by Eric Asher
“Stop, girl,” I said, patting Bubbles on the head. “Stop.” We stood on the edge of Main Street and watched the towers begin to collapse.
“It didn’t stop them,” Nixie said.
“I know,” I said. “But it slowed them down.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I clenched the Key of the Dead in my hand and called out to the souls. They were still there, still talking to me, still crying out for vengeance and blood. “You’ll have it,” I promised. “You’ll have it.”
Far above the carnage in the failing towers floated a lone fairy. Blood ran down his thigh, and one of his wings beat at a slightly odd angle, but Angus screamed at the waters. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but it sounded joyful. And it made me worry about the fairy’s sanity again.
“Angus!” Nixie shouted. When he looked our way, she gestured for him to follow. The fairy gave one large flap of his wings and glided down toward us.
“What now, lass? That harbinger thing is getting back up. How do you intend to stop it?”
“Stall,” I said. “Graybeard will be back soon.”
“Come on,” I said. “We have to move.”
“The queen will regroup,” Nixie said. “Though I saw a great many of her witches fall, I fear that will only strengthen her resolve.”
“She’s mad,” Angus said, as we set off down Main Street. Some of the soldiers stared at us as we passed, but none of them dared approach. When one came close to us, Angus said, “Stay on high ground boys. And lass,” he said as a female soldier passed by. “Not done yet.”
Angus hurried ahead of us and glanced back. “I’ll be scouting the perimeter. Scream if you need me.” He launched himself into the air, gliding over the nearest roofs.
“I feel like we’ve been a bad influence on him,” I said.
We reached the edge of the tent city before we started back down toward the shore.
“Damian!”
The voice sounded familiar, but it was higher than normal, as if there was some level of panic. “Park?”
“What the hell was that?” Park asked.
“Nixie’s queen is here. Basically, you guys have a shitload of trouble. We need to stall them until Graybeard gets back.”
“What can we do?” Park asked.
“Just make sure your soldiers have whatever weapons will work against the undines. It wouldn’t hurt to be ready for Green Men.” I started to turn away before I turned back to Park, “And maybe a dragon.”
Park blinked and shook his head. “We’ll do what we can. Can the tanks hurt that harbinger?”
Nixie and I exchanged a glance.
“It’s only vulnerable in the back of its head,” Nixie said. “Aim carefully, and stay out of its way.”
I cursed when I saw the surging mound of gravemakers on the shore. I worried they were doing something more than I’d asked, but they slowly trailed away, seeping into the ground and into the waters, revealing a small hill of shattered gray fragments. I was both excited to see the man standing next to them, and terrified that he was standing so close to the waters.
“Edgar!” I shouted, raising my hand in greeting.
Edgar tipped his bowler hat and gave me a small smile. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you are glad to see me, Vesik.”
“Yeah, well, don’t tell anybody.”
“I assume these are the fragments of the stone daggers?”
“Who told you?”
“Mike did. After I heard what he’d been doing, I thought you might need to expand your weaponry.” Edgar handed me a fat aluminum gun case. I flipped the latch and pulled it open, frowning at the monstrosity within. “Is this a blunderbuss?”
“Technically, it’s four blunderbusses,” Edgar said, patting another gun case. “Should work fine for firing some rather small shards. Anything you stick in the end of that will become a deadly projectile.”
“I don’t think the military is going to know how to use these.”
“I suspect not,” Edgar said. “But I know someone who will.”
A booming horn echoed over the waters, and I stared downriver as the Bone Sails appeared around the bend.
* * *
The sight of Graybeard’s ship was a welcome one. The skeletal masts, their sails stretched in the crosswinds, was an intimidating presence.
“Watch the cases,” Edgar said. Before I could protest, he had leaped from the ground and flown toward Graybeard’s ship.
Foster and Aideen launched themselves from the deck and sped toward me. I could see Sam at the bow, and figured Frank wasn’t far behind.
“Is that a harbinger in the river up there?” Foster asked.
