Page 32 of Another Damned Storm (Another Damned #3)

NEVER

“That’s unexpected,” I said, just loud enough for Hook to hear me over the drone of voices echoing off the warehouse walls.

After what Lily said the day before, and Hook’s rundown of his conversation with my brother, I fully expected Matt to hold this meeting on his own. Watching him set his grudges and misgivings aside reminded me of just how much he’d grown in my absence.

With Lily’s help, of course.

Hook bent, bringing his lips to my ear. “Perhaps we should remain in the back until we’re needed.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” The ideal way for this to go down was for the two of them to convince his people to work together without our influence. “Let’s just hope they listen.”

Half an hour later, they seemed to come to a consensus.

The purists weren’t happy about working with the people from Salus, but for as loud as they were, they made up a small fraction of the group.

The rest were more than willing to team up with magical and non-magical people alike if it meant they might be able to reclaim their city and their lives .

“When will we launch an attack?” someone called from the middle of the group.

Matt and Lily shared a look, but it was Matt who answered. “We’ll need to watch the skies and the park. Thrain conjures the storms to help the demon bring others through the veil, but we have no way of predicting when the next storm will occur.”

“So, we’re just supposed to wait?” a different voice asked.

Lily raised her hand to quiet the grumbles that swelled. “Yes, there will be waiting involved, but these storms have been hitting us every day. Trust me, we won’t be waiting long.”

Once they had the majority on board, they hashed out a plan that involved temporarily transferring some of Lily’s people to Rutledge with Matt and assigning some of his people to Salus with Lily.

Their secret weapon, however, would be the contingent they planned to have destroy the two churches where Thrain’s followers gathered to worship him.

“Let me be clear,” Matt said, pausing to make sure the crowd around him fell silent.

“The goal is to destroy Thrain’s houses of worship without injuring the people themselves.

These people were your neighbors once. Your friends.

Maybe even your family. We don’t want to hurt them, but we only stand a chance of winning this fight if they turn their backs on him. ”

I wasn’t sure I agreed with destroying the churches because it seemed like it could have the opposite effect. Instead of losing their faith in Thrain, it might galvanize their belief and make him even stronger. But I kept quiet. This was not the time to offer a dissenting opinion.

After the meeting broke up, we caught up with Matt and Lily in his room.

“That went better than expected,” I said, offering them a cautious smile.

They might have put on a good show in front of everyone, but there was still a world of tension hanging between those two.

Matt shrugged. “We’ll see how it goes.”

“What about the people who voted against an alliance?” I asked.

He cast a wary look at Lily. “For now, they will be given other duties to keep them busy.”

“Are you sure about destroying the churches?”

Neither was quick to respond.

“I only ask because it seems like a good way to create rabid followers.” It wasn’t that I meant to be judgmental of their plan, but maybe there was a better way.

Hook took a sip of the beer Matt handed him. “If his followers are true believers, torching their houses of worship won’t matter. They don’t need a roof over their heads to gather. But if they are simply neophytes seeking out protection because they are afraid… it could work.”

“Any idea how many true believers there are in the bunch?” I asked.

Matt sucked air through his teeth and shook his head. “No. If we had more time, I would have someone from my team infiltrate their congregation, but Lily was right, the storms are hitting us every day now.”

They planned to coordinate the attack using a combination of radios and magic. With one witch working from Salus and another working from Rutledge, they could enchant a series of handsets and magically scramble a frequency to prevent anyone from intercepting the transmission.

“You two worked all this out this morning?” I asked, once again feeling like I’d missed an awful lot.

“Last night and this morning,” Lily said. “Matt came out to Salus after Atlas dropped me off yesterday. ”

Color me impressed. “Is there more to the plan? Contingencies?”

They walked us through everything. A heavily armed first wave would charge into the park at the first sign of a storm to confront Lapalme’s demons before they had a chance to make it to the fence.

A second contingent would hold defensive positions around the perimeter of the park to stop any fleeing demons from getting out into the city.

That group could also move into the park if it looked like the first group needed help.

Which left me and Hook to take on Thrain and Lapalme. That was where things would get really dicey. Hook managed to hold his own against Thrain, but even with my crazy ass power, Lapalme beat the shit out of me.

