Lake panted heavily. “Really kind of you to make me do the heavy lifting, mate.”
We didn’t have time to argue. Three more phantoms barreled at us from a distance.
Closer. Closer.
“I’ll make it up to you later.” Closer. “Now stop whining . . .” Closer. “. . . and get us a phantom!”
Lake pulled a phantom into her vortex with a tortured yell. After letting my scythe dissipate back into nothingness, I ran for the phantom at full speed and jumped onto its back, Lake following quickly behind me.
“Ow!” I yelped as the phantom’s bone struck my tailbone. My legs slid uncomfortably against the thick, fleshy hide, my hands disappearing behind a thin veil of smoke as I felt for something to hang on to.
The murderous roaring behind us grabbed my attention just long enough to see the phantoms chasing after us. “Lake!”
“Oh, hell. Okay, let’s go!”
The phantom flailed violently, but Lake’s will was stronger. My hands dug through wet flesh to grasp hold of the bone beneath. Lake’s right hand grabbed the back of my vest as she pushed and pulled the wind to get us to the drop site.
It wasn’t an exact art. The phantom swerved and thrashed as the other phantoms pursued us relentlessly, snarling and snapping at the air. My legs were wearing out from clutching its body. Riding a phantom was terrifying, and Chae Rin was insane for even trying it. But as Lake directed the beast’s kinetic energy to the drop site, I could see our location moving closer and closer from behind the screen of my goggles.
“We’re hopping off!” I gripped Lake’s arm. Pulling myself to my feet, I leapt with her onto the ground as the disturbed phantom screeched upward, but another was coming down from above.
Tapping off my goggle’s monitor screen, I lifted my arms above my head. Trap and release.
Lake narrowly dodged another phantom. “Maia!”
Fire burst from my fingertips, climbing up the phantom inch by inch, starting from its gaping jaws snarling just a few feet from my head. I fell back. The fire swallowed half its body, turning flesh to char and smoke. I dove out of the way as the rest of the body crashed to the ground.
After two months of training, I was still having a little trouble controlling fire. Just thinking of the searing flames and the heat licking against my skin made the hairs on my arm stand on end. It took everything I had to stop myself from imagining my dead family in the fires.
But I was trying. For now that would have to be good enough.
“What are you doing?” Chae Rin yelled through the comm. “You guys still alive? We’ve got to activate the APDs at the same ti—” She ended in a grunt as she battled a phantom. It was dark now. I couldn’t see either Chae Rin or Belle through the sandy wind. But I knew we weren’t the only ones fighting.
“Lake, Chae Rin, Maia,” said Belle. “If you’re at your sites, then get your devices out.”
Belle hadn’t spoken much since the mission started, but the moment she did, my hand found my vest. I pulled the device out from my left pocket. The APD had a square monitor carved into its sleek metal surface. It was kind of like the electromagnetic armor you’d find in a really expensive car. You had to type in the code to make it work.
I placed it carefully on the surface of the sand. “Okay. I’m ready.”
“Hurry up!” Lake cried, eyeing the rumbling ground several feet away.
“Now,” said Belle.
My fingers moved quickly.
4EXX#G7
The monitor lit up blue and the metal ball gave a few curious shivers before going rigid and sinking a little into the ground. I poked it. Nothing. Even against the shifting sand, it was immovable. Then, in the next moment, a blue haze of light shot out from beneath the device, drawing a clean line in the sand as far as my eye could follow in the darkness. After turning my goggles back on, I saw them—blue lines shooting out from three different positions triangulating around the blinking center that marked Saul’s hideout.
“It’s activated!” said Chae Rin.
“Get into the field now,” Sibyl said. “Quickly!”
We didn’t need telling twice. Another phantom was already after us. Together, Lake and I dove into the protected zone before its twisted jaws could reach our skin. It collided with the hazy field instead, its flesh and bone bursting into smoke and dissipating into the air.
Grasping the sand in her delicate hands, Lake crawled a little deeper into the zone until finally collapsing onto the ground, panting heavily. I flopped over onto my back, chest heaving. The field was faint, but the particles reflected enough starlight for me to see the thinnest, wavering curtain shooting up into the sky above me.
“This mission is time-sensitive, girls,” said Sibyl. “You’ll need to make your way to Saul’s hideout.”
According to the Sect’s intel, Saul was somewhere in this area, underground. It took a hell of a lot of work to get him into Sect custody the first time. This time, we wouldn’t lose him.
With a half-haphazard tap of my hand, I jostled Lake before she could lose consciousness. “Come on, we’re getting up.”
“You first.”
Wiping sand off my cheeks, I dragged myself to my feet, helping Lake up. After one last glance at the monsters roaming behind the protective field, we started our trek to Saul’s hideout.
The winds were gradually starting to calm on their own. Respectable gusts shifted the sands across scattered green shrubs dotting the desert hills. I ignored the sound of phantom cries to concentrate on the stars above me lining the dark sky.
When I was a kid, my sister, June, would look at the sky from behind the window of our bedroom in Buffalo. She was the stargazer, the dreamer. She’d stare at the stars, maybe imagining the impossible. What would she think if she could see me here, battling phantoms in the middle of a desert?
For me, impossible was just another day. That’s what it meant to be an Effigy.
“Oi.” As we neared the location of Saul’s hideout, Lake pointed at Chae Rin’s running figure in the distance. “How the hell does she still have any energy after all that?”
Chae Rin’s stamina and strength were incredible, even for an Effigy. But Chae Rin hadn’t gotten out of the phantom onslaught without a scratch. She had a few up her arms, her pale skin and blood exposed to the air through the tears in her sleeves. Her short black hair grazed her shoulders back and forth as she continued toward us.
“You okay?” I called out to her.
Slowing down, she lifted her slender arm. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” She looked around. “So, where’s the Warrior Princess?”