Page 20 of All Out of Flux
The men chuckled. The one in the middle answered for them all. “Your favorite uncle just wants to make sure that you don’t stick your handsome little nose where it doesn’t belong.”
So these guys were buddies with that one dude who Guillotina dropkicked at Unholy Grounds. A steady flow of Brillante thugs showing up at the coffee shop hadn’t been so surprising considering our previous misadventure with one Divina Brillante, but she had her own reasons for harassing Max.
“What does Gustavo want?” I blurted out, unable to contain my curiosity.
“This fucking kid,” the man said, gesturing at me. “He wants you to stop dancing around the subject, Maximo. You know youcan always come to Tío Gustavo about a — what was it again? A statuette?”
I could hear Max growling deep within his chest. Why did he have to be so hot all the time? We had to focus on the fight, not that a fight had actually broken out yet. Clearly these guys had only come to scare us, to send a message.
“Tell Gustavo I can handle my own business,” Max said, slow and steely.
“That’sTíoGustavo to you, Maximo. Respect your elders. See, this is why you were never going to get anywhere in the family. Can’t even be bothered to show a little respect to — ”
Max’s fist cracked into the side of the thug’s face. His bat clattered to the ground, but now Max was sandwiched between two armed thugs. Damn it. I sprinted forward, hand clenched in a fist, ready to slam a fear hex right into the left thug’s brain.
A horrible feeling in my stomach swelled as I saw the plank and lead pipe go up in the air. No. I couldn’t let them hurt him. I threw my hand out, prepared to unleash my dragon — but the impact didn’t come. The thugs were just standing there, staring at Max with their weapons held high.
The soles of my shoes scraped on asphalt as I came to a halt. Max rose to his full height and scratched the top of his head. The thug on the ground was too beefy to knock out in a single punch, but he was just lying there, too, frowning hard and staring up.
Max turned toward me. We exchanged shrugs. What the hell was going on?
Far behind us, a block away, the music thumped on at Habibi. From somewhere around the corner came the slurred voices of people just out to party. But here in the parking lot, me and Max and the frozen Brillante thugs — only silence.
“Well, that was too easy,” Max mumbled, his voice the only sound in a small radius. I could have sworn it was a cool night, a nice breeze blowing when we left the club. I looked at the trees.They weren’t moving, either, the leaves and branches frozen mid-rustle.
Oh, fuck.
“We need to get out of here,” I said urgently, grabbing Max’s wrist, straining as he resisted my pull.
“But we can question these thugs,” he said. “I mean, as soon as they break out of whatever this is. You sure it isn’t you hexing them?”
“Time anomaly,” I screamed. “They’re frozen in time, Max. Fucking move.”
He finally listened, the two of us sprinting out of the parking lot. A dull pulse thumped from the center of the space, a rush of nothing. From the edge of the parking lot we watched as the three thugs turned into dust.
“Holy shit,” I gasped. “Oh, shit, oh, fuck. Did you see that?”
“Show yourself,” Max shouted, turning in a circle, his face contorted in anger. “Brendan. We know you’re out here.”
I spun in a circle myself, my heart racing faster, scanning the block for any sign of the Quartz Spider.
“Nothing. Where the fuck is he? God, if he’s pulling this bullshit with the rewind and fast forward again, I — ”
The words froze in my throat as I completed my rotation, when I spotted the wiry figure standing just behind Max’s shoulder. Those crystal-lensed goggles, that strange, inky, iridescent black fabric — there was no mistaking him. Max hadn’t even noticed him yet, nor his outstretched hand, nor the dangerous crystal slivers in his palm.
No point warning Max. I could end Brendan Shum instead. I thrust my hand out.
“Emanate!”
Max’s eyes went huge as he followed where I pointed my hand. He sprang away at the sight of the Quartz Spider, muttering a spell word under his breath as he engaged his owncrystalline weapons. From deep within my body came the initial rumbling of the ancient dragon, answering my call.
A swirl of desert sand scoured at my flesh from the inside. I clenched my teeth against the agony — no pain without power, and Bahamut was one of the most powerful of them all. Shattered rock and gritty earth twisted through my body, coursed through my veins. I aimed at the man who’d brought me and Max so close to mortal danger far too many times over.
The Quartz Spider flinched, falling back into a defensive stance, the seeds of deadly crystal in his hand forgotten. Beneath my feet, the ground seemed to tremble.
Something churned, twisted in my stomach. No, this wasn’t the usual dragon pain. Something was very, very wrong. I fell to my knees retching, but nothing came out. This sickness wasn’t in my body. It stemmed deeper, from the soul.
Something churned and twisted in my soul. I cried out from the agony of it, this horrific twin sensation as two distinct forms of pain twined and braided within me. One was jagged and sharp, like rock. The other burned and stung, like saltwater on an open wound.
