A heartbeat before his blow landed, Croc sideswiped the bloodsucking SOB like an NFL linebacker.

  The two went down in a tangle of limbs. Theo snarled, his talons raking deep gouges into Croc’s hide, but the mimic didn’t relent. Rubbery tentacles slithered around Theo’s throat and pinned his arms against his sides as Croc ripped his throat out with jaws like a beartrap. Black blood sprayed out in a geyser, splattering Croc’s chest and coating the floor.

  For anyone else, it would’ve been a killing blow.

  But not for Theo.

  There was a wet tearing sound as Theo flexed, his muscles bulging and rippling under that ridiculous white suit. He bucked free of Croc’s crushing jaws, then seized one of Croc’s tentacles and ripped it off with a sharp jerk. Croc howled in pain, and Theo follow-up with a mule kick that sent the dog-turned-grizzly sailing into a nearby table with a deafening crack, splintering it into a pile of plastic and cheap laminate.

  “Croc!” I yelled, desperately trying to get my legs back under me.

  “Still here,” the dog groaned from the wreckage. “Tentacle’s gone, but it’ll grow back.”

  Theo straightened, his neck wound already stitching itself shut. “You’ve got loyal friends. Too bad they’re all gonna die for you.”

  Before he could make good on that threat, Harper’s voice rang out, “Hey, Disco Dick!”

  Theo turned just in time for a glass vial to smash against his face. The elixir burst into molten sunlight. Liquid fire crawled across his skin, eating through flesh and muscle. Theo screamed, his features melting into a mess of bubbling gore as the smell of burnt meat invaded the air.

  The potion didn’t kill him, but it did drop his Health by another fifteen percent and left him reeling drunkenly. More importantly, it bought me enough time to shake off the lingering effects of his shockwave kick and get back in the fight.

  “You still alive?” Harper asked, pressing a hand against my shoulder as she cast Field Surgeon, topping off my health.

  “Peachy,” I said. “Now let’s kill these mother fuckers and make sure it sticks this time.”

  With a pulse of psychic energy, I shot into the air, finally giving me a clear view of the battlefield.

  We weren’t doing so hot.

  My Necromarashalls were tangling with the Ghouls and things had devolved into pure anarchy.

  Synthia’s chainsaw arm roared as she cut through inky limbs—only to have another ghoul leap onto her back, sinking yellow fangs into her throat as it tried to rip her head off. Drumbo was going toe to toe with three ghouls all at once, his Gauntlet of Fist Shaped Problems delivering devastating blows that caved in faces and crushed chest cavities as though they were made from Play Doh.

  Uncle Sam hung back, employing his burning cat-o’-nine-tails with one hand and launching blindingly bright plasma bolts from a shoulder mounted canon. Overhead, Rudolpho galloped across platforms of hardened light as his cherry red nose blazed like the end of a lit cigar, unleashing devastating waves of Gamma Blight radiation. One of the ghouls mounted a table and leapt at the unholy reindeer, only to receive a razor-sharp hoof to the face for his troubles.

  Off to my left, Ed was waist-deep in a pool of coagulated blood, firing his enchanted Colt into the sucking muck as more crimson tentacles slithered toward him. Down below, Temp was busy hacking into one of the Go-Go dancers with her Dark Solstice Cleaver—cutting off limbs with impunity. Her blade rose and fell in time with the pumping rhythm of the music, which had changed from ‘Disco Inferno to ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees.

  The irony of the song choice was not lost on me.

  But Temperance’s rage was only making things worse.

  Her blade opened a deep gash across the dancer’s bare midriff, and an impossible amount of blood poured out like a ruptured dam. It pooled on the floor, then burbled and congealed, forming dozens of tiny, bat-eared imps with scalpel-sharp talons and mouths bristling with bloody fangs.

  Dweller 0.54322D – Hemogoblins [Level 22]

  “Well shit,” I muttered.

  They were only level 22, but there were a lot of them.

  Temp slashed through one, then another, but the rest kept right on coming. She cast Sinner’s Chains, spectral bindings snapping out like whips, but the Hemogoblins were too quick. They ducked, twisted, and slipped free of the grasping chains, hissing as they sprinted toward my UV-light-wielding Horrors.

  I cast Frostfang Spire and ice erupted upward in a jagged line, forming a frozen barricade between the imps and my backline forces.

  A few of the creatures slammed into the wall or were outright impaled by icy javelins, but even more scrambled over the spiked hedge. I cast one of my newest Relics, Internal Microwave Cannon, focusing on one of the bloody imps. An invisible beam of power shot out and the creature immediately began to bubble, its body distorting and expanding, before rupturing in an explosion of gore that painted a nearby column.

