From the distance, a flare of red light rose against the blue sky at the horizon, framed with something shadowy and dark that made it stand out clearly.

It was deceptive, in its general oblong shape, which became a circle and became oblong again, and its apparent lack of depth.

I realized what it was and put my hand at Sveta’s arm, in case I needed to pull her away. A projectile of some sort. It soared toward us, and touched down in the middle of the battlefield, with Mayday running to intercept it, getting clipped by one of Nailbiter’s claws on the way.

It hit him, almost dead on, and smashed into the road like water might, a mess of red strands that glowed to the point they were almost neon, in a sea of darker and darker strands. The webbed ball dissipated, broke up, the lines spreading out to run through, around, over and under almost everything on the ground. The larger portion of the mass skidded nearly a hundred feet before breaking up. Mayday’s team had been carried along with the skid, and as the strands dissipated, they were on their feet, standing in formation. The villains who hadn’t scrambled out of the way were at the edges, lying down, or pushed between parked cars. No property damage had been done.

They were outnumbered two to one, but Advance Guard wasn’t losing. They looked battered. Two of them were being locked down by one of their fellow teammates. Affected by Love Lost’s scream, it seemed.

The phone’s speaker buzzed against my chest. I picked it up.

“The bad guys have reinforcements coming,” Looksee reported. “From your five. I think that’s how it works, right? Five is behind and to your right? Or is twelve o’clock directly behind?”

“That’s how it works, Looksee,” I said. “Five is right. We’ll keep an eye out.”

I looked back over my shoulder. Did I want to get involved in the brawl like this?

“Victoria?” Sveta asked.

Down on the road, Advance Guard were using an area that had become a bit of a bottleneck, with one section of sidewalk fenced off with railings that had been bolted down, so there could be a patio outside one restaurant, and several cars were parked beyond that fence and on the opposite side of the street. Mayday retreated through the bottleneck with a flying ally shielding him by catching some flung balls of flame in what looked like a web of glowing lines in geometric shapes. Mayday raised both hands, palms flat, forming a ‘y’, and then brought them down.

In the distance well behind him, twin flares of red energy appeared at the horizon. One of them might have been headed straight for me.

I fixed my grip on Sveta’s arm, then carried her skyward.