I leaned around Tori, curious about the woman’s unusual accent, but the redhead was giving the whole group a jaunty salute.

“Nice to see ya. We’re just heading out.”

“What were you here for? Tori—”

Tori walked away while the woman was still talking, and I rushed after her with an awkward peek at the bewildered group we were leaving behind.

I caught up to Tori as we entered the lobby. “Is something wrong?”

“Nope. It’s just that guy—the short, bald one at the back—is a famous bounty hunter and he was a dick to me at the pub the other day.”

I hadn’t noticed a short, bald man. “A famous bounty hunter? What’s his name?”

“Shane Davila.” She reached for the frosted glass door. “Have you heard of—”

There was no warning. I didn’t have the slightest inkling something might be off until an impact like a cannonball hit the building.

Chapter Six

Tori fell into me. The floor quaked and I caught the back of her coat for balance as mythics elsewhere in the guild yelled out in shock. Tori faced the door, her complexion bleached of color.

Orange light exploded across the glass, and I recoiled. That couldn’t be what it looked like. No way was there a literal inferno piling up on the—

The glass door shattered and fire blasted into the lobby.

Tori thrust her arm out. “Ori repercutio!”

The air shimmered and the raging fire bounced off nothing, splattering the walls instead of my and Tori’s flammable bodies. In her hand was a tattered playing card—a sorcery artifact.

Seizing her arm, I gasped, “I thought you were a witch!”

“Yeah, well—”

Something metal clanked loudly. The sound came again, then again, almost like—like approaching footsteps. Smoke filled the lobby as flames climbed the walls, but even half-blinded, I couldn’t miss the hulking shadow taking form in the open doorway.

With a clang, the steel beast stepped into the threshold. Four-legged, a metal mouth full of triangular teeth, its limbs connected with heavy gears. Glowing runes covered every inch of its body.

A golem? A golem here?

The metal beast charged us.

Tori hauled me sideways. The magically animated beast roared past us, its footfalls deafening, and she shoved me toward the door. “Out! Get outside!”

I wasn’t quick enough getting my numb legs moving, and she beat me to the exit.

“What about the people inside?” I asked breathlessly, trying to think through my shock. Behind us, the golem was backing out of the desk it had demolished, and fire was spreading through the room. “They—”

“They’re combat mythics!” Tori yelled as she jumped over the glass debris. “They can take care of themselves!”

She reached back and grabbed my arm again. Hauling me with her, she raced through the open doorway. As I stumbled onto the front stoop, she spun toward me—and flung us to the ground.

I struck the pavement, landing all wrong. Pain ricocheted through my hip and I felt a pop in my elbow. Blinding agony hit an instant later, the joint lighting on fire. Choking on a cry, I rolled onto my back—and saw why Tori had thrown us clear.

Hunks of debris tumbled down as a second golem pulled its massive fist from the guild’s wall. It straightened to its twelve-foot height, humanoid in shape and glowing with runes.

Panic screeched through my head. The golem’s huge fist, the size of a basketball and with a hundred pounds of crushing weight behind it, rose above its helmet-shaped head. Gears turned in its shoulder as it took aim—then that fist plunged toward me and Tori.

I screamed, and Zylas answered.

Crimson power streaked out of my infernus. The demon took form directly above me and Tori, one foot on either side of my waist and his arms raised as the golem’s strike flashed down.

My scream rose in pitch, terror stopping my heart.

The golem’s fist smashed into Zylas’s waiting hands. He almost buckled, bracing hard, muscles taut and straining. The golem pressed into him, and he dropped to one knee, his greave slamming into the pavement inches from my thigh. He couldn’t hold it.

My panic disappeared, and I shoved backward, sliding out from under him. “Tori, move!”

The redhead rolled sideways, getting clear.

Zylas, let it go!

He released the steel fist and it punched into the ground. As Tori and I bolted away from the golem, Zylas darted after us.

“A golem,” I gasped, half incoherent. My left arm hung at my side, agony jarring through the limb with each step. “It’s huge. How is it so huge?”

“Great question.” Tori headed toward the parking lot, no doubt planning to get as far from that monster-sized golem as possible—a plan I wholeheartedly supported. “But let’s worry about it later. We need to—”

She broke off, and a fresh wave of panic hit me.

The golems hadn’t come alone. A group of men in mismatched combat gear stood in a line at the parking lot’s edge, accompanied by three more four-legged golems.

One of the mythics pointed at me. “Take out the contractor first!”

Oh great.

The golems launched toward us, and a trio of mythics followed, preparing their attacks.

Tori reached for her belt, hidden under the hem of her leather jacket. Instead of another artifact, she pulled out a—a gun? The black pistol gleamed as she pulled the trigger with loud pops. Yellow splatters burst across two of the three attacking mythics, and they collapsed—but the third had blocked her shot with a water shield.

The hydromage conjured a liquid attack as the golems closed in.

Zylas! Take out the mage first!

He shot between me and Tori, sprinting at full, unbelievable demon speed. Springing over the golems, he leaped full tilt into the hydromage, smashing feet-first through his forming attack and driving the man into the ground—but the golems were still coming.

How was Zylas supposed to stop them without magic?

He sprang off the hydromage’s chest and slammed his fist into a golem’s side. I flinched at the loud bang of his knuckles impacting the unyielding surface. The beast’s side dented inward, but it didn’t even stumble. Whirling, it snapped its teeth at Zylas. He dodged away.

That won’t work! I told him desperately. They aren’t alive. You can’t hurt them!