  Croc barreled forward like an angry junkyard dog. “I hate to admit it, Dan,” the dog called out even as it ripped one of imps apart, “but these things are kind of adorable. Do you think we can keep one? I bet they would make great pets!”

  “Focus, Croc!” I bellowed.

  “Right, right, sorry, Dan,” Croc yelled before lunging forward and swallowing one of the Hemogoblins with its belly maw.

  Theo’s voice cut through the air a second later, “Velvet,” he barked, fury dripping from every syllable. “Kill the lights! Let’s see if our friends can boogie in the dark.”

  The airborne Go-Go dancer grinned, then raised her hands high. A disco ball exploded from her palms, and shot toward the center of the room, hovering above us like a glittering Death Star. But instead of refracting the light, the disco ball seemed to devour it—sucking in every flicker, every glow, every spark. One by one, the UV lights blinked out, followed by the overhead halogens and the neon food court signage, casting the entire room into all encompassing darkness.

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  Inside of a heartbeat, the entire food court went black, and a wave of feral screeches echoed all around us, bouncing off the walls and reverberating off the ceiling. It was the sound of a feeding frenzy. My gut clenched as the coppery scent of blood filled the air.

  We were in trouble.

  In a straight-up fight, I thought we could hold our own. But outnumbered and in a total blackout? We were boned six ways from Sunday.

  Internal warning alarms screamed inside my head, telling me we needed to get gone and we needed to do it fast.

  We had a fallback plan in place, just in case things went sideways, but getting everyone out in utter darkness would be a challenge. I needed a little time to think.

  While my mind worked through the problem, I snapped my fingers and cast Drone Zone. A dozen metallic orbs took to the air with the coordinated precision of a Marine Corps Airstrike team. The drones operated using thermal heat sensors, so they didn’t need to “see” to be effective. In seconds, the death orbs acquired targets, and a barrage of red laser fire crisscrossed the room in a strobing storm.

  Every flash revealed a brief glimpse of the slaughter unfolding below.

  Ghouls tore into my Necromarshals, Hemogoblins swarmed my Kevins and Kathys, and fledging vampires—no longer pinned in place by the UV lights—scuttled across the walls like spiders, closing in around Harper, Temp, and Croc like a noose.

  My Necromarshals fought back with relentless fury, their outlines flickering in the red light. Drumbo roared as his fists flew, gore spraying out in every direction as he bludgeoned a ghoul into paste with a single blow. Krampus tore a fledging Vampire in half—sequins glinting as they spilled across the floor—then used the corpse as a club to beat another into mush. The fledging Vamps were tough, but they didn’t hold a candle to Theo or the Go-Go dancers.

  I triggered Hydro Fracking Blast and aimed into the densest cluster of enemies. A geyser of pressurized water split into five smaller beams and slammed into a roving pack of ghouls, scattering them like bowling pins. I pivoted, cast again, and sandblasted several of the Hemogoblins advancing toward Ed.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Even as my magic tore through them, I could feel the pressure building. The darkness was a living thing, pulsing with malevolent, hungry energy. Theo and his vampire entourage were regrouping, and if we didn’t do something fast, we were gonna wind up dead.

  Or worse…

  As bloodsucking thralls, enslaved to the will of the Syndicate.

  We needed to get to the emergency doorway anchor I’d set up. The question was how? Even with the occasional bursts of laser fire, it was so dark that not even I knew where the doorway was.

  But I had a trick that might be able to help with that.

  I focused on the exit and cast Unerring Arrow.

  A blue bolt of power erupted from my chest and carved a winding path through the darkness, eventually ending at a point I couldn’t see. But I knew that had to be where the door was. Our one way out of this giant clusterfuck. The larger problem was that the light from Unerring Arrow was invisible to everyone but me.

  Thinking fast, I hastily opened my Spatial Storage and pulled out a fistful of Ghost Light vials—a custom alchemic brew that shed light that only allies could see. Using strands of telekinetic energy, I hurled the vials in even intervals, following the trail Unerring Arrow had marked out. The glass shattered and pockets of ghostly blue illumination appeared like a line of breadcrumbs, dotting the void. The last vial burst against the doorway, outlining it in shimmering sapphire light that cut through the black like a knife.

  The ghost light was dimmer than it should’ve been, as though the invasive darkness was actively resisting it, but whatever magic powered the floating disco orb didn’t snuff the alchemic glow out completely.

  That was the first lucky break we’d had.

