Fifteen. Sixteen. Makiko kept yelling Kai’s name. Seventeen. Eighteen. She was trying to snap him out of the mind-control trance. Nineteen. Twenty. He was in the grip of the assassin’s psychic power, and—

The assassin.

She was nearby. She was one of those cloaked figures.

I pulled my hands off Aaron’s chest, knowing every second without compressions was a second too many. I drew Justin’s gun from my holster, spun on my knees, and opened fire on the three robed figures watching Kai and Makiko battle.

The gunshots split my eardrums, the cacophony echoing off the concrete walls. Two of the three robed figures dove to the side, while the third thrust a hand toward me.

“Ori—” he began to shout.

I pulled the trigger twice more.

This time, my limbs weren’t shaking from a recent electrical shock. Blood splattered from the man’s chest and he keeled over backward.

“Kai!” Makiko screamed.

I jerked around. Kai was sprinting toward me, dirt smudged over his black gear, but I knew he was himself again—the anguish and horror in his face was so terrible it ripped my heart in two.

He dropped to his knees, put a hand on either side of Aaron’s chest, and discharged a bolt of electricity. Aaron’s torso jumped.

“Aaron!” Kai yelled, voice breaking. “Come on!”

Pushing down on Aaron’s chest, he sent another shock into his friend—and Aaron’s whole body spasmed. He gasped in a violent breath, then shook with a wheezing cough.

“Oh my god,” I whispered. “Is he—”

The air in the reservoir shivered strangely.

A blast of wind hit me and Kai. It flung me backward and I slammed into the long wooden altar. A candelabra landed on my head as I slumped against it, diaphragm locked.

Kai, who’d fallen into the altar beside me, yanked out two bladed stars, one in each hand. He flung them.

They whipped through the air on either side of Makiko as she bore down on us, her face wiped of thought or emotion and her steel fans extended toward us. She flicked them, blowing Kai’s blades away from her.

He snapped his hand out. Electricity lit the flying stars and arced between them, catching Makiko in the middle. She shrieked as she dropped to her knees.

Kai lunged up. Five long steps carried him toward her, and as she slashed a fan down, he tackled her around the middle. One of her fans skittered away as they tumbled to the floor.

Gun clutched in one hand, I reached for my hip with the other, adrenaline numbing the pain in my arm. My fingers found a cool sphere, and as Kai wrestled Makiko, trying to pin the viciously struggling aeromage down, I hurled my second-last alchemy bomb into the empty center of the summoning circle.

It shattered, unleashing a blinding flash and a bang even louder than the gun. As the two cloaked figures flinched, I smashed the final glass orb a few feet away.

Smoke boiled out of the crushed glass, engulfing us in a gray haze.

Fighting back a cough at its peppery scent, I crawled through the fog, praying that the mentalist’s ability required a direct line of sight; she’d been unnecessarily close to us at Blake’s hotel otherwise. If she couldn’t see us, maybe she couldn’t control us.

The shadows of Kai and Makiko appeared, and they weren’t struggling. They were both leaning over Aaron’s prone form. As I scuttled toward them, Kai looked up. That terrible anguish twisted his face.

“He’s breathing,” he whispered. “But he needs a healer right away.”

I crawled to Kai’s side and touched Aaron’s cheek. His eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.

“We have to get out of here,” I whispered back as smoke drifted around us, obscuring everything. “How do we get past the mentalist?”

“I don’t know,” Kai rasped. “If she takes hold of me again—I can’t fight it. I don’t even realize what I’m doing until her control breaks.”

Makiko nodded, her lips pressed together so tightly they’d turned white.

Somewhere beyond our smoke screen came faint rustling and murmurs. The words “punctured lung” reached my ears and I realized our enemies were using the respite to check on the mythic I’d shot.

I sucked in air. “How long does it take her to switch her control from one person to another?”

“Twenty seconds,” Kai answered. “Give or take five. That’s about how long it took her to make Makiko attack us after she’d lost control of me.”

My hands squeezed into fists. “Carrying Aaron, can you make it to the exit in twenty seconds? Once you’re out of her sight, you should be safe.”

“Maybe, but we’d have to run right past them. If she gets control of me—”

“If she gets control of either of you,” I whispered as I pushed the release button on my gun’s grip, “it’ll be a disaster. But if she wastes effort taking control of me …”

The magazine dropped out of the gun and into my waiting palm. I passed the magazine to Kai, then turned the gun upside down and pulled the slide back. The final round fell from the chamber.

