The bullet wound in Ben’s shoulder screamed with every twirl, slash, and stab of his staff, and at this rate, he had mere minutes of stamina left in his magic. He had spread himself thin picking off those guards, and all the blood he was losing didn’t help. But what drained him most were the vines that burst from the cobblestone to lash at the guards, jerking weapons from their hands and whipping across any exposed skin, curling around the guards’ limbs and choking the life from them.

The street around Ben was littered with dead and dying guards, and yet more continued to arrive. His vines went for those with guns first, but he couldn’t get them all in time, not while he also had to focus on parrying and dodging the swords of the three guards around him. Ben worked best in silence, in Stillness, not at the center of a Mother-damn mess like he was in now. His vines all but had a mind of their own, it seemed, because Ben certainly couldn’t order them around and melee the three guards surrounding him at the same time. It was all pure adrenaline, instinct, and desperation that had gotten him to this point. But he didn’t think they could get him much further.

Ben finally saw an opening when the guard in front of him lunged on their right leg, stabbing out with their sword. Ben stepped back, out of the sword’s reach, and slashed his staff across the exposed area just above the guard’s greaves. But in avoiding one sword, he’d stepped straight into another. It slashed across his back, and Ben had to clench his jaw to keep from crying out. He whirled, knocking the sword and its wielder away, only to catch another slash across his arm, making him fumble his staff for a moment.

A moment was all it took. The guard before him slipped past the staff, sword held at chest height, and struck.

Splat!

Out of nowhere, the guard’s head was gone. No, exploded. Brains and blood spattered over Ben’s face.

Before him, the guard’s body wobbled on its feet, then collapsed. The other guard whirled around just in time to watch two cobblestones nail them in the face. From the nearest rooftop, a familiar, massive silhouette launched itself toward Ben. Daivad landed hard enough to make the ground shake, then rolled and popped up right next to Ben.

Just like that, Ben had his second wind.

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With Daivad’s back to his, Ben directed his vines with renewed purpose. They whipped and lashed, holding back the newest round of guards coming from the direction of the forum while behind him Daivad cleared a path through the guards coming from the direction of the gate. Ben felt the shift in Daivad’s magic, so before he even had to speak, they both took off sprinting.

“You good?” Daivad asked, his voice in a full growl, his eyes wild.

“That’s not the name I’d use,” Ben admitted. He knew the second wind he’d gotten would fade fast—and running had never been Ben’s favorite activity in the first place. “But I’m far from Done.”

“Good.” The word stumbled out of Daivad’s mouth, like his teeth weren’t fitting in his mouth right.

Ben glanced sideways at him, alarmed. Was he about to shift again? Daivad had sworn off fully shifting at some point during his time in Broken Earth, and he’d never told anyone why. Not even Ben. Why would he shift again? Surely if he’d come back for Ben, it meant Kure was dead. Right? They should have a straight shot to the gate—

Wrong.

Through the dust, and out of the blackness between the fires, a horrifying sight revealed itself. First, the teeth, all three rows of them—stained red. Then the pale, warped face, grinning so wide it didn’t look real. Didn’t look possible. His jaw, and those teeth had taken over his features—he’d fully shifted, the grayish skin stretched so taut over his face it looked like he was bursting out of it.

Daivad and Ben slid to a stop, and Kure’s figure swam out of the Darkness, into view. His gray skin was so covered in dirt, blood, and grime that it had turned a ruddy brown, but the grime had split and pulled apart when his body shifted beneath it. When his limbs had broken and stretched, his muscles had swelled, and his veins popped, pumping black blood. Kure crawled forward on all four long, disjointed limbs, enormous black claws bursting from the ends of each, clicking rhythmically on the cobblestone. His neck was just a little too long, making his head look like it moved almost separately from his grotesque body. All along his spine, and along the backs of his long limbs, razor-sharp fins curved, slicing apart the firelight as they moved. Kure’s breathing was ragged, his shoulders cresting and crashing with every breath.

He looked like a nightmare. More accurately, he looked like the illustrations Ben had seen as a child, in a book on deep-ocean nightbeasts that had given him nightmares.

“Brought a friend, huh?” Kure purred, his gray tongue darting out to taste the blood on his teeth. “Good.”

Faster than Ben could blink, Kure rushed in.