“NO!”

Jane barely heard the gunshot. One second he was standing there, smiling – the next there was just this ‘pop’ and an explosion of red shards where his head was. Blood, bone, brain flew everywhere. The police officers yelped, instinctively diving for cover, leaving only Giselle, standing rigid with shock three feet way, blood drenched all over her hair and face and armour, beside a body without a head.

Nothing moved. For a moment the wind stopped, the screaming stopped, the world seemed not to breathe. Jane’s hands shook, her head swimming ringing and light, breathing faster, faster, faster. All thoughts of the bubble and the monsters fell to dust, forgotten. There was no danger. There was no war.

There was only Matt, headless, teetering in slow motion-

-and collapsing to the ground.

He landed with a muffled thud.

And Jane screamed.

Screamed and screamed and screamed, light exploding off her, flinging back the field, the police cars, annihilating everything, a tempest of blinding fury which expanded, vaporising half the city and-

NO.

Without thinking, without caring, without a single thought for the child or fate or consequences Jane lunged for the swirling sapphire vortex between her fingers and hurtled back, tearing her mind free from reality and her body free from time. In an instant, the nightmare infinite engulfed her, tearing strips from her flesh, screaming into her soul – but Jane screamed back. All her anger, all her fear, all of it screamed out until her lungs were close to bursting, until her breath churned blood and fire, her fingers raking against the endless colours, clawing threads, clawing black. It was not instinct this time that filled her; this time, Jane knew what she was doing, knew the danger, knew the pain. She just didn’t care. The infinite weave, the endless possibilities, all of it spun out from her consciousness, binding around her eyes and wrists and throat in shining wires, dragging her down – but Jane tore them all away. Screaming in fury, pure rage, she ripped herself free, howling defiance at time, screaming hate and pain and blood-

Until her burning hands clenched around a moment and she wrenched herself back through the veil.

*

“Yo,” said Will to Jane’s left, his voice uncharacteristically shaky and high, “Could Ana Bloodbane do that?”

Reality rushed back into focus and Jane’s head snapped forward, gasping like she’d been drowned. She spun around wildly, looking wide‑eyed either side of her. They were still in the streets of New York. The field of undeath still loomed before them, a motley grey bubble sunk deep into the Earth, inside which writhed an endless sea of people trapped in cycles of birth, decay and aging, and monsters mutating into grotesque forms.

And Matt was still there, beside her. Intact. Still alive.

Jane staggered, her vision swimming, and she grabbed Giselle by the arm.

“We’re under attack,” she gasped. Panting, Jane doubled over, wracked by sudden nausea, feeling like her head was about to explode. Her eyes danced with patches of light and the world swam with false colour, her ears ringing and her mouth suddenly bone dry.

“Jane?” she heard Giselle say, her voice flush with alarm. Somewhere beyond the spinning world she felt the speedster’s hands grab onto her, trying to hold Jane upright, Giselle’s blurry face a mask of concern. “Hey, hey, you alright, what the hell is-”

Jane shook her head, her knees shaking, trying to keep her legs straight. To her left she heard Matt’s worried muttering and a moment later she felt him slip beneath her arm, holding her upright – but support wasn’t what Jane wanted. Gritting her teeth, she clenched down hard with the arm Matt had manoeuvred himself under, locking him in place as she threw out a rippling transparent energy field, ready to deflect anything within ten feet.

“Back,” she hissed. She stumbled, limping away from the bubble, forcing her head up, looking for Will. Her eyes locked onto the teleporter, causing him to flinch. “Morningstar. Go. That’s an order.”

“Belay that!” Giselle barked, aggressively pushing Jane free. She stepped beside Will and stared at Jane, expression ripening into incredulity. “You’re not going back, what the hell are you talking about, look around you, this is a crisis, we need-”

“I’m coming back,” Jane snarled, baring her teeth, “There’s a gunman here, they’ve got sights on Matt.” She heard Giselle gasp. “There isn’t time. We’re about to lose communications, teleporting I- I don’t know, maybe something about the barrier is-”

“Or this is a kill-zone,” Giselle murmured. She stared at Jane, her face hard. “How do you know?”

