“Type in the fucking code!”
Panic flashed across the guard’s face. Ruse dashed over, seeing his magical influence fracturing.
I waved the computer guy on. “I can do the rest. Hurry!”
Despite the cool air, sweat trickled down my back as I jabbed in the last two codes, not even waiting to make sure they worked first. “That’s it!” the computer guy shouted to me after the final one, and mashed at the keyboard a little more. “I’ve downloaded all the other data I can, and the virus is in the network. Should I activate it?”
“Yes, yes, get on with it!” Omen said. “We’re going to burn this whole place down… in every possible way.”
He shot a meaningful glance at me. At least this part I could do by regular means, no worries about uncertain powers or witnesses.
“Everyone out, now!” I hollered, just as the first figures in the new wave of guards barreled down the stairs.
Thorn, Laz, and other shadowkind I couldn’t recognize from a glimpse shot in and out of the shadows between them, mashing a skull into the wall here, cracking a spine in half there. The less combat-inclined beings hurtled past them. I caught sight of smoke streaming from open wounds on Thorn’s back and stiffened against the urge to run to him. I had other work to do.
I splashed the kerosene from the pouch at my hip across the crates and boxes and lit them up with a flick of my lighter.
I’d gotten too used to the struggle of using my power for the same purpose. The flames roared up faster than I was prepared for. I yanked myself backwards, slapping at a few sparks that singed my hair, and bolted for the stairs my shadowkind allies were just clearing.
My foot slipped on a smear of blood, and then Thorn was whipping me up into his arms. He barged up the stairs with me over his shoulder, smashing past another guard who’d just appeared at the top. But as he tore through the music room, a man he hadn’t seen sprang from behind the piano and hurled a huge net at my warrior.
It didn’t quite cover Thorn’s hulking form, but it fell over enough of him that his muscles locked up with a spasm of pain. I wrenched at the silver-and-iron cords, shoving them off him as quickly as I could. More smoke poured from the fresh wounds on his back and face that would add to his collection of scars. He fell to his knees, and my feet hit the ground too.
As I hauled the net the rest of the way off the warrior, Omen leapt from the shadows to slash a claw across our attacker’s throat. “Out the front!” he shouted at us, and flashed out of sight again.
Thorn staggered upright. We ran out into the hall together, his hand clutching mine as tightly as I was clutching him. With the amount of essence billowing out of him, I wasn’t sure he could have carried me now if he’d wanted to.
“Did you see—” he said roughly. “Was Snap—?”
“I don’t know,” I said, but the hollow in my stomach didn’t hold much hope. If Snap had been in one of those cells, surely he’d have stayed long enough to show himself and reunite with us properly?
If we didn’t get the hell out of here, there’d be none of us left to reunite with him, wherever he was. Silver and iron glinted everywhere I looked—armor, nets, knives. The remaining guards were converging on us.
I wasn’t finished with this place, though. We’d meant to see the whole building burn. The thick cement walls in the secret basement wouldn’t let the fire seep from below into the rest of the mansion.
I grasped at my bottle of kerosene—and it slid from my hasty fingers to rattle across the rug and under a hall table behind us. Behind us, where a dozen or so guards were currently storming our way. Sayonara to that one.
We burst into a grand entrance room with woven tapestries hanging from the walls and an actual red carpet slashing down the middle of the marble floor. Ahead of us, the double doors hung open to the night, but another dozen guards stood between us and that escape.
In seconds, we’d be surrounded. I spun around, a searing heat mingling with the burst of panic in my chest.
These assholes had destroyed who knew how many beings, had tormented Omen, had nearly killed Gisele, and if they’d gotten their hands on Snap…
My jaw clenched as the heat flared into a surge of fury. They had no idea who they were dealing with. I could clear our way this time, and I didn’t need so much as a match to do it.
I flung out my arms and hurled all the searing rage inside me at our attackers.
The carpet and the tapestries went up in a blaze. So did most of the bodies between us and the door. The guards stumbled, toppled, or flailed with shrieks of agony as the flames ate across every part of them not made of metal.
A horrified lump clogged my throat, but this was what I’d wanted. It wasn’t anywhere near as horrifying as the genocide they’d planned to enact.
If I’d been thinking clearer, I might have been a little more careful. Flames raged across the entire room around us, cutting off our escape as well. I tightened my grip on Thorn’s hand. He squeezed mine back with a curt nod.
“And so we dance into the fire,” I muttered, and threw myself toward the doors.
The flames snagged on my sleeves and the pouch at my hip. As I soared through the doorway, I let go of Thorn so I could flip into a roll. The cool blades of the lawn’s grass snuffed out the hungry tufts of fire.
I sprawled on my back, staring up at the mansion. I’d incited my blaze even higher than I’d realized. Yellow-orange light roared through broken glass on the second-floor windows. More flames leapt out to crawl across the roof.
We’d done it. We’d taken back what the Company of Light had stolen and then razed their data and their last hide-out to the ground.
And now I’d better get the hell out of here before anyone gave me the same treatment.
A few figures had charged out of the building in my wake. The guards stared at me, one of them pointing. He dashed away while the other two came at us.
Thorn swung around so swiftly you’d never have guessed he was producing nearly as much smoke as the entire mansion. His punch slammed into one guard’s face, but in the warrior’s weakening state, his knuckles only scraped her cheek instead of crushing it. I grabbed his elbow.
“We’ve got to get out of here, now!”
Laz and Rex flickered from the shadows to topple our attackers. With the mortals’ shrieks and the warbling of the fire following at our heels, we ran across the lawn, leaving the remains of the Company to sink into its own ashes.
31
Sorsha
At a glance, the gathering of figures around the Everymobile looked more like a summer barbeque than a conspiracy of monsters.
Ruse had driven the RV well out of the city and parked it in a fallow field in the countryside where no buildings stood in sight. Other than him, me, and Rex’s tech guy, who’d sat bent over a laptop on the sofa for the whole drive, the other shadowkind had ridden with us in the shadows. Now, coming out after a brief doze in the second bedroom, I found the entire company spread out around the vehicle.
At least, I thought it had to be the entire bunch. Omen and Thorn stood talking with Rex and a couple of his underlings near a drooping tree. A few feet from them, Ruse was shooting the breeze with Laz, Birch, and assorted other gang members, as well as the few liberated prisoners who’d decided to stick with us in our escape. To my right, Bow was sitting on the ground with Gisele lounging on his lap, her face still drawn but brighter than I’d have thought possible after the way she’d looked the last time I’d seen her. Her beaming was probably thanks to the petite, twiggy young man they were chatting with—their long-lost friend, Cori.