Newly dead and reanimated cadavers lurched up and readied themselves for battle, their hands up, magic spinning. Alexis jogged forward, the wind blowing her hair elegantly to the side, her eyes on fire, her newly stolen army at her back. She and Bria could’ve handled them all on their own. Kieran merely needed to chase the Demigod coward from the battlefield.

Kieran jogged to stay by Alexis’s side, but he looked back at Thane, his heart aching. “Take someone and go. See if he can be revived.” They all sensed one of them had fallen.

Thane glanced at Henry and they were off, sprinting toward the house and Jack. Hoping against hope he was still clinging to life.

Filled with sorrow and rage, Kieran pulled the water tornado from behind the creature and strained to focus and contain it. It was the Demigod’s shadow form he wished to destroy, not the neighborhood. Alexis’s magic rolled in, slashing and tearing, cutting through the creature. When he was beside her, he followed her gaze and moved the water, covering the area she was focused on. Covering the invisible coward.

“Higher,” she said, slowing, letting her newly created zombies continue the charge. “If you want to drown it, go higher. It’s almost twenty feet tall.”

“Can you drown a spirit?” Boman asked, scoping things out.

“No, but the mind will forget that,” she said, working her hands. Her magic. “His mind is attached to that shadow, and his mind is programmed to protect his living body. Unless he has trained in pushing through the feeling of being drowned, his mind will revolt.” She looked at Kieran, seeming suddenly unsure. “Do you guys train in withstanding each other’s magic?”

“No.” Kieran moved the water up, sweat popping out on his brow. Anguish bled through his middle, but he gritted his teeth against the onslaught. He didn’t want to know what had caused that emotion in Thane and Henry. “That would take away our advantage against one another.”

Pain throbbed now, and urgency took over.

“Go, you sonuvabitch,” Kieran said through clenched teeth.

“What’s going on?” Bria asked Zorn quietly.

“Good.” Alexis nodded, her eyes intense, a smile spreading across her face. “Yes. Yes! He’s thrashing. He’s trying to step out—here.” Alexis’s brow scrunched and she raised her hands higher. Her army circled the water tornado, magic firing from their hands. “A little to the left, Kieran.”

Kieran complied, impatient, wanting this done. Why was the Demigod hanging around, anyway? His army was destroyed. His body was elsewhere. Alexis was protected. What was he hoping to achieve?

“There you go,” Alexis said, and did a fist pump. “I know he’s gone—I was just about to say that.” She turned to Kieran. “He’s gone. You’re good. We’re good.”

Kieran barely stopped himself from asking whom she’d just been talking to. Nobody who was physically present had spoken. But it didn’t matter right then. He didn’t want to waste any time. He turned the water into fog and pushed it out to sea. It would disrupt some weather elements, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d fix it later.

“Make sure everyone is incapacitated,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“Got it,” Bria said.

“Alexis, you help.” Maybe it was selfish, or cowardly, but he didn’t know what to expect, and if the worst had indeed happened, he didn’t want her to see him cry.

He made his way through the door and immediately saw a prone body lying in the hall, surrounded by a lake of blood. Neither Henry nor Thane were there.

Heart in his throat, Kieran fell to his knees and pushed his fingers against a spot of clear skin in a half-ruined neck. But the skin was cold. No pulse pushed back.

Agony rose in his chest. Hand shaking, he pulled it away from Jack’s neck. He let his hand hover over Jack’s middle.

Where the hell was Henry? Where was Thane? Why weren’t they here with Jack? Why weren’t they keeping watch over him, trying to resuscitate him?

Kieran put his hands over Jack’s heart, but before he started, a flicker of movement caught his eye.

He sucked in a breath, jerking to standing, reaching for his power…only to feel his hands drop limply to his sides. Heat pricked the backs of his eyes, and all the fight went out of him.

Jack stood without a body to house him, blinking at nothing. He clearly didn’t know where he was. He probably didn’t understand he was dead.

He needed someone to shepherd him across the Line. Someone who understood the transition. He needed help. Help Kieran didn’t know how to provide.

For the first time, he understood the full spectrum of Alexis’s power. Why spirits tried to latch on to her. Why they made their homes close to her. She was the rock they clung to like a barnacle, their shelter in the turbulent world of the living when they didn’t want to, or couldn’t, find their way to the beyond. She had always had one foot in the physical world and one in the spirit realm. She was the protector of the dead. The Spirit Walker.

And Jack needed her.

As Kieran watched his friend, confused and helpless, it felt like the world opened up and swallowed him whole. The pain was so great that he didn’t want to feel anymore. He couldn’t help the tears pooling in his eyes.

Then another blast of emotion rocked him from Thane. He was upstairs in the panic room. The kids!