Summoner of Storms

by Jordan L. Hawk

  He is not a demon. And Caleb is not a coward. And neither of them will stand by and let John die at the hands of this other drakul.

  No matter the cost.

  “Do it.”

  Chapter 17

  John’s face felt cold where Gray’s warmth had touched him, and his heart stuttered in his chest. He knew Gray cared for him, and Caleb said they both loved him. But Gray had never said it. Never spoken the words.

  Until now, right when all hell broke loose around them.

  “John!” Sean shouted. “Here they come!”

  Fuck. John tore his gaze from Gray’s retreating figure. The controlled NHEs surged from everywhere else in the fort, all of them aiming for the stairs and Gray. The narrow space between casements and the sheer side of the Battery Huger funneled them, keeping the NHEs from surrounding Gray. And sending them straight at John and Sean.

  John set his stance, aimed, and fired. Sean did the same beside him, and the first round of NHEs fell to silver-jacketed lead. Some tried to flank them, scrambling over cannons, but Kaniyar, Tiffany, and some of the other Vigilant formed a line of their own, laying down a blistering screen of fire. John hoped someone had managed to get the surviving captives somewhere halfway safe.

  Time turned meaningless; he fired, reloaded, fired again. The air stank of blood and rot, even as the wind grew stronger and stronger. Not a natural wind; this one smelled of ozone and desert rain. What the hell was going on atop the battery?

  A particularly clever werewolf launched itself up the aging brickwork, claws scrabbling for purchase. An instant later, it vanished onto the casement roof. Two others scrambled after it.

  “Damn it!” Sean had spotted the NHEs as well. He turned and ran for the stairs, clearly hoping to cut them off before they could reach Gray.

  “Stop those things!” Kaniyar barked, taking up Sean’s position. John nodded and raced after Sean.

  The casement roof melded into the great earthwork behind the battery, giving the lycanthropes a clear run at Gray. Sean reached the top of the stairs; silver-jacketed lead took down the first werewolf just as it touched the grass. Then Sean swore and dropped the gun—out of ammo.

  John yelled for Sean to get back and fired. He hit one of the werewolves, but the other was too fast, running flat-out.

  Sean hurled himself in its path, burying his silver athame to the hilt in its shoulder. It roared in pain, before turning on him, claws slashing and teeth rending.

  “No!” Moving on instinct, John braced himself and fired. The shot missed, but it alerted the werewolf to a second threat. Its head snapped around, and it snarled at him, revealing blood-stained teeth.

  Sean wrenched the athame from its shoulder and brought the edge across its throat.

  John lowered his gun and ran to Sean’s side, as the werewolf collapsed and bled out on the grass. Blood soaked Sean’s shirt, and John glimpsed ugly wounds through the gaping edges of ripped cloth. “We have to get the bleeding stopped,” John said, casting about for something to use as a makeshift bandage.

  Sean laughed weakly. “I thought you wanted me dead. Instead you come running to my rescue.”

  John swallowed against the tightness of fear in this throat. “It’s my job.”

  “Right.” Sean shifted and winced. “It looks worse than it is. Even so, I won’t be doing any running. Go on—I’ll put a bullet through anything that tries to come up behind you.”

  “Okay.” John started to clap Sean on the shoulder, an old gesture whenever one of them was injured. But at the last moment, he let his hand fall.

  A titanic crash of lightning made them both flinch. “Fucking hell!” Sean shouted, but the words sounded muted and far away, John’s ears still ringing from the crack. Turning away from Sean, he scrambled to his feet—then froze.

  They’d made it to the top of the stairs and grassy area there, giving John a clear view of the flagpoles and the top of the battery. Nature itself seemed to have gone insane, the wind rising to a scream, the waves pounding high enough to drench him in spray. A swirl of clouds coalesced in a sky, which had been perfectly clear only minutes ago.

  The clouds grew and grew, a huge storm wrack rotating overhead. Goddess. If Gray was the storm, and the drakul Forsyth summoned some reflection of the sea, did the two together make a hurricane?

