Gunshots rang around them now, but the madly dashing horses must have made accurate fire impossible, because Tec ran into another group of cultists, slashing and cutting with his knife. Men fell back, screaming and dying from the onslaught. Some men and women were born warriors, but Tec was a warrior god with the strength and speed of a were-jaguar.
And then everything changed as the howls of enraged werewolves resonated within the hangar.
Followed by all-too-human screams.
Chapter 32
As the roars of the werewolves carried through the thin walls of the hangar, Angie sped around its corner, intent on making her way through the side door and helping Erin and her brothers. A not-small part of her wondered if the Seagraves were even capable of recognizing her as a friend in their current state. That thought vanished when the young blond officer who had accompanied Nathan to the hospital came at her with a sword in one hand, the other extended as she cast a Shockwave spell at Angie.
The Other created a shield, stopping the underpowered spell entirely. The blond officer stared in stupid surprise.
"Magic doesn't work against other mages, honey." Angie assumed a mid-guard stance, her right foot forward, her sword arm extended, creating a line from her shoulder to the end of her blade. She leaned back slightly. "What has Nathan been teaching you?" To be fair, the other woman probably still believed Angie no longer had a shade, but Angie did enjoy the anger that flashed in her eyes.
The other mage swept forward clumsily with her cutlass. "Bitch," she yelled, spit flying from her mouth.
With no more than a flick of her wrist, Angie deflected the woman's sword point and then skipped in and to the left, cutting a two-inch gash in the woman's exposed forearm. She screamed in pain, dropping her sword and clutching the wound with her other hand. Angie almost sighed as she continued around her and slammed the bottom of her hilt into the base of her skull, dropping her.
Angie shook her head at the unconscious woman. "Obviously, he hasn't been teaching you swordcraft."
She turned just as two more mages came at her, a pair of Tzitzime cultists. One carried a two-handed ax, the other a pair of gleaming foot-long knives that could have been used as meat cleavers.
Or Angie cleavers.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tec saw Angie sprint around the side of the hangar, but he was too occupied with his own battle to go after her just yet. Two soldiers came at him, one trying to impale him with a bayonet fixed to the end of his rifle, the other trying to shoot without hitting his friend.
Tec kept the first man in front of him as he caught the bayonet with his kukri knife and swept it away. Then he darted in, grabbed the young man by the throat, and lifted him into the air with one hand and threw him with considerable force at the other. Before they could disentangle, he darted in and kicked them both in the face, knocking them senseless—hopefully without breaking their necks. What in the name of the bright heavens am I doing? he wondered. I'm going to get myself killed holding back. But with a glance about him, he saw no other threat. They had beaten or scattered the guards. Or, more likely, the guards were either running to help fight the werewolves in the hangar or were running for their lives.
The result was the same.
And then he heard the sound he had been dreading: the roar of the demon.
He needed to change, now!
As the two Tzitzime mages came at Angie, she cast Shockwave but directed the energy at the ground in front of the men. As expected, their shades created shields blocking the cloud of dirt and debris that flew at them, blinding them, but Angie had already cast a second spell, Shutter, and warped behind both men without their seeing her.
Before they could react, she stabbed the man with the ax in the back of the throat, the tip of Nightfall extending out from his jugular. Her blade slipped free as she danced back, already blocking a wild knife swing from the second man. Before he could bring his second knife to bear, she flicked her wrist, and the much longer reach of Nightfall's blade cut through both of his eyes. He screamed and fell back, dropping his knives and clutching at his face.
His fault for bringing knives to a swordfight. She stabbed him in the heart.
She ran to the side door, but it was locked. Before she could even consider using a Shockwave spell to break it open, she heard a great crash from the front of the building as the hangar doors shattered, and the demon that had killed Char came crashing through, four werewolves ripping into it.
If Erin had been frighteningly large in her werewolf form, she was small in comparison to her brothers. But as huge as they were, they were dwarfed by the exoskeleton-protected demon. It was like watching titans clash. Silken coats of fur covered the werewolves’ hugely muscled torsos, their limbs long, powerful, and ending in massive claws an inch long. Their jaws snapped at the demon as they tried to get past its armor, and they attacked in tandem, as a pack. One would distract the demon while the others came in on its flanks or from behind.
But as fast and as strong as they were, the demon was stronger and armored. It caught one of the werewolves, the largest, and nearly tore its arm free of the socket before the others managed to force it to let the howling werewolf go. Blood sprayed, but the wounded werewolf attacked again with its good arm.
The demon and werewolves were in a savage no-holds-barred fight to the death that would crush anyone who got in the way.
Tec raced past Angie, seeing the confrontation before him between demon and werewolves. There was no time to strip now. Instead, he dropped the backpack containing his water bottles, which burst open on impact and threw plastic bottles about, and let the beast out, altering his form at will. Within a dozen paces, his body shifted, more than tripling in size as huge cords of muscle replaced his own tissue. His clothing and even his boots fell away in shreds. Black fur appeared over his frame, and by the time he reached the battle, his claws had replaced his hands and feet, and his head was that of a massive black jaguar.
