To his right loomed what must the Battery Huger, a hulking black shape in the night. Behind it, on the grassy rise flush with the tops of the sheer walls, waved a number of flags: American, Confederate, others that had flown over the fort at some point or other. A dozen men and women stood ranged around them, chanting, and all around stretched the bottled demons, on the grass and in steel racks. Hundreds if not thousands, brought to this single place to fuel whatever would come next.
The air reeked of blood. Bodies lay scattered everywhere atop the black bulk of the battery, possessed soldiers coolly slitting throats even as the assault force came over the wall.
Blood. It carried the energy of demons, the life of mortals. And it clawed at the veil between the etheric and mortal planes, so much death like a battering ram against a wall already perilously thin.
Forsyth stood atop the battery, in the center of the summoning circle. Etheric energy flashed around him, dark and ugly, a bruise on reality.
“We must end this.”
Agreed.
Caleb leapt off the wall and into the heaving mass of demons below.
Chapter 16
Gray lands amidst the onrushing demons, flattening one beneath his boots, its narrow chest caving in from impact. Others swarm him, therianthropes for the most part, collars blinking with red lights about their necks, preventing them from fleeing his presence. A few ghouls mixed in, along with stronger types like incubi. Nothing he cannot overcome.
His claws snag the nearest lycanthrope, yank it to him so he can sink his teeth into the great vein leading to the arm, since the collar blocks its throat. Blood channels through the grooves on the backs of his teeth, the ecstasy of feeding oddly close to sexual pleasure. Other claws rip into his coat. He drops the emptied husk and turns on the next in line.
Gunfire rips in staccato bursts from the battery. Possessed soldiers, still able to think for themselves and handle a firearm, line the stairs. But their aim is indiscriminate, and demons die all around Gray, even as a stray round punches through his shoulder. With so much etheric energy coursing through him from the demons, the wound heals almost instantly.
Gray snarls. These thralls are fools. Do they believe, once the other drakul has come, it will not feed on them? What lies have they swallowed?
It does not matter. The agents and operatives return fire from atop the wall, diverting attention from him. Other agents drop to the ground behind him, and he senses John among them. Good.
“We have to get through here!” John shouts. The other mortals are shouting as well, but it is John’s voice to which he is attuned.
“Time to clear a path.”
He tosses aside the carcass of a ghoul and lets Caleb surge to the fore. Caleb flings his arms out, punching ahead of them with a wall of telekinetic energy. Agony flares behind their eyes with the effort, but a dozen demons are hurled before them, smashing into one another and into the bricks. Most of the demons are injured, not killed, but even with their quick healing it will open the way long enough for the mortal agents to fight back.
Caleb drops back, letting Gray take over again. Gray sprints through the cleared space, up and over the final ruined wall separating them from the open parade ground beyond. Here the demons are less packed in, but he is more exposed to the gunmen on the Battery Huger.
His mortal allies don’t follow him into the open, instead diverting to the left, through the tangle of ruined walls, which offer some cover. A good decision, given their vulnerability to bullets. Clearly a head-on assault against the battery will not work.
He covers their movement, making a target of himself, running as fast as he can across the open parade ground. Mortal gunmen would only hit him through luck, but these are possessed, quicker than any human. Bullets thud into him, the coat stopping only some of them.
“Ow! Go back, or find some other way!”
He starts to fall back, toward the great wooden doors, which now stand open onto the night beyond. But a pale shape darts from behind one of the cannons on display. The meat locker stench of a wendigo reaches out before it, its emaciated body nothing but a caricature of a human form. It lunges at him, jaws clattering, pale eyes filmed over with frost. The electronic collar around its neck is sheathed in ice.
He doesn’t hesitate, only leaps on it, claws sinking in. It screams, a high, thin sound like nothing human. Momentum carries them back, and they roll over and over, into the questionable shelter of the old casements. The brick vaults at least block the aim of the gunmen on the upper reaches of the battery.
