with huge talons, and ripped at one another. There was no strategy, only the cold fury of two powerful creatures plotting mutual destruction.
“Darren, call him back,” Kavon yelled over the roar of the wind. Several people on the street were holding onto light posts and trees in an attempt to stay on their feet, but Kavon’s shield held off the worst of the storm.
“What?”
“Call him back. He needs to disengage. He's not winning.”
Darren's face twisted with fear, and their bond was suddenly blown open. For a moment, Kavon felt as if he’d been cut in two and existed in separate bodies. All of Darren's hopes and fears and memories, his frustrations and his ambition—all existed inside Kavon. “Pull him back!” Kavon yelled.
Darren tilted his head to the side, and a sense of recognition and awareness washed through the bond. Darren raised his hand toward the sky and pushed against Bennu’s rage. Bennu’s frustration and fury washed back along the bond, and Darren sank mentally under the waves of emotion, but Kavon gritted his teeth and shoved back the cold certainty that Bennu was losing and needed to disengage. They were at an impasse with neither of them controlling the emotions that raged through the bond, but then it was as if Darren came back online. He curled his fingers around Kavon’s arm and added his own determination to Kavon’s. Bennu gave a barking cry and beat his wings against the magical storm.
Bennu wanted this fight. He wanted to kill, to punish this being who he considered so reckless and dangerous. Anger flowed through the bond along with broken memories. Humans scattered across a bloody field, their bodies broken. Children twisted and deformed. Horses wearing rough leather tack from some primitive civilization fled through the carnage. The monster had done this. The memories were rich and powerful. This was the monster’s fault.
Darren touched the tattoo he wore. Kavon followed suit. Bennu had vowed to listen and to give Kavon the right to veto any foolish decisions, and right now Bennu was acting a fool.
Bennu broke away with a cry. Dark gray storm clouds swirled in an impossible pattern, and the wind picked up every mote of dust, every leaf and twig and stray cigarette butt and sent them all airborne where they were torn apart down to the tiniest particles to become a haze so thick it resembled fog.
“Find a blind spot!” Kavon yelled. They needed a weakness. They needed to distract the beast so that Bennu could attack from the rear.
Bennu soared straight up into the sky. At first Kavon thought that he was fleeing the battlefield. Instead, thunder cracked and a new power filled the air.
Darren stood, either to better see the conflict or to better direct the fight. It took every ounce of Kavon’s control not to grab him and pull him back down into the relative safety of the car’s shadow. Instead, Kavon stood next to him and pushed the shield upward. Without his bull or Bennu to channel magic toward him, he would not be able to maintain the shield for long.
The newcomer, whatever it was, had a power that equaled Bennu's own. Kavon still couldn’t see whatever guide had joined the fray, but the monster clearly could. He twisted and screamed, and Bennu attacked its back.
The monster ignored Bennu as it tried to catch whatever enemy was tormenting it from below. It swept its long, flat tail through the air, and Kavon felt the impact as magic was slapped out of somebody. He only recognized Pochi when the small hummingbird righted himself not far above Kavon's head. He fluffed himself up into an angry ball before all of his feathers flattened out and he darted straight for the monster again.
The magic that had separated from Pochi during the attack took several moments to fade from Kavon’s awareness. Seeds sprouted in the earth. Bugs soaked it in, the bacteria in the ground flourished in those precious moments before Pochi’s magic died and became a different power—something magic users could twist into their spells.
As Pochi flew up like an arrow aimed at a mythical monster, the creature dove to meet him. Its face was covered in bone armor that made it look like a living skeleton, a monster out of a children's book. It opened its huge eagle beak as it lunged toward Pochi, but the hummingbird darted away at the last moment, flying backwards in its escape.
Bennu chose that moment of distraction to grab the monster’s