He leaped the last ten feet, flying into the demon's exposed back and sinking his fangs into its neck. Its blood was so foul he almost pulled free in disgust.
The demon screamed in outrage but fought on.
Chapter 33
Rayan Zar Davi slid along the far wall of the hangar, as far from the battle as possible, the air rent by the roars of both demon and werewolves. Once again, she wore her silk robes with her multicolored scarves, but in her hand, she gripped her hexed pulwar, the sword that had once belonged to her hated Pashtun warlord father. She was not without skill with the weapon, but it had been many years since she had last had to fight for her own life. Damnation! Her heart hammered in her chest as all her careful plans fell apart.
Everything had been in place. The Seagraves, blinded and bound by silver chains, were about to be loaded into the aircraft for transportation, and then that damned explosion had thrown everything into upheaval. Moments later, the Seagraves had just ... changed, their forms altering and growing as they turned into werewolves.
Yet it was daytime, weeks from the full moon. It was impossible.
But it had happened just the same.
As they changed, their eyes healed—she had had no idea that happened when they shifted—and their arms and legs grew far too large for the silver chains, which had snapped off, the links broken. Then the slaughter had begun. And such slaughter. Corpses and parts of corpses lay in pools of blood.
By the time she had managed to summon Gouger of Faces to defend her, the monsters had already killed at least a score of men and women, that fool Nathan Case's soldiers as well as her own followers.
Damn, damn, damn!
The demon and werewolves smashed through the hangar doors, shattering them and taking the battle outside. And then, adding to her terror, the black form of a huge were-jaguar jumped onto Gouger of Faces.
The Jaguar Knight was here—for her, she was certain of it.
What an unmitigated disaster. She needed to flee.
And then she saw someth
ing that gave her pause. On the railing that ran around the upper level of the hangar, a single small form with fragile-looking translucent wings crouched behind cardboard boxes.
A fairy of some type. And she held what had to be a talisman in her hands. So that's how they forced the Seagraves to change.
Rayan smiled as she headed for the metal steps leading up to the railing. She might save this day yet.
Nathan slipped back as the werewolves and demon battled just outside the hangar. Most of his men were dead, their bloody corpses littering the cement floor. He had barely a handful of soldiers left, but he had held back his four mages, all but that little fool Ella Summers, who had bolted outside at the sound of gunfire.
His soldiers and mages looked to him now, their faces stark with terror. Neither his nor his mages' Shockwave spells had had any effect on the werewolves. We're just not strong enough. Why isn't Smoke Heart doing more? She's a grandmaster mage, isn't she?
His combat mages, two women and two men—none older than twenty and immature as hell—stared at him, terror shivering through them. He had trained them himself, but they had never had to fight werewolves. What a disaster.
Just then, a new enemy attacked the demon, an all-black were-panther. He hadn't even known such a thing existed.
This has gone tits up, he decided. If he was going to save anything today, he needed to save himself first. Nothing else mattered.
And then he saw a woman in a Home Guard uniform holding a blue-black side-sword and watching the monsters fight, a sword he recognized immediately, followed by the woman—Angie.
"You fucking bitch," he whispered, disbelief coursing through him. "You fucking goddamned treasonous cunt."
His katana flashed from its scabbard.
Chapter 34
Bullets ricocheted from the shield the Other created to protect Angie as a handful of soldiers opened fire on her. They had just run out through the broken hangar doors and attacked her, ignoring the battle between demon and were-creatures. The Other blocked the bullets easily enough, but she didn't know how much mana she still held. When a series of Shockwave spells hammered at her, also shielded, she saw the true threat: the four mages who were now converging on her from two sides, trying to overwhelm her shade.
She cast Shutter, slipping twenty paces to the right, and then cast a Shockwave spell that scattered at least four of the soldiers, but the spell had been weaker than she had hoped for.
She was running out of mana.
LET ME, a voice within her skull asked.
"Who are you? What are you?" she demanded as more bullets winged away from her shield. Was the shield less solid now, more translucent?
SOURCE MAGE, THERE ARE TOO MANY FOR YOUR SKILLS. WILL YOU ALLOW ME?
Then, for the first time since the helicopter crash, she did something she never thought she'd do. She accepted the Other's help, welcomed it, and, in so doing, accepted what she was: a source mage.
"Yes," she said, giving herself to the Other.
Rayan Zar Davi shrieked with glee as her Blood-Fire spell hammered at the pathetic fairy, burning away one of her wings and stopping her attempt at flight. The fairy screamed and fell back onto the landing, jarring it with her impact, her stupid little face distorted by pain.
The talisman fell beside her, a dream catcher of some kind. Rayan would use it to force the were-creatures back to human form, and Gouger of Faces would rip them apart.
Rayan stormed forward, her pulwar raised to strike the fairy's head from her shoulders.
And then a figure formed out of black smoke in front of her, a young woman with long dark hair who was wearing nothing more than a simple tunic. When Rayan looked into the woman's all-black eyes, terror flushed through her.
Ephix Lamia!
The monster disguising itself as a woman launched itself at Rayan, transforming in midair into a nightmare from all the cosmic Hells, a half woman, half beast with scales and black fur and knife-like talons.
