Page 64 of Kiss of Magic

The thing was easily as fast as him.

They roared out of the Gilded Palace and into the empty streets. Kam had no idea what to do next. Keep leading the thing away, he supposed. But he couldn’t keep this pace up forever. It would only be a matter of time before his stamina ran out. And if he became too exhausted to keep manifesting his power, if he was forced to land… his blood ran cold.

Thank the gods Ren was safe. She had travelled to Valkar that morning at his insistence. He’d told her he needed her to co-ordinate the hundreds of refugees arriving at the castle, but in reality he’d wanted her as far away from Arjhan as possible.

He looked down. The demon was keeping pace with him on the ground. Again, Kam noticed the strange flickering quality of its movements. As if the thing was vanishing and reappearing but in almost exactly the same place. It dawned on him what was happening.

The fucking thing was shimmering.

Shaitun could shimmer but they tended to move in a straight line and could jump to any point they could see. This demon jerked around haphazardly, a crude kind of shimmer it didn’t seem able to control.

Clearly it couldn’t travel any kind of distance, which was a relief, but the unpredictability of its rough-and-ready hops would make it very hard to target with weapons.

“One problem at a time,” Kam told himself. First he had to get the damn thing as far away from the witches as possible.

As if sensing his thoughts, the thing looked up and sprang into the air. Kam reacted instinctively as it nearly collided with him and sent a bolt of light into its eyes. It shielded its face and fell away, snapping and snarling as it landed back on the ground.Fuck, that was close.

He recalled the ancient texts. Descriptions of the battles. How angels had created light-swords and light-arrows powerful enough to pierce demon-hide. His own light-power wasn’t strong enough to do that, but maybe he could blind it?

He took a breath and sent down a beam of bright white, hitting the thing square on. He concentrated on its multiple eyes, making the blast as bright as he could.At least stumble, you bastard.

It looked up and snickered. With a sinking heart, Kam realised his power alone wasn’t going to be enough against it.

This was why the Elhinn had needed the angels by their side all those millennia ago. The Elhinn hadn’t been strong enough.

Despair rose in his chest. Aelah had been right in that meeting. They were all going to be slaughtered.

A shadow fell on him.

“Kamran. Are you all right?”

Relief washed over him.

“Shade. I’ve had better days. How the hells do we get rid of this fucker?”

“Keep going in this direction. Raya’s waiting at the end of the street.”

“Raya…?” Startled, Kam looked at his friend. “The thermal guns my soldiers used had zero effect on that thing.”

“Raya’s power is far greater than any manufactured weapon.”

“Yes but… are you sure she can handle it?”

Shade’s face was tense.

“Raya asked me to trust her. So that is what I am choosing to do.”

Kam’s wings were starting to strain. His chest was heaving with the effort of maintaining top speed for a prolonged time. He knew he was close to burning out.

He squinted into the distance and saw Raya standing there. Her dark hair rippled in the breeze, the single red strand standing out like a banner.

The demon saw her too.

With a screech it bolted towards her, driven by rage and hunger. Raya saw it coming and her blood ran cold.

The creature looked straight out of a scary sci-fi movie, she thought. The type that kept you up at night. It was monstrous. Like a hulking sinewed alien with piranha teeth and spider eyes. And the damned thing was blinking in and out of existence as it rushed towards her, like a badly edited movie. How the fuck was anyone supposed to fightthat?

She fought the impulse to turn and run. Raising her hands, she tried to summon her power but fear was making them shake. And she found she couldn’t produce a single flame.

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