“There’s no time to explain,” replied Jane. She forced herself upright, the light inside her burning against the nausea. “Trust me. Get him safe, and after this is done I’ll tell you everything.”

For about two seconds Giselle did not move or speak, only stood stock still with her mouth half open, frozen in the midst of saying something. Her eyes bored into Jane’s, and for a moment Jane could only guess at the wheels turning, the thoughts racing inside the speedster’s head.

Then Giselle’s mouth snapped shut and her hand shot to her earpiece.

“Az,” she ordered, “Get Nat spinning up a psychic link, we’re about to lose comms. Accelerate deployment. Military, LE, they’re under our jurisdiction, have them clear civilians and make their powers known. I’m sending Will back with Jane and Matt, I want a satellite overhead in five and your best guess as to what the mother‑loving hell we’re dealing with in ten. Matt stays with you. You-” she jabbed a finger at Will’s chest, “-you take them back, you get my info, you strap it to her-” she pointed at Jane, “‑and you drop her outside the Disruptance zone, wherever the hell that ends up being. I don’t care if she’s got to fly down from orbit, I want her back, and I want to know what we’re up against.” She glared between the two of them. “Got it?”

“Wait-” started Matt, but Jane didn’t need to hear any more. She nodded in unison with the teleporter, grabbed Will’s wrist, held tight to Matt’s shoulders with the other arm and grit her teeth.

“Go!” she shouted, “Go!”

A moment later Will closed his eyes, and the wind and screams of the twisted city were replaced with crushing dark. The sensation pressed in around her for a moment, then the pressure vanished and Jane opened her eyes to find them at the end of the Legion’s Armoury tunnel.

Suddenly, her ear filled with hissing. Beside her Matt tapped the side of his head.

“Anyone else getting a bad line?” he asked.

“Goddamn, you weren’t kidding,” Will muttered. He pressed his finger to his earpiece. “Giselle? Giselle come in, you-”

“She’s dropped out,” came Azleena’s voice, “They all have.”

“Just then?”

“As of two seconds ago.”

Will swore. “I’m going back.” He scrunched up his eyes, but to Jane’s delirious surprise nothing happened – the teleporter did not vanish, only continued to stand there in the tunnel with a clenched expression, a thin wisp of sulphur smoke rising from his back.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“I’m blocked,” said Will, opening his eyes. There was fear in them.

Jane shook her head.

“It can’t be everywhere. Figure out as close as you can. I’ll get the info and come find you.”

“Hurry,” Will urged. He started climbing the stairs to the outside, heading out onto the edge of the grounds and the forest, leaving Matt and Jane facing back towards the Armoury in the other direction.

“Meet you out front,” said Jane. The teleporter gave her a quick nod and was up the stairs and out the rear hatch before anyone could say anything further.

Immediately Jane’s shoulders sagged. In the dark of the tunnel she staggered forward, gloved hand clutching for support against the rock wall, her mind and body churning.

“Jane?” Matt whispered, urgent, terrified, “You okay? What’s happening?”

Jane shook her head, fighting fresh waves of nausea, trying to burn the tremoring feeling from her bones. She reached deep into the power of Dawn and let the golden energy suffuse her, lighting up the tunnel, feeling the sudden rush prop her up. “It’s a trap,” she finally managed to get out. She urged Matt forward and they broke into a lopping run, boots pounding the earthen floor. “Someone shot you. The moment I stepped away, they just-”

Even through the echoes of their footsteps, Jane heard Matt catch his breath. “Who?” he whispered.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see, but they were far away, it was a high-powered rifle, and I just- I did it again.” The ran on through the darkness. Matt remained silent. Jane glanced over, seeing his empty expression. “Are you angry?”

For a few seconds Matt said nothing. “Right now,” he answered finally, grimacing, “I’m alive, and we’ve got bigger problems.”

Jane’s heart soared. Right then, though she felt like puking, she could’ve kissed him. “Agreed.”

