The first had red curls, the second had an emerald-green mop, the third’s was white and flyaway, and so on with the rest of the girls. The seventh of them was particularly cute with his blond waves.
“Methinks that they’ve been stalking us in our sleep or something,” Talina said with an extra snort in her tone. “Stealing strands of hair so they can make themselves some wigs.”
I don’t know why, but at that moment I almost lost it. Laughter bubbled up through my throat and tried to exit out of my nose and mouth. It took quite a few sternly repeated reminders that this was a serious end-of-the-world situation, and laughing wasn’t appropriate, before I got myself under control. Stress was getting to me or something.
“We ready to do this?” Delane swung her weapons. “Let’s not give them time to figure out our plan. We attack as we practiced.”
I was totally down with that.
“Sapha,” I said as I shifted my weight forward, arms hanging loosely. “Shadow us, girl.”
Just like that we were the ones cloaking ourselves in the shadows of First World. The sun hid behind a few dark clouds that marred the purple-hued sky, which helped with the camouflage tremendously.
Right then my one aim was to get close enough to grab onto the first. I could try to do what I had done with Que, trace straight into him, but that was my last option. Mainly because they were all together at the moment and I wasn’t sure what would happen if all of them got their hands on me. Would they have enough power to prevent my trace? Could they sever the tether of my life? Risks I couldn’t take.
So, I’d bide my time and wait until they split from each other. I only had one shot at this. The moment the first knew what I was doing, I’d never get close enough to touch him.
Before we reached them, the ground started to rumble beneath us. I almost bit my lip off when ruptures appeared and these huge ass pincers and antennae emerged. What followed was like a giant tick, or armored bug. I had never seen anything like this before.
Each one was massive, the size of a small van. Many of them popped out between us and the rest of our friends and family. The sacred animals launched into action, working as a team to start taking the critters down. The others reacted also; Brace and Colton moved so quickly I almost couldn’t track them as they engaged in battle. Damn, those boys could fight.
Brace was doing his ninja thing, his speed and grace unparalleled. He mostly used a pair of double blades, only on occasion reaching for Walker energy. He was relentlessly slicing and dicing his way through the creatures. Colton at his back. Lucy remained sandwiched between them, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still lethal. Glitter and pixie dust flew all around the place. Cerberus was close to the trio, which gave me some relief. The hellhound was a good one to have at your side. He was one giant ball of ferocious when he felt like it.
“Abby!”
A shriek drew my attention away from my impressive mate and back to the situation at hand. During my distraction I’d still been running with the girls toward the Seventine. Apparently, what I should have been doing was watching where I was going since I was about three feet from a giant tick pincer.
It was long and wide enough to completely disembowel me, so slamming into it didn’t seem like a good plan. Sure, we were still cloaked in shadows and the bugs would have trouble seeing us, but if I ran straight into it then shadows were not going to be much help.
I was too close to avoid the collision; there was only one option left for me.
In a heartbeat I traced a weapon to my hand, not caring what it was as long as it was sharp. Then just before the pincer would land on its intended mark, I dropped down onto my back. With a burst of energy, I sent my body forward to travel beneath it. Through the six spindly legs.
Raising the weapon, which looked to be a heavy sickle, I sliced it through the less protected underbelly with ease. Globs of blood and guts showered the ground, but I managed to avoid most of it with just an extra boost of energy. I could feel the burn of rough ground in the spot where my shirt had lifted during my slide, but my adrenalin was enough that I barely registered the pain.
Now that was impressive, Red.
Brace was keeping an eye on me also. Back on my feet, I noted that the other girls had taken out the few bugs which had stood between us and the Seventine. One looked like it had been struck by lightning; Delane was learning to harness storms with her wind power. Another was drowned. Two were burned. And the final had been sliced and diced by the Angelica and Earth half-Walkers. Those two were pure fighting perfection with weapons.