  The clouds grew thicker, and lightning crashed, again and again, dangerously near. Nothing remained of the bottles but twisted steel and broken glass. The wind rose to a howl, forcing John to crouch or be blown over, and the waves slammed into the island hard enough to send vibrations through the earthwork.

  Tiffany stumbled to a halt beside him, her eyes going wide with horror. “No. We’re too late. They’re manifesting.”

  “Gray manifested fully at RD,” John said, swallowing against a sudden dryness in his throat. “It was scary, but we can still do this. Still take Forsyth out.”

  Tiffany stared at him as if he’d gone utterly mad. “Gray fully manifested? No. No he didn’t. Not even fucking close.”

  In the heart of the hurricane, atop the battery, two figures coalesced out of cloud and sea spray. Both were gigantic, taking up an impossible amount of space. Their heads towered above the flagpoles. One was of seaweed and foam, with claws of coral and bone-white teeth, its eyes the blackness of the abyss.

  As for the other, John finally understood why Renée feared unleashing a drakul upon the earth.

  It was a titan of storm and darkness, of cloud and driving rain. Vast wings spanned the sky, and ball lightning formed its eyes. It was teeth and claws, and streaming darkness for hair, and when it roared its fury, the thunder threatened to shatter John’s eardrums.

  It was a monster of wrath and hunger. And if anything remained of the men he loved inside of it, John couldn’t tell.

  * * *

  They are the wind and the storm. All else falls away: there is nothing but the pure ecstasy of being powerful and strong.

  They will hunt. They are created to hunt, to pursue the single driving instinct that informs every particle of their being.

  Hunt. Feed. Grow strong.

  But this other wishes to stop them. It wishes to kill them.

  So they will kill it first.

  It tears at their body, claws of coral and sharp shell shredding their wings of cloud and shadow. Hurting them, and they strike back, ripping at it, biting anything that gets within reach. Screaming in the voice of the sky, as it screams back in the voice of the sea.

  As quickly as it can injure them, they heal. As quickly as they can injure it, it heals. It is mindless and mad, attacking without thought, and it will not stop until they have both been worn into nothing.

  It is not to be tolerated.

  They strike hard, seeking to overwhelm, pushing the other back toward the ocean. At its very core, embedded deep within energy and swirling sea foam, they glimpse a dark shape. Something small, barely to be noticed.

  A name comes to them. Forsyth. A concept: a mortal body. A thing of meat and bone, so insignificant.

  And yet so important.

  They attack again, seeking to push the other in the direction they wish it to go. Amidst the metal flagpoles, even though it means exposing themselves to its claws. Ignoring the attacks of the other as it shreds them.

  It weakens them, and if this does not work, they will not be able to fight back. The other will kill them.

  The mortal body—if they can only reach it—

  They stretch great hands, like black smoke against the night, tipped with jagged lightning. Plunging through the etheric body of the other drakul, tearing aside everything between them and the mortal body within, even as it mauls them in return without mercy. They are bleeding energy into the night, the wind beginning to fall, the time between lightning strikes slowing, slowing. The storm dying.

  As they are dying.

  Their hands close on the mortal body.

  Without hesitation, they shove it down, down, onto the tip of the huge flagpole
the other is backed against.

  The other screams, the jagged shriek of sea glass over shell. The flagpole bursts through Forsyth’s chest, ripping out his heart and any other organs in its path, while the drakul flails and howls around them.

  But even this it could heal from. Would heal from...did it not have another drakul to contend with.

  They sink their teeth into it, driving deep. Not the teeth of their mortal shell, but then it is not blood which fills them, but pure energy. The other drakul tastes of saltwater and seaweed, and a huge rush of etheric energy bursts into them, greater than anything they have ever dreamed of. It tries to fight back, to save itself, but they are stronger now.

  So much energy, so much power, and it feels so good.

  They drink.

  All of it.

  All.

