He raised his eyebrows at me. “Your boyfriend is being very careful with him. Look, he just had a chance to break his ribs and didn’t take it.”
Ugh.
Albert hammered a punch, aiming for Alessandro’s jaw. He’d turned into it, twisting his wrist at the last second to add more power, and if the punch had landed, it might have dropped Alessandro. Alessandro shied out of the way, locked his left hand on the wrist of Albert’s extended right arm, pushing it aside, stepped in, and turned right, driving his elbow into Albert’s jaw. The blow knocked Albert’s head to the side. Before he could recover, Alessandro reversed his swing, spinning left, and caught him with his elbow again. Albert staggered back, his mouth bloody.
“I fought a male telekinetic in the Pit,” I told Connor.
My brother-in-law came to life, like a shark sensing a drop of blood in the water. “Was he any good?”
“Yes. Powerful, but not very precise. I don’t think he has a lot of experience, because he freaked out when I grabbed his mind. He threw spikes.”
“What kind of spikes?”
“About two feet long, metal, with a ring on the dull end.”
Connor’s face snapped into a flat mask. He raised his hand. Something crunched inside the motor pool of his HQ. A bright spark streaked out of the open bay doors. A metal spike landed in his hand.
“Yes,” I said. “Exactly like that.”
“Was the inside of the ring smooth or did it have ridges?”
“I didn’t look that closely. I was running away.” I thought back to the spike protruding from the guard’s neck. “No, wait, it was ridged. Why is that important?”
“Most telekinetics throw spikes that look like giant nails or crossbow bolts. This is a modified marlin spike. I’ve never known anyone to use it outside of our family.”
Connor only had one family member on the American side, his mother, Arrosa. On the Spanish side, he had a whole boatload of relatives, but none of them were powerful enough, with the exception of Mia Rosa, who was eight years old.
“He was a Prime, Connor. I’m sure of it.”
I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t like it.
Alessandro drove his fist into Albert’s solar plexus. Albert stumbled back and fell clumsily, landing on his ass. Blood dripped from his mouth. His eyes teared, his face swollen and bloody. Alessandro crouched by him. He was unmarked. His hair wasn’t even messed up.
“This isn’t a fair fight,” Alessandro said. “Go home.”
Albert tried to rise, his eyes full of rage.
Alessandro hammered a quick punch to his chin. Albert’s eyes rolled back in his head. He collapsed.
“You could have done that in the beginning,” I told him.
“Yes, but then he would think I sucker punched him and that he’d have a chance if he tried again. Now he knows.”
Nevada walked out of the bay doors. She was carrying a green bag with tiny dinosaurs on it. She didn’t give Albert a second glance.
“Hey, honey,” she said. Her voice sounded clipped.
“Hey,” Connor said, moving toward her.
“I need you to cancel your plans for today and find someone else to handle whatever this is,” she said. “My water just broke.”
Oh God. Oh God. What do we do? We needed a car. We needed to get Nevada to the hospital.
“Stay right here!” Connor ordered in his officer voice. “Don’t move.”
He sprinted to the bay.
Nevada looked after him and very deliberately took two steps forward.
My phone rang. A moment later Alessandro’s phone went off as well. I answered without looking. “Yes?”
“It took Marat into the Pit,” Stephen barked. “They’re fighting it now and losing. Tatyana’s on her way. Can you get there?”
I stared, mute, torn between two vital things.
Nevada waved at me. “Go to the Pit. I’ll be fine. Get to the hospital when you can.”
“On my way.” I spun around, ran into the house, and found Arabella in her bathroom, putting on lipstick.
“Nevada’s in labor.”
Arabella dropped her lipstick into the sink.
“The thing in the Pit grabbed one of the Primes and is attacking the work site. I have to go. Yesterday, Victoria threatened Nevada and the baby. Go with her and don’t let her out of your sight. If it all goes to shit, I don’t care if you are in the middle of that damn building, you transform, and you get her out of there.”
Arabella took off running.
I charged out of the bathroom and ran back downstairs to get my sword.
I took a turn too fast. Rhino’s overpowered engine roared as I accelerated out of the turn. Alessandro grabbed the door handle to steady himself.
We’d had a choice of the Spider or Rhino and we both picked armor over speed. Rhino would plow through anything in our way and get us there. If I didn’t kill us first.
“What the hell was he doing back on-site?” I growled.
“Probably getting all the equipment out. They are expensive machines.” Alessandro shook his head, his eyes sharp and focused. “Damn idiot didn’t listen to me. I told him to get his people out of there.”
“I did too.”
“I warned him.” Alessandro bared his teeth. “I said, don’t think about leaving, don’t make any preparations. Just walk off at the end of the day like normal, leave the equipment where it is, and once everyone is out, pull the guards back to the outer perimeter. The fool went back for the assets.”
And once the Abyss saw its food and brain supply leaving, it reacted violently. It required metal and humans to expand. Without a continuous supply of either, it would have to leave the relative safety of the Pit to procure it. Every time it sent its nodes out of the mire, it ended badly.
We tore past the dealership where we’d fought the constructs.
“I don’t have a plan,” I told Alessandro. “I don’t know how to kill it. It’s impossible to destroy every node, and as long as one survives, the Abyss will rebuild itself.”
“We’ll deal with that gap once we’ve jumped it.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“You worry too much.”
“A sentient self-repairing construct the size of ten city blocks is on a rampage, and you’re telling me not to worry.”
“It will be fine. You’ll see.”
It wouldn’t be fine. “Call Linus.”
My phone dialed the number and the beeps echoed through the cabin. No answer. Just like the first two times I’d called him since we left the house. Linus always took my calls. I didn’t even want to think about why he wasn’t picking up. That was a bottomless rabbit hole of anxiety and speculation, and we had bigger problems on our hands.
We shot onto the final bridge. The Pit Reclamation island was on fire. Flames tore out from its shore, colliding with a forest of tentacles flailing in the water.
A hunter construct leaped out of the water and into our path. I rammed it. The impact knocked it aside and we sped past it. All around us the Pit churned.
The island wasn’t on fire. Rather the fire circled it, a wall of living flame twenty feet tall. Here and there the Abyss’ constructs, hulking forms melded from vegetation and bone, emerged from the water to storm the shore and fell apart, consumed by the inferno. The water at the island’s edge boiled. Plumes of steam rose, hissing. The temperature inside the car jumped.
Alessandro grabbed his phone and dialed a number. “We’re coming in.” He hung up. “Keep going.”
The fire wall towered in front of us. I drove straight at it. The flames parted. We shot through the gap and I mashed the brakes. Rhino skidded and slid to a stop.
In the middle of the parking lot in front of the HQ building, Tatyana Pierce stood in an arcane circle of dazzling complexity. Her eyes were pure fire. Workers huddled around her, clutching weapons and sweating. A young man in a suit, one of the secretaries I had seen in the House Pierce building, stood by with an impassive expression on his face, holding a cell phone.