“Kara! No! You need to get back—” The rest of his sentence died away as he stared at my piggyback passenger.
A strangled laugh escaped me. “Hey, guys. Meet the bean.” Then I took a hurried step forward as the bean gave me a clear Get your butt on the valve before I have to do it for you! nudge. Pushy kid.
Pellini stood, eyes on the not-a-baby, then flicked a glance at his truck. The bean’s back claws strained my bra band as she shifted her weight and flapped her wings. Her grip on my shoulders tightened, and she brought her wings in close as I stepped into position on the center of the valve. A vibration ran through her, all the way down to the tip of her tail. I startled as she let out a long, piercing wail.
The arcane blazed into life around me, and I gasped. The valve appeared as a bottomless shaft of coruscating blue beneath us, unlike any view of a valve I’d experienced before. I saw the charges attached near the lip—eleven grey, egg-shaped lumps embedded in the blue, like tumors.
Concepts flowed through my thoughts. “Green. Stripes?” I asked the bean, trying to understand her instructions. An image flashed in my mind. “Green stripes. Got it.” Too weird. “Pellini. There’s going to be some green potency spewing out in a minute. Catch it and shape it into strands. Idris. You connect each strand to an egg-thing, then run it straight down the shaft. Uh . . . straight into the valve. Like candy striping the walls.”
Pellini remained silent, acknowledged with a nod.
Idris looked up in grief and dismay. “Kara, it’s going to blow! I can’t hold it.”
“I know,” I said calmly. “It’s all right. Just do what I tell you, okay?”
The bean shifted, and her tail snaked under the waistband of my jeans and over my lower back. The twelfth sigil ignited in a blaze of peacock blue that dominated my senses as if someone had shoved a blue filter in front of the sun. Gooseflesh raced over my skin in waves of hot and cold. “Be careful, kid,” I said under my breath. “That thing is dangerous.”
Emerald green potency fountained from the valve. Pellini seized it, worked it into strands which he passed to Idris. Jaw set, Idris gingerly attached the strands to eggs and ran them down the shaft as directed, fluorescent green stripes against the blue. To dampen the blast through the valve system. This was one brilliant baby. Dragon. Demon. Whatever she was.
“This isn’t going to work,” Idris said. His expression showed exasperation, but aching fear shone from his eyes. He swallowed. “I should’ve tried dis—”
“It’s not going to stop the blast, but it will dampen it,” I insisted. “It will. Just finish the last one and trust me.”
Idris flicked his eyes to the demon-dragon-baby on my shoulder then back to the ugly eggs. He pulled a trembling hand over his mouth, hesitating as doubt flared, in himself, in the plan. It was up to him, one way or another. Up to him to save everyone.
He took the last strand from Pellini and brought it to the last egg, but before he could attach it another tremor shook the valve. The strand slipped from his grasp, flailed like a time-lapse of ivy seeking purchase and slapped against the egg.
Cracks fissured over the egg’s surface, and black light spewed forth while the other ten egg things radiated soft green.
The impending explosion of the one egg built as pressure in my chest until I was certain my heart would stop beating. “Stay close,” I called out to anyone within earshot. “Everyone. Get close. And stay that way.”
Idris sat back on his heels. Shock and disbelief radiated from him. I failed everyone. His thoughts flowed through me like water. I’m not supposed to die this way! It’s too soon.
The pressure in my chest squeezed my breath away. Blue-green snakes of potency whipped outward from beneath my feet like wriggling spokes from a hub.
Pellini put his hands to his head. Fuck. Bryce’ll take care of Sammy, right? God, I hope so. Shit. At least Boudreaux’s clear. More thoughts that I couldn’t shut out.
The twelfth sigil cooled. The blue-green spokes of potency continued to lengthen. Twenty feet. Icy. Fifty feet. Burning cold. Another foot. No more.
Silent words and impressions tumbled over me from people farther away. It’s probably that damn fracking. The prisoners. Gotta do something. Jesus, I’m sweating my ass off. Ugh, I left my cigarettes in my desk. How could the lords stand the constant barrage?
The bean shrieked by my ear, a terrible sound of frustration. The spokes melted into a blue-green carpet and a sensation like being submerged in water closed in.
A protective cocoon. It was all the bean could do.
I’m so sorry, Amber. I couldn’t avenge you.