  The giant of sea foam and coral comes apart, dissolves in their hands. Forsyth’s body hangs limp from the flagpole, blood streaking the metal and seeping into the cracks in the monument below.

  The other is dead. They have fed on all it had to give.

  They want more.

  They will have more.

  Hunt.

  Kill.

  Feed.

  * * *

  John staggered to his feet, utterly transfixed on the spectacle before him. The newly summoned drakul was dead, as was Forsyth. And yet Gray still commanded the sky, a behemoth of cloud and lightning. His head turned, fangs bared, and a low growl turned into a long rumble of thunder. The wind screamed like a thousand dying men, and lightning danced amidst the grass and waves.

  “Oh God.” Tiffany whispered. “Look at it...I unleashed this...I might as well have dropped a nuke on our heads.”

  And for an instant, John felt her terror in his own blood. Because the creature towering over them was a nightmare vast as the horizon, more beautiful and terrible than anything he’d ever imagined. An entire army of exorcists might be able to take it down.

  Might.

  “We’re all dead,” Tiffany went on, her voice numb, as if she didn’t even realize she spoke aloud. “The other drakul, the ones defeated in the past...they were young. But Gray is old. Strong. He’s going to hunt and kill until there’s nothing left, and there’s nothing we can do to stop him. And it’s my fault.”

  Wing of storm cloud and shadow flexed. Lightning jagged through the sky. One of the poles snapped beneath the strength of the wind.

  They couldn’t stop this. Tiffany was right.

  Except she wasn’t.

  Because this was still Gray, and maybe even still Caleb. This colossus of wind and sky had lurked inside Caleb’s thin body since day one. The only thing that had changed was that John finally realized it.

  He’d sworn he’d trust Gray no matter what. Was he going to turn away now, from the sight of Gray’s true face?

  “No,” he said aloud. Because Gray’s love didn’t come with conditions of face and form. So John’s couldn’t either.

  He began to walk across the rain-soaked grass toward them.

  Tiffany grabbed his arm. “What the fuck are you doing? We have to get out of here!”

  John pulled free. “That’s still Gray and Caleb.”

  Tiffany shook her head. Rain plastered her braids to her face, dripped off her skin. “No, it’s not! They’re gone, John, just like any other possession victim in the end. Solid gone. If you go out there, that thing will make you its first victim.”

  “Maybe.” He turned away from her. “But I owe it to them to take the chance.”

  She didn’t try to stop him again. He crossed the grassy space, heart smashing against the inside of his ribs as if trying to escape. His legs felt shaky, his skin clammy, and his stomach rolled.

  “No,” he whispered. He couldn’t give into fear. His nails bit into his palms, trying to keep his hands from shaking, but he kept moving forward. One foot after the other, toward the leviathan of cloud and streaming darkness.

  “Gray!” he shouted. “Caleb!”

  For a moment, he thought they hadn’t noticed. He was too small and insignificant, no more than a beetle scuttling about their feet.

  Then he felt their attention lock on him, and it was everything he could do to stand his ground and not run screaming and begging for his life.

  The monster of shifting shadow, of wing and cloud, turned to him. Lightning-ball eyes regarded him for a moment, before it bared its fangs and growled. An enormous hand, made from shadow and rain, stretched out to seize him.

  * * *

  They feel the lives around them, little mortal sparks. Hiding amidst the shattered brick walls. Fleeing toward the boats drawn up on the sand bar. And beyond this island, there are more on ships and crossing the thin strands of a steel bridge, moving through streets and huddling within apartments.

  And all smelling of blood, sweet and thick.

  Desire slithers through them, a distant memory of ecstasy. They will feed and it will be so very, very good.

  One of the mortals impinges on their consciousness. It does not even try to hide from their hunger, but instead stumbles over the ground toward them. The shards of spirit bottles shatter even finer beneath its feet.

  An easy meal.

  They reach for it, anticipation already thrumming through them.

  The mortal tilts back its head, rain plastering dark strands of hair to its forehead. Its eyes blaze blue in the storm-ridden darkness, the color so shockingly familiar they hesitate, claws floating inches from its tiny form.

