by Ben Hale
"Perhaps you can serve a better purpose," she said.
Reaching to the shoulder of one, she touched an invisible tattoo that marked the nexus charm. The woman screamed as the ink lit up, and Siarra's magic flowed through the charm.
"What are you—"
The sister fell to the ground, screeching as Siarra marked them as servants of the Master. Across the world, every follower of Alice fell to the floor in sudden agony. They clawed at their shoulders but it was too late. They could no longer hide, and the thread bounced back to Iris. When Siarra was finished, she withdrew her hand from the burned tattoo and stepped back. Then she ignited one more spell and burned her presence from their memories.
Leaving them bound and staring into space, Siarra Gated back to Auroraq. Within an hour authorities arrived to find Hawk's home in ashes and the bulk of Alice's remaining Harbingers dead on the ground. Even the twins had no answers for them.
Chapter 10: Unto Dawn
"You need to go," Iris said. "If you don't go see them now, you won't get another chance."
Tess automatically looked to the horizon, searching for any hint of dawn. She'd slept longer than she should have, and time was running out. Her gut clenching, she turned to Iris.
"I don't have time."
Quad appeared next to Iris. "You can't be serious. They're waiting for you."
Siarra landed next to her, her magic fading in her hand. "You must go. I will make certain we continue in order."
"We have to finish the Halo," Tess argued.
Siarra's forehead creased. "Hope contributes to a victory as much as a weapon does. The Halo will kill the enemy, but its true power lies in how it will inspire the defenders. Your friends need you."
Tess relented and glanced to Iris. "Aren't you coming?"
"I already said goodbye," Iris said. "And I can't leave right now. The Halo needs these threads to be perfect."
Tess nodded and glided to the edge of the Spirus. With one last look at the nearly completed Halo of Dawn, she leapt over the edge and flew to the southern Terminous. Again and again she reviewed the list that needed to be completed before the Halo would fire and compared it to the time remaining.
One hour left . . .
She glided over the dark trees of Sentre without seeing them, and dropped to the ground next to the tornado launcher. Dressed in the black and silver uniform of new battlemages, her friends turned to look at her. The sight of them in uniform closed her throat, and she had to choke the words out.
"You all look great," she said, and hugged each of them.
"I wish you were coming with us," Derek said.
"Me too," Mike said, and he pushed Derek out of the way.
Laura laughed and took his place. "We bet everything on you, Tess."
Tears blossomed in Tess's eyes, and when they pulled away she saw the same in Laura's. Katsuo then stepped in front of her. "Call us if you need anything," he said.
"I will," Tess replied.
Brody stepped in and engulfed her in a crushing embrace. When they parted he flashed a smile. "I'll take care of Derek for you."
Last in line, Mara smiled. "I'll be in touch with Iris," she said, and then turned away. "Yes, Iris, I just told her that—yes, I know . . ."
Tess looked to her remaining friends. Over the last two days every member of the Order of White had joined the battlemages. In groups of five and six they had departed to join the front line. Since they had been helping her build the Halo, her closest friends were leaving last.
"Where are you going?" Tess asked.
"New York City," Derek replied.
"We're joining SEAL team seven," Brody added. "Don't worry. We'll be fine."
They stared at each other, and then Mike issued a sour laugh. "This is crazy, you know that? Auroraq and Tryton's aren't supposed to be like this."
Brody grunted and turned to Tryton's. "I looked forward to going here my whole life. It feels wrong to see it empty."
"Remember the Magic Melee?" Laura asked, her eyes bright at the memory. "My brothers and I pretended to play it when we were kids, and then my mom came home and saw how much damage we'd done to the house."
Mike reached out and took her hand. "I'm glad you invited me to those games, even if your parents kept kicking me out."
"That's because you kept betting against them—and winning."
In spite of herself, Tess was drawn into the conversation. "What was it like growing up with magic?"
Katsuo grinned. "I kept burning my dad on accident. He's a healing mage, so he would just laugh and heal himself."
