Summoner of Storms (20 page)

“
You do realize the only option for
something like a wendigo is to feed it other people,
right?”

Then he should not have made it.

“
Yeah, no shit. And it’s not like it asked
for this.”

Let us put it out of its misery.

The wendigo tears at him with claws, frantic.
The coat foils its grasp for the most part, until it dips lower,
finding an exposed thigh and digging in. Gray snarls and lets go of
its flesh. Its collar is loose around its emaciated neck, and he is
able to grip it. The collar comes apart in a swirl of sparks and
shattered electronics, exposing the wendigo’s throat.

Its blood is thick with ice, a sludgy mix
that spreads pain through his face.
“Like drinking a milkshake
too fast.”

The wendigo goes limp, and sparks flare
around Gray, the very air becoming charged. Wind begins to blow,
ruffling his hair, and excitement jags through him like a distant
flicker of lightning. He rises to his feet, power from the demons
he has eaten surging through him, and takes in his immediate
surroundings.

All about him there are people. Ordinary
mortals, their eyes wide with terror, chained to the iron cannons
within the brick vaults of the casements.

* * *

John ran through the casements, trying not to
trip over the metal tracks once used to aim the cannons. Drying
blood cracked on his face, and the tang of cordite filled his nose.
A ghoul lunged out of one of the tight side rooms, and he shot it
point blank in the face without stopping.

His heart pounded, and his breath burned in
his lungs. He’d never participated in an action like this before.
From the moment they’d landed, it was chaos. The run through the
marsh, the ground sucking at his shoes. The NHEs flanking them from
the open main doors. The scramble up a chain ladder, before
dropping down into semi-darkness, barely missing the stump of a
brick wall.

The man beside him wasn’t as lucky. His ankle
snapped when he landed on the damn bricks, and a second later,
lycanthropes fell on him. John shot two of them, but too late to
save the other agent.

John had no clear sense as to whether they
were winning or losing. He concentrated on pushing forward, trying
to stick to cover since the gunmen on the battery shot at anything
that moved. Tiffany and Sean fought nearby, Tiffany with a gun in
one hand and the other wreathed in flames. He’d glimpsed Kaniyar
briefly, but lost track of both her and Pittman.

The gunmen on the battery would turn a
head-on assault into a death sentence. But if they made their way
through the casements and up the stairs to the left of the battery,
they’d be shielded most of the way. No doubt Forsyth would have
people stationed on the stairs, but with any luck there wouldn’t be
as many of them.

There came a loud crash, and Gray hurtled out
of the casements in front of them. Two lycanthropes and a possessed
soldier clung to him, all trying to drag him to the ground.

“Shit!” John ran forward automatically. The
soldier’s back was to him, so he took a deep breath, reached out
with his etheric sense, and
pulled.

The soldier screamed, thrashing like a mad
thing as the NHE inside her fought back. John saw it pulling free,
a thing of red-black energy, nothing but teeth and rage. He ripped
it out with a single jerk.

The corona of etheric energy boiling off Gray
seemed to snap outward, like the pseudopod of a feeding amoeba. It
snared the unembodied NHE in the instant before it crossed back to
the etheric plane, devouring it.

Huh.

The wind grew stronger, but it didn’t come
from off the ocean. It emanated from Gray, carrying on it the scent
of desert rain and lightning, a distant storm just starting to
break. Saint Elmo’s fire came to life on the ends of the cannons,
and a human cry of fear rang out.

“There are mortal captives here,” Gray
rumbled. “Still alive.”

Tiffany swore and pushed past. John glimpsed
wide eyes, heard the rattle of chains. “Tiffany!” shouted a girl’s
voice, echoed an instant later by another.

John sagged for just an instant against the
rough brick wall. Despite everything, maybe they’d managed to save
a few people.

The clot of etheric energy gathering above
the battery shifted, growing darker, denser. John pushed himself
off the wall and peered out. The sigils on the five corners of the
fort flared abruptly, arcs of silver light stabbing into the
sky.