Rayan Zar Davi, no fool, cast Shutter, warping back onto the cement floor below as the lamia struck where she had been standing a moment before. Ephix's bestial head snapped about, looking for her, but Rayan was already casting a Mirror Alter spell, switching her likeness with that of her aide Patzin, who cowered nearby behind a crate. The lamia leaped from the air, landing on the screaming fool Patzin, but Rayan was already bolting out the broken doors, heading for the aircraft as if the devil herself was chasing her.
And maybe she was.
Chapter 35
Tec slashed at the demon, ripping a piece of its exoskeleton free. Blood coursed down the demon's neck from the bite wounds, but the demon was unbelievably powerful, and it countered impossibly fast, its claws ripping through Tec’s thigh. The leg held his weight as he drew back, but his blood flowed. Two of the werewolves were badly wounded now. Yet the wounded werewolves didn't back down, didn't hesitate. They snarled and rushed to attack. The tenacity of werewolves.
Two of the werewolves latched onto the demon's arms and then the other two its legs, presenting an opportunity for Tec to rip into its exposed abdomen. He leaped forward, but the demon swung one of the werewolves into Tec, bludgeoning him away.
Tec flew back, rolled along the ground, but rose again, shaking his jaguar head and readying himself to fight once more. There was no retreat from this fight, no matter how powerful their foe.
And then the black shape of Ephix Lamia flew into the demon, her claws ripping through the chitin armor covering its chest and belly, exposing the vulnerable flesh beneath.
The demon screamed, and Tec launched himself into the fray once more. Now four werewolves, a were-jaguar, and a lamia battled the demon.
The odds had just shifted.
Angie watched as if detached from herself as she dropped Nightfall and extended her hands toward her enemies. The Other was driving this bus, she realized, and she was only a spectator. Moments later, twin tornadoes of fire flashed into existence before her, each at least fifteen feet high and wide at the top of the fiery funnels, winding down into snapping, crackling bases of flame.
The tornadoes rushed away, burning through the soldiers shooting at her, pausing only long enough to light a man or woman on fire and then rush to another. It was like the night of the helicopter crash again.
Surprisingly, it was Nathan's new mages that broke first, although they had the most protection with their shades. It didn't matter. The tornadoes caught the first two mages, sweeping them up into their funnel clouds, throwing them about like dust. Their screams died out within seconds as their shades ran out of mana. The reek of burned flesh hung in the air as the tornadoes raced after the last two mages, easily catching them as well. Their fates were the same as those of the first two.
YOURS NOW, the Other spoke, and she felt its control slip away.
The flame tornadoes dissipated into black smoke, leaving Angie alone to face Nathan as he stepped out of the hangar. In his hand, he gripped his hexed katana, his handsome bearded face contorted in shock and disbelief as he stared at the charred corpses of his mages. "What ... what have you done? How?"
She inhaled deeply and picked up Nightfall from where it lay on the ground before her.
"Come on, Nathan," she said as she slipped into a fighting stance, her blade extended. "You have crimes to answer for."
Just for a moment, she thought he'd run. But his shock gave way to anger.
Nathan came at her.
Still in his were-jaguar form, Tec backed away as the Seagraves ripped the demon apart. As the demon died, or whatever it was that happened to demons when their bodies were destroyed, its form began to smoke and dissipate, to literally turn to ash and drift away on the breeze while leaving behind a greasy stain on the ground and the stench of sulfur and blood.
Tec stumbled into something—Ephix, blood running down her savaged flank—and spun away from her as the Seagraves began to growl at them both, moving around them.
The werewolves had no control over their
bloodlust now, he knew, and would attack him and Ephix as easily as they had the demon. Not so good, he thought, his limbs shaking with exhaustion, blood dripping down his savaged leg. Not so good at all.
Chapter 36
Nathan and Angie came together, their blades flashing. Each tried to move off-line to the other's attack, seeking an opening while keeping their torsos as far back as they could, avoiding the other's attempt at a lunge. Angie expected to die, to be cut down by Nathan's sword in a heartbeat.
To her very great surprise, she wasn't, and after the initial clash, they both drew back, appraising each other. As Angie considered Nathan, a series of epiphanies coursed through her.
One, while Nathan had been the best fencer in Char's school, Char had taught Renaissance rapier combat, not medieval Japanese sword fighting. He had always looked very grand with his Japanese katana, but fighting wasn’t about looks, and Nathan didn't possess the same skill with a katana that he had with a battle rapier.
Two, his katana was a two-handed weapon intended for powerful slashes and cuts, whereas her side-sword was a thrusting weapon that she could use to cut if she had to, but she rarely did. As such, he had far more power, but she was ridiculously faster.
Three—most shocking—she was at least as good as he was now.
She didn't know when that had happened, but it must have been the long months of nightly drills against Bob. She had honed her sword-fighting skills to an unimaginable level, while Nathan had probably stopped training after he became the commander of the Home Guard. She saw in his eyes that he had just come to the same recognition—and it both astonished and frightened him.
The Awakened World Boxed Set Page 27