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compressed like he’d hit me. I was the reason all this was happening? I was the reason the Babylonians—
    “Why are they after us? Why would seeing me—”
    “Because you’re my granddaughter, because your essence looks like mine.” He paused for another moment, staring at me, then smiled and got to his feet, suddenly resolute. “Any word, Nathaniel?”
    Nate shook his head. “They’re blocking all communications.”
    How was this the same Nate I’d known for the past four years? How did he know about all this and I didn’t?
    Grandpa nodded as he came to a decision, his chest puffing out so he looked muscular, more powerful than I’d seen him this whole past year. “I’ll draw them out. If you can get them to your Jeep, you’ll have a chance. Safe house first, then one of the headquarters.”
    Nate looked like he wanted to protest but clenched his jaw and kept his grimace hidden behind his eyes.
    “Stop!” I screamed, my chest heaving and tears spilling onto my cheeks. “No one’s going anywhere until—”
    Grandpa pulled me into a hug that blocked out the rest of the world. “Everything’s going to be ok, Jitterbug. I love you.”
    The words rang in my heart like they had the last time he’d said them to me—when he was lying on the ground with the one organ that should have been his ally attacking him.
    The deep rumbles outside churned rocks against the metal around us. I dug my fingers into Grandpa’s white shirt, unwilling to let go. He couldn’t go if I didn’t let him.
    “It’s going to be ok. Trust me,” he whispered in my ear.
    Ria came to our side and wrapped her arms around us. Nate pressed our shoulders down so we would sit on the floor as he bent over us, trying to shield our heads with his torso.
    The sound outside turned deafening, and the metal door twisted and curled back inch by inch.
    Then the wind whipped in and darkness tugged me into the void.

CHAPTER FIVE
    I hit the ground like I’d been catapulted there. Every muscle in my body squeezed. I coughed and tried to inhale at the same time. There was no more air. Everything was dark dust and flame.
    I dug my fingers into the dirt when my lungs started to work again. Everything spun as I raised my head and looked up with my mouth hanging open.
    The house was everywhere, all dirt and splinters of wood now.
    A bomb must have gone off. That had to be it. Nothing else could have done this. Not this.
    I turned left and saw the outlines of three figures against a red horizon. The sun was setting quickly. Grandpa was directly in front of me, hands stacked on top of each other and gripping a sword of blue light. I saw the hilt, the grooved center, the edge. It was just like the one he kept in his bedroom, but it wasn’t completely solid. Blue light pulsed upward from his hands and sparked at the tip.
    Nate stood with his feet spread apart, a long, green whip coiled in his hand.
    I blinked several times, and neither the whip nor the sword went away.
    The other figure was harder to see. Some kind of black swarm buzzed around him so fluidly it could have been liquid. It floated all around, undulating in the air as if waiting for his command.
    A honeyed, lively voice projected through the air first. “You should have hidden her more carefully, Solomon. You knew we’d be coming for—”
    “You’re using power you shouldn’t be able to wield,” Grandpa said sternly, at once a question and an accusation.
    The shadows around the other man seemed to smile before he stepped into the light of Grandpa’s sword just five feet away. It wasn’t the monster I expected.
    He was Grandpa’s age but without the wrinkles. Bald. A black soul patch under his lip. A tailored, three-piece black suit. A smile so blindingly white and wide that it reached up into his eyes so even the darkness around him couldn’t diminish it.
    I stood and took a wobbly step forward. Ria coughed to my right, her body crouched near a narrow mound of earth, a small fire