Matt Archer: Redemption (31 page)

Knife in hand, I barreled into the fray without thought about my safety. This wall was in my way, and they were going down so I could get to their boss. Two troll-like shadows disappeared in sparks as soon as the blade so much as touched them. One of those dark angels came behind, sword in hand. He swung down hard at my head. I blocked the blow just in time and metal squealed against metal. The dark angel was strong, bending me nearly horizontal as I held him off.

Then he cried out and started to crack, like parched earth, before crumbling into ashes at my feet.

Aunt Julie stood behind him, wiping black dust off her knife blade onto her pants’ leg. “Will got hung up.”

Then she whirled in a circle, taking down no less than five demons with one swing. Another sprang ten feet in the air, like it was going to land on her head, but she sidestepped it abnormally fast, caught it in the throat with her blade and dragged it down.

Damn.

“I think you’ve got this,” I said, marveling at how well she and her knife-spirit worked together. “I’m going further in.”

She waved a hand, too busy to do more than that. A swarm of bug-eyed, winged monsters the size of Penn were flying toward her and the last I saw before being surrounded was Aunt Julie laughing as she stood her ground.

The group that came for me looked roughly like men, except featureless, with bodies that fluttered like smoke. A few angels stood behind, waiting.

“Lining up?” I yelled, as the smoke-men closed in. “I’ll be ready for you in a minute.”

The dark angels smirked at me, then pointed over my shoulder. The report of automatic weapons and several grenade bursts sounded from the left flank. I turned; a segment of the dark army was bending around us and going after the support team.

Shouts, followed soon by screams and more artillery fire, carried over the wind and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Pissed, I attacked the closest of the smoke-men. Unlike the trolls, who disintegrated at a touch, these winked out of existence, then returned at my other side.

“Great. Just like the Takers, but there’s more of you, I bet,” I snapped.

None of the smoke-men answered. Borrowing Aunt Julie’s trick, I whirled around with my blade out, and caught four of them before they saw me coming. The rest figured it out and poofed away.

I stopped spinning long enough to see where they went, when a dart came flying at my head. I dodged to the side, bringing my blade up to catch it, but it still nicked my left bicep pretty good. I pressed my hand against the wound and my fingers came away slick with blood.

Darts? Seriously, what did they think this was, amateur hour? It didn’t even seem like it was poisoned, or if it was, Tink had already neutralized it. I picked up the dart and threw it as hard as I could at the squat demon aiming a blowpipe at me. It must’ve hit him, because he disintegrated into a pile of steaming sludge.

Tink growled in my head. She really didn’t like it when I bled, and I could feel her getting ready to unleash all she had. Before she had a chance to hit me, though, three of the smoke-men appeared. One grabbed me around the throat and lifted me from the ground. Not wanting to let go of my knife, I clawed at it with my left hand. A second smoke-man caught my arm, then out this ungodly shriek before exploding in a cloud of dust like pencil lead shavings. The one holding my neck dropped me and backed away. I had no idea what I’d done, but even the angels turned to run.

I chased after them. “Come back and fight you cowards!”

All around me, the battle raged. To my right, Jorge danced about, slashing open demon after demon. Ramirez was fighting two angels at once, moving so fast he was a blur.

And Julie? Well, she was earning her nickname. A trail of ashes and tarlike goo followed in her wake and she was still laughing. A wild gleam shone in her eyes as she raced from crisis to crisis.

She caught me looking, let out a war-whoop and shouted, “Best day of my life!” before slashing down on a demon’s shoulder so hard, the blade sliced through flesh and bone to reach its heart.

For an absurd second, I wondered if Uncle Mike should hang up the military thing and spend his days worshipping the ground this goddess of mayhem walked on.

Shaking my head, I turned in a circle, searching for Will. He’d made it the farthest up the dune, right into the heart of the mass, and he was in serious danger of being overrun.

I started up the hill, cursing the sliding sand. Running up the incline was nearly impossible and my legs strained with the effort. In my earpiece, Uncle Mike shouted for heavy artillery support on the left flank, and pained screams served as background noise over our comm. I almost turned around to help, but a mass of shadows rushed Will.

Torn, I ran toward Will. Losing him wasn’t an option.

