“Did he just eat that lightning?” I asked in shock as the battle began. None of the shockwaves were reaching us, all contained within Lark’s Domain, but I saw some of the A-rankers spreading out, slipping through the edges. Apparently holding thirty S-rankers while fighting ten of them was tough even for the Vampire, because the small fries were slipping the net.

  Bethy, who looked relieved he was ok, just giggled. “Of course not. That would be silly. Vampires don’t eat lightning.” I exhaled, nodding in relief. It was nice to know he had some kind of limit. Though maybe in the current situation not having any would be better. “That wasn’t lightning at all. It was psma.”

  I groaned but she didn’t seem to be joking, and I rolled my eyes because the parent was as ridiculous as the child.

  “Look, we need to go.” I said bluntly, looking around. “I'd love to stay and make sure…his holiness is OK, but this isn't a pce we can afford to stay, even with that domain active.” I gnced at my mom. “Is there a fallback point?”

  She nodded. “Not all of the reinforcements came. With an incursion this big they'd have left some of them outside to hold the line in case anyone escaped. If we can get past the blockade we should be fine.” She paused. “Unless they break through. Then we're all going to die anyway. I don't see it happening though.”

  I could see in her face she had a lot of faith in Lark, but that didn't seem like enough to support this level of confidence. “Why do you say that?”

  She grinned, pointing to a man next to my grandfather. He had dark skin and long hair braided into many thin pits. He was holding a gleaming white sword, and his eyes were a featureless white. Like…the moon. “Wait, is that?”

  “The Moonlight Pope.” She said proudly. “The Red Revenant’s first and strongest disciple. One of the three strongest S-rankers.”

  That was good. Still, I couldn’t help but worry. We grouped up with mom, Zeke, and Andrew taking up a triangle formation around us, protecting the group from attackers and stray shots, and we headed for the exit. We were far from the only ones, but we had the most firepower, so we were able to push our way out of the crowd.

  We reached a hallway and I was about to turn to head for the door, but mom stopped me. “This way.” She said quietly. “There’s an emergency exit tunnel deeper into the building. We’ll go out through Flipside and hopefully avoid the majority of the fighting.”

  Heading into the building, we moved much slower than we had been before. Zeke took up the front position, and I could see him doing…something. A pulse of light that kind of hurt my eyes to look at was expelled from his hands, bouncing off the walls and floors until he came to an odd, semi invisible shape. Holding up a hand, he knelt and picked touched it in a few pces, breaking down whatever the object was.

  “How the hell did they have time set TRAPS?” Snapped Zeke as he stood up and stashed the device in his ring. “I swear, if I get my hands on that brat of Harrison’s I’m going to make a mask out of a pig and trap him in it for eternity.”

  I blinked. “Can you actually do that?”

  He shrugged. “Kid, I’m an A-ranker, I can do basically anything mask reted I want to someone like him. I’ve never tried, but it shouldn’t be too tough.”

  “Plot revenge ter.” Snarled my mother. “Survive now. People say the best revenge is living well, but even bad revenge is usually best enjoyed while still alive. Now let’s go!” He nodded, then turned to leave…and froze.

  A man stood in the way of our egress, tall and muscur with scars all over his pale, exposed chest. His head was wrapped entirely by an iron skull, his eyes bzing an unearthly green as they stared unblinking at us. I heard Andrew curse and turned around to find a smaller, frailer figure with a wide brimmed conical hat looking at us from beneath yers of wrapping bandages.

  Beside her stood a nky, bronze skinned man with a wide easy smile and red hair shaved across one side of his skull. Andrew and my mother took up positions between us and them as Zeke stepped in front of Skull guy. Snapping, my mother passed me a glowing gold orb.

  “Wait until we’re ten feet away and then break this.” She commanded. She and Andrew stepped out to meet their enemy while Zeke did the same. Like she’d said, I smashed it when she was out of range, and a sphere of shimmering gold covered us, then sort of…rippled.

  Space within changed, and Abel’s head snapped up. “I don’t know what that is.” He said slowly. “But I don’t think we’re in the same dimension anymore.”Skull mask shed out at Zeke, who stepped easily aside and let the attack streak toward us.

  I didn’t flinch, I trusted my uncle implicity. The crackling green ssh his palm had made passed right through us, and I knew Zeke had let him attack to prove there was no point in trying. The man snarled, turning his eerie focus back to my uncle. On the other side, the small figure in the hat spoke. “Five faction trash.” It said in a screeching voice. “Your heads will please our masters.”

  “Gross.” Said my mom. “Also irrelevant, because they please us too, and we’re pnning to keep them. Also possibly add yours to our collection, unless you turn around and beat it.”

  The person in the bandages giggled. “Oh really.” They reached into their coat and withdrew a small shabby doll. Next it took out a small blonde hair and wrapped it around the doll’s neck. I opened my Eye of Revetion and was barely able to stand as the complexity and power of the image knocked me for a loop. Still, I was able to stabilize myself enough to see a massive crouching demon holding a doll that looked like my mother in a stance that mirrored the figure.

