Destroyer of Worlds (7 page)

They’d hurt people before. The Fist operative
who’d tried to assassinate John. Melanie. But they hadn’t killed
anyone still totally human, or anyone who could be saved.

We’ve got get out of here.
Got to let people know what Forsyth is up to, building a damn army
of demons.
A hell of a lot of innocent people might
die if RD’s pet project went wrong.
No
holding back. We can’t risk it.

“
I understand.”

He swiped the card. The door slid open,
revealing a spirit ward laid down directly in front of it, and a
very startled-looking guard stationed across the hall.

* * *

Gray doesn’t hesitate, surging across the
spirit ward. It breaks around him with a satisfying “pop.” The
guard has just enough time to look surprised, before Gray’s fist
slams into his head.

The guard hits the wall with a crunch of bone
and spray of blood. Gray doesn’t wait to find out if the man is
dead or merely unconscious, instead sprinting down the hall toward
the elevator. The exorcists who laid down the spirit ward will have
sensed it break, which means all hope for a stealthy escape is
already gone. With any luck the darkness will keep the mortals
confused, but he and Caleb cannot count on such a thing.

Curse this electricity, which gives so much
light. Things were much simpler when mortals possessed only oil
lamps and candles. He adds it to his list of modern inconveniences,
along with motor vehicles.

There is another guard at the elevator; Gray
spots the flashlight long before they are on the mortal. The man’s
nervousness is betrayed by the rankness of his sweat. He fears the
dark as mortals often do.

Good. Fear makes creatures act
recklessly.

Gray drops into a crouch, padding forward on
the balls of his feet. Caleb tucked the keycard into their pocket,
and he pulls it out. He waits until the guard is looking away,
before throwing it.

The whisper of plastic on carpet causes the
soldier to jerk around, presenting his back to Gray. “McDaniels? Is
tha—”

Gray seizes the man’s head, turning it with a
sharp twist. Vertebrae snap, and he falls, dead before he hits the
floor.

“
Oh God…”
But
Caleb pulls on the reserves of his strength, holds back the horror
threatening to flood their shared veins.
“Get…get his key card.”

We had no other choice.

“
I know. Just get the damn
card, okay?”

Gray does as instructed and tries it on the
elevator. Nothing happens; all the lights remain red.

“
The elevators must lock
down in an emergency. Fuck.”

It will not stop us.

He tosses the card aside and steps up to the
elevator doors. Hooking his fingers into the crack between them, he
pushes outward, forcing them open with a squeal of tortured
metal.

The elevator car is on this floor, which
makes things easier. Gray rips the hatch in the ceiling free and
scrambles through, into the shaft itself. Cables stretch high into
the darkness overhead.

“
I couldn’t even climb the
rope in gym class.”
Memories of smelly feet and
half-naked boys, of trying to hide an erection in front of the star
quarterback.
“Can we play ‘Caleb’s most
embarrassing teen moments’ later, please?”

You brought up the
subject,
Gray points out. He ignores the cables in
favor of the inside of the elevator shaft. Extending his claws to
better grip each handhold and crevice, he begins to
climb.

It takes less than a minute to reach the top
of the shaft, climbing swift and easy. Bracing himself, he hauls
open the doors leading into the concrete garage at the top.

Three soldiers stand on the other side, guns
pointed at him.

* * *

“
No holding back,”
Caleb had said.

So Gray doesn’t.

He vaults into the garage, tearing
through them even as the agents open fire. It
hurts
, meat and bone shredded by silver-jacketed
lead, but he doesn’t stop or hesitate.

He sinks his claws into a living body and
uses it like a club, swinging the agent into her fellows. Bullets
hit her. She jerks at the impact against her body armor, before she
smashes into the other guards, taking them out in a crack of
bone.

He drops her and runs. These were the first
to respond to the alarm of his escape, and although the power
outage has left the mortals slow to organize, more will be here
soon. He grabs the rolling garage door, ripping it upward in a
shriek of bending metal, before ducking beneath. For the first time
in a week, he is in the open air.