“Fuck!” He raised his Glock, sighting
desperately toward where he knew Forsyth must stand. But the angle
was impossible; he couldn’t even see the man, let alone shoot
him.

“Gray!” Kaniyar’s voice cracked like a whip.
“Get up there! Now!”

But it was already too late. An unnatural
silence fell. Even the possessed soldiers ceased fire to turn and
stare at what took place behind them. No one moved, and the wind
swirling around Gray stilled.

Then the ocean roared, the cry of a wrathful
god. Waves smashed against the Atlantic side of the fort, sending
spray flying fifty feet into the air. John tasted salt on his lips,
felt cool flecks against his face.

The world tore open. Something ripped through
the gap, like a struggling tiger in a net.

Forsyth screamed. Or something screamed
through him, perhaps.

Silence.

What was happening? What—

A figure lunged over the side of the battery,
seized one of the possessed soldiers by the shoulders, and dragged
him up. Fangs flashed, and Forsyth buried them in the shrieking
man’s throat.

The summoning had succeeded.

* * *

The possessed soldiers broke, hurling aside
their weapons and fleeing. Forsyth lifted his head, blood smeared
on his face, his eyes a blank kaleidoscope of all the shifting
colors of the sea. “Yes,” he roared, in a voice like the crash of
wave on rock. Then: “No. I called you...I summoned you...”

Gray stood beside John, head tilted back.
“This will not work,” he observed.

One of the possessed soldiers fired on
Forsyth, bullets ripping into flesh. Forsyth staggered back—then
rushed forward with a roar and fastened on the soldier.
Feeding.

“Take him down!” Kaniyar shouted. “Now, now,
before he has the chance to power up!”

Everyone opened fire. Forsyth stumbled back,
vanishing beyond the edge of the battery again. The werewolves and
ghouls in the parade ground and amidst the casements whined and
howled in terror, but their collars kept them pinned. They dashed
at the agents, driven to keep fighting for the very thing that
would feed on them the first chance it got.

Since no one fired from the battery at the
moment, John risked dashing out from cover, shooting at the NHEs as
he went. Forsyth came into view again, crouching amidst the stacks
of bottled demons. He swept one arm out, shattering them. Etheric
energy exploded outward in a cloud—and Forsyth instantly sucked it
into himself.

John froze, unable to move. This was bad.
Very, very bad. Forsyth had hundreds, thousands of demons up there.
What could a drakul do with this amount of etheric energy at its
disposal?

He sensed Gray’s presence at his side. Then
Gray faded away, leaving Caleb behind.

John turned to him. Caleb was covered in
blood from the fight, his mouth a red smear, his long hair in
tangles. His head tilted back, brown eyes focused on Forsyth.
Something very like resignation crossed his face, and the faintest
hint of a rueful smile, perhaps in response to some communication
with Gray.

“We have to stop him. Gray and I. No one else
can do this.” His voice was quiet, human, barely audible above the
thundering waves.

John’s mouth went cotton-dry. He wanted to
say no, to tell Caleb to stay the hell away. But he couldn’t.
“Yeah.”

“We’ll cover you.” Sean stepped out of the
casement behind them. He was scratched and battered, his suit
bloodied. “Keep the controlled NHEs off you so you can concentrate
on reaching Forsyth.”

Caleb nodded. “Thanks.” Etheric energy burst
forth again, his hair lifting to snap in a wind emanating from
him.

Gray started to take a step toward the stairs
winding up the side of the battery, beyond the casement. But he
paused and returned to John. Leaning forward, he caught John’s face
in his hands and gently tilted it back so they looked each other in
the eye.

And Goddess, Gray was beautiful in that
moment, even with the blood, hair flying and sparks dancing over
his skin. Something wild and pure and good, beyond what John ever
imagined existed.

“I have walked this earth for five-thousand
years,” Gray said, voice a soft rumble of thunder. “But none of it
has meant as much as the last two months. I love you, John
Starkweather.”

