She didn’t take the time for any snark, but she blurred out of sight.
“Too bad she can’t carry a radio,” Valentine murmured. “Heads up.”
We were three-quarters of the way across the bridge when two of the lightning soldiers popped up in the machine gun turrets and opened fire.
Each impact on my shield translated into a solid thump to my arm, but it didn’t hurt, exactly. It was certainly better than the alternative. With each shock, blue sparks cascaded through the spell. Half-inch bullets flattened into disks and rattled to the pavement.
“Keep going,” Valentine urged. “They won’t be able to hold their bloodlust down much longer—when they rush us, it’s on. Pax, Morgan— cover the sides. I’ve got the center. Eliot, take out the machine guns.”
“My pleasure,” the other agent growled.
The gun on the left went silent, and the lightning soldier flipped open a cover and fiddled with something for a few seconds before pulling itself out of the turret and onto the hood of the Humvee. It moved with a strange, crustacean grace, as though its transformation had broken or replaced the joints of its human shell. My knees and elbows sure didn’t bend that way. The thing let out an unearthly howl and hit the ground on all fours, heading toward us at a terrifying rate of speed.
As though the howl had flipped a switch, a swarm of camouflaged figures appeared, rushing toward us. Some moved on all hands and knees like the machine gunner, but others ran upright. Their screams filled the air, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
Valentine waited for what felt like an eternity. Once all the lightning soldiers had rushed the bridge, he barked, “Now!”
None of the attackers had retained their weapons, so I dropped the shield as I stepped closer to the north side of the bridge. Valentine took two steps forward to fill the gap, a blazing pistol in each fist. The spray of fire ended almost as soon as it had begun. I blinked in amazement as his hands blurred to his waist. He released the slide locks on his pistols before the empty magazines hit the pavement, chambering fresh rounds. If nothing else, such a demonstration soothed any remnant of the wounded pride I held at his ease in taking me down.
Morgan shouted something I didn’t understand. Her shield rushed away from her and slammed into the leading edge of the swarm on her side, bowling them over as the spell dissipated in an ethereal flash. Eliot sprinted forward, leaning into the run as he headed for the momentary opening.
I hadn’t learned the shield-throwing trick, so I went with something I had mastered. Dropping the defensive spell, I thrust both hands out and focused on two of the closest runners. In my mind’s eye, a cylinder-shaped space from my palms to the inside of each soldier’s chest formed, and I pulled the heat out with everything I had.
It was the cooler on a far larger scale. The water in the air crackled into ice, tracing a line between me and the running figures. With no support, the crystals cracked and rained down on the bridge, but inside of each reanimated soldier’s chest, the remaining moisture reacted instantly and violently. Flesh solidified and cracked, staggering them in place as their upper bodies froze solid. Even so, the things kept trying to move, heads swiveling to look at me.
Valentine finished them off, emptying his pistols once more into frozen torsos. The ice shattered and exploded, and I tried not to look at the resultant mess on the ground. The bits of flesh wiggled for a few seconds, then fell still as a subtle flash of light flickered out of each.
“Reloading,” Valentine called. His hands blurred again—before the word was out of his mouth, he had both pistols tucked back into their holsters, swinging his arms back around with a replacement pair. “Look out!”
I shook my head and turned back to the fight. Pay attention, damn it!
The warning turned out to be moot, because a trio of running soldiers turned on a dime and rushed past me toward Valentine. I blinked in surprise, wondering if they hadn’t seen me, and then it hit me.
Mother needs me alive.
Valentine had a split-second to react. I expected surprise as the trio bypassed me and headed for him, but the look on his face was more annoyed than shocked. They bowled him over, and he disappeared in the dogpile.
The ice spell was too risky with Valentine in the mix. I grabbed one of the lightning soldiers by his equipment harness and tried to pull him away. The thing growled, snapping its head around. Blood smeared the gnashing teeth—while I knew Valentine was inhumanly tough, I doubted he could survive being eaten alive.