I crested the dune and arrived in barely enough time to take out a smoke-man that had coalesced into existence behind him.

“Took you long enough, you hoser,” he called.

I stabbed a troll. “I had some work to do first.”

“Excuses, excuses. Thought you were here to save the world.” He punctuated each sentence by taking out a pair of creeping things with forked tongues and long necks.

“Speaking of which … ” I ducked under one of those flying bug-eyed monsters and caught its wing with my knife. Poof, gone. “What’s up with the sky?”

It had dimmed since we’d arrived, like something was leeching the color from it. There weren’t any storm clouds, but the blue wasn’t as brilliant. Even the sun looked faded.

“No idea.” Will met a blow from a tall, tree-like creature with fronds for hair and massive branch-like arms. When it swung at him again, he lowered his shoulder and tossed it over his back before running it through.

He paused long enough to catch his breath. “Where did they go?”

An empty circle, with a radius that stretched out forty feet, had formed around us, with Will and me as the center point. “I seem to scare them off.”

“Then let’s go!” He started jogging toward the artillery group. Before he’d gone ten yards, a smoke-man appeared out of thin air. When I ran to help, though, the creature squawked and disappeared.

“Holy crap, they really are scared of you,” Will said. “Come on—let’s push them away from the support team.”

“Good idea,” I said, running after him. Every time he got more than fifteen feet ahead, a monster would try to engage. And every time I came running to help, it would take off.

The bubble of safety followed us all the way to Uncle Mike, who was calling out commands over the radio. Down the line, rockets and grenades shot into the mass, away from where Jorge, Julie and Ramirez fought. Nothing seemed to help, though, and right before I got there, a group of dark angels stormed one of the tanks. In seconds, they pried the hatch off.

Smoke-men poured out the top, one carrying the charred remains of a soldier. The men nearby backed away, trying to defend themselves, but the angels started cutting them down like a farmer scything wheat. Behind them, a host of goblins went after the wounded with teeth and claws. Blood stained the sand.

“Fall back, fall back,” Uncle Mike barked. “Regroup at Blue team’s line.”

He jumped when I tapped him on the shoulder. “Chief, what are you doing down here?”

“Look!” Will said, pointing at the field.

All around us, monsters were backing away. Men who’d been actively engaged suddenly found themselves staring at a blank space.

“Bring everyone here to you, okay?” I said. “Then let me call the wielders.”

If he thought my request was weird, he didn’t say so. “All teams, all teams. Come to Blue team’s staging area. Archer actual’s orders.”

Men charged our way, and as they got closer to where I stood, fewer monsters followed, until a huge crowd of men surrounded Uncle Mike’s Humvee, free of pursuit.

I climbed up on the hood of the vehicle and tapped my earpiece. “Wielders, we have an enemy concentration near the artillery teams. Head this way and draw them off.”

“On my way,” Ramirez said over the radio.

“There’s
more?
This party just keeps getting better!” Aunt Julie answered. Uncle Mike’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

All I got from Jorge was a wave as he dashed by, slashing every creature in reach as he ran up the nearest dune.

“I’m on my way out,” Will said. “Stay here. Keep them safe.”

“I’m needed out there!” I said.

But he was already gone, plowing into the cloud of shadows.

As we’d hoped, most of the enemy’s host moved away, drawn by the lure of the wielders. Of the few monsters that stayed behind, they hung back, pacing like they were trying to find their way past some invisible barrier. What had I done to repel them like this?

“Cruessan!” Nguyen barked into my earpiece. “Stay with Captain Johnson. You’re in too deep out there. Work your way back to cover.”

The only response was Will wheezing out curse words as he struggled to keep up with the barrage of monsters surrounding him.

“I’ll try to get over there,” Julie said. Her voice was tense over the radio. “I have a mess to plow through first.”

“Anybody else around?” Uncle Mike asked.

“Busy,” Ramirez said, sounding out of breath.

“I’m on the far end, Colonel,” Jorge said. “And hemmed in.”

When I searched for him, he was much farther afield than I’d guessed. They all were, scattered apart across the battlefield. “Can anyone get to Cruessan?”

“Still working my way there,” Julie said. “But it’s going to take a while.”

