by Rob Horner
Remembering the threat coming from the other direction, I turned away from the fight. A few misshapen forms were visible, darting in and out of rides and games, trying to be stealthy in their approach, no doubt hoping to hit us from behind.
"More coming behind us!" I reported loudly.
Fish said the other post was attacked by creatures that appeared out of nowhere.
Just because I could see some didn't mean that was all of them.
I brought my hands together, fanning my fingers. Light flashed, streaking away from me in a glowing-white shockwave. Five demons popped into visibility at various distances back along the midway, the closest only a few feet away. This new development went into my file. My clapping wave could dispel invisibility.
The nearest demon staggered from the burst of light, caught with an arm up and lunging forward. My blast halted his momentum but wasn't enough to throw him aside.
I waded in, conscious of the fact that these were regular people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. It was easy now, to keep myself from banishing when I didn't want to. A simple straight punch blasted the demon back in a flash of light, leaving me ready to meet the charge of the second, an especially ugly specimen about my height, with horns protruding from its cheeks, curved forward like misplaced tusks.
Up until now, my blocks never activated my power, but that was probably because of my interpretation of the action. I thought of them as defensive, so they were. But what if I wanted them to expel force?
It swung a scaly arm at me, overhand and arcing down, like it wanted to drive its claws into my skull. A high block knocked its arm back in a burst of light, a powerful move that would have dislocated the shoulder of a normal man. But somehow the demon's arm rotated a full circle, like its shoulder was a true ball and socket joint, and I barely managed to step to the left as the arm came back at me, now swinging underhand, looking to disembowel.
The delay in dealing with this demon was costly. The first one I'd hit was charging back in, and there were three or four more closing rapidly, growling and shrieking.
My right leg came up and snapped out, a roundhouse to the gut that connected with the horned demon and sent it flying away, causing a connection in my mind. In Tae Kwon Do, punches were faster, a fact many competition fighters forget in their exuberance to showcase their acrobatic attacks. Punches were faster, but kicks were stronger. This seemed to hold true regarding the force my power exerted, as well. The airborne demon crashed into one of the food trucks, bending its sidewall inward.
I slammed my hands together again, buying myself a little more time, and saw three more pop into visibility, bringing the total number of standing foes to seven, one of which I assumed was the guy with the invisibility power, though I couldn't pick him out of the crowd. They were all in demon form, and I'd only seen him once, as a human teenager.
A male voice screamed from behind me, a sound of unspeakable pain.
"Damn it!" Iz shouted.
A woman's voice wailed.
"They got our guns!" one of the other soldiers yelled.
"Gina, another wall!" Iz ordered.
"They're coming!"
"I can stop them," Ben said, he of the purple light that freezes things in place.
Then came the sound of lightning, a sizzling-popping noise.
"Yeah, Jim! Fry 'em!" someone else yelled.
Without looking, I knew what was happening. Tanya had to be back there, or someone else with a similar power, able to snag the weapons right out of the soldiers' hands with a thought. My heart ached to turn, to see if I could spot her, but she'd be just another demon, one horrid face among the multitude, and I didn't want to see her like that.
Tears blurred my vision as I worked to secure our retreat.
I lunged forward, my previous reluctance to fully engage my power forgotten. No matter how much I wanted to help Crystal and Tanya, it was more important that we get away. Though it hurt to admit, saving my own life, and those of my new comrades, took priority. Besides, Tanya was probably behind me, working with the horde. That idea bolstered my resolve to clear a path.
I'd just have to come back later.
Another bolt of lightning sizzled behind me.
The first demon I'd hit came on my right, while a new foe attacked from the left. I blocked both, arms wind milling from center out to the sides. My bare hands caught their arms, light flashed, and they were gone.
Two more came rushing in, still garbed in the ragged remnants of the clothes they wore when they dressed for a night of fun at the carnival. These were innocents, unwilling combatants in jeans and light jackets, perfect garb for a cool night outdoors. It was also perfect for defeating any attempt at banishing except a direct blow to the face, or a chance contact with a bare hand.
A thought occurred to me, a way to keep clearing without constantly knocking demons away only to have them come back in.
As the first demon swung, I set my mind to not allowing me power to manifest. Remembering how strong these things were, I crossed my arms as they came up to block, catching the overhead swing in the crook of the X. Quickly rotating my wrists to get a grip on the demon's arm, I twisted my torso to the right and bent forward, hauling the ungainly thing over my shoulder and slamming it to the ground. Before it could react, I let go with my right hand, pulling it in and launching it back out at the creature's face. Light flashed because I wanted it to, and the demon was gone.
Feeling the pressure of the second demon coming, I threw myself into a forward roll, coming back to my feet in time to pivot to the right, arms bent at the elbow and coming across in the direction of my spin. Holding my power back, I let my arms connect with the reaching right arm of the demon, driving it to my right, across the demon's body. Pushing off with my back-planted right leg as I continued my spin, bringing it up and around behind me, my three-sixty spinning kick caught the overbalanced demon squarely on the right side of the head, causing it to stagger to my right. It had no time to right itself or set its defenses. My right hand reached out and banished it with a light touch to the face.