  “Everyone fallback!” I bellowed, my voice echoing through the food court. “Follow the ghost lights—go, go, go!”

  The command carried even over the screams and gunfire. Croc barreled forward without hesitation, its rubbery bulk sprouting a dozen arms and untold claws as the mimic cleared a path for the others. The mimic yanked a ghoul off Harper, crushed it skull with a single swift stomp, then hastily consumed the corpse with great wet slurps.

  “Don’t worry, Harper,” the mimic growled, “I won’t let them hurt you.”

  “Too late,” Harper replied, her face as white as a sheet. She pressed a hand against her leg as she struggled to stand. A snaking blue tentacle wrapped around the badly wounded healer, hauling her onto Croc’s back.

  “You’re the best boy,” Harper said, scratching behind the mimic’s ears with blood-soaked fingers. The dog took off at a lumbering run and despite Harper’s injuries, she continued to fight. She launched a pair of inky Shadow Eagles that divebombed a nearby Hemogoblin, splattering it across a food court sign that read Try Our New Spaghetti Sundae!

  I hovered above the battlefield, sweat slicking my back, muscles trembling with the effort of holding half a dozen spells at once. My Mana was bleeding away at an alarming rate. I popped a few Regen Spell Cards, but it wasn’t enough. I recalled my tools before I lost them to the dark, but kept a few orbiting around me, “juggling” them until Wild Surge procced, bringing my Mana back up to seventy five percent.

  With a little arcane gas now back in the tank, I redoubled my efforts.

  Guided by the glow of the ghost light and flickering blasts of red laser fire, I conjured ice spikes from the floor, slowing the ghouls’ advance. Jets of super-pressurized water blasted through the mob, shredding the first wave into slurry. I recast Stainslayer Maelstrom then sent a variety of spell cards spinning out. Dopplebanger Clones appeared, drawing aggro from nearby ghouls and goblins.

  As the undead hoard attacked the clones, my Balloon Menagerie spells exploded on impact, clouds of squeaky neon balloon animals giving way to billowing columns of flame that tattooed purple afterimages across my retinas.

  Temp was buried under Hemogoblins, still swinging her cleaver in wild, blood-drunk arcs. With a thought, I activated Psychic Sovereignty and seized the creatures in an invisible vice. Unlike Theo, these things didn’t have the mental fortitude to stop me. I ripped them off her and flung the little bastards across the food court like ragdolls.

  “Move your ass, Temp!” I shouted.

  She spat out blood and snarled, her face contorted in rage. “But I still don’t have any vampire teeth!”

  Despite her protests, she turned and bolted, following the trail of ghost lights toward the door. Harper covered their retreat with a barrage of Shadow Eagles that illuminated the food-court-turned-battlefield in hellish flashes of purple. Ed followed last, limping but still firing, Woodstock perched on his shoulder and shrieking flames into the dark.

  One by one, they made it through the flickering doorway—Croc, Harper, Ed—and finally Temp, still glaring over her shoulder like she was mad the fight was ending.

  That just left me.

  I spun midair, ready to disengage, when a lance of blood erupted from the shadows and punched through my stomach. The impact folded me in half and slammed me against the ceiling hard enough to crack the plaster. For a heartbeat, I was sure I was done. Would’ve been if not for my Voodoo Dopplebangers. They absorbed the brunt of the blow, though pain still ripped through me, white-hot and blinding.

  I looked down to see Theo grinning up from below, blood still trailing from his outstretched hand like a marionette’s string. “Told you, youngblood,” he crooned. “No one outruns the Syndicate. Not forever. Now it’s time to pay.”

  “Funny,” I gasped, blood bubbling in my throat. “I was just about to say the same thing.”

  I spat out the activation phrase and my Doppelbangers sprang to life.

  Every single clone lurched into frenzied motion, their bodies bloated with unstable energy. They dove toward Theo, dogpiling him in a grotesque embrace before detonating in a shower of blood, bone, and psychic feedback that shook the entire room. Thanks to a few new upgrades, a poisonous green cloud rolled out, covering the floor in choking fog.

  That was my cue.

  I recalled my Horrors, not wanting to abandon them here, then dropped like a stone, clutching my bleeding gut. I dove through the glowing doorway and pulled it shut behind me with a thread of mental energy. The screams died like someone had flipped a switch and the oppressive darkness vanished, replaced by the warm glow of the store’s lights.

  For a long moment, I just lay there, sucking in ragged breaths while my heart tried to punch its way out of my chest. My stomach throbbed, my ears rang, and every inch of me hurt. But we were alive.

  We were safe.

  For now, anyway.