Lightning forks across the sky, accompanied
by a crack of thunder which drowns out the wail of alarms. Cold
rain lashes him, soaking his hair in seconds.

Yes.

Lights cut across the open yard, but he
ignores them, running for the nearest wall as fast as he can.
Shouts and gunfire follow him, but the mortals are too slow.

The concrete wall is high, and tipped with
silver-plated razor wire. Spirit wards gleam every few feet,
protected from the rain by plastic sheeting. If he were a demon, he
would be trapped within the compound.

But he is no demon. He is the storm; he feels
the wind and the rain and the lightning, power pounding against his
skin and in his blood. They are one, on some primal level which
needs no explanation.

“
Hold on!”

We cannot linger.
But he hesitates before launching himself at the
wall.

“
No—I’m not fucking slicing
off all our fingers on the damn razor wire.”

Ah. Perhaps you should take over for a
moment.

* * *

Gray slipped back, leaving Caleb standing in
the downpour, with a dozen guards closing in. Not the best
conditions to concentrate on using his TK, but no way would he let
Gray drag them over the razor wire if he had a choice
otherwise.

Lightning exploded across the sky, the wind
shaking the trees all around. The air smelled of wet earth. Taking
a deep breath, Caleb flexed his knees, ready to jump and add all of
Gray’s power to the leap, just in case his TK didn’t get them quite
high enough.

He
pushed
against the ground with his ability the
same moment he sprang. The combination launched him up at the wall,
and for a second he thought they were going to make it, until
bullets smashed into his shoulder.

The impact spun him around, pain blazing like
a supernova. He crashed into the top of the wall, razor wire
lacerating his thighs and snagging his coat. He started to fall
back into the compound, and fuck no, he refused to die here.

He
shoved
again, even though pain spiked through his
head, his power overtaxed. But it redirected his momentum, even as
he sent the guards flying back.

He fell over the outer side of the wall,
hitting the ground beyond with bone-snapping force. For a moment he
couldn’t see, couldn’t move, through a blinding sheet of pain. The
wounds closed sluggishly, femur wrenching back into place, and he
couldn’t help but think dying would have been a hell of a lot less
painful.

“
But more
permanent.”

Damn drakul, being right and all.

Caleb staggered to his feet like a drunken
man. Spotlights flared to life behind him, the base’s power coming
back online. Ahead of him stretched a cleared space roughly the
length of a football field, but beyond lay a sea of storm-tossed
trees.

Freedom.

He ran, all of Gray’s speed and strength his
to claim. A few bullets pocked the dirt near them, but no closer.
In a flash, they were in the woods beyond, hidden from the guards
on the walls.

Branches slapped their face, and the only
light came from the continuous strikes of lightning, but neither of
them cared. Caleb ran, the last bruises healing, pain fading into
triumph.

We made it. They’ll probably try to chase us
down, but it will take them a while.

I can’t believe we did it.

“
I had no doubts,”
Gray said, with far more smugness than the situation
warranted.

But they were running the night forest in a
storm, in the midst of the lashing trees and keening wind. Caleb
breathed in the wild scent of the air, feeling mad elation bubble
up deep in his chest.

Because this felt good. Whatever else
Gray had brought him,
this
was
joy. To run faster than he ever imagined, reveling in the sheer
physical pleasure. To have a glimpse of what it might be to be
truly free. Truly wild.

“
I, too, enjoy
it.”

“
Yeah.” Caleb grinned, glancing over
his shoulder at the rapidly receding base. “Sometimes it’s fun to
be a creature of the night.”

* * *

John paced the floor of the condo, every
nerve drawn tight, his stomach queasy from a mixture of fear and
exhaustion. He’d taken Friday off work, wanting to be ready for
Caleb’s call. Hours dragged past, and at first he told himself not
to worry. Caleb would call, probably after nightfall.

The sun went down, and the phone failed to
ring. Now the clock showed well after midnight, and still no word
from Caleb.

