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Vladimir turned in time to see one of the cars get speared by a surge of light and explode. The accompanying servant flew back into a roadside tree, and their reaper didn’t get very far before being impaled by a bar of white light.

There was hardly time to react, hardly even a chance to glimpse the attacker. His own reaper was simply vaporized in an instant. Vladimir was not given the opportunity to lose his mind. Light engulfed his vision as he died.

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Hector watched the Queen take charge, directing the soldiers who seemed utterly shocked by her presence.

“You must all retreat from here now!” she told them. “That is an order!”

“Yes, ma’am!” said multiple voices, apparently quite keen to leave as they scrambled back into their vehicles.

Helen looked to Roman next. “Mr. Fullister, take the reapers away from here as quickly as possible. As long as the reapers are far enough away, Harper will not be able to sense them, yes?”

“Right, good thinking.” The man’s body was mostly restored by now. Voreese was already attached to his back, so he moved to gather the other two reapers up.

‘Here,’ said Garovel, giving Hector one last boost of strength and regeneration. Mehlsanz did the same for the Queen.

Then Roman was off with his three passengers, bursting through the sky again, up and over the trees.

“Hector, you and I will ride with the soldiers and help them escape.” She motioned to the adjacent vehicles as the engines roared to life. The ones at the other end of the column were already started back down the road.

Everything was happening so fast. He didn’t have much time to process it all, but he at least understood that these soldiers were in the most danger. He mounted his motorcycle again, and the Queen decided to jump into one of the cars with a group of soldiers. He brought up the rear as the last cars began moving.

Hector built giant walls behind the group, knowing they probably wouldn’t delay Harper more than a second, if that.