Thus, instead of attempting another assault, it hovers for a minute, as if looking over my shoulder at Charun, and then dissipates into the cool night air, on the hunt for a new, vulnerable practitioner to become its next host.
There’s nothing I can do to stop that hunt. I can’t kill the incorporeal, and I have no circle to trap a spirit with. Using a circle requires somebody with a lot more magic chops than I have, one of DSI’s minor practitioners at least, and a whole lot of study and preparation no one had time to do before this clusterfuck of a raid. So the fire spirit gets off easy. Tonight. Soon enough, though, I swear to every god in creation, I’ll send that fucker back to the hellhole it came from.
Sticking my gun back in the holster, I glance down at Smith’s corpse again. More likely than not, she was dead the moment she was possessed. Powerful possessions destroy the mind, rendering the host a vegetable. And given how the spirit likes to exit its victims, her body, too, would have died anyway. But looking at her bloody form, one intact eye staring, empty, at the overcast sky, I can’t help the mountain of guilt and disgust that washes over me. I feel sick, stomach in knots.
I’ve never shot another person before.
I can already see my depressed, alcoholic future waving in the distance…Christ.
My body shakes from head to toe as I bend down to recover Brendon, who’s a little worse for wear, bruised and scratched in several places, but alive and breathing. I turn him over so I can pick him up again, haul him onward to my original destination, the parking garage where my getaway car awaits.
But as he flops over onto his back, I catch sight of a small object lying next to him on the bricks. Leaning closer, I realize the object is secured to a necklace, looped around Brendon’s neck with a thin, black chain. The object itself is a…key? An old-timey, Victorian-era key, large, clunky, and rusted over.
Huh. It must have been tucked into his shirt.
I reach over and pick up the key to evaluate it more closely, wondering why Brendon was carrying…
I don’t know what happens next.
My assumption is that Charun shakes off my lightning blast, recovers his hammer using his mysterious ability to silence himself at will, and then throws his hammer, along with a mighty burst of power, in my general direction. But I can’t be sure of the exact sequence of events—because the second the energy field smacks my body like a speeding train, all my senses go on the fritz.
There’s a brief, blurred glimpse of Brendon’s head exploding on impact with the hammer, a sensation of being covered in blood and brain and bone fragments, warm and sticky, the sound of a dozen church bells, ringing in my head, the weightlessness of flight and fall, churning in my stomach, and, finally, the feeling of ramming into a hard surface, butt first, going fast enough to break every bone in my body. Somehow, though, my bones remain intact, even as my left shoulder is wrenched out of its socket. Which, I imagine, is the “lucky” result of landing on the windshield of a car instead of the asphalt on the road.
Had Charun sent me flying four feet to the left or right, I’d have missed the car and broken my skull, neck, back, and pretty much everything else in my body. As it is, I come to rest with my rear end jammed through the windshield of somebody’s brand new BMW, parked across from a sidewalk bench on Compton Street.
The impact leaves me breathless, dizzy, disorientated, and my limbs feel like sacks of liquid attached to my torso with Velcro pads. My vision is so distorted, my mind so messed up, I mistake the cloudy night sky for the ocean at first. And my ears, filled with static, hear nothing but a thump, thump, thumping vibration coming from somewhere nearby.
When my brain finally reboots from the shock, I realize where I am and what must have happened and that I am royally fucking screwed. Because the first thing I see when my eyes refocus, my head tipped backward over the side of the car, is an upside-down view of Charun storming through the gate, out of the deserted park, and into a heavily populated neighborhood of the city. Where anybody can see him. And where anybody can see what he’s about to do to me. Me and every other breakable object in my immediate vicinity.
To the owner of the new BMW: I really hope you have good insurance.
Chapter Twenty
It takes Charun all of five seconds to track me down again, lying prone on the BMW’s broken windshield. His hellish, glowing eyes lock onto my injured form, and he bellows out a word in Etruscan that echoes through the alleys and walkways of Compton Street. I can’t guess the exact meaning of the word, but his tone indicates he’s pissed at me. Pissed enough to power up his hammer with another surge of energy in the hopes of taking my head off my shoulders in a bloody explosion. Like he just did to Jack Brendon, whose limp body rests in a heap of tangled limbs against the bars of the park wall, where it was thrown by the hammer’s strike.