"I was the first techno mage in my family," Mara said, "so I drove my parents nuts. They say that after I learned to talk I didn't stop until I was seven."
"In your sleep too, right?" Derek laughed to himself. "Iris would do that. Teaching her to focus remains the hardest thing I've ever done."
"What was it like being an auren?" Laura asked Tess.
Tess sought for the right word. "Bland," she said. "School was fun, but I struggled in most of the subjects. Memorizing facts was never something I was good at. I kept having to take summer school to make up for failing."
"You? Failed?" Mike appeared shocked.
"More than once," Tess said. "You have no idea how much fun magic was when I got here."
"We could have shown you so many secrets to the school," Mike lamented. "Like the old compression room below Star Hall."
Derek grinned. "I used to love shrinking things down. I think I still have a tiny jacket that won't grow back to regular size."
"The weapon room was my favorite," Brody said. "You could set the combat entities to fight each other and see who won."
In the back of Tess's mind she knew she needed to leave. The clock seemed to tick by, faster than felt possible. How many hours until dawn? How many would die in the first minute? Yet she couldn't bring herself to end the conversation. She saw the same reluctance in their eyes, and sensed they felt the same. When they returned to reality it would be time to part ways, and no one knew what was going to happen.
She listened to her friends and tried to imagine a life without the weight of responsibility. The way Derek spoke of sneaking into Professor Glant's classroom and rigging his desk to climb out the window brought a smile to her lips. This is what her life would have been without the Dark, without the war. Then a lull fell on the conversation, and the levity faded into sober reality.
"I expect you to come back," Tess finally said.
They grinned and nodded, and one by one the group boarded the glass orb inside the Terminous. Derek stood his ground and pulled her into a kiss. The contact carried a trace of desperation, as if both of them were thinking the same thing.
They parted, and Derek forced a smile. "Do what you have to, and I promise I'll see you when it's over."
She nodded, and then he was gone. As the tornado accelerated, she watched the faces of her friends until they disappeared behind the cyclone. When it reached maximum speed, the tornado sucked the sphere into the pre-dawn sky, sending her friends toward the battle. Wooden and hollow, Tess watched until it disappeared. Then she turned and flew back to the Spirus. In spite of her best effort, one thought reverberated in her mind.
What if they don't come back . . .
Part 2
Chapter 11: Facing the Dark
Dawn broke, and the Twisted burst from the cloud. Shrieking and howling, they bounded through the surf and onto the beach to be met by mines. The detonations rocked the morning from the warmth of Georgia to the beaches in chilly Maine. Then the entrenched army opened fire, and the deafening roar of auren weaponry merged with the shrieks of dying fiends.
Million dollar beach houses had been torn down to make room for bunkers and barricades, leaving a three-hundred-yard stretch of sand and rubble between the surf and the soldiers. Abandoned cars had been dragged into place, filling gaps in the concrete barricade that had yet to completely dry.
Huddling behind their thin defenses, th
e army fired upon the horde. The thundering boom of artillery and tanks drowned out the lighter crack of mortar fire. In the span of seconds the eastern coast of the United States had dissolved into carnage.
Marked by their larger statures and wolflike jaws, the human Twisted accelerated across the pockmarked sand like feral beasts. Little resemblance remained of their former selves, and their white, luminescent eyes conveyed hatred and hunger. Their combined snarls sent fear through the gathered soldiers.
Primates loped alongside them. Augmented into ten-foot behemoths, their skin was now filled with sharp barbs. One managed to get through the gauntlet of shrapnel and lead and tore into a French gun placement. Bellowing as it attacked, it caught the panicked soldiers and tore them asunder. Gun barrels bent under its wrath and its massive hands crushed concrete. Then a tank managed to put it down, and the beast disappeared in a cloud of fire and dust.
Wolves, tigers, and lions streaked out of the Dark. Fast and lethal, the greater fiends dodged incoming fire and leapt over the barricades, tearing into the defenders. The screams of dying men joined the shrieks of the bats above. Each bat had grown to the size of a jet. They formed giant swarms that collided with the aerial fleet of the Earth Army.
