"Look kid," said Sloan. "Do something or I'm gonna blast you." She hoisted her machine gun and aimed.

Still the girl said nothing. Who the fuck was this? Sloan had to assume Clair sent her. She planted her back foot into the concrete and squeezed the trigger of her gun. A spiral of light surged upward.

The girl did not move. Before her appeared a large silver disc, its surface so burnished Sloan could see her own face in the mirrored shine. The gunfire smashed against it and rebounded, gaining intensity and momentum as it came hurtling back toward Sloan.

Delaney seized Sloan around the waist and surrounded them both in a bubble. The light pelted the barrier and drowned the surroundings in a yellow haze. The moment it subsided, Delaney burst the bubble and both fanned out in search of the mysterious rooftop girl, who was no longer on the rooftop. Instead, she plummeted at them surrounded by swirling silver discs that revolved around her body in a ring. Three discs detached from the greater formation and span at Sloan and Delaney. They ricocheted between the narrow alley walls, their speed compounding as the buzzsaw sharpness of their molecular edges hit the brick and mortar. A disc sailed through Delaney's midsection and bifurcated her rather cleanly. Sloan flung herself against the wall as a disc whizzed past. She felt no contact, but her side split open and her blood flooded onto the garbage.

(Chapter 16)