“… then she won’t have enough time to take control of you two.”

Clutching the magazine, Kai shook his head. “But then you’ll—”

“I’ll run after you as soon as she releases me,” I interrupted. “And she won’t have time to get me again. It’s the only way.” I shoved to my feet, the unloaded gun in my hand. “Grab Aaron and let’s do this!”

His face white, Kai pocketed the magazine, then heaved Aaron up and over his shoulder. I gave him a nod, not allowing myself to show any terror, then spun to face the fading mist—and the two cultists beyond it.

Gun clutched in both hands, I charged out of the smoke. The scarlet lights high on the pillars bathed the silver etching of the summoning circle that lay between me and the assassin, the Magnus Dux at her side.

Screaming like a banshee, I charged straight at them. My stare locked on the woman’s shadowed hood, and as she turned to me, the dim light caught on her lower face, illuminating that same smile I’d seen as she’d forced Kai to kiss me before electrocuting me.

Controlling people wasn’t enough for her. She wanted to rip out their hearts too.

I aimed my gun for her chest.

My steps slowed, then stopped. Adrenaline burned in my blood, but fear was a distant fizzle in the back of my brain. I turned, my stare finding Kai as he charged past, Aaron over his shoulder and Makiko right behind him. I raised the gun, tracking Kai’s movement, then pulled the trigger.

Click, click, click.

At the hollow clack of the empty weapon, the mentalist hissed angrily—and terror flooded back into my brain. As I wheezed from the sudden onslaught, the mentalist turned her hooded face toward Kai and Makiko.

Whirling, I sprinted after the others, my legs pumping. If we could get out of here and into the trees, we might have a chance. Up the stairs, through the cemetery, to the car—

Crimson light blazed.

A streak of red power launched past us and hit the ground in front of the rough doorway out of the reservoir. The light pooled upward into a shape over seven feet tall. A demon manifested—gangly-limbed with skin like armor plates.

As Kai skidded in a frantic attempt to stop, Makiko leaped forward, thrusting her hand toward the demon. His glowing magma eyes flared as he swung his long arm.

The air boomed, and the lightweight aeromage hurtled backward. She crashed down and curled into an agonized ball, arms wrapped around her ribs.

The demon swung his other arm, and Kai could only twist so that the blow hit his side and not the unconscious pyromage he carried. He crumpled, barely keeping Aaron’s head from cracking on the concrete.

Halfway between them and the cultists, I could do nothing. I had no magic in my belt and no bullets in my gun. The only thing I had left was the Vh’alyir Amulet, and I was too far to use it on the demon.

The assassin pressed a fingernail to her smiling lower lip. “We only need one to question,” she murmured in a throaty contralto voice. “Who would you prefer?”

“Miss Dawson should suffice, I think,” the Magnus Dux replied.

Her smiled widened.

The demon lifted his arm, his two-inch claws extended as he aimed for Kai. Gasping, I ran toward them, even though I was too far. Even though I had no magic. Even though there was nothing I could do.

With a flash of crimson, a rune-marked circle appeared around the demon’s upper arm. He jolted, his arm immobile inside the hovering circle.

Another ring flashed around his other arm. A third blinked into existence around the demon’s waist. He jerked against the spells, trapped in place.

“What—” the Magnus Dux began.

Scarlet light blazed from the doorway behind the demon—and his chest burst apart in a spray of dark blood.

A ring of crimson spikes jutted from the creature’s torso. With a final flash, an even thicker spear erupted from the center of his chest, ripping through his sternum. The immobilizing spells dissolved, and the demon dropped like a marionette with cut strings.

Standing in the doorway behind the fallen demon, crimson magic snaking over his outstretched arm and his left eye glowing with fierce power, was Ezra.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ezra.

Ezra was here.

Ezra had just slaughtered a demon with a single attack, and all I could do was stare.

Lowering his arm, he stepped out of the doorway. Dressed in combat gear with his steel-plated gloves covering his arms, he carried no weapons.

His gaze slashed across Kai and Aaron, then shot to me. The relief and terror filling my head battled for dominance with such violence that it made me dizzy—or maybe I was dizzy because I’d forgotten to breathe.

We’d decided not to tell Ezra where we were going because it would’ve been too much of a heart-rending, trauma-inducing trial to face the cult that had ruined his life, caused his parents’ demise, and condemned him to an early death. We’d thought he wouldn’t be able to handle it … but here he was, and his face was a calm, eerily emotionless mask—except for his blazing left eye.