by Cat Adams
I slid my knives back into their sheaths and waddled to the front of the chopper, leaning into the pilot’s area “Take us to the Needle,” I ordered.
“Are you nuts?” Rob answered. “That’s a no-fly zone.”
“My people are under attack. I need to be there yesterday.”
Rob turned to look at Chris, who was shoving past me to take the copilot’s seat. “Boss?”
Chris met my gaze. He got a strange look on his face, and I noticed that the charm he’d worn earlier was nowhere in sight. “Do it.”
Had I influenced him? Maybe. Maybe not. If I had, it wasn’t deliberate. “If you say so.” Rob sounded doubtful, but he turned the chopper and hit the throttle hard enough that I had to grab a handhold to keep my balance. I don’t know how fast we were going, but the scenery was a blur, and the engines were running loud. Rob shook his head and hit a yellow button on the console. Suddenly there was utter silence. I could hear our harsh breathing and the rapid beating of four pulses.
I looked at Chris, a silent question in my eyes.
“Stealth mode,” he answered, looking more like himself. “They won’t see or hear us. It’s damned dangerous—we’re risking a midair collision—but nobody else is supposed to be flying around there and we don’t want to get shot at.
Very cool.
“I don’t know how long it will work. They’re tapping into a node, and that’s going to disrupt any magic in the area.”
Rob scowled. Chris sighed. “Nothing is ever easy with you, is it?”
Emma appeared in the doorway next to me. Her expression was distant, as if she were watching a movie inside her head. Then again, she probably was. I had no doubt her clairvoyant abilities were putting on quite a show. “We need holy water—lots of it.”
Chris sighed again and unfastened his seat belt. He shoved roughly past Emma and me, moving steadily despite the jouncing ride and the wind coming in through the open cargo door. Squatting, he opened a cabinet beneath the seats where Emma and I should have been sitting and started drawing out weaponry, a full-auto Uzi with ammo, pistols, and finally two odd-looking pieces of equipment that I’d never seen before. They looked a bit like flame throwers, but the tanks were marked with a cross and labeled HOLY WATER. They were obviously meant to be worn strapped on the back.
I grabbed one and put it on, grunting with effort. It was much heavier than I’d expected from its size.
Chris said, “They’ve been spelled. The tank holds four times as much as it should. I have no idea how they’ll hold up around the node.”
There was only one way to find out.
He passed me a belt laden with hand grenades marked with a bright gold cross. He had holy hand grenades. I found myself grinning. “Tell me these are from Antioch.”
“Not funny, Graves.”
“Two minutes,” Rob called over his shoulder. “We’re going in hot. It’s ugly down there.”
Emma started to reach for the second tank, but Chris shook his head. “No way. You’re strong, but you’re not strong enough. And Dawna would murder me if I let you both get killed. I’m in enough trouble already. You’re staying here.” As he said it, he hefted the second tank, slipping his arms through the straps.
“My husband is down there,” Emma retorted, but Chris just shook his head.
Her husband? I didn’t say anything—there was no time for it—but if I lived through this, I’d be asking Emma some very pointed questions. I went to the door. Despite the long drop to the ground and the gusting winds, I was determined to see what we were in for. I was trying to take advantage of our position to get a sense of what was happening.
It was eerily familiar. Everything was laid out just as the Wedjeti stones had shown Dottie and me.
The two circles of power were less than a mile apart. To the west, I saw a smaller force in the middle of a ring surrounded by two parallel walls of sandbags. The first wall served as cover for the troops and vehicles. The inner wall protected the mages. From above, I couldn’t make out their identities; all four wore shapeless gray, hooded robes. The magic they wielded was colorful enough to compensate; it glowed a beautiful sapphire blue, creating a blinding glare.
Our fighting force—fifty men and women—was arrayed in a full circle between the sandbag walls. I couldn’t see individuals, but I knew Bubba and Talia were down there.