The thing in my grip struggled, and I almost lost hold of it. Just having a hand on it made my skin tingle. It’s a man-eating Van der Graaf generator. Trying not to laugh, I heaved with all my strength, toppling us both. It tried to pull away, and I thought I heard Valentine’s angry scream over the sudden boom of close-range gunfire.
The monster gave up trying to get away and wheeled on me. “She wants you alive—that doesn’t mean you need your legs, human!”
I tried not to grin as the force blades formed at the end of my outstretched hands. “Funny. I could say the same for you.” The beast screamed as I whipped cerulean fire through its knees and hips. It tumbled to the ground in a pile of noisome pieces, flesh sizzling. The intact trunk tried to hand-over-hand toward me, but I’d learned my lesson the first time I’d faced one of the Void. I speared it through the head with one blade to hold it steady and proceeded to reduce the rest into fist-sized chunks. The same light as before flickered away, and I dropped the blades.
The bodies on top of Valentine had fallen still, and he pulled himself out from underneath them. Viscera coated him from head to toe. He started to holster his pistols, then grimaced at the blood and unidentifiable chunks coating them. “I hate those damn things,” he sighed.
All of the lightning soldiers were down, a few still moving with mixed results. I’d missed Morgan’s technique after she’d thrown the shield, but she seemed to have held her own. Eliot had done the lion’s share—he held one of the machine guns from the Humvees by the barrel, the battered and blood-stained receiver resting on his shoulder like an olive-drab baseball bat.
I took a breath and looked around. “Is that it?”
Morgan wrinkled her noise at Valentine’s appearance. She waved a hand, and the blood and offal dried and flaked off of his clothing and equipment. Raising an eyebrow, I said, “So you can do that, but you leave me soaking wet?”
Smiling, she said sweetly, “It doesn’t work on water, alas.”
On the other end of the bridge, Eliot found a lightning soldier that wasn’t completely dead, and he brought the square end of his gun-club down with a liquid squelch. “I guess he’s next, anyway,” I said.
Ignoring the interplay, Valentine keyed his radio. “Andrews, move up to the bridge, we’re advancing in force as soon as you arrive.”
“Roger that, Valentine. You’ll be happy to hear that we’re bringing help. Agent Patrick knocked himself silly in the crash. He’s got a few dents and some scorched paint but he insists he’s good to go.”
It occurred to me as Valentine closed his eyes and pumped his fist that I’d never seen the man elated. His emotion typically ran a narrow gamut between bored and pissed off. Something so far out of the ordinary was actually a nice morale boost—we’ve got this.
Of course, then he had to go and bring it back to Earth. “We’re going to need him. There are another hundred of those things, if not more.”
“That’s not the most important thing,” Morgan murmured. “They didn’t attack Paxton.”
Valentine stared at me then, his face blank. “Okay,” he said. “How do we use that?”
Morgan smiled.
Chapter Thirty-One
Cassie—Wednesday afternoon
Randolph, Maine
The circle Helen drew was far smaller this time, and given that her medium was city hall’s parking lot, she had to make do with chalk rather than a simple stick.
At least the rain stopped. The black clouds overhea
d persisted, and intermittent flashes of lightning rippled through them, lending crimson illumination on the early twilight. Ordered to sit on the curb, Cassie shivered and hunched over. The day had turned even colder than it had been in Oklahoma. She didn’t feel nostalgic, exactly, but a slow death by frostbite sounded more appealing than the current horror show of red lightning and zombie soldiers.
Learn some magic, become an amateur exorcist, what could go wrong? She planted her chin on her knees to hide her grimace. Four of the risen soldiers surrounded Helen, stabilizing a collapsible awning against the intermittent gusts of wind. Another pair loitered not far from Cassie, but she wasn’t sure why her captor had bothered—it wasn’t like she could get away.
Under the tent, Helen was on her hands and knees now, scribbling with growing frenzy. Every so often she paused to consult the grimoire, and as she did so, Cassie realized for the first time that the pages didn’t so much as stir in the wind.