Stepping closer to me, the death demon lifts his mighty weapon to launch it through the air. The thrum of power in the hammer forces my eyes into magic sensing mode, almost a physical tug on my sockets, and the aura around the hammer shifts from a subtle blue glow to a vibrant cobalt radiance, six feet in diameter, with the hammer’s head at its center. Arms wound back in the perfect throwing position, Charun yells the same word at me again, like he’s cussing me out.
My muddled mind finally sharpens enough for me to realize I need to move before I end up Kinsey slurry on the top of a BMW. Wriggling my butt out of the hole in the glass, I use my right arm—the one not dislocated at the shoulder—to haul myself off the windshield and roll down the hood of the car.
None of the glass cut through my combat gear, but the force of the impact bruised half my sensitive skin (and probably a couple of ribs). And so, as I tumble, every bump against the aluminum sends spikes of pain shooting through my entire body. I brace myself for pure agony as I slide off the hood and onto my knees on the asphalt in front of the grille. The landing causes me to seize up, jaw clenched to prevent a scream from sounding off like an alarm on the quiet street, until another rush of adrenaline floods my system at the sight of Charun flinging the hammer at my head.
With my one good arm and leg, I dive out of the path of the oncoming enchanted hammer and shakily somersault to a stop on the sidewalk the instant before the hammer slams into the BMW. The front end of the car implodes, an ear-splitting squeal of bending, breaking metal. And then the massive store of energy in the weapon discharges. The entire car skids backward, wheels barely skimming the road, glass shattering, frame crunching, until the hammer runs out of power. The ruined car collides with the side of a closed convenience store and flops to a stop with a resounding boom.
For a couple of seconds, the car alarm—that, for some reason, stayed quiet when my ass hit the glass—attempts to shriek about a “break-in attempt,” but its sound warbles and gradually dies, the alarm mechanism too damaged. Silence envelops the BMW as the vehicle rests at a shallow angle, pinned to the wall, with the hammer sticking out of the warped front end, half-buried in the car’s metallic guts. Totaled. Doomed to one last trip to the junkyard in the sky.
I scramble to my feet with the help of a nearby light pole, cringing at the sight of some unfortunate person’s brand new ride rendered a piece of scrap on the opposite sidewalk. That and the fact several windows in the nearby apartment buildings light up, indicating numerous occupants suffered rude awakenings to the sound of a giant hammer striking a car with the force of a battering ram. Any second now, they’ll pull back their curtains and peer out into the street. And ultimately, they will bear witness to a creature that shouldn’t exist killing an injured young man next to Holden Park.
I need to get Charun back inside the park, out of sight. Now.
But how?
I can’t run with my damaged ankle. I can’t even crawl on my hands and knees because, hello, dislocated shoulder. Swears break through my heaving breaths, along with groans of frustration, as I cling to the light pole, unable to do anything but watch Charun stalk across the street to recover his hammer from the w
recked BMW. He grabs it with one hand, and though it should be firmly trapped in the car’s inner workings, he yanks it out with ease, as if plucking a flower. He spins the hammer around and sits it on his shoulder. Then he turns back to me, a wicked grin etched into his ugly blue face.
I may or may not whine in terror like a puppy driven into a corner by a pack of hungry wolves—I’m not listening to myself well enough to confirm or deny such an embarrassing noise slips out of my mouth. But I know for sure that I push away from the light pole and stagger backward into the park wall, one shaky hand held in front of my bruised face, like a shield of bone and skin will do anything to Charun’s next attack except make it bloodier. My breath seizes up in my aching chest, and my brain frantically sifts through a dozen half-baked ideas, trying to figure out something, anything that’ll get me to safety before Charun throws the hammer again.
No weapons. No strength to run. You’re out of options, Kinsey. This is the dead end.
