a hand on my thigh, and I glanced at him. His presence made me feel stronger somehow as we sat in silence. Finn was driving us to Emilia’s house since that was Pamphrock’s current location, and he’d called everyone there to convey his orders.
Beside me, I felt poor Alvie shaking like a leaf. He wasn’t built for so much danger.
“You’re going to be fine,” I said, taking his hand in mine and putting as much sincerity into my voice as I could muster.
He gave a weak smile. “I wish Rita were here. I always feel safer when she’s with us.”
“Me, too. But we’ll just have to watch out for each other tonight, okay?”
He nodded, squeezing my hand.
“Well,” Lucas said, addressing Ethan. “I never thought I’d see the day when you and I rushed to take orders from Pamphrock.”
There was humour in his statement, the kind that came from a long life witnessing the impossible many times over. Ethan smiled at him fondly. “No, friend, nor I.”
“This life is full of unpredictable turns,” Lucas went on.
Ethan inclined his head in acknowledgement. “No matter who we fight with, first and foremost we fight for ourselves, for our own lives.”
“One’s own life is as good a cause as any,” Lucas agreed, just as we pulled to a stop.
We climbed out and walked toward the gathering of slayers. They were all listening to Pamphrock as he stood on the roof of a van and called out orders. I couldn’t be sure exactly, but I’d estimate that there were well over a hundred of them altogether. They stood in orderly lines, all wearing their DOH uniforms.
Emilia’s home was located on a long, wide avenue full of expensive private residences. Mostly mansions. This was where my mother grew up, and it was a world away from my own humble upbringing.
I stared up at Petrovsky Manor, taking it in. Electricity not dissimilar to my sparks crackled along the surface of the walls, preventing anyone from getting close. The mansion was huge. There must’ve been well over ten bedrooms. My mother more or less grew up like a princess, stuck in a luxurious ivory tower.
My attention was drawn to a large window on the second floor. It had shutters and a balcony, and I gasped when I spotted Emilia. She watched Pamphrock intently, looking like some kind of black widow in her immaculate dark clothing.
Impulsively, I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted, “Hey, Grandma, why don’t you come down here and face us instead of standing up there on your perch like a snooty coward?”
Her eyes darted to me, and she regarded me coldly. With a sweep of her hand, the sparks surrounding the mansion pushed out, knocking me flat on my backside.
“Very civilised,” I muttered as I stood back up. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me that she cared so much about a little girl with no relation to her, while I, her actual granddaughter, was nothing to her.
I peered up at the balcony again. If only I could get close enough to speak to her, then maybe I could make her see sense. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time for that because there were six eerily tall individuals walking towards us on the empty road past Emilia’s house. Whoever was in the middle skipped along like an excited child, and seeing child-like movements on an adult was just plain weird. Above their heads was the cloud of chaos mist, seeping down from the sky like a crow-shaped ink stain.
As they came into view, I recognised Theodore first. He was the one who’d been skipping like a child. Marcel was on one side of him, while Michael Ridley stood on the other. The remaining three I remembered from the ritual Marcel performed in the cave. With my heart pounding, I rushed through the gathering of slayers toward Pamphrock, calling out, “Theodore’s headed this way. Look!”
For a split second, Pamphrock betrayed a startled expression before returning his attention to his slayers and barking orders. A grim realisation hit me then—most of the slayers were human and Theodore was headed this way with all that chaos mist. Those two factors did not bode well for us.
The slayers stepped into formation and began marching towards Theodore and his group. But before they even got close, the mist descended. Even kitted out with the modified fire extinguishers, the combined blast wasn’t enough for the sheer amount of concentrated chaos mist. I was certain the mist