“Yep.”
“And it looks like the Queen’s Army?”
“Yep.”
“And a whole lot of dead stuff?”
“Yep.”
Foster pursed his lips and nodded. “Glad you’re not dead.”
“Me too.”
I reached down to close the case over the blunderbuss as Foster made to grab it. “Don’t touch it. I don’t know what it’s made of. Edgar brought them.”
Foster turned toward Graybeard’s warship as Aideen crouched down to study the gun.
“Graybeard’s crew is coming. A few of them at least,” Foster said.
“A pirate’s weapon for a pirate’s crew,” Aideen said. “Edgar put more thought into this than I would have expected.”
“Really?” I asked. “It seems like all Edgar ever does is put thought into things.”
“Yes, but he’s preoccupied with the survival of the remaining Watchers. It’s clear now that Nudd has placed a heavy price on them. I’m surprised Edgar stepped away to help us at all.”
“What allies would the Watchers have left if they lost us?” The thought sent a shiver down my spine. I cursed and gestured to the pile of gray and black chaff close to the river bank. The first of Graybeard’s crew surfaced and hopped onto the flood-torn grass with an unnatural agility. The skeleton clacked his jaws at me, but I didn’t understand the code they used. I gestured to the boxes on the ground, and the crewman nodded.
His leather shorts stretched awkwardly over his bones as he crouched down and spun the case toward him. The hinges squeaked slightly when he opened it to inspect one of the blunderbusses. He pulled out a few flasks of what I suspected were ammunition, and nodded to me before throwing the others to the skeletons who had just surfaced behind him.
I pointed to the pile of shattered stone daggers and then tapped the end of the blunderbuss. The skeleton cocked his head to the side. I pointed at the water and then drew my finger across my neck and the skeleton slowly tilted his head back and gave two sharp nods.
He clattered and clacked his bones and jaw together, and the crew hurried to the pile. It wasn’t an overwhelmingly large quantity of metal, but I suspected there was enough to fill a few loads for the blunderbuss. One of the skeletons opened a gun case and shoveled as much as he could into it as fast as he could. They ran back to the edge of the river bank, and waited as Graybeard steered his ship closer. No plank extended, but once it was within fifteen feet, the skeletons leaped for it, easily clearing the railing Graybeard had swung open.
“Wow,” Foster said. “They can jump.”
The river surged, and Nixie’s form exploded out of it, sailing past Foster to land between me and Aideen. “They’ve reformed the wave on the opposite bank,” Nixie said. “But we’re not alone.”
“I noticed. Graybeard’s ship isn’t subtle.”
Nixie bared her teeth in a vicious grin. “That’s not what I meant.” She turned to the river and bellowed an order. “Take them!”
The river churned into an ocean of whitecaps, crashing and rising onto either shore.
Graybeard’s warship surged forward on a wave of undines. The pirate glanced at me, his beard lifting in the wind as the parrot stretched its desiccated wings. I raised my right arm and lit a soulsword. Graybeard raised his fist in response,
and the battle began anew.
Nixie bounced on the balls of her feet, glancing between the roiling river and me. “We only need to kill the queen. Find her, execute her, and this all ends.”
“As you wish.”
I wasn’t sure if Nixie would catch the reference, but she gave me a sly smile before diving headlong back into the raging waters.
“What the hell do we do now?” I asked Foster and Aideen as the river rose higher.
“This is a battle we should stay on the outskirts of,” Aideen said.
Foster drew the enchanted saber that Mike had modified. He bellowed and then launched himself into the air, soaring for the heart of the battle.
“Idiot,” Aideen said. She gave an exasperated sigh, glanced at me, and followed Foster into the chaos.
That left me on the shore with two very large cu siths. They danced back and forth on their paws, ready to tear something apart with their fangs. “Go on.”
It was all the encouragement they needed. They plunged into the waters as their fur began to glow once more. I slowly straightened my back as the green glow grew brighter and more intense. They moved through the water nearly as fast as they had moved on land, something I hadn’t expected.