Then he released John and ran for the
stairs.

* * *

Gray sprints for the stairs, ignoring the
demons howling behind him. He stretches long legs, all but flying,
leaving everything behind: the screams and cries, the petty demons,
even John. They must stop Forsyth, and feeding one werewolf at a
time will not give them the strength he fears they will need.

Which leaves the bottled demons.

The stairs let out onto a wide grassy
expanse, built up level with the back of the black hulk of the
Battery Huger. Flagpoles reach into the sky: a half-circle of five
smaller poles surrounding a central one set upon a granite
monument. The surviving exorcists who assisted Forsyth with the
summoning spell cower near the sheer edge of the fort’s wall, a
drop straight down onto barnacle-crusted rocks. One lays dead, his
throat ripped out, whether because he had a change of heart or
simply drew too close while Forsyth fed, Gray does not know.

Bottles fill the area, on racks and on the
grass, most of them still unbroken. Caleb’s TK smashes into the
nearest rack, sending it toppling, shattering glass against the
hard-packed earth. And this feeding is not like the more visceral
taste of blood on his tongue, but it is still good, power swirling
around him, into him. For a moment, he remembers
before
,
riding the storm and hunting the small things hiding from him, and
it seems much the same.

The wind grows stronger, the ropes holding
the flags singing. Lightning snaps from him to the nearest
flagpole, thunder shaking the ground with its roar. Glowing blue
lights form on the tips of the poles, buzzing in the charged
atmosphere.

A low growl of fury catches his attention.
Forsyth crouches where the smooth black tarmac of the battery gives
way to grass and earth. Things have gone terribly wrong, even worse
than the mortals predicted. Whether because the drakul was
subjected to pain in its first few moments in this world, or
Forsyth’s own ambition and madness infected it, there is nothing
sane in the swirling globes of its eyes. It reeks of the tide, of
seaweed and salt.

It growls again, sensing another predator on
its feeding grounds. Warning Gray off.

With a snarl of his own, Gray rushes it.

It shrieks, snapping to its feet, faster than
anything he has ever hunted before. They collide in a frenzy of
claws and teeth, its monstrous strength piercing layers of elk hide
and kevlar as if they do not even exist. Gray is far more
experienced in such a battle, but Forsyth honed his body for
combat, and his skills make up for the other drakul’s
inexperience.

They hurtle into a rack, shattering bottles.
Both of them grab for the escaping demons, drinking down everything
they can to keep it from the other. The smell of ocean grows
stronger, and lightning explodes all around, striking multiple
flagpoles at once. The wind screams, shredding the flags, tearing
them free and sending them cascading out over the dark ocean.

The drakul sinks its fangs into Gray’s
shoulder, seeking to feed off of
him.
Bone crunches and
flesh tears. With a roar of fury, Gray flings it off, Caleb’s TK
assisting to put space between them.

It hits a group of racks, taking them down.
Bottles break—and those which do not, it begins to shatter with its
own hands.

“
No!”

A demon would have to wait forty days before
fully manifesting. But they are drakul, not demons. And this one
has glutted on power and madness.

Gray takes an involuntary step back, watching
as it unfolds fully from Forsyth’s mortal shell. Fear vibrates
through them, Caleb’s horror and shock racing their heart.
“Is
that...oh fuck. Is that what we really are?”

Yes.

Awe tinges the fear.
“I never understood,
when you said you weren’t a demon. I do now. You—we—are so much
worse.”
Caleb seems to gather himself, a man bracing against
news he knows will be bad.
“How...how do we fight that?”

Gray gazes up at the monster before them.
You know the answer.

“
By doing the same thing.”

Yes.

“
Can...can we even come back from
that?”

Hesitation.
I do not know.

He tastes Caleb’s sorrow and fear. They can
yet flee. Fall back. Return to John and the life they are just
beginning to understand.

But if they choose to run, in the end,
everyone they love will die, and the monster will eat them with as
much ease as Gray has eaten a thousand demons.

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.”

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.