Las Vegas was shaped a bit like an oval with a tail, roughly twenty miles wide and thirty miles long. My mist only spread 10 miles wide, so it was best to break it down into six sections.

Which was how I found myself standing on the middle of a large bridge in the Northwest part of the city over an obviously used-to-be-busy road labeled ‘95’. I didn’t know what that meant, but the road was filled with abandoned cars. The cars on the bridge had already been cleared off by the Hunters, so that everyone could comfortably fit in the space. Not that they actually needed that much room. Some of the Hunters simply enjoyed the idea that they could throw as many cars as they wanted off a bridge just for fun.

Even so, they still didn’t dare get too close to me and Kesstel. But that was the least of my worries. I looked over at Blood Sword, who was standing in the space between me and the other Hunters. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to search every space. The Portal could be as small as the doorway of a house.”

The rest of the Hunters didn’t even have to be here. They could be dealing with monsters or even waiting at camp while I looked. They wouldn’t be needed until I found the Portal. But the leaders were in agreement that the whole party should stay together, since they didn’t know what was going to happen when the Portal was found.

He nodded. “We understand.”

Basically, my audience wasn’t going away anytime soon. Well, might as well let it all out now.

I walked to the middle of the bridge and lifted my hands up as if I was holding an invisible ball. Mist pooled between my palms, swirling and condensing into a sphere. I pushed more and more power into the mist, thickening it until it looked nearly solid.

The Hunters a little ways away shifted, muttering to each other and trying to figure out what I was doing.

Kesstel stepped up to me and glanced down at the ball. For a split second, his eyes glowed bright blue before the color settled down. “That magic is really not compatible with the parasite,” he commented.

I smiled at him. “But it’s useful. Do you think we can end this today? I’m ready to go home and heal my mom.”

Kesstel smiled, a challenge gleaming in his eyes. “We can try.”

I spread my hands out wide. The mist ball exploded like a bomb, rapidly expanding out faster than I could run. It filled up the bridge and spilled over onto the road below, washed up the rocky hills and into the residential and business areas around the converging roads. My mist was thirty feet tall and thick as soup as it spread out, reaching as far as I could push it. I was instantly aware of everything it touched, every person, every tiny bug, every monster that turned and fled as my mist rolled out.

The Hunters gasped in shock. They knew I was going to use magic, but I never told them what kind, just that it wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

“Is this fog?” Tyson asked in disbelief. He lifted a hand and waved the mist through his spread fingers.

Another Hunter from the back of the crowd gasped out, “The Josu Ghost! She’s the Josu Ghost!”

Other Hunters piped in, voicing their surprise.

Meanwhile, Healer Laurel sighed and shook her head. “Goodness, I want to study that girl so bad,” she muttered.

Jonovan looked at her. “What do you mean?”

Laurel motioned to me. “We’ve been looking for the Josu Ghost for months. The researchers are dying to figure out how she manifested a new magic system. Noble was smart to keep her hidden at his side until now. The last mutant magic system they found died only a couple months after they got their hands on him. Reports say he went insane and started attacking people. All the clean-up crew found was mutilated bodies and several loose monsters.” She shrugged at Jonovan’s horrified look. “That was about ten years ago. Human life had even less value then, remember? Granted, most of the people at the lab still hold that mentality. Science over survival, you know.”

A chill went down my spine at the casual way she so easily wrote off a person’s life. Then again, I did the same thing with Price just an hour ago. The difference was, I could have been that person in the lab under the knife of the too-eager scientists.

“So noisey,” I whispered and closed my eyes.

When I was by myself, I didn’t have to worry about distraction. I could concentrate on what I really needed to. I wasn’t going to get some quiet time anytime soon so I got down to business. Even though my mist hadn’t fully spread out, I started to scour where it did reach, searching every nook and cranny for the abnormal feeling of a Portal.

Finally, my mist stretched out to the full ten miles. I was still busy searching the northern section when I felt something off on the southeast of my mist. That funny feeling was the only impression I got before it turned into a full jolt of alarm.

My eyes widened and I stiffened.

The whole city creaked and groaned as an earthquake rippled through the ground, rolling the ground nearly two feet tall. Thousands of buildings collapsed, exploding dust and sand into the air, creating a dry cloud that settled over the city.

A second before the ripple reached our bridge, I flung my hand out. A thin barrier appeared under everyone’s feet. In the same movement, I lifted everyone up, away from the bridge. The Hunters startled in surprise and cursed, but they didn’t have time to react any more before the bridge they were standing on collapsed.

