I fished mine out of my pocket and checked. “Me neither. I guess we know why no one was answering.”
“Lucy’s not here. We should get moving.”
I nodded. Our next plan was to try Harlow Tower downtown, where H&H Security had its main offices. Though there was no guarantee Mom would be there, either, someone there should at least have information on what the Guardians were planning—if they’d come up with a plan, anyway. I stepped toward Leon, and he set an arm about my waist, shifting me closer.
I waited for him to teleport, and when he didn’t, I glanced up to find him frowning.
He released his grip on me and moved backward. “Stay here a second.”
“Leon—”
He vanished, and I felt a split second of alarm, thinking he’d left me behind. But then he reappeared a short distance away, and came loping back to me, his frown deepening.
“I can’t teleport you,” he said.
I matched his expression. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s something wrong with my powers.”
The moment he spoke, I realized it. Not something. The Beneath. Kin powers didn’t work as well Beneath—I’d felt it when I’d been trapped there—and now that it had begun to leak through, it must be affecting the Guardians, acting as a veil.
“That’s bad,” I said. “That’s very bad.”
The Beneath escaping into the streets, gaining in strength. And the Guardians weakened.
I tried amplifying. I was able to do it, but though I felt the bond form between us, the quickening of heat in my blood, the connection was strained. I had to concentrate hard to maintain it, and it wasn’t as potent as it should’ve been.
And if Leon couldn’t teleport me—
“You’re not leaving me here,” I said.
“If I intended to do that, I wouldn’t have brought you in the first place,” he said. “Come on.”
Leon had left his motorcycle in the garage when he’d picked up Mom’s car, and now we took it downtown. I held tightly to Leon as we headed out of the driveway. I tried to slow the thrashing of my heart, but my mind was in chaos. This wasn’t just the end of the Kin, my thoughts whispered. This felt like the end of the world itself, like everything on the earth and beyond would be swallowed up and consumed—all the deserts and oceans and prairies, each forest and city, every inch of soil and molecule of oxygen and even the stars swirling out in the dark of the cosmos. Only the void would remain. Empty and infinite. I squeezed my eyes shut and clung tighter.
We avoided the freeway and took neighborhood streets, where up and down the blocks, people stood out in their driveways or on the sidewalks. Searching for the storm the tornado sirens were announcing, I guessed, or wondering where the sky had gone. Harrowers clouded the senses; I had no idea what the Beneath would do, if the entire population of the Cities was wandering about in a blank daze, or if they thought they’d fallen into a communal nightmare from which they couldn’t seem to wake. A nightmare that seemed to grow worse with every mile, every minute.
By the time we neared downtown, the sirens were blaring so loudly they sounded as though they were rising right up out of the ground. The streets were littered with dead birds. Leon had to swerve to avoid them, and then slow, as more and more of them tumbled out of the sky, plummeting down around us and blanketing the air with feathers. I closed my eyes again, trying not to see them. The red light pulsed out above us. The sirens wailed.
We didn’t make it to Harlow Tower. A few blocks away, we found the Guardians.
Some of them, at least. Leon brought us to a stop as soon as we reached them. The Guardians were clustered together, fighting. Ahead of us in the street, I saw the faint blur of colored lights glowing through skin. I saw bodies in motion, quick graceful strikes and evasions. Voices called out back and forth, shouting to be heard. I didn’t see Mom.
There were Harrowers all around them. I couldn’t count how many. Dozens, maybe. A writhing sea of silver pushing forward.
I began amplifying immediately. Diminished though the bond was, I felt it build in the space between Leon and me. His left arm was already shining in threads of orange, aqua, gold, pale violet. He glanced at me a moment, nodded, and then he was running. I ran with him, following his lead as he reached the Guardians and flung himself toward a Harrower.
We moved together, not speaking, communicating with action and instinct. I had to focus on sustaining the bond, but when a second demon lurched toward us, I thrust it backward. Leon’s hand caught a throat, tightening—but with his powers weakened, he couldn’t finish it. The demon broke free and staggered back, hissing. A Guardian I didn’t recognize caught the Harrower from behind, moving quickly to sever its spine. It slumped to the ground.
The second Harrower hurled itself at us once more, talons slashing. Leon spun, stepping in front of me, taking the blow with his shoulder before he shoved it aside. It sprawled onto the street and came up snarling. Leon parried, throwing it back again and again, and I moved up beside him. Together, we gripped its neck and snapped.
The third was stronger than the first two had been. It knocked Leon to the ground with such force that I felt the impact through the bond between us. Leon’s head rocked back. I let out a gasp of dismay. My concentration slipped. The link broke, and I struggled to reestablish it as the Harrower leaped toward Leon. But he rolled away and then teleported, coming up behind it. I felt the burn of the connection again, strength pulsing, and hurried to help. The demon kicked as we caught it, but I didn’t let my fingers loosen until its harsh rasping became a sigh and its body went slack.
A fourth Harrower watched me with its blank milky eyes. But it didn’t attack; it just hissed before retreating back into the hushed gloom of the city.
Leon and I were both panting by then. There were no more demons near us, but I whipped from side to side, searching. The Guardian who had helped us earlier was still fighting, but she killed the Harrower before we could assist. I shifted to face Leon.
There were rips in his shirt where the Harrower’s claws had raked down, and thin lines of blood welled up on his skin. Otherwise he looked uninjured.
“I’m fine,” he said, brushing a lock of hair behind my ear, and then frowned as he scrutinized me.
“I’m not hurt.” There was a scrape down my right forearm, but I hadn’t felt it at the time, and I could ignore it now. I’d lost my sandals at some point, and the ground was cold and rough under my feet. I shivered beneath my sweat, hugging my arms.
I turned again, taking in my surroundings. The end of the street was blocked with parked cars, and the windows of the buildings around us were dark. I wasn’t familiar with most of the Guardians I saw; they were the reinforcements from the other Circles, I guessed.
I wondered where all the people working downtown were, and hoped they were all hiding out in storms shelters and stairways. I didn’t want to consider the alternative—that they had simply been swallowed up by the empty, and even now were wandering some layer of the Beneath, aimless and afraid, adrift in the void. I searched briefly for movement behind the glass doors of a business but saw nothing. Above, the sky was a swirl of darkness, gray upon gray, and within it the baleful gleam of those stars shone out. I put a hand to my forehead, wiping away the chilled sweat. Then, blinking, I saw a flash of pale hair in a pixie cut.
“Tink!”
She was standing beside another Guardian, near the entrance to an alley. Her head was bowed, and her hands were braced against the side of a building, but she turned at the sound of her name. I ran toward her.
A Harrower reached her before I did.
It crept upward out of nothing, seeming to slide right out of the shadow of the building. The Guardian beside her cried out a warning, and Tink spun, lifting her left arm before her. She managed to protect her face and neck, but I saw its talons curve around her arm and sink in. She jerked backward, and then dropped down, ducking beneath its arm as it slashed toward her again.