Be honest, are you surprised? Sighing, Cassie stretched out her legs to ease the ache in her butt, but that was as far as she could move—sitting meant just that, and her ass stuck to the ground as though cemented in place.
Cassie.
She flinched, looking to either side. It had been a woman’s voice, but none of the remaining soldiers were female. Am I losing it?
You’re not losing it.
“Holy shit,” she said, flinching again at the sound of her voice. Helen didn’t seem to notice, but the soldier standing to her left turned and looked at her with dead eyes that glittered with a malevolent intelligence. She forced herself to stare back defiantly until the thing turned away with a shrug.
Don’t talk. I can hear you.
She licked her lips and tried to keep her face calm. Who are you? What are you?
A moment of silence, then, I’m Roxanne. I’m here, with Paxton.
Her heart leaped in her chest. He’s coming? She frowned, then: You didn’t answer my question.
We’ve met before, you and I. Back in Phoenix, when Helen forced me to kill myself.
Cassie blinked as she remembered the redheaded witch, choking under the pressure of her own hands. How are we talking? Pax is the one who can do that sort of thing.
I guess you could say I’m cheating—I’m in your head.
She blanched, thinking about the shadows running under the skin of the girl in Paxton’s basement. Some sort of possession thing? Great, as if my week wasn’t bad enough.
You know the truth. Do it.
Inhaling, Cassie activated her truth spell. Up to this point it had proved to be more than useless—she might as well try and get something out of it. Why are you in my head?
Because I can help you, and you can help me. And I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to.
A smile spread across her face. Truth, truth, and truth. All of it. What do I do?
Relax, and share.
Her butt ached and her fingertips were numb with cold, but Cassie tried to relax. After a few moments, pins and needles danced up and down her legs, and the ghost in the back of her head giggled.
Oh, I’d forgotten what it feels like to be cold. Her tone turned wistful. I didn’t even realize what I was missing.
What now? Cassie demanded. The sensation wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly. It felt like her arms and legs had gone to sleep a bit ago and she was still in the process of shaking the feeling back into them.
She leaned over to one side, lifting her butt off of the curb for a moment before leaning back the other way. It was still uncomfortable, but shifting positions scratched the itch in the back of her head and eased some of the panic she’d felt with her body not being entirely under her control.
Of course, it still wasn’t, but this felt more symbiotic than authoritarian. It was, she realized, the mystical equivalent of a loophole. Helen had forbidden Cassie to move on her own, but no such orders pinned Roxanne down. She didn’t know how long that might last if Helen realized she’d found a way out, but it gave her a chance she hadn’t had a few moments ago. What now? She repeated.
Now, we wait. Just for a little while. Cassie shivered at the sensation of invisible fingers flipping through her memories, like a massive card catalog. And see if I can teach you a few tricks in the meantime.
Paxton—Wednesday afternoon
Randolph, Maine
Men shouted, guns crackled, and the air thumped with the sound of explosives.
Meanwhile, I ran.
The cacophony of the battle behind me brought with it no small share of guilt, but at least I wasn’t alone. Val and Eliot flanked me to either side, though the latter drew ahead as we moved—scouting the way. Twice, he signaled for us to stop our mad scramble, and we huddled together under the cloak of my invisibility spell while lightning soldiers sprinted toward the fight at the bridgehead.
Which was the idea, of course, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
The soldiers faded into the distance, and we stood and resumed our own run. We cut through residential streets and lawns, only slowing when forced to pick our way through trees or other foliage. Navigation wasn’t an issue—the center of the swirling cloud bank was evident, and except when forced to by the terrain, we maintained a path toward it.
“Getting close,” Valentine said. Pausing at the edge of a road, he checked both directions before leading us out and into the trees on the opposite side. As we picked our way through the copse, my skin tingled uncomfortably. Licking my lips, I slowed, choosing my steps with more care. Valentine and Eliot’s positions didn’t vary much. Though they remained silent, something told me that they felt it, too, and slowed to keep pace.
