Walker’s standing right behind her.
“Hey, Adair!” I wave my arms wildly, trying to pull her attention to me and away from Walker.
“What?” she snarls.
With a series of swift kicks, Walker takes Adair out behind the knees. Oh, I wish I had a camera. Adair topples over.
“That.”
Adair leaps back to her feet and instantly, a horde of possessed thrax descend on Walker. They have crap for reflexes and strategy, but what they all lack in brains, they more than make up for in numbers.
I rush to help Walker break free when I get stuck under my own pile of the possessed.
I make some quick calculations, and it isn’t looking good for us. So far, Walker and I have taken down about four dozen thrax. That leaves 950 or so to go.
All this adds up to one conclusion. We need to grab Lincoln and get the Hell out of here, fast.
I down the latest pile of thrax attackers and come up for air. Adair stands across the dance floor, her eyes blazing bright red as she scans the scene, her lips whispering commands to her possessed minions. Walker and I battle it out on opposite ends of the room. We keep on fighting, but fresh attackers lumber in our direction.
We can’t keep this up forever.
Walker calls to me from across the ballroom. “Lincoln, now!”
I take down another Acca thrax with a combination upper-cut and kick to the gut. “Got it.”
Knowing Walker my whole life, I understand what those two words mean. He wants to form a portal behind Lincoln, which the three of us will then run into and escape.
Fortunately, Adair doesn’t catch on to Walker’s meaning. She starts whispering in Lincoln’s direction, and he shuffles off to a deserted corner of the dance floor. Most likely, she doesn’t want him to get hurt in the battle. I exhale a relieved breath. Finally, something is going my way tonight.
Walker breaks free from his latest horde and yells out one word. “Go!”
Behind Lincoln, the dark form of a ghoul portal appears. From opposite ends of the room, Walker and I race towards Lincoln and escape. All we have to do is hold his hand, jump into that opened portal, and our troubles are over.
Adair sees what’s happening and starts whispering at double-speed. Lincoln begins to lumber off in a new direction, but I expected this might happen.
“Walker! Move the portal behind him!”
I race towards Lincoln’s new trajectory. Walker does the same. The moment the three of us meet, Walker opens a fresh portal directly into our path. Walker grabs Lincoln’s right hand; I wrap my tail around Walker’s left wrist. Together, the three of us slide into the portal. Darkness starts to close in around us. My rush of battle adrenaline turns from wrath to joy.
We did it. We rescued Lincoln and got out alive.
Suddenly, a burst of light explodes into the darkened portal. Something holds me back; I’m no longer falling through empty space. I look up, seeing Adair at the portal’s edge. She’s created an igni cord from her hands to mine, and she’s not letting go. Even worse, the cords are already wound tightly around my palms, making an unbreakable connection between us.
Unholy Hell.
Behind Adair, the demon-eyed thrax line up, helping her haul the three of us out of the portal. Adair doesn’t so much pull on my weight—she leaves that work to her thrax helpers—but she drags something else from me.
Igni.
Panic shoots through every nerve ending I’ve got. This is just like at the Ghost Tower. I can’t break the connection. I can’t use the link to pull my igni back. I can only slow the transfer as she steals my powers.
Tiny voices begin to howl in my mind. It’s the igni. She’s taking them again.
Adair leans into the opened portal, her eyes red with rage. “None of you are getting away. Not after the price I paid.”
More about the price? This bitch be cray-cray.
All the more reason I can’t let her take us.
In a flash, I know the only way to escape. It’s simple, perfect, terrible. I have to push all the igni I can at Adair. That’s how the Old Scala gave me his powers, and it knocked me for a loop. It’s the only thing Adair won’t expect, but even thinking about it tears at my soul.
Still, I have no choice.
I command the igni to leave my body, move across the cord, and enter Adair in a great burst of energy. Issuing the command rips at my heart; pain and loss wrench through my rib cage.
You must go. I’m so sorry, my little ones.
They understand my request and instantly do as I ask. A great wave of light crashes down my arms, moves across the igni cord, and slams into Adair. She falls back, shocked. The portal closes, and we tumble through empty space once again.
Moments later, the three of us step out of Walker’s portal and into my gymnasium back home. I grasp Lincoln’s forearms and look into his eyes. Mismatched. No sign of demon-light. It’s as I’d suspected. Adair needs to be close to her victims in order to take over their minds.