lifts his voice, sorcerous syllables thrumming as they spill off his tongue. Mirage spreads his arms like he’s a magician in a stage act, although I know the illusions he’s going to create will feel much more real than that.
And I cast out all the soothing emotions I can summon: keeping Raze’s most aggressive urges in check, boosting Jonah’s confidence, wrapping Hail in gratitude, encouraging Mirage’s energy. Dampening Viscera’s desire to fight us as well as I know how.
It doesn’t appear that I’m affecting her all that much. She’s still got plenty of fight.
She yelps in an uncharacteristically squeaky voice at the gusting of the wind against her clothes, as if she’s been transformed into a bath toy. Her arms and tail lash out and jerk back toward her body with a tremor of revulsion.
Then her movements slow.
Is Raze’s power starting to paralyze her?
My hopes lift. Excitement shivers through my veins.
We’re really doing it. We’ve caught her; we’re containing her without hurting her.
I don’t know how much Jonah’s sorcery and Mirage’s mind-warping abilities are subduing her as well, but the combination of all of us working together is more powerful than I dared to imagine.
Now what do we do with her? Can we risk one of us stepping away to alert our other allies?
I don’t want to throw off the balance that’s let us finally contain her.
Maybe it’s that momentary prick of uncertainty that sets us off-kilter. Maybe Viscera was only going still so that she could gather her strength for one larger effort.
Whatever the case, before I can suggest our next step, she thrashes against our hold even harder than before.
Raze winces, a blink of his eyes diffusing their power. Hail sends his blizzardy wind roaring even harder around the rogue shadowkind, but he’s only focusing on her sides.
Viscera shudders and shakes her head, and Mirage’s head twitches in turn. Then she’s springing straight upward like a rocket.
She leaps free of the whirlwind that only extended a few feet above her head and flings herself farther down the street. As she races away from us, her boots clack and sizzle against the asphalt, punctuating the cackle of her laugh.
“You think you’re tough?” she hollers back at us. “You’re not stopping me, not ever. Let’s see how many humans I can bring crashing down while you try.”