by Sawyer Black
Boothe chuckled. A bitter sound without humor. “That’s exactly what I thought.”
Henry growled. “Where is everybody?”
“Waiting in a fishery south of Twyker Island.”
“You been there, already?”
Boothe nodded and held out his hand. Henry took it, and the light coming through the living room window was replaced by light pouring through an open overhead door.
Facing the docks, the sun rippled off the waves. Henry squinted into the blaze, and Twyker seemed to float on the waves in the distance. Sprawling rocks and thin grass. The old prison walls capped with shining wire.
“Okay.”
Henry turned to the voice. A tall woman dressed in black tactical gear stood in front of a group of men and woman dressed just like her. An AR-15 hung from a sling around her neck. A Burg City Harbor Patrol hat on her head, her dark ponytail poking out of the back. A name badge over her breast pocket under a silver shield. Hansen.
“Now I believe you,” Hansen said.
Francesco’s limo sat in the shadows next to the overhead door. The driver leaned against the front fender. “There he is.”
Henry grinned. “Hey, Oddjob. It was the double time, wasn’t it?”
Francesco grinned, and he tipped his leather driver’s hat. “You got that right.”
Frank was still shifted. Pattie’s muscles rippling as he rocked from foot to foot. Ramiel in his shiny suit, standing with stoic calm.
Aela stood by herself, arms crossed, the black handles of her daggers sticking out from her hips.
Stone’s feet scraped on the concrete as he walked up to Henry, ducking his head in apology. “Henry, we gotta talk about your people. They can’t be part of this attack.”
“Who’s in charge, here?”
Stone shrugged and pointed to Hansen.
She stepped forward. “My jurisdiction, so I’m in charge.”
Henry shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
“Now, hang on a minute …”
Henry stomped his foot and roared up at the metal rafters. Rage shot hot from his mouth, carrying smoke and embers into the air. He brought his burning gaze down, and Hansen and her men backed up, their eyes wide, weapons rising to the ready position.
Henry pointed at Aela and the others. “They go or you and your men will all be dead before you your first casings hit the ground.”
Hansen swallowed and stepped forward. “Fuck you. Don’t tell me how to run my show.”
Henry stepped forward, nodding with respect when she didn’t back down. “Is your dick being bigger than mine worth not saving those kids?”
Hansen performed the Holy Sign of the Cross, kissing her knuckles at its close. “Convince me.”
One of her men edged up and touched her sleeve. “Jesus Christ, look at ’im, boss. After what they’ve been saying? I’m convinced.”
Maria, Nadia, Aela, and Charlie stood in a little cluster off to the side, cigarette smoke swirling around their heads. Charlie crunched into a candy bar. He caught Henry’s stare and shrugged with a nervous smile.
Henry shifted his eyes back to Hansen, and she nodded with a single sharp drop of her head. “Fine. What do you propose?”
Henry jerked his thumb at the limo. “Remmy and Frank are gonna ride to the Viazo Grand in style. They’ll get transported to the island through a portal, and you’ll ferry us there. Remmy will signal us with his holy light once the party starts.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t worry, you will. When we hit, I’m gonna get a running start and kill everything in there. Your job is to shoot anything that’s not us, and not Pastor Owen, then get the children to safety.”
“Excuse me? We need to apprehend these people.”
“This isn’t your regular assignment. They’re not even all human.”
“You can’t just kill—”
Henry hald up his coffee can, then put it down, and held up his finger on his other hand. “You don’t get a say in this. I am going to go in there and kill them all. If you think you can stop me, try. But I’d hate to kill the good guys. All I want is to save the kids and get to Pastor Owen.”
He winked at the cops, then turned to Mike. “Can you get my back on this, Stone?”
Mike nodded. “I think we should … yeah, just do what he says.”
“How many kids?”
Henry shrugged. “They may have stepped up their game. Thirty? Fifty?”
“What about my men?”
“I don’t really care. Nothing matters but those kids. Could you really get up tomorrow and eat breakfast like always, knowing you coulda done something but didn’t?”