The conversation took ten seconds, and in that time the monsters had closed in around Will. He was fighting hard, but there were too many of them. Anguished, I looked at Uncle Mike, silently asking him to make the call I couldn’t.

We stared at each other for a long second, then he nodded. “Go get him.”

Knowing I could be dooming any number of these men to death didn’t rest easy on my shoulders, but after all the times Will had saved my life, he deserved my help now. “Stick together. Don’t spread out. It’ll be easier for us to protect you and harder for them to break through.”

Then I hopped down and took off for the nearest dune.

Chapter Thirty-Six

At first, the shadows didn’t seem to know I was on the field, giving me free rein to cut my way through the mob. Once they figured it out, though, they scattered. Good—that made it easier for me to get to Will.

Climbing the dune left me winded, and I soon understood why Will and Ramirez both sounded out of breath. The thinner air, along with the work it took to run up a hill of soft sand, was taking a toll.

“Tink,” I gasped. “I could use a little boost now.”

Good. I’m tired of waiting.

A steady stream of power filled my chest and it wasn’t so hard to breathe anymore. Like my lungs could extract more oxygen than normal. “Thanks.”

I scurried along the top of the dune, picking out Will’s fight. A swirl of shadowed shapes, consisting of teeth, claws, horns and weapons, writhed around him. As I closed in, a few of those shadows let out a cry and disappeared, but three dark angels stayed. They rained blows down at Will with such speed and force, the best he could do was ward them off. No time for offense.

“Will!” I shouted.

One of the angels whirled to meet me, then tried to run when he saw who I was. Too late; I was on him in a blink, taking him down to the sand. My blade barely nicked him before he cried out and disintegrated into dust.

I stood, expecting that Will had taken care of his. Instead, he was actively fighting the male angel. He managed to fake him out and slash him across the chest, but what Will didn’t see was the she-angel right behind him, sword raised.

“Look out!” I shouted.

He jerked his head to the side. Turned.

Too late, too late, my brain screamed, but my body still reacted. I slammed into her back as hard as I could, even as the sword was slicing down. Pain lanced through my cut arm, and Will cried out.

Thinking he’d been run through, I shoved the angel away. Will stood, staring down at her, hanging on to his right hand. Blood seeped through his fingers.

The angel lay face down on the sand, screaming. I’d barely hit her, yet she thrashed like I’d broken half her bones. I hurried to Will’s side, keeping an eye on her.

“She’s melting,” he said through clenched teeth.

“What? I shoved her so she wouldn’t slice your head off, that’s all.”

The angel continued to shriek as I helped Will sit. Whatever was going on with her would have to wait. I pulled Will’s left hand—still holding his knife—away from the wound, and hissed.

“Is it bad?” he asked.

“It’s not good,” I said. The angel had sliced his palm wide open, nearly to the bone. Fighting an urge to vomit, I tore a strip of fabric off my jacket. “This is going to hurt. Bite down on your knife handle.”

He did as I asked, then I wrapped his hand as tightly as I could. Will groaned, but held still long enough for me to knot the makeshift bandage. I tapped my earpiece twice. “This is Archer. I need a medical team. Cruessan’s down.”

“How serious?” Uncle Mike’s voice was calm and businesslike.

“Not life-threatening, but he’s out.”

“I’m sending Klimmett, Blakeney and Lanningham up. The others are engaged.”

Just what I was afraid of. As soon as I left, the monsters had come back after them and there was nothing to do but keep thinning the herd. “I’ll bring him down as far as I can.”

I stood then helped Will up. “We’ll meet them halfway, okay? We can make it that far.”

“Wait,” he said, pointing at the angel.

Her torso was burned clean through, cauterized so that her ribs showed. “God, what did that?”

“I have a theory. Take me down to the artillery line and we’ll see if I’m right.”

“Dude, you aren’t going anywhere but to Klimmett to get worked on,” I told him firmly.

“I’m going to Klimmett long enough for him to patch me up. Coach Shaw can do the rest,” he said, his eyes flashing. “I’m not out, no matter what you told the colonel.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. He was hurt pretty badly, and I wondered if shock had given him delusions. “Let’s get there first, see what Klimmett says.”