Kinked (Elder Races #6)(57)

He joined her, looking down the alley. “If it isn’t physical, what is it?” he asked quietly. “Some kind of ghost or spirit?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

The cobblestones were pebbled with the different colors of stone, and the warm brown-gold of the buildings was deepening with the growing shadows. Sunshine still shone directly on the other side street at the opposite end of the alley, topped with the white and blue of a cloud-dotted sky.

A black streak ran across the mouth of the alley, left to right.

Aryal and Quentin raced toward it. They plunged onto the street, looking in the direction it had gone. It had vanished from the sun-drenched scene.

She wiped her hot forehead as she turned to look at the surrounding area. This little street led to a park with stone benches and shade trees surrounding a shallow reflective pool. She glanced at Quentin, who was scratching the back of his head. He was scowling and he looked as frustrated as she felt. Then she looked back at the alley they had just exited.

Two black shapes were in the alley, moving toward them.

She smacked Quentin’s arm with the back of her hand. He jerked around.

The shapes were long and waist high, and they moved like shadows, except they were unattached to any corporeal body. Her mind kept insisting it could make sense of their shapes if she stared long enough at them. She caught a glimpse of legs, a narrow muzzle.

“Now I can sense them,” Quentin said. “Faintly, anyway.”

“They look like some kind of animal,” she said. The shadows crept closer, black in the darkening alley. She cocked her head. “Are they stalking us?”

“It does look that way.” Quentin narrowed his eyes. “I wonder what they can do if they catch us.”

Movement flickered at the corner of her eye. She looked down the street, in the direction of the park. More shadows approached them, pouring across the ground with intent. Recognition struck. She said, “They look like wolves. Very big wolves. Some of the Wyr wolves can get that big.”

“Aryal,” Quentin said.

When she looked at him, he pointed in the opposite direction. Even more shadows crept closer. There were twelve shadows altogether, and they were acting in coordination with one another, moving just like they would if they were a real pack. And now they had her and Quentin surrounded.

She turned and put her back to Quentin’s so that they both faced outward. “We don’t know that they can do anything,” she pointed out. “Weird shit sometimes happens in the magic of Other lands. They really might be animal ghosts.”

“Let’s try to break through their circle and get to the main street,” he said.

She didn’t bother to argue with that idea, mostly because she was curious to see what the shadows would do.

Together they turned and sprinted toward the shadow wolves that stood between them and the main street.

The wolves attacked.

FOURTEEN

Three wolves rushed Quentin. He braced himself as one leaped for him, and he slashed at it with the sword. His blade passed through the shadow as if it were empty air. Black teeth flashed, and his forearm caught fire as slashes appeared on his skin.

He shouted, “They can bite!”

He shrugged out of his pack and let it fall to the ground. Aryal was cursing. Pressure clamped his left ankle and denim tore. One of the shadows had latched onto his boot. He tried to shake it off, but there was no physical body to dislodge. Narrowly he managed to dodge another two shadows that jumped at him. Goddammit, there were too many of them and they had no bodies for him to hit.

Aryal’s Power surged.

He managed to glance over at the harpy. She had torn off her backpack too and dropped her sword. Two shadows had fastened onto her, one on her arm and the other on her thigh, and the upsurge in her Power blasted them backward. Both wounds were bleeding profusely, and she looked furious. She shouted, “Ever fight a Djinn before? Like that.”

At first her words made no sense to him. These couldn’t be Djinn? He had never actually had occasion to fight a Djinn, although he had met a few in the past. They were creatures of air and fire, beings of pure spirit, and their Power was unmistakable. These felt nothing like Djinn, but …

Aryal whirled and threw out her arm in a roundhouse punch at one of the shadow wolves that lunged at her, her Power concentrated in her arm. Her fist passed through the shadow, but she seemed to knock it off its course. It fell to the ground and crouched low.

Then Quentin understood. These might not be Djinn, but they still appeared to be spirits that could affect the physical world. Power used as an offensive weapon could affect them. He flung out his hand, whispering a repel spell, and it knocked one of his shadow attackers back.

But while it did so, three others leaped at him. He ducked one, repelled another and the third bit deeply into his bicep. It hurt like a son of a bitch. He could feel blood flowing out of the wound.

Fire flared in his right thigh just over the knee. Beyond the shadow that had bitten him, another paced. The ones he had knocked back were gathering too. There were too many of them. He and Aryal were in real trouble—or at least he was. Aryal could take wing and fly out of the fight.

He gathered his Power for the strongest repel spell he could throw. If he could only knock them all back, he might be able to sprint fast enough to get away.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Aryal had shapeshifted into the harpy. Her Power surged again as she kicked two of the shadows back. She shouted, “Get your ass over here if you want a lift. Let’s shoot for the top of a building and regroup.”