her on the other side. Her faint cursing carried back to Zora and me as he vaulted over the fence again and headed straight into the trees.
“Follow him,” I whispered to Zora. “He’ll lead us to the golems.”
She loosened her sword in its sheath. “I’m getting a better idea of how you survived the storm drains last month.”
Zylas ghosted ahead of us, and as I trekked after him, I slipped a plastic earpiece into my ear and checked the app on my phone. Zora had shown me how to use it earlier this afternoon, and it would allow us to stay in contact with Amalia. I flipped on the mic.
“Amalia?” I whispered.
“Almost … at the … top.” Her voice puffed from the tiny speaker. “Damn, I’m out of shape.”
“Let me know if you see anything suspicious.”
“Yep.”
The tree line ended, and Zylas darted across a street and into a dirty alley with a fence on one side and a long, dark building on the other. Zora and I rushed after him, closing the gap. The demon paused to listen, his tail twitching as he concentrated.
“That building there,” Zora breathed, pointing to a three-story gray rectangle with a few glowing windows—the only structure in this part of the complex not closed for the night. “That’s where the rogues are. Any moment now, our first team will—”
The lights in the windows flickered, then all went out at once. A moment later, firelight flared somewhere inside the building.
“It’s started,” Zora muttered. “I hope Kai got the message. Let’s hurry!”
Zylas continued down the dirt road, me and Zora a few paces behind. More light—fire, along with colorful flashes—emanated from the rogues’ building, and muffled bangs and crashes became audible. My nerves tightened. The golems had been moved, the enemy might know we were here, and if Claude was nearby, that meant we had NazhivÄ“r to worry about.
“Any sign of a flying demon?” I whispered into my mic.
“Nope.” A rustle as Amalia shifted position on her high perch. “But people are running out of that building now and—oh shit! There are the golems. Someone just got trampled.”
Orange light flared from the other side of the gray structure.
“Hurry!” Zora barked.
Zylas broke into a fast jog, forcing me and Zora into a run. He raced to a dead end, where a collection of rusting tractor-trailers was parked. As I reached him, he scooped an arm around my middle, lifting my feet off the ground, then caught Zora in the same grip.
She was still gasping in surprise as he sprang on top of the nearest trailer. With three lightning-fast leaps, we were over the fence, into a parking lot, and streaking toward a gap between the rogues’ building and a storage bay—a long strip lined with overhead doors.
As though a volume switch had been slammed straight to max, noise erupted—shouts, screams, bangs, thuds, crashes, and bizarre reverberations that could only be magic. Light blazed and flickered from the front of the building as Zylas sprinted toward it, only marginally slowed by his two passengers.
Ahead of us, a new racket erupted—metallic banging like off-kilter pistons. A dog-like golem, identical to the ones that had attacked the Odin’s Eye guild, charged out of the storage bay’s nearest door toward the unseen fight.
“Shit!” Amalia exclaimed in my ear. “Robin, there are golems closing in on them from all sides. Our guys are about to be trapped in the middle.”
“We’re on it! Zylas—”
Before I could say more, he swerved toward the storage bay, where three more golems had appeared, pinkish runes glowing over their metal bodies as they ran with lumbering gaits.
Zylas’s slowing stride was my only warning, and I braced myself as he let go. As Zora and I dropped to the ground, he launched toward the lead golem and slammed both feet into its front legs. The steel limbs went out from under it and the golem collapsed onto its side with a hideous metallic shriek.
Zylas rolled clear, shot to his feet, and leaped again as the second golem belched a jet of fluid at him. It sprayed across the pavement, bubbling and hissing.
“Zora,” I shouted over the cacophony. “Can you distract one?”
She nodded and drew her sword. Gulping back a wave of panic, I pulled my infernus chain off my neck and sprinted toward the last golem in line. As I closed in, it turned in mid-charge—and headed straight for me.
Zora shot across its path. Jaws spewing fire, it lurched after her, and I dove toward its exposed side.
I stuck