A massive blob of area we couldn’t even look at, and he lurked somewhere within it. With a power that wasn’t the ‘don’t look’ ability, he was reaching out. There was no pulse in the air, no wave, no energy, light or shadow. No sign he was doing it that we could trace back to him. But our briefing had said he took people’s sanity from them. There was a chance it was permanent.

I hefted my gun, and shifted position to get to the corner of the building. From cover, I began shooting.

I could shoot at the edges of his effect, but the closer I got to the center, the more my hand the weapon’s barrel struggled to stay on target. Like I was metal and a magnet was repulsing me. I did what I could, firing, targeting ground I remembered was cracked.

“We need to fall back,” Aunt Sarah said. “Most of the civilians are below. We need a defensive line.”

I nodded, even as I kept up my shooting, kept trying to make sure no capes were in my line of fire, even though I struggled to see straight. The highlighting and tracking effect, at the very least, marked those that Kenzie could track. Diamonds with circles within them to frame who was where, and where the various groups were.

I might have been borrowing against the future to buy time in the present, but I aimed for areas of the city that were shaky. Breaking down road with shots from the laser cannon. Knocking down buildings.

Anything to put wreckage and inconvenience in the Stranger Titan’s way.

Crystal touched my arm, and I flew with her. Low to the ground, using buildings and even cars as cover so the Stranger Titan wouldn’t see us and do whatever it was he did to take our minds from us.

I was relieved to see Tristan. Relieved to see Sveta. But I couldn’t articulate that. I immediately went to my next bit of cover, shooting more.

Because if that thing got close enough to us, we were gone. Done.

I wasn’t the only one opening less discriminate fire on the Titan, aiming for the periphery of it in hopes the devastation would slow it down or distract it from its course. Others were bombarding, or sending in the master minions they’d intended to use against the Nemean Titan.

Crystal floated up to a section of building above me, her boots dripping wet onto my hood, but she added her lasers to my cannon fire.

“He moved!” someone on the rooftop called out.

My weapon beeped to tell me it was at twenty-five percent.

“Mobilizing!” Narwhal called out.

If Narwhal was here, then so was Vista. And Vista being here—I just had to look to spot the lip of one crack in reality being peeled upward, to form a kind of wall.