Tasked with guarding a section of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Captain Eric "the Wolf" Thompson cringed as a bear roared into the barricade next to his own. To their credit, the gun club manning the post stood their ground, but they were no match for the twenty-foot creature. If Wolf tried to assist them his own position would be overrun.
"Linda!" he shouted. "Can you do something?"
She turned and cast a gravity well on the beast. Forty feet from them, the bear turned and roared. Much of its fur had been replaced with barbs of bone, and they rustled as it tried to advance—but Linda's spell caught its rear paws and held it fast.
"I need support at gun placement 607!" Wolf yelled into the radio. To his surprise it was the Mafia that answered.
Wielding automatic rifles, the Chicago mob stormed the placement. Their combined fire managed to wound it, and it turned on them with a savage roar. Its jaws snapped onto one man that got too close. His brief scream was cut off and his gun clattered to the ground. Then one of the mafia pulled a grenade and skipped it under the bear.
It went off with a crack. Smoke and shrapnel poured into the greater fiend, causing it to stumble and go down. The mafia men advanced and fired up on it until it went still. Then they took the place of the gun club and turned their weapons toward the beach.
Harmon issued a grunt next to Wolf. "Never thought I would feel grateful for the mob."
"Me either," Baker said.
Across the gap, Wolf nodded to the mafia leader, who nodded back. In spite of the men's shady background, they had acted with grit. The president had allowed them to join the army out of necessity, but Wolf had doubted the move. For the first time he thought the president might have been right. They certainly needed the manpower.
"Nice job, Linda," he said. She grinned at him, and his chest warmed.
"One down, a trillion to go," she said, and turned her magic to the horde of Twisted that had taken advantage of the bear's advance.
Bunching into a knot of bodies, they rushed toward Wolf's position. Recognizing the charge, he dropped his gun and caught up the grips of the mounted .50 caliber. The belt-fed weapon roared to life, sending large rounds into the horde of black flesh.
The metal grew warm as thousands of rounds exploded from the barrel. Brass tinkled out the side in a golden torrent as the shell casings were expelled. Bullets thundered into the ranks of Twisted, cutting them down as they bounded out of the Dark.
"It's moving," Peterson shouted.
"What do you mean?" Wolf asked, and then he saw it.
As much as they paid attention to the army of Twisted, the Dark was the greater threat. The wall of black resembled a great, black cliff. Rising to the clouds in the sky, it stretched north and south as far he could see. Millions of smoky threads extended from its surface. Leashed to the fiends surging onto the beach, the Dark gradually advanced. Inch by inch it approached the sand, its massive bulk casting a shadow onto the line of soldiers.
The sight caused Wolf's gut to tighten. Every foot the Dark gained was one they couldn't get back. The Twisted may have been assaulting their position, but their real purpose was to advance the Dark.
"Watch the right," he yelled, and Peterson shifted to fire on a knot that had made it through.
"Baker, get a grenade into that mix!"
Wolf shouted orders as he fired, but kept his eye on the neighboring units. If something got past and flanked them, they would be squeezed like a grape.
"Rhino!" a voice shouted.
Wolf swiveled his gun in time to see it. Now the size of a tank, the rhino boasted a horn taller than Wolf's entire body. It plowed through the shallow waves and surged onto the beach. Then it accelerated toward the concrete bunker.
"Hit the C4," Wolf said.
Bricks of explosive buried in the beach went off with a colossal blast of fire and sand. The rhino briefly disappeared but burst free of the smoke a moment later. The shrapnel had scratched its hide, leaving hundreds of bloody furrows.
"It's like poking a tiger with a stick," Wilson said as the rhino tossed its head.
"Everyone out!" Wolf shouted.
As the SEALs hustled to exit, Wolf fired on the behemoth. Large caliber rounds sank into its flesh, causing it to roar and accelerate even faster. It closed to a hundred feet, and then fifty. Then Wolf heaved the large gun onto his shoulder and bolted.
