Disharmony

orders to bring him in alive! She readied herself to spring over to the wardrobe. But a heartbeat after the first child fell, the male target launched himself at Dragon’s Breath, and they both crashed to the floor.

Two seconds later, Kirra Kiyota was fairly certain she would not live to see another day. But if she managed to, she was prepared, right then and there, to bet her ancestors’ souls that she would never forget this one. Because when the male target fell, reality fractured.

As Kirra stared, some Thing ripped a hole right through the middle of realness and bludgeoned its way into the bedroom. Kirra fell to her knees as the shrieking she-daemon raised itself up to ceiling height. But even as it towered terrifyingly over them all, red eyes blazing behind whipping Medusa locks, Kirra found herself thinking: Why would a powerful devil wear a frilly red skirt and black-and-white tights? She would never be seen like that.

And then, four things happened.

One, the woman she had been battling gaped in horror at the terrifying creature and shouted at the top of her lungs, ‘Morgan Moreau!’

Next, the seven-foot nightmare flicked a massive hand towards the two boys sprawled in front of the wardrobe, bleeding-out on the carpet (beyond help, in Kirra’s considerable experience), and an iridescent blue light shot from her fingers, cloaking them entirely.

Thirdly, and most disturbingly to Kirra, the Thing reached up to her giant face and ripped a piece of silver jewellery from her nose, hurtling it down onto the carpet where it immediately began to double, quadruple, mushroom monstrously, clanking and grinding from the size of a coin to that of a toy truck, then a dog, and finally to a horrible, terrible, snarling metal dragon-thing that couldn’t, and shouldn’t, be described.

The fourth thing that happened would require many years for Kirra to mentally and emotionally process.

It involved the metal-dog-dragon thing.

It involved her only-love, Dagger’s Breath.

And it involved a lot of blood.

Kirra had seen some things in her twenty-one years. She’d heard many other things over breakfast that had made grown men cry or vomit. But she had never seen anything like this.

She knew that this seven-foot chick and her mutant dragon were not of this world.

She also knew that when a battle was done, it was done, and that leaving right now was not shameful, merely prudent.

But her heart bled for what her beloved had just suffered. So she took a moment, just a fraction of a moment, to weld forever the pain of his death to the karate-liar in khaki, to the cursed gypsy and her brother, and to the bitch-daemon with no dress sense. She vowed that she would see them all again, if not in hell, then before. And she ran to the window.

Ripping the white wooden blinds from the frame as though pulling a tissue from a box, Kirra Kiyota took one last look around that damned supernatural room and at what remained of her beloved, and then, using an elbow sheathed in Kevlar catsuit, she smashed the glass and cartwheeled out, dropping silently down into the wet Sydney night.

As she ran for the shadows, Kirra wondered if there was anywhere in the world she was safe to go.

She had no crew.

She’d failed another mission.

Would the Chairman comfort or kill her?

As she dodged vehicles to find the darkest corners of the city, an image flashed up before her: Dagger’s Breath with his throat in the jaws of that metal thing.

She banished the image and replaced it with another: a twenty-first birthday cake, candles blazing. She heard the rumble of a train and headed for it, keeping the imaginary candles burning bright.

When she’d tucked herself into a corner seat in the bottom carriage of a train heading to Sydney’s Central Station, two dark-haired youths looking for trouble spotted her and made their way over.

She raised her eyebrows, doing her best to tone down her rage. They hesitated and she lifted her lip in a snarl. They moved away quickly.

‘Yeah, get!’ she yelled after them, almost disappointed.

She closed her eyes, watched the pretty candles, and blew them out.

Then Kirra Kiyota made her twenty-first birthday wish.

She’d never tell a soul what she wished for.

Because then it wouldn’t come true.

Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, Australia

July 2, 7.40 p.m.

‘Luke! Get everyone into the cupboard. Now!’ screamed Seraphina.

Luke wasn’t sure how he was supposed to do that when he was dead.

Except he wasn’t.

Even though his shirt was saturated in blood, he felt pretty great, actually. He sat up.

Zac didn’t look so good, but he was breathing. And Seraphina looked to be pretty busy.

‘The Witch healed you,’ yelled Seraphina.

Georgia – a witch?

Now that was definitely not Georgia.

Luke gazed in awe at the Goth girl he’d eaten dinner with the last two nights. Except then she hadn’t been seven foot tall, and she hadn’t been jetting red lasers from her fingers.

‘Georgia is Morgan Moreau,’ coughed Zac, pale and panting, pushing himself up on one elbow. ‘We have to get out of here. Sera won’t be able to hold her off forever.’

‘My mother?’ said Luke, his senses threatening to pack up and leave again.

He watched Seraphina face the monster, green light streaming from her fingers and rippling through the air like flame before meeting Georgia’s blood-red lasers in a deluge of sparks and lightning-like flares.

Samantha seemed to be frozen to the spot, staring with fixed concentration at the fireworks.

‘Samantha, I’m fine,’ Seraphina yelled. Luke didn’t think fine was quite the right word. ‘Please, Sam, you don’t have to help me. Save your energy. Help the boys. Luke – get into that cupboard now!’

Samantha was helping Seraphina? How? Luke stood, swaying a little on his feet. He knew that he had died – he’d felt the sword puncture his lungs, pierce his heart. And the pain. He had never felt anything like it. He had no idea how these things could be happening, but right now he was thankful for the total numbness that overtook him whenever things were out of control. He squinted in the glare of the flame-battle. Yep, this would definitely meet that category.

The giant-Georgia countered a laser of light hurled by Seraphina; the energies met in an explosion of brilliance.

The mutant metal dragon thing sat on its hideous haunches, watching the lightshow. From its malformed mouth hung a clump of blood-matted hair left over from the mess of the swordsman on the ground. After one glance downwards, Luke kept his eyes above floor-level. That dude didn’t have a scar any more. He didn’t have a face, either. He wondered why Georgia-Morgan didn’t sick her freak mutt onto Seraphina to end the battle once and for all.

Right then Zac tugged desperately at his arm and Luke turned towards the wardrobe. He’d rather be in there than out here if the doggie-dragon did decide it was up for seconds.

‘Locked,’ said Zac weakly, trying to stay upright. ‘You have to use your tools. You’re the only one who can do it. It all makes sense now.’

‘Oh yeah. It all makes perfect sense, Nguyen,’ Luke said. ‘This is all completely understandable.’

Luke picked the lock in three seconds flat, grabbed Samantha’s hand, and stepped through the door.