“Calm down,” I called to them, then ignored their noise and concentrated on controlling the dust that polluted my mist. Really, I hated this stuff. When it came to my mental map, it was like watching a TV with a grainy, unfocused screen. But it wasn’t as bad to deal with now. Since I was stronger, I could force the dust to the ground, until my mist was clean again.

“Convenient,” Kesstel said, and tapped his toe on the barrier under his feet. “Mine doesn’t do this.”

“Mine’s a little pliable,” I admitted. “From what I understand, as long as I can think it, I can make it. But that doesn’t mean that other people can see it.” I concentrated on the southern part of my mist — the earthquake’s epicenter.

“What’s going on?” Blood Sword demanded. “I can’t see a damn thing.” He wasn’t the only one complaining about his lack of vision. “What did I just feel?”

Yeah, he wouldn’t be able to, not with how thick my mist was right now. All of the Hunters were probably blind right now. Everyone except … I glanced over at Kesstel. Sure enough, he was staring Southeast.

“I think I figured out why you couldn’t find the Portal,” I said to Blood Sword.

The crowd finally stilled, listening for my response.

“Why?” Blood Sword asked.

“It’s underground,” Kesstel answered.

Because of the nature of the mist, I couldn’t see the Portal. But I could feel the magic and almost angry energy radiating through the ground there. It was the same reaction Kesstel had had when I walked out of the Vapria Portal. A large section over there was blatantly rejecting my mist, like one vicious predator reacting to another.

“Where is it coming from?” Logan Fortin asked. Like the other S Hunters, he obviously felt the sudden surge of magic in the air. And like all the others, he couldn’t seem to pinpoint where it came from.

“The airport,” I answered him, not too surprised. After all, Kesstel and I were different from them. It would make sense that we’d feel it stronger. To make it easier for the Hunters, I thinned the mist around them so they could at least see twenty feet around them. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that because it sent a whole new shocked reaction from them when they realized they weren’t standing on the bridge anymore and it was now over ten feet below their ‘floating’ feet.

I glanced at them, just waiting for someone to stupidly fall off the barrier they were standing on. It wasn’t big, with a barely five foot lip around the group. The ground was still rolling in earthquakes that were about a hundred feet apart — something the Hunters could finally see.

I looked up at Kesstel. “Do you think you can reach it? Digging isn’t really my expertise.”

Kesstel lifted a brow. “Are you treating me like a simple laborer?”

I grinned wide and patted his shoulder. “There’s nothing simple about you, but yes.”

He snorted and brushed his hand along my hair, careful not to let it get caught in his glove. “Only for you.”

Another magical surge came from the airport, like a magic geyser. Loose gravel and dust was caught up in the movement and exploded into the air two hundred feet high. Another large earthquake rippled out, then that area settled down.

Kesstel and I frowned in that direction, watching. The dust cloud that had been shot into the air slowly settled to the quiet ground, falling over the tipped-over airplanes and abandoned cars. It was too still, especially after that violent activity. The other Hunters noticed the oddness and looked around, on alert.

“What do you feel?” Blood Sword asked me and Kesstel, his voice was a blaring horn in the stillness. He wasn’t turning over the lead, but he’d obviously figured out that Kesstel and I were a step ahead when it came to whatever was going on.

I glanced at Kesstel, the Portal expert.

“Trouble,” he responded, as if that helped.

The ground gave another rumble, but it didn’t come from the airport like before. The tremor spanned the entire land below, rattling the already compromised vehicles. Another wave of buildings collapsed, filling the air with noise and dust.

“There’s going to be nothing left of the city by the time this ends,” I said. I could tell there was a threat around me, but I couldn’t locate it. Instead of recklessly jumping into danger, I stayed on my barrier in the air and waited for it to show its ugly head first.

“There’s going to be nothing left of the world if this keeps going on,” Kesstel muttered. “If we close this Portal, is another one going to open? Then another and another? What are we going to do about the ones that exist outside of this country?”

I didn’t have an answer for that question. After all, it was a very real potential problem. But the most pressing question was, what was the problem under my feet?

All at once, thousands of pillars broke out of the surface. Dirt, sand, concrete, gravel, dead grass, it didn’t matter what was in the way, the ten-foot, dirt-colored pillars still surged out of it. It wasn’t until the pillars started to move that I realized I was wrong.

They weren’t pillars — they were worms.

*****