Someone screams, a human sound. “Shit, it’s a kid! We have to do something!”
I am a bit occupied at the moment.
The wendigo bites at him with a mouth full of razor teeth. He punches it hard, its jaw shattering under the blow. And although the bone fragments begin to realign, the healing is far more sluggish than it should be.
Forsyth has starved these creatures.
“And you eat them.”
Yes. But there is no malice. He is a predator; he hunts because it is his nature. There is no wish to be cruel. He has never chosen to make any of them suffer, even the incubus who tried to take John from them. But Forsyth has tortured these demons of his making.
“You do realize the only option for something like a wendigo is to feed it other people, right?”
Then he should not have made it.
“Yeah, no shit. And it’s not like it asked for this.”
Let us put it out of its misery.
The wendigo tears at him with claws, frantic. The coat foils its grasp for the most part, until it dips lower, finding an exposed thigh and digging in. Gray snarls and lets go of its flesh. Its collar is loose around its emaciated neck, and he is able to grip it. The collar comes apart in a swirl of sparks and shattered electronics, exposing the wendigo’s throat.
Its blood is thick with ice, a sludgy mix that spreads pain through his face. “Like drinking a milkshake too fast.”
The wendigo goes limp, and sparks flare around Gray, the very air becoming charged. Wind begins to blow, ruffling his hair, and excitement jags through him like a distant flicker of lightning. He rises to his feet, power from the demons he has eaten surging through him, and takes in his immediate surroundings.
All about him there are people. Ordinary mortals, their eyes wide with terror, chained to the iron cannons within the brick vaults of the casements.
* * *
John ran through the casements, trying not to trip over the metal tracks once used to aim the cannons. Drying blood cracked on his face, and the tang of cordite filled his nose. A ghoul lunged out of one of the tight side rooms, and he shot it point blank in the face without stopping.
His heart pounded, and his breath burned in his lungs. He’d never participated in an action like this before. From the moment they’d landed, it was chaos. The run through the marsh, the ground sucking at his shoes. The NHEs flanking them from the open main doors. The scramble up a chain ladder, before dropping down into semi-darkness, barely missing the stump of a brick wall.
The man beside him wasn’t as lucky. His ankle snapped when he landed on the damn bricks, and a second later, lycanthropes fell on him. John shot two of them, but too late to save the other agent.
John had no clear sense as to whether they were winning or losing. He concentrated on pushing forward, trying to stick to cover since the gunmen on the battery shot at anything that moved. Tiffany and Sean fought nearby, Tiffany with a gun in one hand and the other wreathed in flames. He’d glimpsed Kaniyar briefly, but lost track of both her and Pittman.
The gunmen on the battery would turn a head-on assault into a death sentence. But if they made their way through the casements and up the stairs to the left of the battery, they’d be shielded most of the way. No doubt Forsyth would have people stationed on the stairs, but with any luck there wouldn’t be as many of them.
There came a loud crash, and Gray hurtled out of the casements in front of them. Two lyca
nthropes and a possessed soldier clung to him, all trying to drag him to the ground.
“Shit!” John ran forward automatically. The soldier’s back was to him, so he took a deep breath, reached out with his etheric sense, and pulled.
The soldier screamed, thrashing like a mad thing as the NHE inside her fought back. John saw it pulling free, a thing of red-black energy, nothing but teeth and rage. He ripped it out with a single jerk.
The corona of etheric energy boiling off Gray seemed to snap outward, like the pseudopod of a feeding amoeba. It snared the unembodied NHE in the instant before it crossed back to the etheric plane, devouring it.
Huh.
The wind grew stronger, but it didn’t come from off the ocean. It emanated from Gray, carrying on it the scent of desert rain and lightning, a distant storm just starting to break. Saint Elmo’s fire came to life on the ends of the cannons, and a human cry of fear rang out.
“There are mortal captives here,” Gray rumbled. “Still alive.”
Tiffany swore and pushed past. John glimpsed wide eyes, heard the rattle of chains. “Tiffany!” shouted a girl’s voice, echoed an instant later by another.