I turned to the east and my stomach dropped. The circle of power there was huge, glowing a vivid ruby red. Only three mages stood. The fourth—it had to have been Connor Finn—lay still on the ground. I hoped he was dead and that he had died painfully. Even with Connor gone, the enemy’s magic glowed brighter than ours, and by that light I could see a force easily four times the size of ours moving inexorably westward like a single entity. As I watched, there was a flash and a missile flew into the western encampment.
I heard the deafening roar of the explosion, saw bodies blown to bits.
I didn’t throw up. But I wanted to.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated on my siren telepathy, sending out a message to everyone I could reach in our encampment. This is Celia Graves. We’re in the chopper between you and the enemy. Hold your fire.
I said the same thing out loud, ordering Bubba and Talia to make sure the people in charge knew it was me. If I got killed, I didn’t want it to be from friendly fire.
Emma came up beside me. She was wearing the Uzi. With calm determination she wrapped her arm in a strap by the open door. “Half of them are spawn. They’re not even trying to look human. The holy water will injure them enough that the bullets can kill them. Go for a wide arc. I’ll be shooting behind where you spray.”
I turned to look at her face as the chopper began its descent. This grim woman wasn’t the Emma I knew. Then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d been tormented by a demon once and she was fighting for the lives of people she loved. I nodded as the chopper’s stealth spell failed and the sound of the engines returned with a deafening roar.
Chris tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see that he’d clipped two lines of black rope to a bar just inside the door. He was handing me gloves like the ones he was already wearing. I pulled them on as Rob prepared to fly us into the center of the melee, a no-man’s-land between the two forces.
I thought of the death stone, lying alone in the center of my hospital bed, and shouted, “Wait! Not here.” I grabbed Chris’s arm before he could throw cables out the open door.
“What the fuck!” Chris snarled at me. I flicked the switch to activate my gun, spraying holy water directly at a spot between the two circles, the spot we were flying toward at alarming speed.
The water hit a wall of magic. As we watched, horrified, the concealing veil fell, revealing a thing I could only describe as a monster.
It was strange, a shimmering thing, its appearance so affected by magic that it was hard to focus on it. I could tell it was huge; I got the impression of batlike wings and long tentacles lined with vicious hooks made of bone, but I couldn’t actually see them. I could see the eyes. Its eyes were terrifying, gleaming with intelligence, endless malice, and a terrible hunger. It roared, the sound beating painfully against both my ears and my psyche.
“Shit!” Rob shouted, banking the chopper hard enough that I would’ve fallen out had Chris not grabbed me. We made the turn, but when the thing swiped at us with a hook-lined tentacle, it missed only by inches.
“Where to?” Rob shouted, his voice hoarse. “The magic’s too thick to get near either encampment.”
“Go behind that rise.” I pointed to a clear spot and prayed that I wasn’t being an idiot. We’d be in for a long, hard run, but it was the best we were going to do.
Emma grabbed me by the arm. “That thing is demonic. Has to be. I’m going to call the archbishop and have him send in reinforcements.”
“Rob,” Chris called, “get the chopper as close to the blue encampment as you safely can. But stay alert. Don’t let yourself get overrun.”
; Rob gave him a vigorous thumbs-up without bothering to turn around and look at him.
I nodded, and as Chris threw the cables out the open door I looked down, fighting to master my fear.
I was jumping out of a helicopter. Oh, God, I was jumping out of a freaking helicopter. Could I do this? I bit my lip till I tasted blood. In my ear I heard barked orders as our force rallied to repair the hole the missile had created in our defenses.
I grabbed the line and jumped.
Even with the gloves on I felt the burn of the rope, like fire sliding through my hands, as the ground rushed up to meet me. I had to let go about ten feet from the ground, dropping into soft sand, easing some of the impact by bending my knees and allowing myself to fall forward onto my bent arms. I rose into a crouch. As I did, I pulled the nozzle of my water tank around, aiming with my right hand as my left hit the lever to release the water. A plume of water as thick as my wrist arced upward. I made sure to aim high; drops of holy water fell like a hard rain on the front ranks of the attacking army. Most dropped their weapons, screaming as if acid were pouring onto them from above. The ones who didn’t brought weapons to bear on me and on the man beside me. But before a single enemy shot rang out, Chris went to work, mowing them down with blessed bullets before pulling the pin and throwing one of his holy hand grenades.
