Page 28 of A Fury Of Shadows

Horror had drained the blood from Isabelle and Anya’s faces. Cortes and Vlad stood with their jaws clenched and their hands fisted, Ilya and Milo frozen behind them. Only Violet, Erik, and Regina looked strangely unaffected by what had just transpired.

The smoke and static cleared. Mae’s eyes bulged.

Serena and her friends were still standing.

“Did you feel something?” a woman asked a man curiously behind her.

“You mean that tickle?”

“Yeah?”

He shrugged. “Barely felt it.”

“How?!” Barquiel raged, spit flying from his mouth.

“As I was saying before the moron with the wings interrupted us,” Serena told Mae, “that lightning won’t hurt us. We are super soldiers. And these are third-generation, nanorobot, liquid-armor suits.”

A vicious smile stretched Lou’s lips. “Lightning actually powers us up.”

Tom flipped a middle finger at Barquiel. “Thanks for the extra juice, dumbass.”

Barquiel’s face reddened until Mae thought his head would burst. She swallowed a hysterical giggle.

“Kill them!” he bellowed. “KILL THEM ALL!”

Serena sighed. “You bad guys need to come up with a more original line.”

Eerie shrieks echoed to the broken rafters as the devils stormed across the warehouse. The super soldiers charged toward them, expressions undaunted.

The only thing that allowed Mae to keep up with the men and women’s speed was magic. Even so, she struggled to see their movements.

Sparks flared where the super soldiers made contact with the devils. It took but a moment for her to realize they could more than hold their own against the fiends.

They’re strong!she marveled.

It isn’t just their physical strength, Na Ri observed animatedly.They have something in common with those devils.

Mae swallowed.You mean, that strange metal we saw?

Yes!

A noise drew their attention.

Oscar was stumbling back inside the building through the hole his passage had made in the wall. He straightened with some difficulty. Blood oozed from a nasty gash in his head. He was holding Drabek with one arm, the other hanging limply at his side.

His furious gaze swept the warehouse and landed on the sorcerers and witches cowering near the back.

“What are you waiting for?!” The sorcerer pointed a trembling finger at Vlad and the others, his chest heaving with labored breaths. “Get them!”

Purple magic detonated in Violet’s eyes. “Drop your shield, Erik.”

The witch’s voice dripped with ice. Erik took one look at his girlfriend’s expression and hastily withdrew his barrier.

Vlad’s hands tightened on the handles of his swords as he confronted the sorcerers and witches surrounding them, demonic energy brightening his eyes to a deep vermilion.

Cortes cracked his whip.

Regina and Isabelle assumed defensive stances.

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