John sagged for just an instant against the rough brick wall. Despite everything, maybe they’d managed to save a few people.
The clot of etheric energy gathering above the battery shifted, growing darker, denser. John pushed himself off the wall and peered out. The sigils on the five corners of the fort flared abruptly, arcs of silver light stabbing into the sky.
“Fuck!” He raised his Glock, sighting desperately toward where he knew Forsyth must stand. But the angle was impossible; he couldn’t even see the man, let alone shoot him.
“Gray!” Kaniyar’s voice cracked like a whip. “Get up there! Now!”
But it was already too late. An unnatural silence fell. Even the possessed soldiers ceased fire to turn and stare at what took place behind them. No one moved, and the wind swirling around Gray stilled.
Then the ocean roared, the cry of a wrathful god. Waves smashed against the Atlantic side of the fort, sending spray flying fifty feet into the air. John tasted salt on his lips, felt cool flecks against his face.
The world tore open. Something ripped through the gap, like a struggling tiger in a net.
Forsyth screamed. Or something screamed through him, perhaps.
Silence.
What was happening? What—
A figure lunged over the side of the battery, seized one of the possessed soldiers by the shoulders, and dragged him up. Fangs flashed, and Forsyth buried them in the shrieking man’s throat.
The summoning had succeeded.
* * *
The possessed soldiers broke, hurling aside their weapons and fleeing. Forsyth lifted his head, blood smeared on his face, his eyes a blank kaleidoscope of all the shifting colors of the sea. “Yes,” he roared, in a voice like the crash of wave on rock. Then: “No. I called you...I summoned you...”
Gray stood beside John, head tilted back. “This will not work,” he observed.
One of the possessed soldiers fired on Forsyth, bullets ripping into flesh. Forsyth staggered back—then rushed forward with a roar and fastened on the soldier. Feeding.
“Take him down!” Kaniyar shouted. “Now, now, before he has the chance to power up!”
Everyone opened fire. Forsyth stumbled back, vanishing beyond the edge of the battery again. The werewolves and ghouls in the parade ground and amidst the casements whined and howled in terror, but their collars kept them pinned. They dashed at the agents, driven to keep fighting for the very thing that would feed on them the first chance it got.
Since no one fired from the battery at the moment, John risked dashing out from cover, shooting at the NHEs as he went. Forsyth came into view again, crouching amidst the stacks of bottled demons. He swept one arm out, shattering them. Etheric energy exploded outward in a cloud—and Forsyth instantly sucked it into himself.
John froze, unable to move. This was bad. Very, very bad. Forsyth had hundreds, thousands of demons up there. What could a drakul do with this amount of etheric energy at its disposal?
He sensed Gray’s presence at his side. Then Gray faded away, leaving Caleb behind.
John turned to him. Caleb was covered in blood from the fight, his mouth a red smear, his long hair in tangles. His head tilted back, brown eyes focused on Forsyth. Something very like resignation crossed his face, and the faintest hint of a rueful smile, perhaps in response to some communication with Gray.
“We have to stop him. Gray and I. No one else can do this.” His voice was quiet, human, barely audible above the thundering waves.
John’s mouth went cotton-dry. He wanted to say no, to tell Caleb to stay the hell away. But he couldn’t. “Yeah.”
“We’ll cover you.” Sean stepped out of the casement behind them. He was scratched and battered, his suit bloodied. “Keep the controlled NHEs off you so you can concentrate on reaching Forsyth.”
Caleb nodded. “Thanks.” Etheric energy burst forth again, his hair lifting to snap in a wind emanating from him.
Gray started to take a step toward the stairs winding up the side of the battery, beyond the casement. But he paused and returned to John. Leaning forward, he caught John’s face in his hands and gently tilted it back so they looked each other in the eye.
And Goddess, Gray was beautiful in that moment, even with the blood, hair flying and sparks dancing over his skin. Something wild and pure and good, beyond what John ever imagined existed.