There were cheers from our side; I could hear them even over the gunfire. As if we’d choreographed it ahead of time, Chris and I started backing carefully away, always adjusting the spray to keep the pressure on them. The footing was awkward, loose sand mostly, but with the occasional rock or cactus that would throw you off balance if you weren’t careful. I could feel the tank on my back getting lighter—much lighter, and much too quickly. I was going to run out of water before we reached safety. The enemy sensed it. I could see them holding back, watching the volume of the arcing water drop, waiting for the moment to rush us, to make us pay for the pain we’d meted out.
The late afternoon sun beat down on me. My skin heated and began to burn. Tears of pain sprang to my eyes. But I kept the water flowing, even as tears blurred my vision so that I could barely see to aim.
“The opening is ten yards back and about forty feet to your right,” Talia said in my ear. “There’s a large rock behind you. Watch your footing.”
I adjusted my steps as the flow of water from the nozzle in my hands sputtered and died. Without hesitation, I dropped the nozzle and started in on my own belt of grenades. The enemy had hung back, but not far enough—they hadn’t counted on my vampire strength. Explosions tore through them, killing God alone knew how many. But not enough. Not nearly enough. We were close now, but Chris and I were both out of grenades. I drew my Colt, switched off the safety, and moved to cover Chris. There were plenty of targets: too damned many targets, many of them bearing hideous acid burns and expressions of unholy rage. They waited, poised to charge, as Chris’s tank sputtered and died.
“Now!” Chris shouted. Turning, he sprinted full out for safety. I was right at his heels, running a snake pattern, seeing the sand puff up as bullets tore into the ground all around me.
Suddenly, directly above me, there was a flare of light, blinding as a welding arc, bright as a magnesium flare. Talia’s voice, strong and clear, spoke the words of the Lord’s Prayer as she held up the symbol of her faith.
There were screams behind us. Not all the creatures were affected by the holy items, but enough were to slow the horde to a stop, enough to buy us those few instants we needed to make it through the gap in the wall of sandbags to safety.
Bubba helped me strip the water tank from my back even as he half dragged me away from the gap in the sandbags. We were in the shade. It felt glorious, heavenly. As the burning of my skin eased, I was able to take in what my friend was saying: “… expected anything to happen until dark. They’re using the power of the full moon. We figured it would happen after moonrise.”
It seemed logical. I’d assumed the same, and I should’ve known it wasn’t necessary. It didn’t really matter all that much that the moon was on the far side of the planet. It was still full. The power was still there. Oh, it was marginally more difficult to control—but that problem had been more than offset by the element of surprise that they’d gained. Damn it.
“Now what?” Chris asked. “I’m assuming you have a plan, that you didn’t just drag me down here so that you could die beside your buddy here.”
I glared at him and bludgeoned my weary brain. We needed to tip the balance in our favor. There had to be a way.
And then I had an idea, an absolutely wonderful, workable idea. I started smiling. “Bubba, where’s my rifle?”
32
“Talia has it. She’s the better shot.”
“And where’s Talia?”
“Right here.” Her voice came from behind me. She was smiling, miraculously uninjured after her stint atop the sandbag wall. She wore the rifle slung across her shoulder with an ease that spoke of plenty of experience.
“Set the weapon up on top of the wall, aim it toward the circle,” I ordered. “I have a target for you.”
“Right.”
She clambered up onto the nearest truck, lying on her belly on the roof. I watched, shivering from a sudden chill that probably had more to do with nerves than the fact that the sun was rapidly sinking in the West. The enemy had given up a cautious approach in favor of an all-out charge. The gunfire was almost constant.
When the grenade dropped in front of me, I didn’t have time to think. Acting on instinct, I grabbed it, turned, and flung it over the wall as hard and fast as I could. Judging from the screams, it exploded behind enemy lines.
