“Hit her,” I said. “Codex!”

Codex reached out to use her brain-drain attack. It was visible only by the effects it had, but I’d seen it move through the Spree clones. It was slow.

Butcher had time to string her bow before she had to teleport out of the way, appearing on top of a building with a vantage point of the battlefield. She knelt, touching the rooftop, and reformed the stone into arrows.

That power was Butcher Eight’s, except he’d had more reach, was faster.

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She strung her bow, as if testing us. She started to create an arrow out of sand, condensing it into a more solid form.

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With more focus than before, Butcher formed a spike out of hard sand.

She was murmuring to herself now. Conversing under her breath with the voices in her head. She sounded oddly insistent, plaintive in a very childish manner.

When the weapon was formed, she glanced skyward, murmured something indistinct.

Then teleported a distance into the air, directly above the spike.

There was a wet sound, a pause.

Imago 21.6