“Let’s go,” I said nervously.
Our plan was simple: sabotage the spell array, then get the hell out of there. Zylas had agreed this wasn’t the time of dh’ērrenith. We needed to wait until Ezra could fight with us.
The demon went first, slinking along the road toward a lumpy shadow right at the shoreline—the remains of the SeaDevils’ guild headquarters. Police tape circled the burnt wreckage, and aside from a pair of oversized dumpsters, cleanup and reconstruction had yet to begin.
Water lapped noisily at the rocks, North Vancouver’s lights glowing cheerfully on the other side of the harbor. The gently rippling water reflected the city’s glow—as well as spots of flickering orange light that didn’t belong among the modern lights.
We circled the building’s remains, and the helipad came into view. Ezra had said it was large, but my mental picture hadn’t come close. It had to be at least seventy yards long—over two-thirds the size of a football field. Set up in a square around the platform’s center were four standing torches, their firelight dancing across the concrete.
My nerves pinged with adrenaline at the sight of three human silhouettes in the platform’s center.
“Torches?” Amalia muttered, following Zylas’s lead as he crouched behind the burnt shell of a car. “Are these guys purists or what?”
“They aren’t chancing anything interfering with the portal,” I whispered. “Zylas, any sign of Claude or Nazhivēr?”
“No.” He canted his head. “I hear the sorcerers. They are speaking your spell language.”
An incantation? Not good. “We need to hurry.”
“Then we go now.”
He scooped me under his arm, and Amalia squawked as he grabbed her too. He launched into a sprint.
The concrete lot ended and the rocky shore rushed to meet us. Zylas sprang over the black water and landed on a thick steel support—not the walkway at the other end of the pad, but a connection point between the platform and a concrete anchor on the shore.
He raced the length of the steel, then leaped again. His feet met the concrete pad—and indigo light flashed.
He jumped straight up, and a volley of glowing spikes peppered the ground. Landing in a one-footed skid, the demon tossed me and Amalia away from him.
I came down on my feet, stumbled, and regained my balance. Amalia fell to her knees with a curse, then scrambled up.
Phantom talons glowing from his fingertips, Zylas charged the twin sorcerers striding to meet him, their armbands gleaming in the firelight. At the center of the helipad, their father had his arms raised as he chanted an incantation.
“Come on!” I yelled to Amalia.
We sprinted toward Saul. I knew the moment we’d crossed the edge of the array—power sizzled into my heels and jolted up my legs. Lines and runes crisscrossed the concrete, etched half an inch deep.
I spotted a large ceramic bowl sitting on a hexagonal node and veered toward it. Midway through kicking the dish, I saw it was empty—the ingredient consumed by the spell. That meant we needed to either interrupt the incantation or damage the array.
One of those tasks was much simpler than the other, since we hadn’t brought a jackhammer and Zylas was too busy to explode a chunk of the platform with his magic.
Light flashed—the two sorcerers defending against the attacking demon. As I glanced toward them, a twin fell, Zylas’s deadly claws flashing. The other shouted an incantation and silver light blazed, throwing the demon off—but he rolled to his feet in an instant, the spell’s effect reduced by Amalia’s special gear.
Amalia and I ran toward the old sorcerer as his voice rose in pitch. The buzz of building power rippled through the air. I grabbed Amalia’s hand as I thrust out the infernus chain, my artifact dangling beside the pendant.
“Ori eruptum impel—”
Light appeared beneath my feet.
I stumbled and almost fell. Every line of the portal array, spanning thirty feet, had lit with white magic. Power burned through the spell.
Pale eyes turning to us, Saul held out his left hand. In his other hand was a silver dagger. He slashed it across his palm, and blood spilled over the center point of the spell.
A circle, eight feet across, took on an eerie, deep pink glow. The stain spread outward, snaking along the array’s lines and tinting the runes.
Saul pointed his dagger at me and Amalia. “Ori astra feriant.”
The blade rippled with yellow light and a spray of glowing two-inch half-moons blasted out of the tip. I threw my arms over my face. Tearing pain lanced my forearm. Beside me, Amalia screamed.
I staggered backward, half lowering my arms as wetness soaked into my sweater. My leather jacket had blunted the strikes, but one had cut my arm deep.
Saul flipped his dagger over, the opposite edge of the blade pointed skyward. “Ori ignes sid—ori duo!”
He bellowed the new incantation, and a rippling barrier formed in front of him an instant before a spinning disc of crimson magic struck it. The attack rebounded across the platform—toward Zylas, who in the middle of his own fight had thrown a spell to help me and Amalia.
“Ori sex!” one of the twins shouted.
I whirled at the shouted incantation—number six. A spell I hadn’t seen yet.
Zylas lurched, almost falling. Bands of green magic were tangled around his lower leg, wrapped on top of his protective clothing, and the ends had fused to the ground. The spell locked him in place, stealing his best advantage—his speed.
The twins, ten feet away on either side of him, raised their right arms. “Ori novem!”
Four-foot-long harpoons of violet light formed in their hands. They drew their arms back and hurled the weapons.
Zylas!
“Indura,” he snarled.
The harpoons struck his torso and the abjuration magic shattered against his cantrip-protected garments. The twins exchanged shocked looks, then raised their hands again.
“Ori decem.”
Their tenth spell.
Blue light flashed in their hands, then solidified into pale blades, two feet long and blazing with light. They lunged for the trapped demon, and I knew his cantrip garments wouldn’t stop those blades.
Daimon, hesychaze!
The blades slashed as Zylas dissolved into red light. The sorcerers’ weapons caught on the cantrip clothing, whipping it sideways as the demon’s body dissolved. His power streaked toward me, hit the infernus, and bounced out again.