“I have walked this earth for five-thousand years,” Gray said, voice a soft rumble of thunder. “But none of it has meant as much as the last two months. I love you, John Starkweather.”
Then he released John and ran for the stairs.
* * *
Gray sprints for the stairs, ignoring the demons howling behind him. He stretches long legs, all but flying, leaving everything behind: the screams and cries, the petty demons, even John. They must stop Forsyth, and feeding one werewolf at a time will not give them the strength he fears they will need.
Which leaves the bottled demons.
The stairs let out onto a wide grassy expanse, built up level with the back of the black hulk of the Battery Huger. Flagpoles reach into the sky: a half-circle of five smaller poles surrounding a central one set upon a granite monument. The surviving exorcists who assisted Forsyth with the summoning spell cower near the sheer edge of the fort’s wall, a drop straight down onto barnacle-crusted rocks. One lays dead, his throat ripped out, whether because he had a change of heart or simply drew too close while Forsyth fed, Gray does not know.
Bottles fill the area, on racks and on the grass, most of them still unbroken. Caleb’s TK smashes into the nearest rack, sending it toppling, shattering glass against the hard-packed earth. And this feeding is not like the more visceral taste of blood on his tongue, but it is still good, power swirling around him, into him. For a moment, he remembers before, riding the storm and hunting the small things hiding from him, and it seems much the same.
The wind grows stronger, the ropes holding the flags singing. Lightning snaps from him to the nearest flagpole, thunder shaking the ground with its roar. Glowing blue lights form on the tips of the poles, buzzing in the charged atmosphere.
A low growl of fury catches his attention. Forsyth crouches where the smooth black tarmac of the battery gives way to grass and earth. Things have gone terribly wrong, even worse than the mortals predicted. Whether because the drakul was subjected to pain in its first few moments in this world, or Forsyth’s own ambition and madness infected it, there is nothing sane in the swirling globes of its eyes. It reeks of the tide, of seaweed and salt.
It growls again, sensing another predator on its feeding grounds. Warning Gray off.
With a snarl of his own, Gray rushes it.
It shrieks, snapping to its feet, faster than anything he has ever hunted before. They collide in a frenzy of claws and teeth, its monstrous strength piercin
g layers of elk hide and kevlar as if they do not even exist. Gray is far more experienced in such a battle, but Forsyth honed his body for combat, and his skills make up for the other drakul’s inexperience.
They hurtle into a rack, shattering bottles. Both of them grab for the escaping demons, drinking down everything they can to keep it from the other. The smell of ocean grows stronger, and lightning explodes all around, striking multiple flagpoles at once. The wind screams, shredding the flags, tearing them free and sending them cascading out over the dark ocean.
The drakul sinks its fangs into Gray’s shoulder, seeking to feed off of him. Bone crunches and flesh tears. With a roar of fury, Gray flings it off, Caleb’s TK assisting to put space between them.
It hits a group of racks, taking them down. Bottles break—and those which do not, it begins to shatter with its own hands.
“No!”
A demon would have to wait forty days before fully manifesting. But they are drakul, not demons. And this one has glutted on power and madness.
Gray takes an involuntary step back, watching as it unfolds fully from Forsyth’s mortal shell. Fear vibrates through them, Caleb’s horror and shock racing their heart. “Is that...oh fuck. Is that what we really are?”
Yes.
Awe tinges the fear. “I never understood, when you said you weren’t a demon. I do now. You—we—are so much worse.” Caleb seems to gather himself, a man bracing against news he knows will be bad. “How...how do we fight that?”
Gray gazes up at the monster before them. You know the answer.
“By doing the same thing.”
Yes.
“Can...can we even come back from that?”
Hesitation. I do not know.
He tastes Caleb’s sorrow and fear. They can yet flee. Fall back. Return to John and the life they are just beginning to understand.
But if they choose to run, in the end, everyone they love will die, and the monster will eat them with as much ease as Gray has eaten a thousand demons.
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