I rushed forward, parting humans like the Red Sea. Their excited screams were already an annoying buzz in my ears.
Kat!
Her answer was both in my head and out loud. “I’m here!”
She stumbled around a woman who had frozen in front of me. The look of shock on the lady’s pale face roused a bit of guilt in me, but then Kat was in front of me, her eyes wide.
“I think we got a lot of people’s attention,” she said, dragging in air.
You think? I touched her arm, overly glad at the welcoming spark that traveled from her skin to mine.
Luc appeared beside us, along with Archer. “We should move some of the cars out of the way?”
Good idea. Keep Kat with you.
I centered my attention on the line of cars in front of us. Four lanes. All packed with vehicles ranging from ones on their last leg to luxury cars I was really sad about scratching.
Archer joined me. “I’ll help.”
He took one lane while I focused on the one in front of the Hummer. The ability to repel things away from us was easier than pulling it toward us. It was the release of energy, like a shockwave.
Stretching my arms out, I watched the car before me start to shake, its rims rattling and gears grinding. Then it shifted to the side. One after another, cars were sliding out of the way like an invisible giant had swiped its arm across the road. I went as far as I could see, then pulled back, knowing that Daedalus already had to be aware of what was going on.
Turning back to where Andrew stood, I saw him shooting off blasts of energy like there was no tomorrow. Hidden behind an empty tourist bus was a teenage guy, filming it all on his phone.
A bit of restlessness trickled through my veins. This would be all over YouTube in seconds. Off in the distance, I could hear sirens. With the way traffic was backed up behind us, I doubted they’d be here soon.
“Look!” Kat shouted and pointed to the sky.
Overhead, a helicopter circled the scene, shining floodlights over where Andrew stood. It wasn’t the military. A KTNV 13 News emblem was emblazoned on the side. Damn. They’d gotten here before the police.
“This will be live,” Kat said, stepping back. Her eyes were wide. “They’ll be filming live—it’ll be everywhere.”
I don’t know why it didn’t sink in until that moment. Not like I didn’t fully grasp what this would mean, but seeing the news copter circling the Boulevard struck home. The images were fed into the newsrooms, and from there it would be signaled out to the entire nation within seconds. The government could take down a few videos here and there, even a hundred of them, but this?
They couldn’t stop this.
Right now people were most likely sitting in front of their TVs, watching this unfold and having no idea what they were really seeing, but knowing that what they were viewing was something serious.
“Something epic,” Luc threw out, meaning he was being a peeping bastard. “You did it, man. They can’t lock this down. The world will know humans aren’t the only life-form chilling on this planet.”
Yeah, it was going to be…epic.
My gaze crawled along the road. There were still a lot of people fixated on what Andrew and Dawson were doing. Both were zipping back and forth across the road, practically skipping over the cars behind us like an alien game of Frogger.
That was what people all across the world were seeing.
There was no way that could be explained away. Daedalus was going to freak.
“That’s what you wanted, right?” Archer frowned as a man darted across the street. “Go public. You got—”
A dark helicopter flew in from between two large hotels—a large black bird. It didn’t take a genius to realize that was a military copter. It flew overhead but didn’t shine any lights down like the news copter was doing, tracking the movements of Dawson and Andrew.
It circled around Treasure Island, disappearing behind the wide hotel. The feeling of unease magnified. Reaching out, I wrapped my fingers around Kat’s wrist and at the same time yelled for my brother.
He stopped on top of a red BMW, crouched in his true form. When he picked up what I was feeling, he shot off the car, grabbing Dee from the car behind him and bringing her down to road level.
Not a second too soon, either.
The black bird circled back around, rising high in the sky as it flew sideways, as if it were lining itself up…
“I have a real bad feeling about this,” Luc said, walking backward. “Archer. You don’t think—”
I saw it first—the tiny spark from the bottom of the military bird. It was nothing. Just a minimal flare of light and shouldn’t have turned my insides cold or stopped me dead in my tracks. What came out of the copter moved too fast for human eyes to track. The stream of white smoke against the dark blue sky told me all I needed to know.
Whirling around, I pulled a stunned Kat against my chest and brought us both down to the warm pavement, curving my body over hers.
A loud crack caused her to jerk in my arms, and I tightened my hold.
Horror settled in my gut like stones. Anger was an acid in my veins. The news copter spun erratically as smoke billowed out of the tail. It whirled across the sky, its floodlights dipping and rising over the pirate ship and beyond. The copter kept spinning, falling out of the sky, heading straight for Treasure Island.
The explosion rocked the cars. Kat screamed as she twisted in my arms, trying to look up. But I didn’t want her to see it. I held her down, pressing her face against my chest. I knew my touch was hot and had to be nearly unbearable this long, but I didn’t want her to see this.
Oh my God… Someone’s thoughts mirrored my own. Dawson? Dee? Archer? Luc? One of the Thompsons? I didn’t know.
