Page 31 of Expose Me

“What is it?” He called from somewhere within the metal heap.

“Nothing,” I called back. “Do you need me to tell you where to look?”

“No. I can feel the energy of the Onuei now.”

With nothing better to do, I swung the flashlight around, gawking at all the crap piles while I waited. There was a section of building materials, like bricks and pavers, piled high like the metal, as well as an area with green waste. Piles of branches sat next to a woodchipper. I guessed this was part of the dump where they sorted what was salvageable.

Zey grunted and I turned the beam of light onto him in time to see him stumble out of the pile of metal. He righted himself as a few loose bits clanged off the mound.

“Did you get it?” I asked.

He grinned and held his hand out to show me what he had clutched in it.

“Uh ...” I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. “That’s a hand crank ... I think.” I was pretty sure that was what they were called; there were very few non-electric vehicles left. “A long time ago, it was used to manually wind down the windows in a car.”

“This is the Onuei,” he said with unwavering certainty. “When they passed through the portal, they scattered, and their magic disguised them to keep them hidden until the one truly worthy to lead came for them.”

I wiped the rain out of my eyes and tapped into my power. Sure enough, the ribbons in my mind wound around the black piece of plastic junk in Zey’s hand.

“Whatever. Let’s get out of this rain.” I started walking back the way we’d come. It would’ve been good to have a visual—it would make finding the other two Onuei easier—but I was quickly learning that nothing was easy with Zey.

I’d barely taken a few steps when he gripped my upper arm firmly and leaned in close.

“They found us,” he said, staring into the darkness off to his left.

See? No such thing as easy with this guy.

“Maybe there’s another way out.” I spun on my heel and started marching in the opposite direction to where he was looking.

“Too late,” Zey gritted out as he yanked me behind a forklift. I dropped the flashlight. Something thunked into the vehicle, and a spark of electricity lit up the area for a split second.

Muttering every curse in English that I knew, and a few in other languages, I summoned the zap that had hit the forklift. I sprang up, found the nearest Vuulectian, and threw it. I got him in the shoulder.

The flashlight was on the ground, illuminating the rain that continued to fall steadily and all the black shapes closing in. There was no one around, so the Vuulectians hadn’t bothered with shifting into human forms. They stalked forward with their inky black bodies and faceless heads.

“Holy shit! How many are there?” I ducked back down. There were way more of them than the group of about a dozen that I’d seen in Melbourne.

“Forty-six,” Zey stated matter-of-factly. Fuck. We couldn’t take that many. “Summon more zaps,” he ordered. Ignoring the irritation at his tone, I did exactly that. Because it was the best way to fight them—not because Zey told me to.

I sent my power out, the ribbons snapping through space and splitting in many different directions. I yanked the closest one and handed it to Zey, then immediately summoned another. He stood and threw it, reaching for another without even looking.

Using the forklift as cover, we fell into a rhythm. I summoned zap after zap, handing them to Zey, who fired them off like a machine. He knew the best way to wield them and the best spots to hit to incapacitate his buddies. Sometimes, I summoned the things right out of the hands of a Vuulectian about to throw one.

It had them confused for a while, but they quickly figured out what I was doing and changed tactics. While most of them continued the barrage of zaps, keeping us busy and focused on them, a few were trying to get closer to us unnoticed. We were ducking the zaps left, right, and center. A few had grazed us each, but thankfully hadn’t done massive damage. Zey recovered quickly with the easy access to water since it was falling from the sky. But so did the others.

We were both tiring. And there were so many of them.

Before I could think of some creative way out of this situation, one of the Vuulectians took me by surprise. It appeared next to me, having darted around the forklift without me noticing. I ducked as it lunged for me, but not fast enough. It caught me on the side of the head, making my ears ring for a moment. I pushed through it and kicked out, my heavy boot connecting with its side. It lunged for me again. I summoned a zap and jammed it into the side of its head. The Vuulectian went down immediately, twitching, those ripples jerking over its skin.

Another two replaced it. Grunting and snarling like an animal, I threw punches and kicks. I summoned another zap, but there were two of them, and I couldn’t pin one down to get it with my weapon.

“Zey!” I barked. “A little help here?”

One of them got behind me and grabbed my elbows as the other lunged for my front. I leaned all my weight back, lifted my legs, and kicked it in the chest. It fell backwards and landed in a puddle. I managed to stab the zap into the leg of the one behind me and punched it in its faceless mug—hard.

I whirled around and saw why Zey hadn’t come to my aid. He was struggling with three of his own buddies. None of them had zaps, so they were fighting it out the good old-fashioned way. They moved fluidly but with impressive speed, their limbs reminding me of dancers as they arced through the air elegantly, flicking rain as they moved.

Zey was truly a warrior. He’d stayed in his human form but moved with just as much grace and flow as the rest of them. He was clearly more skilled and experienced, managing to hold three of them off on his own.

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