"NOW!" he roared.
The rhino struck the bunker like a wrecking ball, shattering concrete and snapping rebar. The roof disintegrated as the horn tore a line through it. The rhino slowed, but not enough. In half a second it would be through. Then the C4 inside the bunker exploded along with a dozen claymores.
Diving behind a backup barricade, Wolf covered his ears as the ground shook. The explosion decimated the bunker and the Twisted rhino. The ball bearings in the claymores pierced its hide from every angle, tearing through cartilage and bone. The thud of its body striking the ground was heard even over the rumble of the detonation.
Wolf gingerly rose to see the charred creature on the ground. Its sheer momentum had carried it to within feet of the SEALs. He rose and walked to it. Incredibly it was still alive. Its jaws worked like it wanted to bite them until Peterson withdrew a Desert Eagle and aimed for its eyes. Two shots and the rhino finally went still.
"Get back and set up," Wolf ordered. "They'll have followed it in."
The SEALs left the corpse behind and hustled to the destroyed bunker. With the roof and most of the walls destroyed, they were forced to find cover behind piles of rubble. The moment he saw the beach Wolf's heart sank.
The attack had been carried out with tactical brilliance. The bear had punched a hole. The rhino had widened it. Whoever commanded these creatures was using the greater fiends to puncture the defensive line, allowing the endless hordes of Twisted to pour in.
Twisted had filled the rhino's wake, bunching into an offensive drive. Wolf rushed to set up the .50 and fire, but knew they couldn't hold. Every section of the front line had been given one element of greater firepower. Some had received a contingent of mortar men, others had gotten a tank. Their company had gotten the SEALs—and the rhino had run right through them.
Grabbing his radio, he shouted over the din. "Requesting immediate air support! Our placement will be overrun in less than a minute!" The response was not what he expected.
"East division company 608," a voice said into his earpiece, "do you need assistance?"
Wolf blinked in surprise. The voice was one he knew.
"Iris?" The SEALs around him looked to him in astonishment.
"Who did you expect?" Iris said. "Can you hold for two minutes?"
Wolf's jaw tightened. "We'll do whatever it takes."
"Good," Iris replied. "When you see it coming, br
ace for impact. Two minutes until airstrike from the Halo of Dawn . . ."
Chapter 12: The Halo of Dawn
"They need it now," Iris said.
"Give me two minutes," Tess shouted down to her.
Iris nodded and stepped into the firing sphere. "East division company 608, do you need assistance?"
Worry tightened Tess's gut. The weapon was not finished, but Iris was already preparing to fire it. If it failed . . .
With dawn lighting the horizon Tess flew to the summit of the massive spearhead that now topped the Spirus. Yellow and white curved and swirled in arches that culminated in a sharp point. Siarra flew up to join her.
"Is it finished?" Tess asked in a rush.
"All except the Gate," Siarra replied, equally as tense. "Remember, white magic is the most powerful kind, and is a combination of all other energies. Once we've cast the ring we turn it into a Gate and link to the Arcs we built yesterday. Gating is far easier if you have an exit already placed."
Tess nodded and reached within herself. In the distance the glow on the horizon signaled that the battle had already begun. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and it was all she could do to focus on her magic.
Deep in her magesight, she drew from all the energies around her. The distinct colors gathered into her hands, and they began to glow white. She felt a surge of pride and sent the white magic outward. At her back, Siarra did the same.
The blinding white energy streaked away from Tess and then split to either side. Curving in a long backward arc, it joined with the other half of the circle that Siarra had cast. The contact sent a shudder through the air, as if the sky itself felt the impact. The fifty-foot circle began to brighten until it rivaled the sun at noon.
"Now!" Siarra shouted.
Tess drew in a breath and yanked the fluid energy out of the ring, freezing the latent energy solid. Bereft of support, the halo hovered well above the enormous spear, glowing. The hundreds of Order members and battlemages on the roof cheered, and pride engulfed Tess. It was quickly replaced by nervousness.