  They withdrew a nail from a pocket and punched it into their arm, coating it in thick blood, then drove it cruelly into the doll’s arm.

  The image did the same to the figure of my mother, and there was a bright fre of life as she snarled in annoyance. The demon howled and dropped her figure, its hands burning with white fme, and my mother just sneered. “You think I’ve never seen witchraft before?” She said zily. “Thaumaturgical power like that doesn’t work on someone like me. My Stelr Fme Fist is part of my soul. My whole body is sanctified with the fmes of purification.”

  As she spoke, her eyes bzed with white fire, then they overflowed. Fmes trailed down her cheeks like tears, spreading as the descended to coat her face and then the rest of her until her form was wreathed in fmes. The red haired man beside the figure smiled unpleasantly, then vanished in a rumble of thunder, coming apart into a thousand lightning snakes.

  My mother stepped forward, fist crushing the air as she shattered the snakes one at a time. Her punches weren’t fast, or even slow, they just sort of ate the time and space between them and target, destroying the g time with brute force as Cosmic Colpse gathered and then burst on each knuckle.

  The figure in the hat vanished, appearing in front of Andrew, and held up another doll, this one a model of themselves. Andrew shed out with his sword, and the figure made no move to dodge. The bde punched through their chest, but no blood came out. The doll split, stuffing flowing from the torso and the figure reached out and yanked out a piece of Andre’s hair.

  “Let’s see if all of you are so immune to witchcraft.” Cackled the figure, and it shoved the hair into the open wound on the doll. Behind it, the demon coalesced again, this time holding a copy of Andrew. With a malicious giggle, it grabbed the doll by both arms and pulled.

  There was a horrendous tearing and a scream and Andrew’s arms came at the shoulders. My mother’s head snapped around in rage and I saw her scream as a lightning snake drilled through her achilles tendon, almost falling before she forced herself to focus. He fist shed out in a backhand, crushing another snake before her elbow destroyed a followup serpent.

  Andrew looked like he was about to die, but there was a burst of fme, and a hooded figure drilled a rapier through the hat wearing witchcraft user, spearing through the shoulder and driving them back. The doll seemed unable to keep up with the damage and burst into fmes, tearing a scream from the person as the caught fme themself.

  The figure engaged the snakes, and my mother hurried over to Andrew. She pushed one of the arms against his shoulder and punched, and there was a roar of white fme as she…destroyed the damage, reattaching the arm. I was shocked as she repeated the technique, helping him up before sending him to help Zeke’s mask. She engaged the witchcrafter directly, but they did something. Reaching into their coat, they withdrew another doll, this one looking like the demon I’d seen. They tossed it into the air and the doll expanded, the figure shrinking to doll size as the demon took its pce.

  My mother snarled, blurring forward to meet the beast, and it bared razor sharp obsidian teeth as it began trading blows with her. The purification fmes didn’t seem to affect it too much, and her explosive punches only blew small holes that healed themselves over time.

  “A fucking Tulpa?” She snapped. “Who uses those anymore? You know they kill their maker almost every time, right?”

  The witch doll cackled. “Risk follows power, girl! If I were you I’d be more worried about yourself. Or rather, about your little friend.” The doll gestured past my mother, who didn’t bother looking reengaging the demon. I did though, and what I saw made my blood run cold.

  I’d taken Zeke’s badassery for granted, but sending that mask to help my mom had clearly cost him. Several masks y shattered on the ground around him, hooded cloaks draped over them. Zeke himself was shing out with blood colored fming punches at the man he was fighting, but his mask was cracked in half, exposing a portion of a ruined burnt out face.

  The skull masked man wasn’t bragging, or taunting. He wasn’t making a sound. He was simply oncoming. Inevitable. Impcable. Palm after palm shed out with a sickening green light, and they crushed Zeke’s attacks and avenues of escape.

  My mother drove the demon back enough to see my uncle and screamed. “No!” She blurred through the golden space we occupied, fist shing out at the skull masked man, who crushed her punch with one palm, even as the other acted independently to suppress Zeke. Andrew unched himself at the man from across the hall, sword spearing out at his throat, and leaving the other two to follow and try to attack from behind.

  The skull masked man didn’t flinch or slow, he fought all three of them at once. I felt my blood run cold at the ease with which he handled them. This was someone very scary. An A-ranker who would be considered an elite. Maybe not on the same level as Lark, but my mom wasn’t even halfway through A-rank as far as I knew, and Zeke had just gotten there.

  As the three A-rankers surrounded our protectors, my stomach twisted itself into knots. This wasn’t going to be pretty, and it wasn’t going to nice. I was just desperately hoping I didn’t have to watch my mother and uncle die tonight. I didn’t think I could take it.