Something hit me in the back and I landed painfully on my knees. I swung my gun toward the bulky Odin’s Eye mythic attacking me from behind, but he caught it and twisted it out of my hand. His fist flashed out—one, two, three strikes—and pain struck me in the jaw, the sternum, and the gut.
I went down. He flipped me onto my face, put a knee in my back, and wrenched my arm behind me. Through locked lungs, I felt a zip tie pull against my wrist. He yanked my other arm over to bind my wrists together.
That fast, I was done. Beginner’s luck, a couple months of training, and a gutsy attitude were no match for professionals. I was nothing more than an amateur against the practiced bounty hunters of Odin’s Eye.
Flashes of white electricity and orange firelight blazed nearby, but Aaron and Kai were too busy fighting off the Odin’s Eye team to help me. My cheek ground into the floor as I squirmed violently, but the far stronger mythic forced my wrists together and looped the zip tie around them.
Hoshi burst from my belt pouch.
I didn’t see what she did, but the mythic reared back with a shout. I pulled my feet in and kicked as hard as I could. My boots met his stomach, protected by an armored vest, but the strike was enough to throw him off balance.
Rolling away, I slipped my hand from the zip tie he hadn’t had a chance to tighten and snatched my paintball gun off the floor. As Hoshi shot up toward the ceiling, I pulled the trigger.
The yellow ball exploded against his left cheekbone, and he pitched backward with a pained grunt—but he didn’t collapse into unconsciousness. Sleep potions were common, and some pros dosed themselves with the antidote before heading out on jobs.
As I scrambled in my belt pouch for my brass knuckles, Hoshi dove at the mythic’s head, buying me time. She whipped him with her tail—and he caught it. Yanking her down, he smashed his huge, gloved fist into her small body. The blow hurled her into the floor.
I shoved my brass knuckles onto my fingers and lunged at him with a scream. “Ori amplifico!”
My punch connected with his chest, and the air boomed. He flew backward and hit a shelf. Cardboard boxes tumbled down on his head.
I whirled around, but I couldn’t see the sylph through the smoke screen. “Hoshi? Hoshi?”
She didn’t appear. Had she shifted into the fae demesne?
A concussive burst of air swept through the room. The smoke ballooned outward, carried on an expanding ring of wind. In the center of the clear space was Ezra, unarmed except for his gloves. He was completely surrounded by mythics.
Faster than any human, he lunged into his opponents and unleashed rapid blows on his attackers, each strike punctuated with a blast of wind that threw his victim backward—but the mythics behind him closed in, weapons gleaming.
“Mario!” someone bellowed over the cacophony. “Get your demon over here!”
Crimson light flared through the room, and the shadow of a demon appeared in the fog—recognizable by its terrifying height, messy mane of hair, and lion-like tail. The demon advanced toward the corner where the Odin’s Eye mythics had pushed Ezra.
I stood alone in the chaos, unnoticed by the other combatants, and in that moment, I understood the hopelessness. I couldn’t tell how large the Odin’s Eye team was, but we were outnumbered by at least three to one. I’d heard over and over that Odin’s Eye was a tough guild. Aaron and Kai had talked about the skill of their combat members. They were the second most proficient bounty hunting guild in the city.
And they were supposed to be our allies. Rivals, yes, but allies. Now, all that skill and experience was our enemy. Our only hope was for Ezra to unleash his demonic magic, but that would mean killing our former allies and condemning himself as a violent demon mage.
The haze swirled wildly, flowing in and around the combatants—and a dark shape with glowing red eyes shot out of the misty shadows. As Ezra fended off his attackers, Zylas rushed in.
He dove for the floor, sliding into the legs of the nearest mythic. The man was still falling as the demon launched up into the next mythic. Swinging off the larger man like a fulcrum, Zylas slammed both feet into a third mythic—then wrenched the second one off the floor and threw him into another man.
My jaw hung open. I’d witnessed how much weight the demon could lift but seeing him hurl a larger man across a ten-foot distance was still a shock.
The horde of Odin’s Eye mythics surrounding Ezra broke apart as Zylas smashed through them, inconceivably agile and unstoppable. Ezra flung two mythics away from him with powerful gusts.
“Ezra!” Aaron roared over the raucous noise. “Whirlwind!”
The aeromage thrust his hand into the air and a gale erupted through the room. The wind howled, spinning around us and whisking the smoke from my alchemy bomb into a spiral. I leaped out of the buffeting gale and into the safe eye of the storm with Aaron and Kai. Where was Zylas? I couldn’t see him, Robin, or Amalia.
“Counter!” an Odin’s Eye man bellowed. “Jerome—”
Orange-white flames raced up Aaron’s arms and across his shoulders. His sword was blazing. Fire rippled off his hair, and I couldn’t tell where man ended and flame began.
He extended his sword, then snapped it in a tight circular motion.
Ezra’s whirlwind exploded with fire.
I reeled away from the roaring inferno as it whooshed around and around the room—and I realized Ezra had made it over to us. He stood a few feet away on Aaron’s left, and on his right, Kai held two short knives.
Power crackled over the electramage’s arms, and with the terrifying tornado of flames surrounding us, he calmly pointed his blades at the ceiling.
Outside the ring of fire, every strip of fluorescent lighting shattered and electricity leaped for the