Sure, I felt stronger than I had that day. And yeah, I was getting better at controlling my magic. I had a much better understanding of Lapalme’s abilities, too. None of that eased the ocean of uneasiness churning inside me.

“Have you considered taking out the churches before a storm hits? Going for the jugular when they aren’t looking?” I asked. “It might weaken Thrain before he even has a chance to act.”

Matt rubbed the back of his neck. “We talked about that, but we agreed it would be better to strike when we know he’s in the park and wrapped up with the storms.”

“We don’t want him anywhere near those churches when they come down,” Lily added.

A solid argument, for sure. “Anything else?”

“I’m not going to lie, it’s tough trying to come up with viable backup plans when we don’t really know what to expect,” Matt admitted.

“Well, you’ve got us,” I said, sneaking a quick glance at my pirate. “The minute a storm touches down and you start mobilizing your people, we’ll flash into the park and inflict as much damage as we can.”

Hook leaned against the counter beside me. “I can be quite destructive when the situation calls for it.”

“Any chance you can counteract the storm? Weaken it somehow?” Matt asked.

He looked at the bottle in his hand as though it might hold the answer my brother wanted to hear. “If I can, I will, but I make no promises on that front.”

Matt let out a heavy breath. “Anything helps.”

“What happens if we actually manage to take one or both of them down?” Lily asked. “I can’t even picture what that will look like.”

“Primordial demons are like gods in that they are difficult to kill,” Hook explained.

“It would take several powerful beings working together to truly destroy Lapalme. But he is also similar to other demons in that removing his head and keeping it separated from his body will slow his regeneration significantly. That will at least buy us time until the Brethren can fetch him.”

“Does the same hold true for the god?” Matt asked.

“Unfortunately, no. As long as he has a strong enough following, any injury we manage to inflict upon him will heal almost instantly.”

“So, we go for the demon first,” I said.

He tipped his beer toward me. “Like the lady says.”

“Then we’ll just have a pissed off god who rains lightning down on his enemies to worry about,” Lily said dryly. “Easy peasy.”

Three days later, every soul in Rutledge and Salus was on edge.

The only sign of a storm was a weather notice from the station in Myrtle Beach about a meandering tropical storm that had been making its way north from Puerto Rico.

The projected path showed it was headed for the Carolinas, but I’d seen those warnings a hundred times.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred all we saw was a day or so of heavy rain. If that.

Things had been eerily quiet on all other fronts. Which, of course, only amplified tensions within our somewhat delicate alliance. Matt had threatened to kick a couple of people out of Rutledge for instigating fights with Lily’s people, but so far, he hadn’t been forced to follow through.

I checked in with Lily a couple times a day too. While the transfers to her campus were also anxious, she and Matt had vetted all of them to ensure they were one-hundred percent magic friendly.

There was no point sending help across the park if they were only going to stir up trouble.

But the waiting was wearing on everyone, including me.

I wanted to end this nightmare for everyone in Charleston.

Maybe then I could talk my brother and Lily into taking Angie to the Nassa with Hook.

And who knew, if we managed to quell the upheaval, maybe the fates would lay off for a bit and give me at least a little more time with my pirate.

A girl could hope.

It was that quiet little dream I was clinging to when a deafening crack of thunder wrenched me awake in the dead of night. The walkie talkie on the nightstand crackled to life, and reports started pouring in from both sides of the park.

Hook and I had taken to sleeping in our day clothes, so it took us less than a minute to slip on our shoes and grab our weapons.

He handed me the radio, which was little more than a child’s toy. “Take it, love. At least so you can track what’s happening with your brother.”

I didn’t like the idea of bringing it into a fight. What if a slippery demon got its hands on it? Or worse, Thrain or Lapalme?

Then again, I also wasn’t fond of leaving everyone else to fend for themselves.

I shoved it awkwardly into my back pocket and hoped to hell it would actually work in the storm. Then I just stood there, unable to convince myself to flash.

I’m not ready. That was the thought playing on a cruel loop in my mind.

I’m not ready to fight a god.

I’m not ready to go back to the Alius.

I’m not ready to say goodbye to Hook.

I’m not ready.