Four down.
Enraged by the sight of its comrades’ disappearances, another demon rushed me. Taller than the previous three, this one towered over me by at least a foot, though it didn't have the girth of the gigantic guy I'd fought a few nights before. I set myself to meet its charge, but before it could reach me, I spun away, throwing a quick back kick into its midsection.
I'd forgotten how quickly these things could change direction.
It swung an arm at the last second, catching my right leg at the shin and throwing me into a spin that brought me back full circle, almost toppling me. Somehow staying on my feet, I was unprepared for its follow up swing, which drove into my chest like a hammer, knocking me onto my back and blowing the breath out of my body. If I could breathe, I might have been thankful that it punched me, rather than tearing at me with its claws.
A scream sounded from the barricades. No way to tell who voiced it.
"Fall back!" Iz ordered, and someone else screamed.
I had no time to look to see what was happening. My chest wouldn't work when I tried to suck in a breath, the muscles still clenched, spasming.
The demon stayed where he was, not approaching, not trying to finish me off while I was down.
They were learning.
One of the last two wasn't as smart, rushing around the big one and coming at me from the right, taloned feet raised to stomp. My chest heaved and sweet air rushed into my lungs as the foot came down at my face.
I swung my right hand up at the descending foot, unleashing my power.
Light flashed, and another was gone.
Gathering my feet under me, I tried to stand, and that's when the big demon rushed in, knowing I would be off-balance and slow to respond.
A crack. A sizzle.
Blue-white-purple light almost blinded me as a small bolt of lightning came arcing over my shoulder, making my hair stand on end as it p
assed, driving into the demon's body. It didn't fly away, didn't fall down. Maybe it was too big for that.
But all its muscles seized, arms snapping down to its sides, feet locked together. A creature that size might not have been paralyzed for long, but it was long enough for me to regain my feet, reach out, and banish it.
A human, having seen six of his friends defeated almost single-handedly, with a small assist from a tall black guy throwing lightning, would have turned tail and run. Apparently, demons weren't quite as concerned with self-preservation.
Growling and snarling, this final demon waded in, claw-tipped arms raking the air in diagonal swipes, top right to bottom left and top left to bottom right, a frenzied attack that would defeat most attempts at defense, if the person defending hadn't been trained to stop this particular kind of attacker, someone with more aggression than discipline.
I let it come in, timing his swings. I leaned back from a right hand, ignoring the snarling mouth full of fangs leering out of its dark red and scaly face, then threw a middle block with my right hand, stopping its left. Before it could swing the right again, I side-stepped to my left, then threw a right-footed roundhouse kick into its stomach, followed immediately by a left roundhouse to its lower back. I stepped left again, putting myself behind the beast, then reached out a hand to catch a swinging arm as it turned, trying to locate me.
Light flashed, and the last demon was gone.
A hand grabbed my shoulder from behind. "Where'd it go?" a voice asked.
The hand belonged to James, the tall guy, but before I could answer him some of the others came running up, racing by us, heading for the entrance.
"Stop!" I shouted. Amazingly, they did. "Let me make sure there aren't any more."
A clap of my hands revealed no more enemies between us and the entrance to the midway. I didn't know if the guy with the invisibility power was one of those I'd banished. I told myself it didn't matter. It was him or us.
It didn't help.
My power almost blew over a Ring Toss game shack and shifted a cotton candy food truck a foot despite its parking brake, but those were the only things that moved or were moving.
"It's clear," I said at the same time Angie reported the same thing.
"Come on," Iz shouted, bringing up the rear, the young girl from the pen slung over his shoulder. "That wall won't stop them for long."
I looked back.
The barricades were gone, ripped out of the ground.
"Don't," James said, pulling on my arm. "Don't look."
But I needed to see.
The white wall remained, with the horde of demons pounding on it futilely. It extended the width of the midway and then some, one side running out between the trees on the right, while the other extended well into the open area between rides. There were demons ranging along both sides, looking for a way around it, but none seemed to have found it yet. Individually, they seemed to retain a lot of the intelligence they'd had as a human. Case in point, the big guy I'd just fought, who'd been smart enough to counter my attack and wait for an opportunity to follow up. But in groups they lost something, perhaps an independence of thought. It shouldn't be hard to figure out that all they needed to do was walk around the wall, but they didn't. Instead they congregated on the midway, only spreading out to the sides because of the press of bodies behind them.
Towering torso, shoulders, and head above even the tallest demon was the cowled form of what they called the Alpha. That thing hadn't made it to the wall yet. It still moved forward at a slow pace, seeming to flow between the milling forms of hundreds of demons.
James tugged at my shirt again, pulling me.
And I saw them.
Bodies. Helmeted bodies, lying on the ground near the barricades, or thrown back from them. The one nearest the wall was missing an arm. Blood pooled under him.
