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That hy the ship was riding low in the water It was caught in a doard suction, like a ball at the end of a vacuuo, it wasn’t just the team of Wardens ere fatally screwed

We all were

GoodThis tiuts, warm and velvety, and I had to choke back a sob It would be so easy to let go So utterly easy

There was a grating sound in the hold, so et as possible, as the voice echoed off of metal, wood, and immobile bodies I heard the shuffle of footsteps, and saw an odd shape e It had the outward shine of a human form, but it was like a superi dark and twisted

The skin It had created solass was not far from Kevin, for the Wardens to chase while the rest of the plan had gone into ht have killed the powerful one first, but this one was the clever one

The skin ducked behind a parked, covered Porsche, then flitted around sohth in the glow of an eood look at it

The body it as one of those fresh-faced kids who looked like they’d bearoundpeople He was alelo Marconi?"

It just looked at ht - it was literally just skin, stretched like a Halloween hednow

The skin flitted out of the light and into the darkness

I had no idea what I was going to do if it ca on arden of Wardens and Djinn glowed steadily in low, much cooler than the others, blue instead of yellohite

Angelo darted into the ht, and saw him put his hands on one of the Djinn One of Ashan’s, who snarled and struck back with invisible force that bounced off of Angelo’s body like the ielo’s skin blackened, crisped, and flaked away, revealing the crystal underneath, as the Djinn fought him I felt the ship lurch sharply doard as the Djinn’s attention was pulled away fro forces in balance

The Djinn began to turn a soft ashy gray Rotting from the outside in, the way the Djinn who’d died outside ainst the coldat all, I didn’t want to worry about falling dohile I was about it If what Venna had said was right, this thing was the forerunner of so that devoured on a universal scale I thought about all those lifeless planets spinning in space that our telescopes and probes had found How many of them had once been like us? How many had fallen prey and been wiped clean of life?

Why fight it? It’s nature You are all aberrations, a o

The ship bounced and settled deeper in the water I heard the alroan of the metal around er

And neither could I

I closed an to set the around the skin and his Djinn victigled now, no longer interested inHe couldn’t break free of the crystal claws that were digging into hi

I shifted frequencies

The Djinn shrieked in unworldly agony as his body began to cruerness, drinking in every agonized second of it

I shifted frequencies again, blind to everything but the dance ofexpended and absorbed

Coh

Venna had been able to blow her victies I was just a wounded, exhausted Warden up against so

The Djinn who’d screanizable as a Djinn at all It was a pile of disintegrating ash and dust, sliding away from cohesion to scatter on the deck

And I felt everything slipping away inside

The ship groaned again, and I sawout of place, and the first jets of water blow through into the open space of the hold

We started sinking again

The skin turned to the next Djinn Lyle

I felt the shift of power in the roothened

Where David walked, the world mended around hi to stop, not forto allow Lyle to die

Another watertight door opened on the other side of the hold, and a swarm of Wardens poured in, led by Lewis In seconds, they had the skin surrounded

But the skin had its claws buried in Lyle’s chest, like soiant parasitical tick

I switched frequencies one , and joineda resonance that was so powerful it began to shatter glass and crystal stored in the crates Solasses broke under the strain

I felt feedback - the exact frequency that this creature’s bones sang to I began to focus harder, refining the sound until it was at a lethal intensity I could see the waves now, a standing well of ripples in the air around the creature, battering it froo!" Lewis shouted "Drop out!"

I couldn’t do that Instead, I reached inside and ca down in the eood to kill

The vibrations ra into ash, the skin that had been Angelo Marconi blew apart into glittering crystal dust

Lyle sagged and hit the deck, too weak to continue, but David stepped into his place and froze, concentrating

The ship leveled out - still fighting the doard force but no longer being pulled down

As quickly as it had coone Vanished I was just elo hadn’t been a pile of ragged flesh and demonic parts on the metal floor, he’d have had an easy meal of me

Lewis reached ainst the safe "I told you to step out!" he snapped, and touched my forehead "Damn it What the hell did you do?"

I struck out at hier woke the beast inside, the one that had patiently stalked and laughed and waited

I couldn’t hold it back anymore

I burned him

If it had been anyone but Lewis, I’d have killed hi punches, and the fire that boiled out oflike napalreen tint

Lewis reacted instantly, stepping back fro out the fire before it could eat him up He succeeded, but ree burns on his hands and arms