“This isn’t good.” John picked up his pace.
“Darkborns?” Link asked Sam.
His friend nodded. “Yeah. Big ones.”
Angelique didn’t break stride. In fact, she looked kind of bored. “My turn,” she said in a singsong voice, without taking her eyes off her targets. She stopped and a light wind began blowing around her.
John grabbed Liv and Floyd, pulling them back. Sampson stayed next to John, but Link couldn’t resist taking a closer look. The way Angelique controlled the air reminded him of those magicians on TV—the ones who made airplanes disappear, doing things that seemed impossible even while you were looking right at them.
The air whipped around the Darkborns, but it didn’t slow them down.
Angelique turned things up a notch, sending a gale-force wind right at them.
But the Darkborns kept walking—straight into the wind tunnel. They shielded their eyes from flying leaves and dirt and a wind so strong it blew one Darkborn’s jacket off his body.
“Um … Angelique. I think you need to throw a little more Cataclyst mojo at them,” Link said. “Don’t hold back now.”
The Dark Caster flicked her fingers toward him without looking back, and a surge of air sent Link flying. He landed on his butt in the dirt. “When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it,” she called out over the wind. “Which will be exactly ten minutes after Hell freezes over.”
John grabbed Link by the shirt and yanked him back to his feet.
“Am I nuts or is she a serious bitch?” Link asked.
“She’s definitely getting nastier,” Liv offered. “Maybe it’s being back here. Silas experimented on her, after all.”
“Or maybe she really is just a giant bitch,” Floyd said.
Before John had a chance to respond, two Incubuses materialized behind them.
“I’ll take the big one,” John said, Ripping from the spot where he was standing and materializing in front of them.
“I’m good with that,” Link answered.
Just don’t let me land on my ass in front of the bad guys, Link prayed, Ripping after John.
This time, Link didn’t land on his ass. He landed on the Incubus and wrapped his arms around the guy’s neck, trapping him in a headlock.
The big Incubus was grappling on the ground with John. “You’d better kill me, kid. Or I’m gonna take a bite outta your girlfriend’s neck, and maybe a few other places,” the Incubus said, pinning John. “I missed dinner.”
Link squeezed the guy’s neck harder, cutting off his airway. “Come on, pass out already, Dog Boy.”
The Incubus’ body finally went limp, and Link let him drop. Just as Link started to Rip his way over to John, he saw Sampson out of the corner of his eye.
Holy crap.
Sam looked scarier than Link had ever seen him—like the feral dogs that lived behind Edgar Nubuck’s house back in Gatlin.
When Link materialized again a moment later, Sampson was pounding the hulking Incubus into the dirt with his gigantic fist. A third pack member emerged from the tree line and lunged at Sam from the side, but the Darkborn tossed him a good six feet with one arm.
Link hauled John off the ground. “You okay, man? Anythin’ busted?”
“Just my pride.” John brushed off his jeans, wincing. “And maybe that rib right there.”
Sampson stood up, his black leather pants coated in a fine layer of dirt, and looked at John. “Next time, I’ll take the big one.”
“Deal.”
Angelique didn’t seem to be having much luck dealing with the Darkborns, either.
“The wind isn’t slowing them down,” Liv shouted, checking her selenometer from where she stood behind Angelique.
“Then let’s see how they deal with something a little more destructive.” The Cataclyst held her arms out in front of her, palms facing the ground. Then she flipped them over and threw her arms skyward.
The ground in front of her tore open—a crack racing from the tip of Angelique’s lace-up boots all the way to the advancing Darkborns. Hunks of earth and rock ripped from the ground and flew into the air, as if guided by her hands.
Angelique’s eyes blazed as she smiled. “If Silas had mentioned that I would be able to do all this afterward, I might have actually volunteered.”
Link shuddered, hoping she wasn’t serious. A power-hungry Cataclyst was like a ticking bomb, something he’d learned from watching Sarafine Duchannes destroy half his town, back when she was still alive.
The Darkborns kept coming, until they reached the enormous fissure and more earth gave way beneath their feet. When they fell in, Angelique flipped her palms over again, and the dirt that had ripped itself from the ground rained back down, pummeling the Darkborns and burying them. She dropped her hands together and dusted off her palms. “Two indestructible Supernaturals down.”
Liv pointed at five figures moving toward them. “And five to go.”
The Darkborns fanned out, advancing in military-style formation.
This time, the air around Angelique did more than blow. With one flick of her wrist, a tornado touched down in front of the Darkborns. The wind spiraled and twisted, pulling up the trees and bushes in its path.
“Holy crap,” Link said, watching.
The Darkborns shielded their eyes, but aside from that, they walked right into the tornado.
John turned to Sampson. “Are all of you that strong?”