Eye of the storm, I guessed.
Valentine hissed under his breath and crouched behind a squat, overgrown bush. He reached out and gave a tug on one branch, revealing the sight beyond.
Military equipment filled the parking lot. A female figure crouched on the pavement underneath a square tent, with a soldier holding position at each of the four legs supporting the assembly. I kept looking, and my heart leaped in my chest as I caught sight of Cassie, flanked by two soldiers of her own. Hang in there, I wished I could say.
“Two to one,” Eliot growled. “I like those odds.”
“Three,” Valentine corrected. “We take the soldiers, the kid takes his mom.” He gave me a squint-eyed look, as though trying to determine whether I was worthy of the trust he was laying on my shoulders. “You got it?”
Taking a deep breath, I nodded. “I’ll do my best. What’s the plan?”
“Times like this, I find a plan’s more of a distraction than anything else.” He pointed. “The bad guys are that way. Let’s go kick their asses.”
We pushed through the tree cover behind the town hall. A grassy field lay behind the main building and parking lot. Its only major feature was a towering radio relay station, and I winced with every crack in the sky, ready for the tower to turn into a lightning rod.
Eliot bent over in an awkward, broken run that still managed to outpace us. Thunder rumbled, and the sudden red light gave Valentine’s smile a wicked cast. “Well, don’t stand there and watch him, kid—run!”
We sprinted across the grass. At some point, Mother’s security detail noticed the attack coming from the rear, and they peeled away from the tent to greet us. By then, Eliot had crossed the distance, and he took one down in a leaping tackle. Thrusting my hands forward, I considered the trace heat in the air, and two of the soldiers staggered as my frost lances pierced their chests and turned them solid. As on the bridge, Valentine’s guns roared, the frozen things shattering. Eliot had the advantage on his first target, and with a roar, he spun and heaved it against a parked Humvee. The impact rocked the vehicle up onto two wheels. The noticeable crater in the side as it settled back down and the boneless way the lightning soldier flopped out told me we weren’t going to have to dismember that one.
Valentine and I wheeled onto the final member of the guards, but Eliot twisted and bounced ac
ross our line of sight before we could execute our one-two punch. As though it had some inkling about what was coming, the lightning soldier actually turned and fled until Eliot slammed his knees into its back. On the way down, he tore both arms from its shoulder sockets and proceeded to use them like macabre drumsticks.
I had to avert my eyes. Throwing up in the middle of a fight was hardly the bad-ass thing to do, and even Valentine sounded a little perturbed.
“Dial it back, old son—think green thoughts.”
Eliot screamed again, bellowing to the sky in pained triumph. I had to hope that Valentine could get him back under control—at the moment, I had bigger fish to fry.
Standing, Mother turned to face me. She discarded the nub of her chalk and brushed the dust from her fingers. If Roxanne hadn’t told me about the spell she’d used, I’d have thought the figure before me another person entirely. They say everyone has a twin, somewhere in the world, but sometimes I think it’s more common than that. The first few years after my dad died, I saw him more than once out in public until the conscious reminder that he couldn’t be there hit me. At that point, I’d realize that the person really didn’t look all that much like my dad; it was a trick of the light or a similar mannerism.
The woman under the tent resembled Mother more than the fathers I’d seen in those ephemeral moments. She might have been a cousin or younger sister, but the smooth voice was the same as she studied the three of us and smirked.
“Paxton, you naughty boy—you weren’t supposed to bring any friends!”
I resisted the urge to duck my shoulders or grit my teeth. “I must have missed that stipulation. You should call more often.”
Her smile widened and she shrugged. “That’s all right—I can make sure we’re left to our own devices.” She turned and stared Valentine down. “Leave us.”
I couldn’t feel it, but the subtle vibration of her voice told me she was using the push. I’d learned the hard way that it didn’t work on him. Her widened eyes and obvious alarm were more than a little enjoyable.
Come, Seeling Night Page 25