They ran, as fast as their legs could carry them. By the time they came through to the Armoury bunker Jane’s nausea had disintegrated, and she grabbed Matt by the hand and pulled him onwards. They slammed out the Armoury doors and raced in a sprint across the Academy grounds, Matt doing his best to keep up with Jane’s rapidly increasing pace. They hurtled inside, past a dozen shocked and confused Acolytes, and ran round and round the stairs until they reached the door to the computer room. Jane barged inside.

“…if you tell me to turn it off and on again I swear I will-” Azleena’s voice abruptly cut off at the sight of them. “Wait, hold on Jacqui. What the actual-” the genius turned to the pair and unleashed a stream of virulent curses, “-is going on?”

Jane strode forward. Behind her, Matt doubled over, panting, one hand against the doorway.

“Freaking cardio,” he muttered, though a moment later he moved into the room proper. Jane rounded Azleena’s desk, no longer sick or tired, alert and fully restored, her tattoo glowing.

“The landing site is a kill zone,” she explained, “Someone almost shot Matt. There’s a field there of some kind of energy which is making people age and mutate and die over and over. That’s either interfering with our comms, or-”

“Or it’s our missing wave disrupter,” the genius finished. She fixed Jane with a piercing gaze. “This field. I received initial reports. People are aging and dying-?”

“And de-aging and resurrecting and turning into babies and bones and puddles of pre-baby goop,” Jane confirmed. She shook her head. “Except that’s only half of them. The other half seem to be growing unnaturally, like parts of them are randomly overdeveloping, or other whole people are growing inside them, and it just keeps happening and happening until they’re freaking twelve feet tall with four heads and tentacles.”

“Holy hell. Is it Bloodbane?”

Jane shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Unless she’s wildly upped her game.” Her eyes burned into Azleena. “These bodies aren’t combining. They’re changing, growing. And they’re alive. They’re using powers. None of Fleshtide’s corpses ever did that.”

“No matter how big they merged,” Azleena agreed, “Can the field be penetrated?”

“You can walk into it if you feel like becoming a deathless monster. My energy repels it, I’m pretty sure I can bring it to heel, I’ve just got to get close and really lay into it-”

“Jane,” she heard Matt murmur. Jane glanced over to see him standing in the middle of the room, his face pained. “You have to go back.”

“I know,” she replied, “Give me a second. You heard Giselle, we don’t understand what’s happening. The more I tell Azleena, the better-”

“I agree,” the genius interrupted, staring over at Matt, “This has about a dozen aspects I don’t understand and it may be we make things a thousand times worse if we just charge in.”

But for some reason this only made Matt look more distressed. “There isn’t time,” he whispered.

Jane scowled, annoyed – but something about his expression made her stop halfway through a rebuttal. Matt was scared. Really, really scared.

“Azleena,” Jane ordered, looking down at the little genius girl, “Do you have a mech suit?”

“Yes, what of it?”

“Matt needs to get in.”

“It’s mine,” the genius protested, “It’s not calibrated for him, the interface is beyond his intellectual capabilities, he’ll either be unable to move or it’ll fry his brain.”

“It doesn’t have to work,” Jane scowled, “He literally just has to stand there, here, with you, while I go back to New York. In case someone tries to shoot him.”

“Wouldn’t it be preferential for him to be able to move?” Azleena asked, with an exasperated shrug – but at that same moment something on her computer beeped, and the genius swung back round in her chair.

“I’ve got a satellite coming into alignment,” she told them, “Wait two seconds and you can bring my theories to Giselle.”

“Jane,” Matt whispered, “Please.”

“Human, shush,” Azleena snapped, rising out of her chair to glare at him over the screens, “What do you think is going to be more useful, Lady Dawn flying in with no knowledge and backup, or Lady Dawn knowing what she’s doing? Have a teaspoon of goddamn patience.”

Jane hesitated, torn between the girl’s glare and Matt’s silent plea. She knew Azleena was right – objectively Azleena was right – so why did the look on Matt’s face trouble her so much?