A familiar figure strode up. I’d worked with Roger Thomas in Mexico. He was a handsome man, well built, with prematurely gray hair and penetrating blue eyes. Even at the end of what had to have been a really rough day, his trousers had a crisp crease and his posture was perfect. His entire attitude spoke of command.
“Graves, you really know how to make an entrance.” He greeted me with a tired smile. Something about the expression bothered me, setting off alarm bells in the back of my head. The whole time we’d been in Mexico I’d never once seen him smile. Then again, there hadn’t been a lot to smile about. There wasn’t now either. I shivered again but kept my voice pleasant and neutral and watched him very closely.
“Hey, Thomas, where’s Chuck? I need to brief him.”
His features darkened, but it was odd, as if the muscles of his face were fighting against the expression, making what should have been a smooth, automatic change of expression look stilted and uncoordinated. “Chuck’s down. Flanders is in charge. He sent me here to pull you and your people to cover the breach.”
My people—all three of them—didn’t move. They were watching me, waiting for me to make the call.
“Thomas, I hate to ask, but I need to check you out. They’ve got spawn on their side, and you came from the direction of the breach.” I reached into my jacket to pull out one of my little squirt guns of holy water.
Thomas scowled at me but didn’t move. I hadn’t expected him to like it. But if it was really him, he was professional enough to respect the necessity. If it wasn’t, well, I’d know in a minute.
I stepped forward, intending to spray a drop or two onto his palm. When I did, he lunged at me. “Damn you, Graves.” Connor Finn’s voice came from Roger Thomas’s lips as he drew his Ruger. Fuck, Connor Finn was dead, all right, and now he was a ghost. Had to be. And he’d taken over the nearest channeler. He didn’t have time to aim as I closed the distance between us and chopped down on his right forearm with my left hand as I fired holy water into his eyes with my right. The gun fired as his forearm broke; the bullet went wild.
He screamed in pain and rage, his right arm now practically useless. The water hadn’t burned him, but he’d pulled back reflexively anyway, giving me the opening I needed. I dropped the little water pistol and slugged him hard in the jaw, sending him staggering backward.
<
br /> Chris drew his gun. Bubba moved behind Thomas, putting him in a classic choke hold, cutting off his oxygen. Thomas’s face turned red, then purple, as he struggled to loosen the muscular arms that held him, bucking and struggling, trying to get air. I knew he’d lose consciousness any second. I was glad. I didn’t want him dead. Thomas wasn’t the problem; Finn was. I was about to explain that to them when Talia screamed and I felt warm blood splatter down on me like rain.
I looked up as she rolled off the roof into the truck bed, screaming obscenities. Her right shoulder was a red ruin. As Bubba used his belt to tie Thomas up, Chris climbed onto the truck bed and began giving Talia emergency medical attention. I scrambled up behind him, heading for Talia’s previous position.
To the left, where the wall had been breached, I heard screams and heavy fire. The enemy had arrived.
There was no time to wait for Bubba or anyone else. It would have to be me. I took Talia’s place behind the rifle. Ignoring the noise and chaos boiling around me, I set my eye to the lens of the scope.
What I saw was astonishing, awe-inspiring, an image that I would take to my grave. The destructive power of the enemy mages had grown, and they were using it to create a force of pure devastation that would wipe out anything and everything in its path, our small resistance band and their own troops as well. It looked like a tornado made of fire. Flames flickered up from the base, forming a long, narrow rope of orange and red that threaded up the center of a whirlwind of gray and black smoke and fury. Through the lens I could see individual flickering flames. I said a quick prayer as, taking a deep breath, I adjusted my aim downward, looking for that small pinpoint of light beneath the flames and whirling smoke. There it was, their vosta, a ruby as big as my two closed fists. I focused on the faceted red stone. With a small, silent prayer that my instincts were right, that this was the best true target, I tightened my finger on the trigger.
The rifle kicked painfully into my shoulder.
I looked into the distance, ignoring the chaos that boiled around me.