Charun winds up for another toss, one guaranteed to catch me in its explosive range, and shouts out that same, dirty-sounding Etruscan word again, like the death demon considers me a piece of filth. About as worthy to be in his presence as a piece of gum on a shoe. As if my inept attempts to defeat him have rendered me an offensive laughing stock that needs to be flung into the nearest dumpster to rot with the rest of the trash. As if—
A manhole cover soars through the air and knocks the hammer out of Charun’s hands. And by “knocks,” I mean the hammer flies out of the demon’s grasp, spinning end over end, and crashes through a jewelry store window two blocks away. The manhole cover hits the asphalt with a bang and rolls down the street, until it skims a parked pickup truck and falls flat on its side, ringing like a tuning fork struck with a careful finger. The bright green aura around the manhole cover dissipates after it comes to a complete stop.
Charun blinks his glowing eyes, and what might be a look of confusion comes over his face. (It’s hard to tell with the tusks.) His head snaps to the left, and my own eyes follow his line of sight, to the end of the block. Next to a UPS mailbox stands a woman in dark clothing, more heavy manhole covers floating in the air beside her. Each cover is wrapped in that same green aura, visible through my magic-sensitive eyes, and each one spins slowly, in time with the subtle twitches of her fingers, which are also tinted by her aura.
The woman steps forward under the glow of the nearest streetlight, revealing herself.
It’s Erica the witch.
Her braid has been pinned back tightly against her skull, and she’s exchanged her casual work clothes for a leathery battle outfit, not dissimilar to DSI’s standard garb. A couple of curved blades hang from her belt, their sheaths covered in intricate gold patterns and words written in a language I don’t know. Her face is set in a hard frown, narrowed eyes locked onto the Eververse creature that has dared to invade her city. Her fingers curl inward, and the manhole covers begin to spin faster in the air, gearing up for another attack.
Charun stares at the witch for a moment, growls, and then bounds off for where his hammer landed. He’s fast, faster than something his size should be. But Erica is even quicker. With a furious battle cry, she launches another manhole cover, using a hand motion that mimics throwing a discus. The cover jets through the air in an arc-shaped trajectory, looping back around to pick up as much momentum as possible, before it strikes the side of Charun’s head with a sickening crunch.
The Etruscan death demon stumbles back toward the entrance of the park and falls to his knees. Blood pours from a gaping wound in the side of his head, skull cracked. He looks dazed for a minute, the glow in his eyes dimming, but he shakes away the pain with a snort and pushes himself to his feet again.
I gape, sputtering, horrified that he can brush off such a serious injury, like a skull fracture is on par with a broken nail. But then my brain dredges up my memory of the academy course I took on the Eververse. Creatures from the Eververse, especially creatures mentioned in human history—AKA, the powerful ones—tend to be far more resilient than Earth beings. A number of them are rumored to be genuinely immortal, and I would guess that a guardian of an underworld is one of the types likely to be immortal. Charun might not be killable at all.
But that doesn’t stop Erica from nailing him hard. Charun manages to grab his hammer this time around, but he’s not quite fast enough to lift it in defense before two of Erica’s manhole covers wallop his chest simultaneously. This time, instead of bouncing off Charun’s tough form and rolling away, the covers push Charun backward, a continuous exertion of a massive amount of energy, more than I could ever pull into beggar rings. And even though the monster braces his feet against the ground to hold his place, he begins to slide.
Five feet. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Charun passes through the park gate again, and when the back of his knees hit the concrete blocks, he trips over them and lands on his own ass with a ground-shaking thump. The manhole covers slip off his chest, circular blurs in the night, and vanish into the tree line, where they crash to a stop against some hefty trunks in a collision I don’t see.
My face is plastered to the metal bars of the park wall, attention on Charun, who’s trying to maneuver his hefty legs over the cement blocks so he can stand up again. Awe thrumming through me, I peel my gaze from the death demon and cast it to the witch now darting toward the park gate, trailed by four more manhole covers floating in midair. Erica passes in close proximity to me, and as she’s heading inside the park, she acknowledges me for the first time. With a wink. And a sly grin that evolves to a mocking air kiss.