“Don’t fucking lecture me.”
“You’d have way bigger problems than the mayor on your hands,” Henry said. “Bigger problems than the Order. Maybe you can live with it, but this I can guarantee. Heaven remembers the choices you make. Trust me.”
Stone asked, “What do you mean? The mayor?”
“Who has the money and resources to cover something like this up?”
“I don’t know? Fucking Leonardo DiCaprio?”
“Come on, Mike. You heard my story.”
The seconds ticked by in uncomfortable silence. Shuffling feet and loud breathing.
Francesco pushed off the side of the car. “Traffic’s gonna make the drive a couple of hours. Better get a move on.”
He opened the back door, and Ramiel slid in without a word.
Frank stopped with one foot inside the car. “Henry?” His voice coming from the woman’s body. Instead of being hilarious like it should have been, worry wormed into Henry’s throat.
Frank swallowed, and the muscles on either side of Pattie’s neck flexed and relaxed. “If you see Adam, and I don’t get to …”
Henry nodded. “I will.”
Frank pressed his lips into a line and ducked into the leather seat. Francesco shut the door and headed to the driver’s side with a salute. The rumbling engine echoed off the steel walls, and he pulled away, gravel crunching under the tires.
Henry looked at all the faces staring up at him, then at an imaginary watch, finally calm for the first time all day. “Anybody got any cards?”
The boat rose and fell in the troughs of the chop.
Silent on electric motors, the only sounds were of water. The hull’s impact against the waves and the spray. Running dark through the night, the lights of the Twyker towers jumped with each surge toward the island.
They were aimed at the utility docks on the east side of the island. Hidden from the city light to a wooden ramp on poles sunk through the muck into the limestone foundation, rock that formed the wall leading up from the water. Hansen knew the patrol schedules. The timing of every boat in the harbor.
She and her men used night-vision to navigate. Henry used his anger to see.
The attendees’ glow sparkled through the rock. Single lines of souls collecting to initiate the sacrifice. Gathering in a room in the center of the prison. Surrounded by iron.
The boat swung sideways and drifted against a row of tires hanging over the pier. A jolting impact, then the hands of the Burg City Harbor Patrol tied the boat off before the rebound could send them back into the water. Over the edge in a crouch, and the other boat hit with a squeak of rubber.
Glowing eyes peering out from the dark rock, and the fluttering shape of a goll scampered up the wall.
A lookout? Just one?
Whispered shouts. “The fuck was that?”
“Are we shooting?”
Light bloomed in the distance. Golden shafts bursting into the night. Screams muffled by tons of stone.
“That’s it, kids!” Henry bounded over the edge with his feet churning on the pier as Hansen pressed herself against the railing.
“LIGHT ‘EM UP!” Hansen screamed, and the night erupted with gunfire.
The goll reached the upper edge of the cliff before catching bullets from every direction. Henry knew they were slipp
ery as fuck and almost as tough, but he wasn’t sure a goll could survive that shit.
He ducked as he charged up the ramp, bursting onto the flat plain leading to the stone perimeter — a thick wall topped with chain link and razor wire.
Henry glanced over his shoulder, and his shock nearly broke his rhythm. Aela matched him stride for stride, her hair streaming back, daggers in her hands and teeth bared.
Maria rose from the boat on a shaft of light, glowing, with energy swirling over her heart. Her nude form sparkled, a gold band around her waist and each wrist. She spread her arms, and her hands burst into white fire.
Boothe flew up behind her, his wings churning water into mist. Still a slave to fashion, he wore no armor. A white suit, hanging perfectly, his shoes gleaming. He held a black spear overhead and opened his mouth in a shout that Henry couldn’t hear over the wind in his ears.
The Harbor Patrol spread out in a line. Stone and Scott on either end, aiming into the darkness.
Henry faced front and pumped his knees, lowering his head. A step from the wall, he flared.
