Worry dripped through my middle—Kieran’s. A burst of emotion followed it, trailed by shock, sadness, confusion. I didn’t know what it meant.

“Something is happening,” I yelled as the ground heaved again. The need to tear at my hair in fear and scream nearly overcame me. The spirit around me felt like a shroud. The fog was too thick, cutting out my favorite sense. The sense I used as a crutch.

The sound of yelling cut through the pounding of my heart in my ears. Battle cries. Someone had given the enemy troops the go-ahead to attack.

“Go, go, go!” Bria shook me. “Focus on one spirit at a time. Focus on your job. Block out the rest.” The flame of a candle barely illuminated the fog before it went out. “Shit. My magic doesn’t like all this moisture.”

My heart rattled my ribcage wildly, responding to the magical fear even as I tried to force my mind to ignore it. Sweat joined the moisture of the fog on my skin.

“One at a time,” I said, someone’s scream renting the night. “One at a time.”

I closed my eyes, the constant press of spirit on me starting to piss me off.

Frustrated, unnaturally terrified, fucking angry, I pushed out around me, shoving the Line, the spirit, and everything else, trying to get a little breathing room, to clear a spot for myself.

“Yes!” The cat darted in, stood on its hind legs, and tried to paw at the chain of a gold necklace swinging down from my cupped hands.

“What the hell is your problem?” I ripped the necklace away.

“I can control the thought processes of the cat, but I cannot control its instincts. In this case, I need to attack that waving, dangling, sparkly chain of madness.”

I felt the soul connected to the necklace pulse, so much closer in the spirit plane than the Spirit Walker had been, as a boom of power slammed into me. The sound of waves crashing against the cliff face not far from us, unnaturally, magically loud, drowned out the battle cries and yells.

I pushed out again, this time with the magic I’d received from Kieran through the soul connection.

“Yes!” the cat yelled again, jumping at the dangling chain, doing a half backflip and landing on his feet. “That is why you choose a Demigod of a different lineage for a soul mate. I was on the fence, but now I’m a believer.”

The soul of a sleepy woman in her sixties appeared before me. I didn’t have time to explain. I thrust her into a body, clamped her soul into place, and moved on to the next as Bria started loading up weaker spirits next to me.

The souls were all easy to find, and I picked up a quick rhythm—relic, soul, body, relic, soul, body.

“You’re a machine!” the cat yelled with delight, sitting down for a moment to lick his paw. The exuberance didn’t match the lazy fur cleaning, but then, his excitement didn’t match the situation at all. He was clearly reacting to his murderous past. “I didn’t think there was any way in the great god of Hades that you’d get all this done in time, but here you are. Fantastic. Great work ethic.”

“That cat is getting on my last nerve,” I muttered.

A wave of power rolled over us, barely kept at bay by the spirit I was constantly shoving out to keep us unscathed. The ground jumped again, throwing me at a jerking body filled with an unhappy soul. Kieran had just gotten started, but I could plainly feel his impatience through both of our links—he was clearly waiting for us to get going. The enemy troops were probably almost upon us now, picking their way through the murky night, slowed by the fog—slowed but not stopped.

“You filthy, soul-stealing…” One of the spirits started before I gave it a kick with spirit.

“Yes, okay, I see what you did there,” the cat said. “Look at you improvising in a violent sort of way. I like it. You’ll get along just fine with Ares types.”

“Enough from the peanut gallery,” I grumbled, not needing one more distraction. Power throbbed within the newly filled bodies, higher and higher, until everyone had obtained the max level they were capable of in spirit form.

“We’re ready,” I told Bria, clutching souls by their strings, not compelling but controlling. I’d apologize to the spirits later.

“Tell Kieran through the blood link,” Bria said, her animated bodies jerking and twitching like zombies in the movies as they gathered in a neat little cluster.

One of mine took off running, one poorly attached leg wobbling dramatically. Another started off in the other direction.

“Get a hold of them,” Bria hollered.

I tried to communicate to Kieran as I battled the fear still poisoning my blood, the push of the various magics messing with my head, the thick fog and darkness hindering my vision, and my zombies’ attempt to scatter. I had no idea what message Kieran would receive.

“Direct them at the enemy troops and make them use their magic,” Bria instructed me, yanking me into action again. She seemed to have the directional sense of GPS. “This way. Just make them use their magic. You know how!”

I called up her teachings from my memory. All the practice sessions. I tried to focus on that as I forced my crew into a jerking horde.

Shapes moved through the glowing darkness, passing under a glowing streetlight. Spirit punched my middle, the same magic as before. A black strobe blotted out the glowing streetlight, restoring the darkness. It didn’t matter a whole helluva lot here. It was impossible to see anyway.