Page 89 of Bizarre Bonds
31
Periwinkle
Raze hurtles after Viscera first, shifting into his full basilisk form as he charges. His black eyes glitter—but the rogue shadowkind vanishes into a patch of shadow.
“Keep after her!” I shout. “And we have to let Rollick and the others know somehow.”
Jonah waves the rest of us onward, his eyes wide. “I—I might be able to signal them with my sorcery. Just go. If one of you can pop out of the shadows here and there so I can see you, I’ll follow as well as I can.”
I leap into the nearest patch of darkness and flit through the rivulets beneath cars and street fixtures in the direction I can feel Raze giving chase. Hail and Mirage race up beside me.
Mirage flickers in and out of the shadows just before we veer around a corner. Jonah’s feet pound across the sidewalk after us, a slew of sorcerous syllables tumbling out of his mouth between his breaths.
Even in the shadows, I’m not much of a sprinter. As I push myself to stop the distance between Raze and me from widening, the strain reverberates through my essence.
Hail lets out an unusually gentle chuckle. “Come on, Cream Puff. We’re not leaving you behind.”
His presence tugs at mine, urging me along as if he’s swung me onto his back. As our energies mingle, we surge forward even faster.
Mirage lets out a yip of excitement and dashes alongside us, but splinters of tension radiate off him. We all know that Viscera can’t have anything good in mind.
Should we have killed her to begin with? If I’d let Raze inflict the full power of his gaze or Hail freeze her while she was briefly trapped, this fight would be over.
But I’d have needed to live with that decision for the rest of my life. It’s hard to say I regret trying to choose compassion.
Whether I find myself regretting it an hour from now will depend on what she does next.
We’re still lagging behind Raze, but not by much. Jonah’s breaths have faded to a distant panting, but I can hear him loping after us.
However his sorcery tugged at Rollick and our other shadowkind allies, I hope they felt it. I hope they understood what he meant.
We swerve down another street—a wide one lined with cars. Several blocks up ahead, the two- and three-story buildings give way to towering apartment buildings and skyscrapers.
My stomach drops. Oh, no.
Is she going to bash up one of those places—bring down a structure that’s holding hundreds, maybe even thousands of people—all in one go?
She said she was going to bring as many humans “crashing down” as possible.Isshe powerful enough to collapse an entire high rise?
The chill that washes through my essence has nothing to do with Hail’s wintry affinities. I don’t want to have to find out the answer to that question.
“Faster!” I cry, willing my being forward with everything I have. Hail grunts, but he manages to rush on with a tiny bit more speed.
What if we can’t stop her in time? Even if we catch up with her at whatever building she plans to target, I don’t know if we can subdue her on our own. We might not even get another chance to kill her if she stays in the shadows.
No, I can’t let my doubts rattle me. We held her in place before, if not for long. We don’t have that much experience at combining our talents, but we’re only going to get better.
I believe in us.
Even as I think that, Viscera blinks into view on the road a couple of blocks ahead of us. A car honks and swerves to avoid her. She dives back into the darkness beneath one of the parked vehicles… but not before I make out a flicker along the edges of her physical body.
A few plumes of black essence trail from the spot where she vanished.
My gut twists itself into a knot. “She’s starting to disintegrate. Like the creatures Rollick captured did.”
How long does she have before she completely goes up in smoke?
We still have to put an end to her reign of destruction now. It might take a day or two before the warped effects completely overtake her.
