Circle of Enemies

It zipped across the room silently. Wally, Fidel, Ty, and Summer had no idea it was coming, but Arne saw it and, not knowing what it was, jumped aside at the last moment.

The spell struck Wally in the back of his neck. His skin split open, and from the other side of him where the exit wound would be, a huge splatter of thick green gushed out of him.

I reached for the spell. It passed through Wally’s chest, causing another splash of nasty green liquid. He started choking, then collapsed onto his knees.

The ghost knife returned to my hand all slimy. I stuffed it into my pocket, knowing I’d be burning these pants soon.

“No!” Fidel yelled. “We need him!”

Fidel ran at me, reaching into his waistband.

I bent down and reached around the flaming wick. The fire was scorching, but I wouldn’t be holding it long. I straightened and threw the jar across the room.

It landed just short of Wally’s foot. Flaming liquid splashed up onto his back and sloshed around his leg. I grabbed the second jar—not so carefully this time, because Fidel was getting close—and threw it on instinct.

This time my throw was perfect. The jar shattered between his calves, and the fire roared under his crotch and belly. Wally went up like a bonfire.

I couldn’t see Fidel, but I could hear his scuffling shoes nearby. A tiny black hole appeared in front of me, and just as I realized I was looking at a gun barrel, it went off.

I didn’t feel the bullet strike. Fidel did, though. He turned visible, not three feet away. There was blood on the front of his shirt, and his mouth fell open. His bullet had hit me over my heart, then ricocheted back through his breastbone.

He dropped the gun and collapsed onto the floor. I shouted his name and grabbed his shirt, hoisting him up again. His eyes grew dim, but he had enough life in him to look at me hopefully, as though I could save him somehow.

I lifted him as high as I could, his drape eating at the skin of my hands, then bum-rushed him between the cars toward the red circle. I bumped against something I couldn’t see, but it only took a moment to regain my balance and momentum.

Fidel sighed and his eyes closed just as I crossed the line with him. I dumped him onto the concrete—not gently, but he was already dead—and leaped back across the red line.

The drape carried him away and brought another huge swarm into our world. The red circle held them until they fled.

God, I was tired. I was drenched in sweat and had no energy left.

Ty stood by the grill of the Viper, Fidel’s gun in his hand. He bared his teeth at me. “I didn’t want this, Ray.”

“I know you didn’t.”

He walked across the front of the car toward the Lexus, circling me and scowling. He could lift that gun in a moment, but my ghost knife was in my pocket and Arne’s gun was back in my waistband. We weren’t going to have a quick draw.

I glanced at the others. Arne had turned invisible again—or he’d run. Wally was rolling in green slime, trying to extinguish the flames. It was working, too, a little. Summer stood in the middle of the room, a look of blank shock on her face. She’d gone as far as she could go. She was done.

I turned back to Ty just as he stepped across the edge of the red circle. I reached for my waistband, hungry for the chance to kill my friend.

Ty pointed Fidel’s gun at his head.

“I didn’t want this,” he said. “I had plans, Ray! I had plans!”

“We all give up our—” The gunshot cut me off. He didn’t hear me. He’d already pulled the trigger. I watched his drape carry him away.

I turned to the others. Wally was on his feet. A long black tentacle stretched across the room and pulled the watercooler tank off its base, then held it over his head. Stale water gushed over him, extinguishing most of the flames. His left hand burned like a torch at the end of his arm. He slapped at his shoulder with it, trying to put it out. He looked smaller.

Wally’s face was a horror of blackened flesh. “Dammit, Ray,” he said, his voice as clear as ever. “You really are a pain in the ass.”

I had no idea how he was talking with that scorched and ruined throat. Maybe his voice was a hallucination and had been since we met at the Sugar Shaker.

“Well, your ass is such a big target—”

“Shut up, dude. Seriously. I had to eat a whole family to heal the injuries your boss gave me. Now I’m going to have to do it again, and that’s on you.”

A tentacle suddenly shot out of his belly and wrapped around Summer’s neck. She squawked as Wally yanked her off her feet. Wally’s belly split open like a huge mouth, the roasted flesh tearing, and a green, puckered funnel that looked like a large flower petal pushed toward Summer. She tried to scream as the tentacle stuffed her into the funnel, but her neck snapped. More bones broke as Wally crammed her inside.

I backed away, goose bumps running over my whole body. It didn’t seem imaginable that Wally could stuff a hundred and thirty pounds of human being into himself, but I had just seen it. His flesh seemed to fill out, and some of the blackened skin began flaking off. No portal opened beneath him. It wasn’t just Summer he had killed and eaten; he’d gotten her drape, too.

“Better,” he said. He rolled his neck around once to loosen it up. More black flakes fell. “Better, but not