  “You said you’d never hurt me!” it shouts. “You promised!”

  Memory tugs at them. They know this creature. This mortal.

  And it—no, he—knows them. He doesn’t even glance at the waiting claws, even though any one of them could punch through his body with ease. He only stares up at their face.

  Some of the wetness on his cheeks is not from the rain.

  “You promised.” The words are whispered, yet they hear him with perfect clarity. “But you are hurting me. Right now.”

  A name comes to them: John.

  They have hurt John.

  “Please. I need you. I need both of you. If you do this, if you leave me, I’ll be lost. Please.” His voice breaks on a sob. “You promised.”

  This is wrong. To have made him cry. Fragments of memories come in flashes, like the strike of their lightning. John laughing. Angry. Kind.

  Holding them in his arms.

  “I trust you two,” he had said. “With my life.”

  They can feel all the mortals around them, smell blood and ocean and the heaving masses of life in the city beyond. It would be simple to ignore this one small human. To carry the storm into the city, to feed and hunt and revel.

  So very simple, and it would feel so good. Savage joy and strength, a return to the days of hunting without conscience or fear or care. Save this time will be infinitely better, because now they can taste the blood and feel the ecstasy of feeding.

  If they do not ignore him...there will be pain. Weakness. Fear and grief and uncertainty.

  Trust.

  Love.

  It hurts, tearing free from the clouds, the rain, the lightning. Somewhere, half-forgotten, their body burns with pain, muscle and flesh and bone screaming as they force energy into it. Withdrawing.

  Folding their wings.

  Falling.

  * * *

  The constant barrage of lightning slowed. John swallowed thickly, tasting blood as he stared into the swirl of etheric power and storm cloud. Claws, each as long as his body, hovered beside him. Poised to kill.

  He felt beyond fear. Beyond everything but the ragged tatters of hope. Of belief, of the same naïve faith Caleb had always laughed at. Boy Scout.

  “Come back to me,” he whispered.

  An odd calm descended, the eye of the forming hurricane suspended directly overhead. The wind died from a gale to a stiff breeze. The rain ceased.

  Had he reached them? Or did the titan before him merely gather itself to stri
de across the bay and slaughter everyone in Charleston?

  The vast energy drew inward, like a collapsing star. Wings shredded into cloud, claws became mist, etheric energy no longer holding their shape.

  The curled figure in the center of the beast straightened. Hovering in mid air, long hair and the tattered remnants of a leather coat streaming around it.

  It swirled toward the ground like a falling leaf, even as something so much bigger than John had ever guessed folded itself back inside. Surrendering the chance to be a god upon the earth, in exchange for this small bundle of human flesh.

  Booted feet touched the grass—then collapsed, long legs crumpling like a puppet with cut strings. “Caleb!” John shouted, and broke into a run.

  He fell to his knees beside Caleb. Caleb’s face had gone white as shell, utterly bloodless. Was he even breathing? Or had it all been too much, had they killed themselves trying to come back to John?

  Caleb groaned and opened his eyes.

  John dragged Caleb into his arms, clutching him close. “Caleb! Is Gray all right? Are you?”

  “Yeah.” Caleb’s voice sounded rough, like he’d been screaming at the top of his lungs for hours. “I’ve got the mother of all headaches, but we’re okay.”

  “Oh, Goddess, Devourer of Evil, thank you.” Tears ran down his face, hot against chilled skin, but he didn’t give a damn who saw his sobs. “Thank you.”

  Caleb shifted slightly, and John loosened his grip. Caleb’s fingers touched John’s face, catching a tear.

  “Hey. Don’t cry.” Caleb offered a crooked, weak grin. His gaze went past John, and he nodded at the sky. “Look. Storm’s ending.”

  John gazed up. As Caleb said, the storm fell apart without Gray’s energy to fuel it. Holding tight to one another, they watched as the last clouds dissipated and the stars came out.