“Matt, it’s fine,” she reassured him, “The bubble’s growing but it’s only by a couple of feet every few minutes – Giselle is down there with the Legion, they can see what’s going on, they can keep backing people to safety, they can-”

“There,” cut off Azleena, “Feed established. Come on clouds, move. There, we’ve got-” An image appeared on the screen, a bird’s eye view of New York City. In its centre, around what looked to be Times Square, shimmered a mottled grey dome, an infected blister rising from the planet’s skin.

“What in the-” Azleena’s ferocious swearing trailed off the rest of her sentence. “Look at that. What even is that? It’s like nothing I’ve ever-” On the other side of the computer, multiple windows were popping up, black lines of characters streaming down. “This is impossible. Half of these readings are nonsense. There must be electromagnetic interference, this is- wait. I’ve seen this before.”

“Jane,” Matt whispered.

“You have?” Jane urged Azleena, ignoring Matt’s pained pleas, “Where? What is it?”

“Jane.”

“Not exactly like this,” the genius responded, the words gushing out in a torrent, almost a stream of consciousness, “But similar in their un-similarity, lack of cohesion with regular forces, resistance to measurement, it upends conventional understanding and then you’re left with absolute illogic breaking not just human ability but physics, I-” Her words skidded to a halt and she spun to face Jane, her eyes swirling with a touch of madness. “Charles and Edward Lewis. The Brothers Darkness. The combined ability to create and control actual, physical dark, rather than simply the absence of light. Nothing anyone could do could touch it, it was like an enveloping, non‑gravitational black hole, even Captain Dawn struggled, until in the end he was swallowed by it and I guess fully unleashed his powers or something and finally managed to break through but… but the energy reacted the same way, this unnatural field that was somehow penetrable but reactive, affected but resistant to the power of Dawn, like two forces of equal measure recognising each other and being able to interact and‑” Azleena’s mouth froze. “Bloody hell,” she murmured slowly, drawing shaking, shallow breaths, “It’s a Divine.”

Jane heart skipped a beat. “I don’t-”

“It has to be,” Azleena said, rounding on her, “It has to be. Look at this, one power, covering dozens of city blocks? This is one of a kind, this is Divine power, this is Dawn-grade-”

A sudden red pinging on the corner of her screen sent Azleena’s words stumbling to a halt. Her brow furrowed as she turned and clicked on it, her expression becoming incredulous.

“Intruder alert?” she cried, “Intruder alert, why are there- why are there three different groups of intruders on my freaking grounds?!” Azleena’s hand flew to her microphone. “Cykes, heads up, we’ve got company. Link up the skeleton crew. I’m texting you locations- Jesus Christ they’re in the Armoury. Did you-?” she rounded on Jane, her eyes wide, “-did you see anyone coming in?”

On the screens in front of her, beside the satellite image of New York, security camera feeds flashed with images of people in combat gear racing through the tunnel with assault rifles. Jane grit her teeth.

“Damnit,” she swore, and she spun towards the door, preparing to run back outside. Her gaze swept over Matt, standing alone and unmoving in the centre of the room, staring out the window, his eyes wide, his face blank.

“Too late,” he whispered, and the words dripped like cold poison from his lips.

Suddenly, on the feed across Azleena’s screens, the bubble pulsed. As Jane turned, breath catching in her chest, it began rippling from the centre, shivering – and then the rippling stopped. The energy grew tense, seeming for a moment to become almost firm.

Then it exploded.

On the live satellite feed a wave of grey shot out, and suddenly Azleena’s comms were live again, erupting in a horrifying cacophony over her speakers as hundreds of voices simultaneously shrieked and screamed. Jane could only watch, heart hammering, as a shockwave of corruption spread across the Earth in a ceaseless, relentless circle, enveloping first Manhattan, then New York, then as the video feed pulled back the surrounding county and-

“Oh God,” Azleena whispered. And as she turned and joined Matt’s gaze out the window, suddenly, to the east, in the distance, they saw the sky had grown dark. Jane’s eyes widened. In the centre of the room Matt slumped, the light dimming, mumbling something indistinct as he stared into the encroaching apocalypse.