CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

THE RESPONSE WAS INSTANT. The moment Evie and I descended into Oleg’s private chambers through the ceiling, the air threatened to rip apart, churning us into fragments with it. Forming a cyclone with the falling sand, I stabilized a drop zone beneath the opening.

As we hit the ground, I shielded Evie beneath me and slammed the floor with my palm. Destabilizing the entire cavern with a shock wave, I used the fragments of rock as projectiles. “Go!” I slung Evie in the direction of Adel and the others while distracting the hybrids, detaining them.

Muhammad and the faithful streamed from the ceiling, shielded within the cyclone. Taking advantage of my divided attention, the resurgent hybrids began collapsing the funnel. Focusing on one hybrid at a time, I forced them to address me directly.

Finally the first of the working-class feet struck the ground, leaping into action. Hand-to-hand combat, the tearing of limbs, and the throbbing of blood foam filled the lavish, inner chamber of the desert god. Pinned to the floor and exhausted, I lost the cyclone, exposing the twitchers yet to enter the fray to being torn apart before they hit the ground. I had other priorities.

Rolling to my knees, I scanned my psychic grid for Evie and the others. To my shock, I discovered four bright signatures in the current: not just Evie and Adel, but Petrosian and Hassan as well. Evie was equipping the members of the unit with Adel’s help.

There. It flashed again. I dodged the assault of an overanxious hybrid, tripping him. Ripping through time, I spun onto my feet and rose with both hands impacting his back. One hand on each side of his spine, I snapped the signal from his brain to the rest of his body. As he fell limp, I spun again, catching the side of his skull with the heel of my boot.

The distraction didn’t change what I knew I had seen. Hassan and Petrosian were telekinetic. The deeper implications, I hadn’t time to fathom.

The piercing, red eye seared my consciousness. Oleg.

Uncle Oleg to you.

Following the ripple in the current, I pinpointed his signature. Behind a wall of hybrids stood an old man. Physically enfeebled, his psychic signature overwhelmed the current, bending it into a black hole and devouring it. I’m home.

Ignorant home wrecker always fighting without clue whom to be fighting for.

Simple. I fight for my daughter and me.

Like father, like son. Despite your ignorance of bigger picture, Uncle Oleg soon to end suffering and injustice in this world.

I knelt under the assault of Oleg’s bodyguard, focusing on a specific connection. Evie. Little help.

Oleg continued. Little Buck is only fly in ointment.

I hadn’t the patience for his constant riddles. In this world or the next, you’re not going to be in the picture.

Evie’s voice flickered across the current. Muhammad is coming.

Two seconds later, a wall of working-class twitchers slammed into Oleg’s personal entourage in a bloody eruption. The firm grip of Muhammad’s slender, adolescent hands lifted me to my feet. Beneath his boyish exterior, piercing eyes betrayed a rock-solid core. “Well received, my friend. Now if you wouldn’t mind giving me a boost over the top?”

“Where you lead, I will follow.”

Together we crouched. I put all my physical and mental strength into my legs, as did Muhammad. I nodded. As a unit, we spun. I leapt as the boy tossed me in a high-arching trajectory buffeted by constant telekinetic attack. The resistance was scattered, distracted by the melee beneath me. My focus was anything but. I saw nothing except the red eye of Oleg, soon to be pierced and dying by my hand.