John paused in his pacing, staring blankly at
the ugly orange couch. Something had gone wrong. Caleb hadn’t made
it out. Which meant either Gray would die, or they both would.

Sekhmet, She Who Devours Evil, give him
strength. Surely he could do something. Think of some way to save
them—

The ring of his cell phone made his heart
jerk in his chest. Hands shaking, he snatched it up. “Hello?”

“
John!”

The sound of Caleb’s voice made him want to
sink to the floor in relief and gratitude. “Caleb! Where are you?
Are you all right?”

“
I’m okay. I’m calling from a pay
phone—can you believe there are any still left? It’s in front of a
convenience store.”

“
Where are you?”

“
New Ellenton, I think the sign said?
Shit, I don’t know, I just ran cross-country for two hours in a
storm.” Caleb rattled off the name of the nearest intersection, and
John scribbled it down. Goddess, he hoped Forsyth wasn’t paranoid
enough to have someone keeping tabs on his phone. Or him. He hadn’t
noticed any suspicious vehicles parked or following him around, but
he’d keep a close eye on his rearview mirror on the drive
down.

“
I’ll be there as soon as I can,” John
said. “Listen, Caleb—I’ve got great news. I found an exorcism I’m
certain will work!”

There came a pause. “Oh?” Caleb asked,
managing to sound both hopeful and uncertain. “Are…are you
sure?”

“
Yes.” He couldn’t allow any room for
doubt, not for either of them. “It takes more than one exorcist,
though, and, well, I can’t exactly take you back to HQ at the
moment. I’ll pick you up. We’ll come back here, meet up with Sean,
and perform the exorcism somewhere away from prying eyes.
Okay?”

He heard Caleb let out a long breath. “Yeah.
Okay. But we’ve got to talk, after.”

“
Sure.” Hopefully there would be an
“after.” He’d release Gray back into the world, then take Caleb
straight to Kaniyar. With any luck, he could shield Caleb from the
fallout. As for himself, he didn’t have much hope, but it was the
sacrifice he had to make. “I’ll be there in about two and half
hours. Hang tight.”

“
I will.”

John hung up and grabbed the bag with his
exorcism equipment in it. As he shut and locked the condo door
behind him, he wondered if he’d ever see it again, or if the next
place he called home would come with bars and orange jumpsuits.

So long as Caleb and Gray were safe, it
didn’t matter. He couldn’t let himself worry about anything
else.

* * *

“
One of the ghoul houses, right?” John
asked. Caleb didn’t catch Sean’s answer; John didn’t have his cell
on speaker.

The miles rolled away beneath the wheels of
John’s sedan. The storm had blown out to sea, and the sun came up
in a blaze of color a couple of hours ago. Caleb stared out his
window at it, soaking up the brilliant shades of gold, scarlet, and
shell pink. He felt Gray clinging to the aching beauty of the
world, desperate to take some memory of it with him, terrified it
would fade once he again inhabited dead neurons and decayed
flesh.

Caleb wouldn’t ever see another sunrise like
this one, either. Once Gray left, he would find himself limited to
the ordinary scope of human senses. He’d forget the vivid colors,
the thousand subtleties of scent, the way even the smooth surface
of a coffee mug revealed imperfections and texture to his
fingertips.

He wouldn’t miss the maulings and insanity.
But the experience hadn’t been a complete nightmare.

He wouldn’t be the same, and neither would
Gray. And neither, unfortunately, would John.

Caleb spent most of the drive detailing
everything he’d seen at RD, including all the demons in the
basement. John’s knuckles had turned white from clenching the
steering wheel, and his expression grown more and more fixed. After
dumping that load on John’s shoulders, Caleb hadn’t been able to
bring himself to mention the moths’ offer to exorcise Gray. He
hadn’t called them, either; he owed it to John to tell him about
SPECTR first.

He still had some time left. John and Sean
would exorcise him, and if something went wrong and it didn’t work,
he’d call the moths and get their help.