Chapter 11

Tsubaki was awake before she even knew she had fallen asleep. Black*Star was snoring like a rogue pickup truck, and Eve was either fast asleep or doing a very good job pretending. Their taxi driver had long since left them, and they were holed up in one of the sturdier Treetham homes. An angry wind howled through the sand- and dust-caked windowpanes, and a long flash of lightning framed the dark room in a sinister silver brightness.

"Black*Star!" she hissed. Black*Star writhed in his sleep, snoring louder. Sighing, Tsubaki got up to shake Eve.

Eve's green eyes fluttered open. "Tsubaki…is something up?"

"I don't know," said Tsubaki. "I just woke up with this feeling…" Outside the window, something smashed—a neighboring house reduced to rubble in one deadly gust of air. Black*Star sat up suddenly as though poked with a hatchet.

"WASSUP?!" he exploded.

"A storm?" said Eve. "A kishin?" Macy's wavelength quivered in her chest like a whisper saying no, no, no, no.

"I can't tell," said Tsubaki, shrugging helplessly. "It's certainly not a normal storm, though."

"Macy, transform," Eve whispered, and those beautiful swords emerged from her sweaty palms like a shining magic beacon, just as Tsubaki melted into Enchanted Sword Mode. Black*Star caught Eve's eye and grinned, and Eve's heart relaxed a bit as she wholeheartedly forgave him for killing the dobie.

Like a demonic prima donna making her entrance, an oppressive wind broke the window and threw the meisters against the wall. Eve now had no doubts that the thing was alive—alive and hungry. She knew Wind Blade would be no match for it. Fire Blade? The storm had fire at its disposal as well, and the tattered drapes at the window were already blazing.

"Ice Blade!" she cried, but the razor-sharp icicles emitted barely a whimper from the creature.

Black*Star was in his element, of course. "Speed Star!" echoed across the village as he leapt through the burning window and sped from rooftop to rooftop, slashing and kicking like the deadliest of human hurricanes. The storm roared and flailed, just barely escaping the assassin's blows.

Macy's soul was screaming, prodding frantically at Eve's wavelength as if to remind her of the immediate danger they were in. Smoke billowed into her mouth, and her eyes streamed as she tumbled down the narrow staircase and into the cold, wind-lashed night.

The darkened countryside was a blur of deep greens and blues as Agda's truck sped toward Treetham. The roaring of the Brolla spun screams from its belly into Kid's ears. Even as he opened his mouth to instruct the girls to transform, the chilled metal of two sleek pistols was in each palm. Kid couldn't help but be reminded of his father as he watched Agda emerge from the driver's seat, rising to a posture worthy of a queen.

"KID! LIZ! PATTY!"

"Eve?!" Kid ran to hug her, feeling Macy's soul as well in their embrace.

"Guys, watch out! It's a BROLLA!" Patty yelled.

"Is that what it's called?" said Eve.

"Yes. The Brollachan, technically—a cluster of tortured kishin souls that's been growing over centuries of time," said Agda. "It can take on many forms, but usually appears as the burning storm you see over there."

"Um…hi," Eve said after a silence. "And you are…?"

"This is Agda," Kid explained. "She's a new friend that's been helping Liz, Patty and I. But this is no time for stories or introductions. The Brolla is ravaging Treetham, and if we don't stop it, all of Ireland will be in danger."

Black*Star and Tsubaki were a tempest of godlike power, artfully plunging to and fro through the Brolla's thick, black innards. Kid joined the battle, and bright blasts of soul force peppered the fiery smoke. Agda, too, was a surprisingly graceful fighter in spite of her age and size. Eve couldn't tell what her weapon was—she moved so swiftly and deftly that it seemed at once like she used multiple weapons, and no weapons at all. It was a mesmerizing sight.

Eve and Macy were the first to succumb to the Brolla's attacks, thrown against the side of a large stone building during another valiant attempt at Ice Blade. She was unconscious for several seconds, and when she came to everything was black. With a start of panic she thought she had been struck blind. But then she began to hack and cough from the thick smoke, and rolled away from the brick wall to see Black*Star flattened on the pavement with his legs splayed apart and a wicked gash across his chest. Tsubaki, her face swollen with bruises, pulled him to Eve's side before returning to the fight.

"Black*Star…" Eve breathed. It broke her to see him so shattered—the invincible meister who surpassed gods and beat Asura. Eve's body ached all over—at least two ribs were cracked, she was sure, and as she coughed again from the smoke, a thick spot of blood spattered to the pavement. Her vision was blurring as her head pounded, and Macy's soul wavelength was sputtering and fading.

Though the DWMA forces were formidable, they were ultimately no match for the Brolla. An explosion from the monster's core split the city street, and in a moment all was smoke and ash.

Is this what being dead feels like?

Eve's thoughts, like her breath, came in shallow ripples. She groped for Black*Star's hand, desperate for human contact of any kind. He was there, she could hear him grunting, but her fingers continued to fall only on hard, dead rubble.

She couldn't see past her own long eyelashes, but she knew the fight was over. The Brolla was triumphant.

"Brollachan!"

Eve started. She didn't know this voice coming from behind the piles of scorched ruin, but she remembered the mysterious old woman, Agda, whose identity had never been fully explained. Was she a meister? A friend of the Academy? She spoke with a queenly air of dignified scorn. "Brollachan, that is enough!"

The Brolla hissed indignantly.

"Ireland has had enough. By the authority of my sisters and I, the mothers of Earth and of Faerie, I, the Witch of One Horn, command you to disband and leave this country and its people alone! Soul Protect, release!"

The Brolla screeched in protest, flaming fingers reaching for the woman's body. She rebuffed them with an electric flick of the hand as a thick, gnarled horn emerged from her hair and stood triumphant as a crown on her silver head. Her body grew tall and large, rippling with strength…or was that her soul? Eve had never felt a soul other than Macy's, but she felt that this was what the best of souls would feel like; a spectrum of emotional depth set aflame by a warrior's ire.

She grasped Black*Star's hand, and their soul wavelengths beat together in terror as the death of the Brolla crackled and danced across the endless black of the smoky sky.