Hook stepped in front of me, cupped my face in his hands, and looked me square in the eyes. “Yes, you are.” Then he ruined me with one of his kisses because it was soft and heartbreakingly sweet. And it was over a million years too soon.

He pulled back. “Come on, love. It’s time to let your snark shine.”

I swallowed hard and nodded. In a blink, we were standing in the park. Thrain was in the center of a clearing, with dust and leaves swirling around his billowing robe. He had his hands raised toward the sky, and where his eyes should have been, all I could see was a brilliant white-blue glow.

But where the hell was my nemesis, great-grand-daddy Lapalme?

Lightning lit up the world as a half dozen shafts of blinding light hammered the ground around us. Dirt exploded upward, fully grown trees were blown to bits, and those slivers of smoldering wood became thousands of tiny projectiles that ripped through my clothes and my skin.

Something skewered my left shoulder, and I let out a grunt. Hook moved toward me, worry creasing his brow, but I held out a hand to stop him. “Immortal, remember?” I yelled over the wind.

Hopefully he couldn’t see how badly my hand was shaking as I reached for the sliver of wood—which was the size of a fucking butter knife—and yanked it out.

I didn’t bother waiting until it was fully healed to charge forward, but Hook beat me there, slamming into Thrain with the full force of his body.

They crashed to the ground, rolling and thrashing. When Thrain got the upper hand, pinning Hook, I leaped on his back and jabbed my blade into his neck. Icy blood spilled out over my hand, the sickly gray-blue staining my skin.

Thrain reared back with a howl and twisted, throwing me off hard enough to send me sailing through the air before I slammed into the peeling trunk of another dead tree.

“Fuck!” I hissed. It hurt like a bitch, but it was minor compared to what was happening with my hand.

Thrain’s blood actually grew colder as it clung to me, freezing my fingers until I could barely feel the handle of my blade through the pins and needles. After a few more seconds, they started turning blue, and it felt like a hundred tiny blades were slicing through muscle, joint, and bone.

I moved to wipe my hand on my jeans but caught myself. Then I kneeled and grabbed handfuls of dirt, scrubbing it over my skin frantically as I got to my feet. Where I promptly froze.

Hook had worked with me a lot over the last few months. I knew he was fast, and I knew damned well he was strong, but seeing him in action showed me just how much he was holding back with me.

And what the hell was that beeping sound ?

I sucked in air and scanned the ground around me until I spotted the radio. The front cover was cracked and the little plastic antenna was hanging by a wire, but it was still working.

The pattern repeated. Three short beeps, three long tones, and three more short beeps.

S.O.S.

“Shit.” I pushed the button on the side, but nothing happened.

Then a panicked voice filtered through, sounding like it was coming from a tin can. “Salus is under attack. I repeat, Salus is under attack.”

The only thing I could think was that Lapalme had found a way to summon more demons and send them straight to the sanctuary.

I looked to where Hook was battling Thrain. They were neck and neck. Every time the old god landed a blow, Hook gave it right back. When I saw an opening, I swept my leg out, sending Thrain reeling.

Hook seized the momentary advantage and pummeled him into the dirt with one powerful punch after another.

“Careful!” I yelled over the storm. “His blood does weird shit.”

Hook glanced over, then down at his knuckles. They were stained a pale purple, with swirls of his bright red blood mixing with Thrain’s.

Maybe it didn’t have the same effect on him?

The radio started beeping again. Three short, one long, then nothing.

That nothing sent my already racing pulse through the roof.

I wanted to stay and help Hook, but the whole point of our attack was to distract Thrain long enough to destroy his churches.

The first wave of fighters had to be getting close.

Hook rained more punches down before he rolled Thrain onto his stomach, shoved his knee in his low back, and looped his arm around the old god’s neck and wrenched backward.

Then he turned, glanced at the silent radio, and shot me a look. “Go!”

I focused my thoughts on what I could remember of Salus and tried to flash.

Nothing happened.

The radio crackled and whined, the sound barely audible over the storm.

I closed my eyes and tried again, this time envisioning the power inside me welling up, filling me to the brim. The howling wind gave way to a silent breeze. The sweet scent of rain was replaced with a metallic tang. And when I opened my eyes, I forgot how to breathe.