myself. You don’t deserve the honor of me killing you. Instead, I’ll let one of my vampire or ghoul followers send you back to that miserable piss river you call a father.”
The ground suddenly trembled. Morana glanced at Ruaumoko as if to ask, Did you do that?
He shook his head, his dark eyes narrowing as he looked past us down the mountain toward the Manjusri Monastery remains.
Morana followed his gaze. “What?” she breathed out.
Ashael vanished and reappeared next to Ruaumoko, grabbing him before they both vanished. I yanked out the cuffs that had been burning beneath my sleeve this whole time. Ashael reappeared in front of me. He shoved Ruaumoko against me, and I slapped the cuffs on his wrist through one of the net’s holes.
Ruaumoko’s scream was echoed by Morana’s roar of rage as fire swept over Ruaumoko’s body, until his skin glowed as orange as his gaze. That fire turned into liquid that disappeared into the earth like water sucked down into an endless hole.
Ian teleported out of the net, confirming my suspicions that he’d always been able to leave. Before, he’d only said that he couldn’t teleport both of us out. He reappeared by Morana and grabbed her. I ripped out the next pair of cuffs, stretching for her . . . only to have Phanes appear between us before Ian could shove Morana within my reach.
I felt another, stronger vibration as hundreds of sets of feet took another step forward.
“Guess what, Morana?” I said while still stretching for her through the net. “We didn’t come alone.”
Chapter 42
Bitter experience had taught that even the best-laid plans could get ruined by a clever trap. That’s why Option B was Ashael’s fake betrayal, if we failed to take Morana and Ruaumoko by surprise. I thought that Ian and I did well with our acting, but Ashael had been a bit over the top. Still, he’d succeeded in getting Morana, Phanes, and Ruaumoko to trust in his greed . . . and, more important, to trust in their superiority over the situation to let Ashael maneuver Phanes away from them.
Turns out that Phanes wasn’t the only one with a massive ego that could be used against him.
But Phanes was using all his strength as well as the great expanse of his wings to keep Morana out of my reach. Only Ian’s grip on his hands kept Phanes from teleporting Morana out of there, too.
Ashael tried to grab Morana and instantly froze into a tall, wide block of ice. Another freeze blast caught me in it, instantly blinding and immobilizing me. I used my power to force the ice away, regaining my vision to see that Morana’s latest blast had been so intense, it had frozen both Ian and Phanes into solid blocks of ice next to Ashael.
“Whoever kills her wins the western hemisphere!” Morana shouted as she ran away.
The vampires and ghouls began pouring out of the tunnels, and I couldn’t run because I was still stuck in this damned net.
I used my power to unfreeze Ian, and Ashael blasted out of his ice prison himself. Morana had been so panicked that she’d left Phanes frozen on the ground behind her. I soon lost sight of her as my attackers swarmed me, and I cursed freely as they stabbed me with silver knives through the net.
“Get her, I’ll be fine!” I shouted as Ashael and Ian began hacking at the vampires and ghouls attacking me.
The sky suddenly filled with so many Remnants that they blocked out the stars. More filled the perimeter, until our entire area was domed under the writhing, deadly mass. All the while, the ground kept trembling as Marie’s army ran toward us.
Morana might be running, but with Phanes still frozen on the ground, Remnants blanketing the perimeter, and Marie’s ghoul army marching up the mountain, she was trapped.
She must have known it, because she threw another freeze bomb at us. Several moments of blinding pain later, I unfroze myself and Ian as fast as I could, hearing Ashael shout, “Don’t worry, I’ll get her,” before his voice was suddenly cut off.
My blindness cleared and I screamed. A jagged bone knife now jutted from Ashael’s eye, which blackened and smoked. The ghoul next to him yanked it out, drawing his weapon back for that second, final stab—
Ian teleported over and yanked the ghoul’s arm away with such force, his limb tore off. His head followed suit with a brutal fly-and-twist maneuver that would have impressed me, if