Page 100 of Siege of Shadows

We flew in silence, each of us lost in the dark of our thoughts. We were out of the comfort of the APD tower protecting Madrid and the satellite cities. We were low enough in altitude for me to see a Spanish mountain range. Darkened earth covered in thin sheets of snow at the highest peaks, everything blanketed in night. Even in the dark, I could see something shifting and scuttling across the rocky domain, too fast to be human. Phantoms. It’d be impossible to describe them; it was too dark and we were too high. But there were enough of the tiny specks climbing up the rock for me to feel their menace.

“Dead Zone,” I said as we flew over them. “Down below.”

“From what I know, some of these mountains are protected by the mining industry,” James said. “But there’s one prominent barrier to expanding their territo—”

His word cut off with a grunt as the helicopter began to struggle with turbulence.

Or maybe it wasn’t turbulence.

I could see it out of the window to my right: the beginnings of a snarl forming out of the cloud in front of us. The white mist shivered and sank into a gaping hole, black as the night around us; round, soulless eyes shimmered bright like white jewels as the rest of the phantom’s face shook itself free from the cloud. A demon snout, black steam smoking through its long, jagged jaws and off its scaly, leathery hide. A single horn stretched back from the crown of its head. This one had wings, tiny ones, on its back, and short little arms that dangled uselessly from its torso. Its long tail flitted behind it as it began slipping through the air toward us.

“It’s okay,” said James, though he clearly looked more spooked than we did. “Our electromagnetic armor is still operational.”

“Better be,” Chae Rin whispered as the phantom swooped under the helicopter and then curved itself around until its long, spindly body was parallel with us. For an uncomfortable few minutes, it followed beside us. My eyes tracked its body’s mesmerizing undulations, its form silhouetted in the night. It was shadowing us like a faithful pet, waiting for its chance.

Four more descended from the sky and sank below us; they were making their way toward the mountains instead. Something else had caught their attention.

I gasped and held my seat belt to keep myself stable from the sudden convulsions of the helicopter.

“Ugh,” James grunted. There reallywasturbulence. “Hold on.” He gripped his controls even tighter. The helicopter shook so violently, Lake shuddered awake. “Just let me get this under control.”

He didn’t get the chance. Two shots were fired from below, and they were too close for comfort. The helicopter swerved dangerously, tilting us over with a violent jerk. I held on to my seat belt for dear life, my body half raised out of my seat as James tried to get the helicopter level.

“What’s happening?” I screamed. “What was that?”

James shook his head, his jaws clenched. “I don’t know!”

Belle was trying to see where the shots had come from, but soon another two rang out. The haunting, whalelike cries of a phantom pierced the air as one of the bright flares blasted into the sky in front of the cockpit.

“It got hit!” Chae Rin looked out her window, eyes wide as the phantom that had been following alongside us barreled high into the sky, screeching with agitation, its tail burned off. “The phantom! The phantoms are being attacked, not us!”

But we were, even if not intentionally. Just as one blast shot off the head of a phantom, another one blasted off the helicopter’s tail rotor. The helicopter shuddered and shrieked out its warning, the loud, dull sound bleating against my eardrums. We were going down.

James was clicking buttons desperately, but we were spinning out of control too quickly.

Gulping in air with short, desperate inhales, I grabbed Lake. “Get us out of here!”

Lake could barely breathe; she tried lifting her arms up to still the air, but that required concentration she didn’t have with the helicopter flinging out of control.

“Jump!” she screamed. “Jumpnow!” Grabbing her bag, she started unbuckling her seat belt. “Trust me!”

There was no time for debate. Belle pulled a petrified James out with her into the night, Chae Rin, Lake, and I following close behind. Holding my breath, I plummeted through the sky, the cold wind biting my skin. Below us, two halves of a smoking, bloodied phantom crashed into the mountainside, but I was too far up to see who’d hit them.

Another phantom went down with a well-aimed shot, but there were more circling back toward us with gaping jaws. Belle and I attacked at the same time, one phantom bursting into flames and the other falling back down to the earth, encapsulated in ice. The wind rushed past my ears as I continued to fall to the mountainside.

“Lake!” I heard Chae Rin scream, but we were already starting to slow down. The wind rushed up to meet me but softened to a caress as it pillowed my body. The farther we descended, the clearer the figures below became. For the first time, I could see the people who’d killed the phantoms. There were three of them bundled up in thick jackets and climbing boots: a woman and two men—no, not two men, but one man and one kid. I couldn’t see their faces properly, but I did see the smoking barrels of their giant, body-length guns flashing with blue electricity.

Guns aimed at us.

“Stop!” I cried, but they weren’t looking at us. One last phantom. I could hear its screeching drawing closer to us from above. Our feet touched the ground just as two more shots were fired, but they both missed their target. Belle already had her sword out, but it was Chae Rin who rushed forward and, leaping, caught the phantom’s thick neck in her arms with her incredible strength. It pushed her back, but as she slid across the rocky terrain, she held the phantom’s gaping jaw in place. With her magic, the earth caved in and snatched the phantom’s tail, pulling him in like a sinkhole. She had to let go of its snapping jaw and jump out of the way so that the stone and soil could do their work, swallowing it up and crushing its body. By the time the earth had finished shifting, the phantom’s horn was all that was left peeking out of the soil. Chae Rin kicked it off.

That’s when I heard theclickbehind my head.

“Who are you?” a female voice, deeply inflected with a Spanish accent, rumbled in a low and throaty tone as the gun pressed against the back of my head.

“I thought that would be obvious,” I answered coolly, even as I raised my hands in the air. “Seeing as we just smoked a few phantoms for you.”

“Abril, enough,” said the man to my right. His face was hidden behind a blue scarf, but from his Scottish-inflected voice I could tell he was young, maybe a bit older than us. I recognized the huge, long-range weapon he’d used to fire at the phantoms in the sky. The metal covering, the electric blue bars that slid up the sides as it powered up—it was the same weapon Howard had used to fight off the phantoms in New York. A Sect weapon. The design was exactly the same.

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