Then she crosses into the park turned battlefield to continue her bruising onslaught. As soon as she does, four blurs dart past me, moving at a dizzying pace, far faster than any normal human could manage. They turn the corner of the sidewalk and streak into the park on Erica’s tail, two of them glowing with magic auras, two of them yet to “power up.” The last guy in the lineup slows for a split second, to survey the situation before diving in, and I realize, from the glimpse of a strong beard, that it’s Allen Marcus, the ICM leader. The other blurs must be the backup wizards and witches he called after our task meeting.
Marcus rushes into the park, his own form lighting up with a soft turquoise aura, and joins the battle to take down Charun. The death demon, now on his feet, seems to realize he’s outmatched, up against so many strong practitioners. And as another one of Erica’s manhole covers collides with his already abused head, he lets out a mighty roar, then turns and retreats into the woods on the left side of the brick path.
Retreats. The Etruscan death demon. Gives up and runs away.
The witches and wizards, still moving inhumanly fast with the help of some charm or spell, pursue Charun into the shadowy woods. Erica drops her last manhole cover onto the soggy earth next to the sidewalk, throws an amused glance over her shoulder, at me, and then activates her own super-speed magic, charging forward to catch up to her companions. She vanishes into the trees, and after a few more seconds of thumping steps and fading battle cries, the park goes quiet, the fight too far away to hear. In fact, everything goes quiet except my heart thudding in my chest.
Dazed and pained, I go lax against the park wall, a faint, exasperated laugh fluttering in my chest. I track my gaze across the neighborhood apartments in search of curious, prying eyes, but I only see one elderly man, who scans the street, stops on the crushed BMW, makes a confused grimace, and then drops his curtain. He doesn’t even notice my black-clad body, curled up against the wall. Or if he does, he writes me off as a random homeless guy and ignores me. Which works fine for me, because I don’t want anybody to see me in this state. Hunched over and beaten to a pulp.
Not that I ever get what I want.
Half a minute later, as sirens begin to wail in the distance, a black van speeds around the corner, onto Compton Street, and screeches to a halt in front of me. The back doors burst open, revealing Ella and Delarosa, who hop out and rush toward me. Ella sinks to her knees
in front of me, and her gentle, gloved hand cups my face. “Cal, can you get up? Can you walk? We’ve been recalled to base, and we need to be way out of sight before the cops show up. Because as far as they will ever know, we were not here. At all. Catch my drift?”
I blink at her worried face, bleary, and nod. The Aurora PD isn’t supposed to know that DSI engages in fights like this. Our public function is assisting “strange” investigations. Whenever we have an explosive showdown, we have to skedaddle before the blue and red lights arrive on scene. Either that, or our PD liaison has to cook up an excuse for our presence, which he or she must have done for the garden fight yesterday.
But we didn’t leave much behind at the garden, other than Alicia Wilkins’ body, which could have been chalked up to a violent yet “normal” killer. Here, in the park, the carnage is exponentially greater. Dead kids. A blown-up boathouse. Toppled trees. A wrecked car. There’s no explanation for this other than the supernatural. That or a terrorist attack, which the PD may very well claim it was. As long as there’s no trace of DSI left at the scene.
Like me.
Delarosa and Ella help me up, and with the two of them supporting me, I manage to hobble to the van. Inside, I find Harmony already strapped in, her rifle tucked between her knees. She gives me a smile that looks more like a wince as Delarosa is boosting me into the van, and once Ella straps me securely into another seat, my short-lived battle partner fake coughs and says, “When you didn’t catch up to me, I thought you were dead.”
“Harmony…” I wheeze out.
She shakes her head. “You’re an idiot for ordering me away like that. And I’m an idiot for listening.” She eyes my left arm, hanging limp at my side. “Elite or not, you have no business trying to win a fight with an Eververse monster on your own.”
I run my good hand through my dirty hair and reply, “Wasn’t trying to win. I was trying to run. And I would have succeeded, too, if it wasn’t for that fucking fire spirit.” A harsh sigh breaks through my teeth. “I don’t apologize for giving the retreat order. A thousand rifle shots wouldn’t have downed Charun, and you would have died if you’d faced him head on. But I do apologize for worrying you. I’ll buy you a drink to make up for it.”
Soul Breaker Page 14