The energy he had held in check, blistering in his gut, spread out with a scream, burning through the air. It hit the mortared stone, and the wall exploded as he stepped into it.
The blur of Charlie Mara’s charge sped past his eyes, and they ran through the swelling wave of destruction, carrying themselves into the courtyard, heading for the churning light inside.
Aela’s footsteps dug under the patter of falling stones and dust.
White flames burst overhead, splashing against the prison wall. The blocks caved in as if hit by a train. Henry jumped through, pushing into the range as Maria’s light filled the air with brilliance, blasting through a haze of dust that moments before was a wall.
Ramiel’s voice boomed.
Today is mine to avenge. Your foot has slipped.
He hovered above the floor, his light filling every cell on the upper tier. Children’s terrified faces pressed against the bars. A Hell Hound stood at Ramiel’s back, snarling burning pitch into the air. Frank had chosen a pretty good shape to shift into, even though he blistered wherever Ramiel’s light touched his skin.
The orgy was in full swing. Naked bodies writhing on the floor. In the center was a stone table, a dirty child held by taut rope, spread out among a circle of flickering candles. A little girl. A man with a dog mask crouching over her, sweat glistening on his back.
Charlie tore through the hole in the wall at Henry’s side.
Maria shot over his head like a flaming Spanish arrow with Boothe on her heels. Henry’s feet hit the floor, and the naked revelers scattered with screams and wild eyes. Skin bursting as some of their true forms surfaced. Confusion and anger.
Nadia’s hot breath heated his shoulder as she landed behind him. She ran forward with her black claws digging through the stone floor, screaming, her raptor’s voice ripping through the crowd.
Ramiel raised his black sword overhead.
YOUR DAY OF DISASTER HAS COME!
Time slowed to a fluid crawl, and Henry saw the crowd not as individuals, but as a single entity. Flowing away from the danger at either end of the range, compressing into a swirling mosh pit in the center of the room. The armies of Hell and priests of the Order from Chaos were busy elsewhere. The Dark Auction wasn’t ready for this.
It was almost unfair.
Henry found the rhythm of his breath. The growl with every swing. Sucking air with every advancing step.
Flesh parted under his claws. Limbs flew. He darted in and out, winding his way through the blood and viscera hanging in the air, and he finally knew what it felt like to dance. He reached the table in the center of the room and lifted his hands to free the child, but Aela appeared under his swing, her face covered in scarlet. Her hair slicked back with blood. Her knives parted the ropes before his claws could fall, and he spun to look back the way he had come.
The air was an unholy curtain of red. Glittering as it hung in the slow motion of his vision. He sighed, slamming back into normal time as shock dropped onto his shoulders.
Blood fell to the floor like rain.
Screams and moans. Nadia’s shriek as she tore a woman in a lobster mask in half. Frank’s Hell Hound growl as he jerked his head side to side, the body in his mouth tearing apart from the force.
Charlie flashed by and drove his shoulder into a woman backpedaling into the wall. The impact split her in half and caved the stone in behind her. She fell into a splattering heap on either side of him, and Charlie stepped back, whipping blood from his hands in an arc that painted the floor at his heels.
Henry turned, and a grim satisfaction rose to compete with his roiling bile.
What have I become?
A whimpering at his knees drew Henry’s eyes to the man in the dog mask, the one that had been straddling the kid. He knelt at Henry's feet, hands clasped in front of him and shaking with his sobs. “Please,” he whispered.
Aela scooped the child into her arms. The kid squeezed her like she was the only thing in the world, a fierce gesture of relief. She walked away, stepping gingerly through the carnage smeared across the floor.
Dog Man’s eyes filled with a terrified light behind the mask. Maria glided over Henry’s shoulder. He stepped back, and Maria looked down at Dog Man. Her beauty stung his eyes. Her black hair rippled in the rise of her power. She held her hands out, palms swimming with white fire, and Dog Man reached up and slid the mask from his head.
His face full of awe. Rapturous joy. He took her flaming hands, and the fire shot up his arms, swirling around his head and falling to swallow his body as she pulled him to his feet.