The harbinger regained its feet after being knocked over by the wave of its own allies. Edgar landed next to me as I watched the Titan surge toward us.
“I don’t think we can handle that on our own,” Edgar said. “Not unless you want to dive deep into insanity like the Old Man did. Do you?”
I blew out a laugh and shook my head. “No, but I have another idea.”
“You better make it fast,” Edgar said. “The dark-touched are closing on the military set up along Main Street.”
I cursed and bolted for the cobblestone streets of my home.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Before I’d cleared the side streets, I saw the maelstrom of fire that Zola had conjured from the bow of the Bone Sails. She’d help keep Sam safe, but I understood the chaos around us, and I knew that everyone on that ship was in danger.
I hadn’t made it fifteen feet onto the cobblestones before a green rocket appeared at my side. Bubbles slowed to a trot, continually glancing up at me as if asking me to hurry up. “We have to find Park,” I said to the dripping-wet cu sith.
Bubbles chuffed at me.
“You’ve bitten Park before,” I said. “Haven’t you?”
Bubbles chuffed at me again.
“Find Park,” I said. “We need him.” Bubbles rocked into me with her thigh before launching ahead into the sea of soldiers. I watched in concern as a dozen soldiers went down like bowling pins. I sprinted after Bubbles as she led the way into the tent city. “Sorry, sorry. Ooo, you should get that looked that.” I winced when I saw someone holding their bloody foot. I was pretty sure that was Bubbles’s doing, though I doubted the cu sith had done anything like that on purpose.
Bubbles stopped outside one of the smaller tents and released a thunderous bark. Half the soldiers in the area turned to look at us. It wasn’t awkward at all.
There wasn’t anything to knock on outside the tent, so I figured I’d just take my chances and barge in. “Park?” I said as I entered the small tent.
Park sat in a low chair, beside a cot where two soldiers were perched beside him.
“Damian?” he said, jumping out of his chair. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be down by the river with the others.”
“Do you still have tanks in the area?” I asked, dancing around the question of whether or not he had command over them. I didn’t know who the soldiers inside the tent were, and one of them wasn’t in uniform. It was hard to tell what his rank might be.
“We do,” Park said. “What do you need?”
“For one, Alexandra returned with some of Nixie’s water witches. They’ll be in the river battling the queen’s forces. So, don’t shoot any of them unless the soldiers are damn sure of which side they’re attacking.”
“How the hell are we supposed to tell that?” one of the soldiers on the cot asked.
“They’ll be trying to kill you,” Park said. “We’ve had enough friendly fire incidents, I think.”
“The back of the harbinger’s head is its weak point. Graybeard’s better at fighting these things than anyone else, but he has his hands full with the water witches on the river. And I don’t know if you can take them down alone.”
“Casper’s squad still has some of the ammo you provided. I’ll put them on the rooftops. We’ll help where we can.”
“Good,” I said. “You have dark-touched vampires moving in on the north side of Main. Your only chance is to hit them in the eye, or maybe repel them for a time with the flamethrowers. Either way, keep the harbinger off the street. Get the tanks down by my shop. They’ll have a fairly clear target down to the river. Don’t send anyone who isn’t armed.”
“Why are you listening to him?” the unmarked soldier asked. “He’s one of them.”
Park turned a glare on the man. “That’s what you fail to understand. If they’re killing the things trying to kill you, they aren’t the enemies. And they are very good at killing things.” Park turned back to me. “Tanks will be there. Now get out of here before your dog scares the ever-loving crap out of every soldier in this place.”
I turned and found Bubbles glowing. She looked like a freshly cracked glow stick, and I could see where that might be a little concerning on a pony-sized dog.
“Come on, girl,” I said. “Let’s go eat some vampires.”
Bubbles chuffed happily.
