Guns aimed at us.
“Stop!” I cried, but they weren’t looking at us. One last phantom. I could hear its screeching drawing closer to us from above. Our feet touched the ground just as two more shots were fired, but they both missed their target. Belle already had her sword out, but it was Chae Rin who rushed forward and, leaping, caught the phantom’s thick neck in her arms with her incredible strength. It pushed her back, but as she slid across the rocky terrain, she held the phantom’s gaping jaw in place. With her magic, the earth caved in and snatched the phantom’s tail, pulling him in like a sinkhole. She had to let go of its snapping jaw and jump out of the way so that the stone and soil could do their work, swallowing it up and crushing its body. By the time the earth had finished shifting, the phantom’s horn was all that was left peeking out of the soil. Chae Rin kicked it off.
That’s when I heard the click behind my head.
“Who are you?” a female voice, deeply inflected with a Spanish accent, rumbled in a low and throaty tone as the gun pressed against the back of my head.
“I thought that would be obvious,” I answered coolly, even as I raised my hands in the air. “Seeing as we just smoked a few phantoms for you.”
“Abril, enough,” said the man to my right. His face was hidden behind a blue scarf, but from his Scottish-inflected voice I could tell he was young, maybe a bit older than us. I recognized the huge, long-range weapon he’d used to fire at the phantoms in the sky. The metal covering, the electric blue bars that slid up the sides as it powered up—it was the same weapon Howard had used to fight off the phantoms in New York. A Sect weapon. The design was exactly the same.
The man rested it against the ground while his hands fumbled in his bag, searching for something. He took out a metal stick that, when he tugged at it, stretched out in new sections. “We need to set up protection or we’ll get eaten out here. Put your gun down. This isn’t over.”
He was right. I could feel the rumbling beneath my feet.
“They’re coming!”
The kid. He’d pulled his scarf down long enough for me to see his olive-skinned face before he turned around again and aimed his weapon at the mountain peaks. Several phantoms, as black, rotted, and smoking as the rest, crawled over the hills on thin, towering spider legs. They were moving too rapidly toward us, even despite the weight of their giant, cicada-like torsos.
I batted Abril’s gun away with my hand, and though her face was covered with a red scarf and a thick hood, I could see her eyes rounding in fear at the sight of the phantoms. Shoving her gun back into her holster, she dove for her Sect weapon on the ground.
As big as the phantoms were, they were fast enough to dodge the blasts, scuttling back and forth. The kid jumped out of the way, narrowly avoiding the sharp edge of a phantom’s leg as they came for us.
One leapt out from behind us so quickly, Lake and James didn’t have time to react. Lake screamed as the phantom smashed its leg into James hard and he flew back, landing on the ground with a heavy thud, out cold. I couldn’t see if he was breathing or not.
Belle ran, ducking to avoid Abril’s hectic blast, and slid, cutting off two legs in one go. Chae Rin created another sinkhole in the mountain, which took a phantom down, but she had to be careful—the Scottish boy had to run and duck out of the way to avoid being taken with it.
It was chaos. With a great yell, Lake managed to push one of the phantoms back, but there were two more coming around the corner. Rushing forward, I summoned every bit of strength I had to set them on fire. I managed to burn off some legs, though there were so many trees nearby, I had to be careful not to start a wildfire.
Off to the side somewhere, the Scottish boy was busy fiddling with that stick he’d pulled out of his bag while his partners shot blue electricity from their Sect weapons. But one phantom slipped through the perimeter just as I heard a weapon jam with a series of frustrated clicks. Spinning around, I saw the boy a few feet away eyeing his weapon in terror, desperately trying to shake it awake. As a phantom lurched toward him, I was already running for him.
“Derrek!” Abril yelled, but she was too busy fighting off her own phantom to go to him.
Derrek screamed and dropped his weapon, falling back and covering his head with his arm. I threw a wave of flame at it, but it brushed it off with a shake of its shelled head. It raised its needle-sharp leg and brought it down on Derrek’s head so fast I barely had time to think. On instinct alone, I slipped underneath it, blocking its attack with my arm and crying out in pain as the thin point pierced through my flesh.
My blood dripped down the needle onto the forehead of a terrified Derrek, who lay flat on his back looking up with wide, blue eyes at the two of us monsters, Effigy and phantom, struggling over the fate of his life. Grabbing the leg with my other arm, I sent a tunnel of fire scorching up its length until the torso was aflame. Then, with a heave, I pushed it over and hit the ground even before it did, grasping my bloodied arm.
“Are you okay?” Derrek sounded Eastern European somehow. He had that harsh lilt to his voice, but it felt mixed with many things, as if he’d been moved around too much before his voice could settle anywhere. When he pulled down his scarf, I could see his thick pink lips and his rounded cheeks. He took his cap off, revealing the pincer-straight black hair covering his ears. “You . . . you saved me.” He looked at me in utter awe.
“I need a bandage,” I told him, but there wouldn’t be any time for first aid, not when there were more phantoms coming.
“It’s done!”
The Scottish man. He was finished setting up his trinket: a tripod that glowed from the metal feet to the glowing tip that reached just above his head. A few swift clicks and it was operational.
“Take this, you little fuckers,” he swore. The moment he turned it on, a wave of blue light flashed out in a circle, evaporating the phantoms in the area as far as I could see.
We were safe, but it didn’t seem like there’d be any time to rest. The Scottish man pulled down his scarf and pushed off his hood with a flick of his head. His brown eyes matched the dark chestnut hair curling over his forehead in ringlets. His jaw was square and straight, his jawline defined as he surveyed the mountains.
“All right, everyone move your arses. This isn’t going to hold forever.” He looked at me and grinned. “That is, unless you Effigies come with APD systems built into those indestructible little bodies.”
“Not indestructible,” I said, holding up my bloodied arm.