He made a striking image as he stood there, legs spread wide and shoulders squared. Like a god about to meet a Titan head-on.
A shimmer of white enveloped him, and from where I stood, I could see his veins light from within, a bright white that followed a network of lines across his cheeks and down his throat, disappearing under the collar of his shirt, and then reappearing along his arm.
I’d seen him like this before, not all out, but when he’d stopped the truck that almost turned me into roadkill.
Daemon was freezing time.
The Hummer halted suddenly, pitching the occupants forward as the air around the car hummed with power. He’d stopped the car—but he couldn’t freeze the Luxen inside. It didn’t matter how many times I’d seen him do that, I was awed by the ability. A lot of energy had to be sucked up to freeze time, and I’d only done it once by accident.
Daemon jerked his hand back, and it was like the Hummer was attached to an invisible string. He’d unfrozen time, and the force of the vehicle snapped back, but it was a little too much for a thing called gravity.
The Hummer went up on the front two wheels in a perfect handstand and hovered there for a second, and then tipped over with the force of an elephant. Metal crunched as the roof caved.
“Boo-yah,” Archer murmured.
The Luxen didn’t stay down long. The doors groaned, and then flew off in a burst of whitish-red light. They came out—five of them—rushing toward us in their human forms.
“I got this,” Daemon said as he crouched down, preparing for the massive impact of the five Luxen.
“What the hell?” I looked at Archer.
He nodded. “Yeah, we aren’t just standing here while he has all the fun.”
Archer let go, and I darted away from the SUV, toward the fray, just as a hood was ripped off a nearby sedan and shot across the wall like a giant knife. It hit one of the Luxen, cleaved him right in two, and there was no coming back from that, alien or not.
Damn.
I skidded to a stop when I saw Archer’s downright evil grin. “Score.”
“That was pretty cool,” Daemon said, catching one of the Luxen by the waist. Lifting him up, he literally power-bombed the sucker in the road. Asphalt cracked. Shimmery blue liquid splattered across the road.
Yuck.
One Luxen veered off, charging me. Summoning the Source, I lifted my arm and concentrated on what I wanted to happen. Back in the day, when I was first getting used to the Source, it involved a whole lot of stuff smacking me in the face or crashing to the floor.
Now?
Not so much.
When the Luxen was less than a few feet from me, I flung her against the side of a semi-truck. There was a sickening crunch that I wanted to forget, but I had to hold on to it. Lunging forward, before the tool got back on her feet, I let the Source whip through me. It slammed into her chest, above the heart, like a lightning bolt. The Luxen lit up like a firework that fizzled out quickly.
Daemon had the one he’d power-bombed by the shoulders. He brought his knee up, making contact in the chest. Bones snapped and the Luxen howled. I turned as Daemon’s arm cocked back, and the Source whipped down his arm.
I came face-to-face with Archer and the Glock he held in his hand. Our gazes collided, and fear exploded in my chest like buckshot. My breath caught in my throat as I froze. All I could see was the barrel of the gun, and then the spark as the trigger was pulled. I braced myself for the pain of metal ripping through my skin and bones.
Except it never came.
A body thunked on the ground behind me, and I spun around, gasping as I saw a Luxen facedown in the road in a pool of shimmery liquid.
“Bullet to the head,” Archer said. “Even they don’t get up from that.”
“That’s cheating,” Daemon said as he whirled around, taking out the last Luxen with a blast from the Source, pinning him against a nearby truck.
“Whatever.” Archer shoved the gun behind his back. “I’m all about conserving energy where I can.”
Pushing the hair out of my face, I surveyed the grim scene. “That’s all of them?”
Archer looked around. “I’m thinking it is for now.”
For now? I wasn’t sure I could go another round as I turned to where Daemon stood. My heart spasmed in my chest. Bluish-red liquid seeped out of the corner of his mouth. I jerked toward him, rocked. I hadn’t even seen him injured. “You’re hurt!”
“I’m fine,” he assured me, but the sight of him—of Daemon bleeding—rattled me to the core. “Took a hit, but it’s cool. In a couple of minutes it will be like nothing happened.”
That did very little to ease the panic building.
“He’s truly okay,” Archer threw in. “He’ll heal fast, especially since it’s daytime.”
I didn’t quite get what he was saying at first, but then I remembered Daemon explaining all that time ago how the sun did wonders for the Luxen, while copious amounts of sugar worked for hybrids.
“We’ve got to hurry.” Daemon grabbed my hand, tugging me back toward the Explorer. “More will feel us traveling, and it’s only a matter of time before they figure out what we’re doing.”
And that would be bad—really bad.
16
{ Katy }
I’d gone through three chocolate candy bars by the time we neared Atlanta and was experiencing a major sugar rush. With Daemon behind the wheel and, as he had said, completely fine and dandy after taking the hit, we made up the time spent dealing with the Luxen on the road in Kentucky and might have shaved a few years off my life and Archer’s.
We hadn’t seen any more Luxen, and we didn’t know exactly where they’d sensed us or if they’d communicated to others that we were on the move, or if they even knew who we were, but to be safe instead of sorry, we assumed eventually more would be coming.
As we crossed into Georgia, I saw something that looked like it was straight out of a movie. The trees on either side of the highway had been snapped in two, charred and broken. Wreckage from a plane crash could be seen through the thick stand of vegetation. A tail. A middle section with the tiny windows blown out.
I looked away, heartbroken by all the needless violence and destruction. The more I saw, the harder I believed it would be for us—for the world—to move on no matter what happened with the invading Luxen. Now that humans knew they were around us, how could they go on? How could they ever trust a Luxen after this?
I couldn’t let myself dwell on those worries, kind of like not crossing that screwed-up bridge with a bunch of holes until we got to it. I really couldn’t fathom what life was going to be like for anyone.
Surprisingly, the roads had cleared for the most part. Any abandoned car had been pushed to the shoulders, and the city, from the outer loop of the major highway, looked okay, all things considered.
Probably had something to do with the heavy military presence and the National Guard, but they would only hold the Luxen off for so long. It was close to seven in the evening when we arrived at the sprawling airport, and it looked like a curfew had been put into place, because there was hardly anyone anywhere. Then again, no one was getting on a plane right now.
“There we go.” Archer pointed at a sleek foreign car with all the windows tinted out. “That’s what he said he’d be driving. Nice car.”
“I know asking you to stay in the car is too much, but please stay close to me.” Daemon slowed down as he crossed the parking lot, heading toward the fancy black car. “Luc might trust the douche, but I don’t.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “It’s not like I’m going to run up and hug him.”