He screamed, and his voice rose to fill the silence with agony far beyond what a normal human could suffer.
Henry turned, swallowing his vomit. The scream rose further, her flames growling and roaring.
But that scream …
He jogged to the steps leading up to the row of cells overlooking the range. He hit the top and leaned out to see the blackened husk of Maria’s victim fall to the floor, trailing smoke as it toppled. Charlie Mara rose out of the stairwell, his eyes wide with haunted shock.
Henry spun to the first cell. The child inside backed away, looking at him in terror. That look split his heart. The fear told him that he was indeed a monster. He would never be anything other than the demon he’d become. He swung in anger, and his claws passed through the heavy iron lock as if it were cardboard.
Charlie turned the corner, back in human form. Jolly smiles and outspread arms. He gestured for the child to come out. He wasn’t a monster, and the child listened. Henry walked down the range, slicing through every lock without looking back.
They hustled the kids through the hole in the wall, herding them like sheep.
Ramiel disappeared under a mound of children, trotting along with them hanging on with both hands. Henry thought he even saw a smile or two. Adam’s grin popped into his mind, and he wished he could feel those little arms around his leg.
Pastor Owen wasn’t here. So, his work was far from done.
He looked around at the bodies, what felt like hundreds, and he could feel their souls feeding him, fueling him further, making him want more blood to shed.
He saw Aela looking at him and he stopped, knowing that she was looking right into the core of what he’d become, maybe always had been.
He’d never feel Amélie’s hug again. Even if they got out of this whole thing alive, she was lost to him. How could she see past what he had become?
Through the perimeter, they ran among the rocks and sparse grass.
Red and blue lights in the harbor. Distant sirens.
They handed the kids off to the waiting arms of the Harbor Patrol, and Stone rushed up. “They were fucking everywhere!”
“What was?” Henry squinted into the darkness, and golls lay scattered around the top of the ramp.
“They just kept coming. Took a whole magazine, and they wouldn’t go down. Halfway th
rough, they just took off.”
“Where’d they go?”
“You tell me. We got kinda banged up, but Scott took a hit to his side. Got blood all over him.”
“Is he okay?”
“No way. He’s dying, but he wouldn’t let us take him out. Said to wait for the kids. We weren’t sure if you were even coming back.”
Henry broke into a run, but before he could get there, Aela lowered to her knees. She held the child out, and somebody took her. Henry thought it was Hansen, but he couldn’t be sure. His eyes were glued to Aela.
She leaned over Scott’s body and pressed her hands to his side. He gasped in pain, and Henry stopped when light sprang from Aela’s body. Glowing like she had the night he rejected her in Solitude, the light traced wings behind her back.
Feathers of light rose and fell, like a butterfly on a flower, and the light pulsed down her arms to enter Scott through the wound in his side. He growled, gritting his teeth, and the light flashed before dying, dropping to a single point over her heart. Scott stared at her face with sobbing awe. “You’re an angel.”
Aela reeled to her feet, catching her breath and shaking her head. “No, I’m not.”
She stomped up to Henry, not looking him in the eyes, then crossed her arms and stared at his feet. “Take me back home.”
Boothe stepped up with Maria back at his side. In her dress. Clean and neat. He looked at Aela with careful consideration and dropped his hand on Henry's shoulder. “She’s right. We should go. The police have it under control.”
Boothe stepped back, and Henry nodded. He took Aela into his arms. She pressed her face into his chest but didn’t return his embrace. He looked at Scott getting to his feet as he thought of Boothe’s apartment, and the island disappeared.
The living room unfolded around them. Aela forced herself away, turning and running into the bedroom. She slammed the door, and the apartment filled with the sound of celebration.
Henry was sure they’d done a good thing. The right thing. But looking at all the smiles made him wonder what they would have to pay later.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Frank wanted to know if it was on TV. He sat on the edge of the couch with a wild grin, the remote dangling from his fingers.