"When the barricades were ripped out of the ground, he was still leaning over it," James said softly. He still pulled on me, but he seemed to understand my need to know. "It happened so fast. First their guns were pulled right out of their hands. I think Iz has a couple of broken fingers."
A few feet closer was another helmeted form, down on its side, one of the wooden crossbars impaling him from front to back.
"Most of them jumped up and back when the guns were grabbed. Rich wasn't fast enough."
Tanya.
It had to be her.
Who else could snatch all their weapons from their hands simultaneously, without ever having to come close?
Who else could grab all those barricades, ripping them up with such speed and force that one could separate a man's arm at the shoulder?
"Who's that?" I asked weakly.
James closed his eyes, the hand on my shoulder no longer pulling. The taller man leaned on me for a second, like a crutch.
"That was Ben. He was helping Gina with the wall, but then he stopped, said he was going to freeze the demons in place, make them easier to hit with the disruptors. This was after the guns were grabbed."
The demons were still scrabbling along the barrier. The large one was closer, but still ten feet away.
"He did something, because a lot of them stopped coming. Iz and the others just kept shooting. The barricades were hanging in the air, like they'd been forgotten."
Or like Tanya said, she could set it and forget it.
"But then one of them came tumbling down at the feet of the big one...the Alpha. It smashed into pieces. That big one he...he picked up that long piece of wood and he threw it."
"It shouldn't have been able to go through the wall, nothing should be able to come through it from the other side, but it did. It flew like a spear, coming straight for Ben, like the thing knew he was the one keeping them from moving."
It might have, if Crystal was over there, maybe linked with the demons, giving them the benefit of her sight.
We started backing away.
Without their guns, the soldiers were useless against the horde.
Without the soldiers, what could the rest of us do against such overwhelming numbers?
"How long will the wall hold?" I asked.
"It's supposed to stay up as long as Gina wants it to. We haven't really tested her to see if she must stay within a certain proximity.
We kept backing up, casting quick glances over our shoulders to make sure the way remained clear, that we weren't going to trip over anything. Or anyone.
James wanted to turn and run, but I wasn't ready yet. Something inside of me needed to see. I needed to know if the Alpha would also be stopped by the wall.
Like the slow and inexorable march of time, the large demon moved up to the transparent curtain. Though Gina had made it twelve feet tall or more, the large demon almost matched it for height. As it was, the rounded top of its cowl was just below the upper level of the wall.
James and I stopped, enthralled. We'd backed up almost to the Quarter Pitch. The entrance I'd come through only a few hours before was to our right. It seemed impossible that such a short time had passed, that this was still the same night, but it was.
The demon seemed to pause, its head panning left and right, as if trying to see the ends of the wall.
The Quarter Pitch drew my attention as well. It wasn't hard to remember my anger and frustration at the game, my first sight of the large stuffed demons being used to draw people in.
"Can your lightning start fires?" I asked.
"What? Why?"
"See those huge stuffed things hanging from the game?" I indicated the Pitch to my left with a nod of my head.
"Yeah. Wait. Are those--?"
"Yes. It's the first thing we saw when we came in," I answered.
"It doesn't always start a fire," he said. "But I'm willing to try."
"Do it quick, please."
"All right. You keep an eye on the big guy."
I couldn't have looked away if I wanted to. The large creature reached out both of its arms, long sleeves falling over the hands. Slowly,
almost gently, it pressed both hands against the wall. I could see the fabric of the robe trapped, acting like a barrier between the light and the demon's skin. It pressed, and the wall bowed inward.
Behind me, James said, "Here goes," and then came that crackle of electricity. I didn't see the bolt, but its light lit the area around us momentarily. A sound like a muffled explosion came from the Quarter Pitch.
The large demon pushed harder, and the wall...folded over at the top, like a cardboard fort when a kid pushes on it too hard.
"Got it!" James exclaimed, and suddenly there was a different kind of light coming from my left, a flickering orange glow that spoke of fire and flame.
Another second, and the towering demon stepped forward. The bent wall cracked open in the middle, then disappeared as light ran away to the sides from the breach.
"Time to go, man," James said.
This time I was more than ready to follow him.
Chapter 34
Living to fight another day
Whoever this group was, with their strange helmets and stranger rifles, their makeshift army of gifted people, they were well-equipped. Six large vans waited outside the entrance to the midway, pulled up on the asphalt just beyond where the demons took money in exchange for wristbands and tickets. Those demons were gone, of course, as were the crowds. I remembered Fish reporting the normals had been evacuated, but were these soldiers also somehow keeping more people from trying to come into the carnival?
I didn't know what time the carnival was supposed to close. Heck, I had no idea what time it was then. I knew the carnival stayed open later on weekends than weekdays, and we had arrived shortly after six.
"Looks like the Paddy Wagon's already gone," James said, pulling me from my depressing thoughts as we came running through the archway of bright lights.
My questioning look earned a chuckle from the taller man, though his voice quickly became sad. "It's what we call the big van we use to transport the converted back to HQ. Ben...he wasn't the only way we have of controlling them."