Flames shot out of the center of the hotel, an orange glow that quickly crawled up the trembling structure. Plumes of thick smoke rose, darkening the sky.
Archer was frozen beside the Hummer. “They did it. Holy… They shot it down—the military shot them down.”
Chapter 29
Daemon
Panic erupted, the kind of which I’d never witnessed before. People streamed out of the hotel—the ones who’d been able to escape—and spilled into the pavilion and the streets.
Still in my true form, I pulled Kat off the street. She was saying something, but her words were lost in the screams. Christ. I never expected this—I never thought they’d go after humans, but I had underestimated the extent to which they’d go to keep us secret.
“But it’s too late,” Luc said, grabbing the arm of a woman who’d tripped and went down on her hands and knees. He pulled her up. The side of her face was a mess of raw tissue and burns. “There’s no stopping what has already been seen. And look.”
I twisted around, bringing Kat with me. She’d been staring at the woman’s mangled face for too long. The man who’d been in the car Dee had jumped on was still filming everything—us—on his phone.
Shielding Kat, I turned back to Luc. He had his hand on the woman’s forehead, and she stood as still as a statue. He was healing her.
“Go,” Luc ordered when he finished. The woman stared back at him. She was in some kind of costume—leather bra and skirt. “Go.”
She scrambled off.
Archer swung around. “They’re coming.”
They were.
Men dressed in SWAT gear edged along the sides of the street—not Vegas SWAT. Daedalus—military. And their guns were big.
PEP.
They shot first—a flare of red light aiming straight for Andrew.
Andrew avoided the hit, flying off the retaining wall and rearing back. A bolt of energy streaked out from him, slamming into the ground before the advancing men. The pavement cracked and rolled, knocking several of them off their feet. Guns fired. Red light flashed into the sky.
There were more—men in camo behind those in black.
“Shit,” Archer groaned. “This is about to get bad.”
Thanks for the update, Captain Dickhead. Shoving Kat behind me, I slammed my foot down, sending a fissure through the road. Raising my arms, I let the Source roll through me.
Placing my hands on the bumper of a Mercedes in front of me, I sent a shock of electricity dancing over the exterior. I lifted it up, tossing it like a Frisbee toward the advancing soldiers, who scattered like cockroaches. It flew through the air, rolling and rolling until it smacked into a palm tree, taking it out.
Red light pulsed, flying over our heads and between Archer and me, narrowly missing Luc. I turned slowly. Oh no, no you did not.
Energy burst from me in a tumultuous wave, smacking into four of the five soldiers, throwing them back into the tourist bus.
Another blast went off to our right, and I spun, grabbing Kat as I saw Paris dart in front of me. He slammed into Luc, knocking him out of the path of the PEP.
Paris took a direct hit.
He jerked to a stop, his body spasming as his form shifted from human to Luxen, back and forth. Electricity crawled across his body, blowing out at his elbows and kneecaps. He went still, his light dulling until he crumbled to the ground. Shimmering blue liquid pooled underneath him.
Dead.
Luc let out an inhuman sound, and a bright glow swallowed him. He rose several feet into the air, static and little fingers of light crackling out from under his body. His light flared once, as bright as the sun at noon, and then there were screams. The smell of burned flesh permeated the air.
Shots rang out, zinging past my head and smacking into the cars. The cavalry had arrived, it appeared, with good old-fashioned guns.
Dawson zipped up to my side, his fingers brushing the back of a sedan. It was flung at the bus, pinning the soldiers.
Stay behind me, I warned when I felt Kat inching around me.
I can help.
You can die. So stay behind me.
Anger radiated from her, but she gritted her teeth and stayed back. There were bigger problems. The grinding of heavy tires drew our attention. Clearing the road had worked against us. A fleet of Humvees came out of the smoke, and a— Is that a tank?
“You have got to be kidding me,” Kat said. “What do they plan on doing with that?”
Its gun moved toward where we all stood, glowing like damn Hit Me Now, Please and Thank You signs.
“Crap,” Archer said.
Racing across the cars, Andrew slammed his fist into the hood of a truck. Flames erupted as he used the truck to Molotov the tank. Soldiers streamed out of the hull, scrambling away seconds before the thing blew. The M1 went up in the air like a firecracker, flinging across the Boulevard. Hitting the gardens in front of the Venetian, it rolled across the parking lot.
Heart pounding like a jackhammer, I willed the pieces of broken asphalt off the ground. I flung them toward the cops, forcing them back. Everything was happening fast. Soldiers were coming out of everywhere, and Luc was going after them, holding nothing back. Cops were coming down the Boulevard shooting at just about anything that breathed. People—innocent people—were hiding behind cars, screaming. Dee was trying to usher them off the road, out of harm’s way, but they were all frozen in fear. After all, she was glowing like a damn disco ball.
Dee slipped into her human form in front of a man and woman clutching two children. “Get out of here!” she screamed. “Go! Go now!”
