beak, but I just manage to dodge, feeling the air ripple past my shoulder where it would’ve stabbed me. I grab onto its tail feathers, crying out in pain at the sharp edges. But I have to be close; I can’t let it get away.
I feel the mirroring power in my chest, like a string tugging at me, as I reach out my other hand toward the doppelgängers all spread out around the rooftop. The bird is trying to shake me off, its sharp-edged feathers cutting into my hands like knives, but I hold on and concentrate. I can feel the new power inside me like I’m drawing water from a well, familiar and strange all at once.
Concentrate, Elliot. Concentrate.
I clench my fist toward the Cam doppelgänger just as he launches himself at Dmitri.
It’s like a vacuum sucking. Only I’m the vacuum, I’m a starving black hole, and wind rushes in my ears even though there’s no wind around us. Suddenly, I feel power flooding me—power that’s not my own.
It sits in my chest, burning like an ember that’s just waiting to be sparked and set alight. I stumble, the sharp feathers gouging deeper into my palms, and the bird twists around to lunge at me with its beak, trying to get me to let go.
I don’t though. I can’t. This is working.
Doing my best to avoid the bird’s strikes, I focus my power again.
“Reckless, what are you doing?” Roman yells, clearly worried.
“I have to steal their magic!” I shout back. As long as I’m near the bird, I have the ability to steal magic just like it does, and I can take all the powers back from the doppelgängers.
“You’re not a demon!” His voice is strained, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him shaking his head vehemently. “That is literally its power, its function; it steals magic from people and uses the magic to create its children. You can’t hold all that power inside of you!”
“Not… forever,” I admit as I suck the power from the Tandy doppelgänger. “But for long enough.”
Long enough to give it back.
That has to be what the mysterious man wanted—to use the demon-bird to steal magic from the students. Possibly from all of us in time, or maybe just until it got the school shut down. Does this guy hate Unpredictables? Is he working in cahoots with Johnson or something, with those anti-Unpredictable groups that seem to be popping up in the wake of the Trials and Johnson’s outburst?
Well, I’m not letting him get away with this shit. Fuck that. I’ve stopped assholes from taking over my school and ruining it before, and I’ll stop them again.
“I have Cam and Tandy’s magic! Take their copies down!” I yell at the guys, pulling more magic into me even as I speak.
Stealing the magic back from the demon doppelgängers is hard to do, and it fucking hurts. Their power settles in my chest like a ball of fire. It feels like I’m carrying a huge weight, but instead of it being on my shoulders, it’s inside me, actively burning. I’m made of fire, and I can’t hold it for long before it will consume me entirely.
Just… keep… going.
The doppelgängers don’t die when I take their magic from them, which was what I was hoping for, seeing as they seem to be made of magic. But they do seem much weaker without it, unable to fight back with any stolen powers as Dmitri and Roman blast them. And I can’t kill the bird yet. Not until I’ve got all six of the stolen powers inside me.
I concentrate, getting better at it as I go on. The magic flows into me like an invisible, sparking river, something only I can feel and see, until I’m burning up and filled to the brim.
Now that their powers are gone, the doppelgängers are finally getting their asses beat the way they deserve to by Roman and Dmitri. Which is good, because I can’t help the guys out at all.
I’m still clinging to the demon bird’s tail and dodging its claws and beak. It nips me a couple of times, and searing pain rips through me where its dagger-like beak slices my skin. I’m not sure if there’s anything special about this demonic creature other than the whole magic stealing thing, but I sure hope it doesn’t have poison-tipped talons or anything on top of it.
I grit my teeth, trying to think of a way to get rid