Chapter Thirteen
The runes carved into my blasting rod erupted into green-gold light, and fire exploded from the rod and lashed toward the tendril of the Lurker.
The thing was devilishly fast. It darted to one side, and the fire clipped maybe a quarter of its length off, filling the air of the parking garage with a sound like the screams of a dozen beings, brassy and shrill and inhuman.
As the crows closed in on me, I raised my shield bracelet, funneling my will into the magical aid, muttering, “Defendarius!” A quarter-sphere of glowing blue energy shimmered into being just before the demon-possessed birds got to me, and they hammered against it with unnatural power, claws flashing, sharp beaks stabbing, swollen eyes glaring while black feathers flew up from the impact.
“Stay close!” I started to shout at Tripp, when he abruptly put his extended arm against my back and started pushing me forward like a halfback behind a lineman.
The possessed cats started scattering around the shield to come in from the flanks, but I was pretty sure I knew what they were—a distraction. Granted, getting hundreds of bloody scratches from the supernaturally powerful creatures could get the job done, but they were the distraction nonetheless.
Emilio was the dangerous one.
The skinny man raised his arms, whipping them through a smooth and intricate motion that kind of reminded me of tai chi, screamed something indistinct in the echoing garage, and sent a rippling wave of some purplish energy surging toward me.
My stomach twisted with abrupt nausea at the presence of black magic more intense than almost anything I’d ever felt.
I raised my shield against it, and the dark energy smashed into it.
There was a howl in the air, a shock wave like something I’d felt near an explosion, a flash of light that briefly turned my world into a white blur—and the energy from my shield was utterly devoured, tearing it to pieces, shattering it like a giant glass bowl.
I staggered, half-blinded, and something hit one of my legs and kicked it out to one side so I couldn’t hold my balance.
I couldn’t see, but I knew the Lurker’s creatures were closing in from all around me, and if I went down, there was a very real chance I wouldn’t be getting back up.
Tripp caught me.
I heard him scream and curse, and there were a couple of thuds as his balance surged this way and that, and I realized he was kicking his way through the crowd of Lurker cats.
“In!” he screamed, and his hand shoved my head down.
I dove in across the driver’s seat of the Blue Beetle, awkward, moving forward with my ass up and my head down until my face smacked into the passenger-side door.
Tripp piled in behind me so quickly that he sat down on one of my legs, pinning it there.
“Move the stick!” he shouted, and tore the staff out of my hand.
I heard him shut the door, screaming, “Shit, shit, shit, shit!” and then shoved the key into the ignition and sputtered the Beetle to life.
“My leg!” I shouted.
Gears ground as he slapped the little car into reverse and pulled out.
Something smashed against the windshield and roof, and then I was blinking the spots out of my eyes and starting to see again as Tripp took off down the row of parked cars without switching out of reverse, his foot smashing the accelerator pedal flat to the floor.
“Get us out of here!” I shouted.
“No shit!” Tripp snapped, twisting to look behind us so that he could drive the car. My head was below the level of the dashboard, and I couldn’t see anything. His handsome face was pale and panicked.
There was another flash of purple light, and Tripp swerved wildly. There was a sizzling, corrosive sound and a terrible stench.
And the bloody-black tendril of the Lurker suddenly slithered out of the air conditioning vent six inches from my face.
“Hell’s bells!” I blurted. My burn-scarred left hand whipped up and seized the tendril as it lashed at my mouth.
I caught it in the nick of time, and it was like holding on to a heavy steel pipe that someone else was trying to twist and swing all at the same time.
I turned my head away, smashing it into the passenger-side door, held on for dear life, and screamed, “Get us into the sun!”
“Jesus Christ!” Tripp blurted. “On it, on it, on it!”
I heard Emilo shrieking out a wild cackle as Tripp bounced the Beetle backward down the ramp, through an old wooden swinging arm at the parking garage’s exit, and bounced violently out onto the street, even as the car tilted forward slightly and started running horrible and rough.
More and more of the tendril emerged from the vent, getting stronger as more of its mass exited the narrow space, like the thing was made out of one enormous muscle.
Specks and flecks of blood were splashing everywhere in the car’s interior.
I tried to twist enough to get my other arm into the struggle, but Tripp’s weight on my leg prevented it, and the best I could do was repeatedly drive the knee of my free leg forward, smashing the Lurker’s tendril against the dashboard, splashing more blood everywhere.
The other end of the tendril finally came out of the vent, and the whole mass of the thing lengthened like some kind of hideous worm as the free end oriented on me and came darting toward my face.
The car rattled and jounced down the street, all in shadows from the tall buildings around us, and then ground out into the middle of an intersection to a screeching of other people’s brakes and an angry chorus of horns—and sending a slanting beam of late-day sunlight slashing down over the Lurker’s tendril.
It burst into flames.
Screaming and a horrible smell filled my senses, and the tendril suddenly went weak and flaccid. I fumbled the passenger-side door open and threw the thing out into the sun, where it flopped and writhed and burned and let out a deafening demonic wail as it died.
I growled and jerked my leg until it came out from under Tripp, unwedged my quarterstaff where it was stuck between the front floor and back window, and staggered out of the Blue Beetle, my blasting rod pointed carefully at the burning, withering tendril.
I shot a glance at the front wheels of the Blue Beetle.
The rubber of the tires was in shreds, like they had been sprayed with unthinkably caustic acid.
The car was basically running on the steel barrels at the core.
Tripp got out, too, staring at the dying thing, his eyes wide.
“Dammit!” I said. “I just got the car fixed!”
Behind me, a police car’s siren let out a quick whoop-whoop.
I turned to find a couple of CPD officers getting out of a squad car. I sighed and set down my staff and blasting rod and turned to give them a wave.
“You okay?” I said to Tripp.
“Christ, no,” Tripp said, his voice shaking. “But I ain’t hurt.”
“Good,” I said quietly. “You look like you’re in shock. Don’t say anything. Let me do the talking.”
“Yeah,” Tripp said. “Okay.”