We jogged out of the tent city, the soldiers now giving us a wide berth. I hoped Park could hold up his end of the bargain. The harbinger laying siege to my home was one thing, but I didn’t want to be the cause of that kind of devastation. I didn’t want to summon the armor of the gravemaker and unleash that chaos on my own streets.
We hadn’t made it all the way down to the shop when the first of the dark-touched reached us. One-on-one, the vampires were deadly. Two on one, I doubted I could hold my own for more than a minute or two. And that might have been optimistic.
Thankfully, the bristly green ball of death at my side had other ideas. Bubbles charged at the dark-touched, giving me time to raise a soulsword while she bowled through the slashing, hacking claws of the nearest vampire. I caught glimpses of the riverfront as we passed the side streets. A massive wave had swelled on the opposite shore and was threatening to crash down on top of the Bone Sails. Distant booms echoed out from Graybeard’s cannons, tearing through the air, accompanied by the smaller explosions of what I imagined were the guns Edgar had brought.
The first strike I leveled at the dark-touched slashed through its eye. The creature roared and reared back, and I knew what was coming. I stepped into it with a shield, and the first two strikes glanced off either side. The terrifying power of the dark-touched sent fracture lines through the electric blue dome.
I let it fall as the vampire crashed into it a third time, only to raise a smaller one and bat its left arm away from its intended target, my neck. It brought me in close to the hissing, drooling face that hid behind that marred helmet. Time slowed as I aimed a soulsword at the dark-touched’s eye.
It was one of those moments where I knew the blow would either land true, or Bubbles would be helping me pick up my entrails. It was a stupid move, but it was the only way to get inside the dark-touched’s guard. The only way to put down one more of these demons before it reached the military, or the citizens who still lived there. I heard the hiss of flesh as the soulsword met its target. I felt the give as it pushed through the eye socket and rammed up through the dark-touched’s brain, only to slam into the opposite side of the armor outside the back of the vampire’s skull.
I remembered the sensation well from the battle in Greenville. With a quick twist of my arm, I was sure that the life force of the dark-touched had been extinguished. Its inertia, however, had not. The body crashed into me, flailing claws c
utting into my vest—a vest that wasn’t suited to stopping sharp objects, only the brutal impact of a firearm. We fell into a heap, but before the full weight of the dark-touched pinned me to the ground, Bubbles head-butted the vampire away. It took me a moment to understand what I was looking at, as the cu sith had the head of the other dark-touched snared in her mouth.
“Spit that out,” I said. “That’s gross.”
Bubbles reared back and expelled the dark-touched’s head with a surprisingly violent force. It cracked on the cobblestones and bounced up onto the sidewalk.
* * *
I hesitated at the next block when I saw the dark-touched streaking across the rooftops. I wanted to climb up there, or use the Hand of Anubis to pull them down. But to stop now meant leaving the harbinger, and that could do far more damage than one or two rogue dark-touched.
Angus’s voice boomed above us. “He’s mine! Stay your course!”
Bubbles released a booming bark in reply. I held up my hand, exhaustion seeping into my bones so deep that I feared trying to keep up with the cu sith would result in me passing out. And certainly leave me without enough breath to respond to Angus.
The ranks of soldiers vanished almost entirely by the time we reached the shop again. The parking lot was almost even with the harbinger.
I cursed and watched as the massive form reached down and plucked a tank from the riverfront.
Three deep rasping breaths wheezed from my lungs, and then I followed Bubbles on to the side street beside the shop. I skidded to a halt as the massive tank in front of us grated its treads on the brick street, the metal squealing against the wheels. It pulverized the stone as it went, and part of me worried how much it would cost to repair the old road. Probably not a large concern at that point.
The hatch closest to me popped open, and I blinked when Rick’s face appeared before me. “Park said to shoot the thing in the back of the head, right?”
“I thought you were a Ranger,” I said.
“I am,” he said with a grin. “But I wasn’t always.”
I nodded. “Back of the head. Hit it with the main gun, or you’ll just piss it off. And it’s smart about guarding itself. So wait until it’s distracted.”