Page 44

44. Incoming!

Gemma

Although demons can’t enter Holy ground, they can surround it - and it didn’t take our pursuers long to do so. Their constant chittering set my teeth on edge and, I have to admit, I started to panic a little.

While I poured healing into Monkey, I told myself we had time. We could survive for a while on the supplies I’d managed to scrape into the crate before I fled Castle’s office, and Tara found an old hand water pump outside the back door. After priming it with one of our few water bottles, she worked the metal handle until the rusty brown liquid became clear, cold spring water.

And surely we wouldn’t have to hold out under siege for long. Kerry was on the way. I didn’t know how far the little metal bird had flown, but it couldn’t have been too far, could it? I might get to see him any minute now.

Oh, Kerry. My sweet boy. My fierce tiger. Where are you? I need to see you!

“Want me to take over?”

Chance crouched on my left side. I shook my head and kept my hands on Monkey, flooding her with golden power.

“Okay, first rule of combat healing,” he said. “Stabilize to mobilize. Get the patient good enough to move ’em and stop. Don’t drain yourself down to nothing while still on the battlefield.”

“I won’t, but this poor girl! She’s so broken, and I’m worried about the places that I can’t reach.”

“I know. Me, too.” He patted my shoulder.

“We’ve got more company,” called Spin, who’d been keeping watch through a gap in the boards over the windows.

“What is it?” Chance stood up.

“Humans or nephs approaching. You and Gemma stay right there at the front of the church with Monkey. Use that big bell for cover if you have to. Jax, do what you can from a distance. Tara, maybe you could get the tree limbs to grab them or something.”

“I can do better than that.”

Her face stony, Tara strode to the window and yanked off the board covering it. As pinkish light flooded the church, Spin yelped, but quickly manifested a bow and started firing one red-rimmed arrow after another over her head.

Tara lifted her hands and the room went dark again. I figured she was building an earth shield.

A wave, not an earth shield. When I heard a roar like a landslide, I revised that to a tsunami.

“Wooo-hooo!” Jax hollered. “Dug their graves and filled ’em in! You go, garden girl!”

Sudden gunfire peppered the west wall, and Monkey surprised me by jumping up and pelting down the aisle.

“Hey! Come back here!”

“I got her!” Chance shouted.

He sprinted after her and grabbed her before she could get too far. I started to go to her, but the hair on my arms stood up as a sense of unease filled my chest.

“Incoming!” Spin screamed and dropped to the floor. “ EVERYBODY DOWN! ”

A massive force hit the church, and the shockwave threw me into the air. I crashed into one of the wooden supports that held up the massive bell. As fire tore up my spine, I knew at least a few vertebrae were damaged, maybe even broken. I started to heal them, but the bell above me lurched drunkenly.

Horror froze me in place before panic took over. No way was I going to be trapped under that thing.

Ignoring the agony in my back, I scrambled to my knees, but my skull slammed into something. Seeing stars for the third time in one morning, I fell on my butt and the broken parts of my spine shifted. Numbness ran down my legs and arms, and I had no choice but to continue healing myself.

Someone shouted my name, but I was awash with pain and couldn’t call back. After pumping all that power into Monkey, I was getting woozy. It was all I could do to make sure none of my fingers and toes were chopped off as the bell above me dropped straight down.

#

Kerry

If lives weren’t on the line, and if I wasn’t so worried about my girl, I woulda been having the time of my life. One thing after another came at me and I was free to destroy them all.

As I finished off a human guard, a hellion sloshed out of the river and shot a jet of muddy water at me. I dodged, then wound up and hurled a ball of power laced with a little something extra. The hellion roared as white phosphorus foamed up in the wounds and began to burn.

“A special surprise for your ugly self!”

Leaping forward, I swung my katana and sliced through its neck with a meaty twack! Then I pushed off its wide chest with one foot, landed in a crouch, and looked for my next victim before its head hit the ground.

I found nothing and, figuring I cleared the area, I put my long legs to work. I followed my angel’s scent along a dirt path, racing across a rotting footbridge and up a steep hill.

Suddenly, I could hear two men arguing. I knew those voices. I’d heard them during the ambush.

I ran faster.

“How did they get away?” Reginald Hubler shouted. “I don’t know,” Samuel Castle snapped. “When I got here, I found the lockup empty and the demons feasting on one of them.”

“Get them back for me, Castle, or Anne will be the next one the demons feast on!”

“The human guards have them cornered in the abandoned church.” Castle sounded as mad and frustrated as I was, and I really wanted to know who Anne was. “I was on my way there when you and Darius ’ported in. Did you want to come, too, or are you going to hide here?”

I made it to the top of the hill and didn’t slow down as I charged the three men standing with their backs to me. I flung a net of power at Castle with one hand and clenched my katana in the other.

One of them was about to lose his head.

Castle went down hard, which startled Hubler. He stood there staring like an idiot, his mouth hanging open. Darius was quick, though, and whirled to face me. He looked like a young human guy with black hair and toast-brown skin, but I knew what he was from the fire burning in the back of his eyes.

“Finally. A good fight.” I grinned as we sized each other up. “All your other minions were too easy to kill, Hubler. I was almost bored.”

“You’re outclassed, boy.” Hubler had his ego back. He held up one hand and swirled a ring on his finger. “You sure you’re ready to join the big leagues?”

Heat blasted my face, plastering my hair to my head, and suddenly there were more djinn than I could count.

“Darius, to me!” Hubler called.

“Coward!” I hollered, but he and the first djinni were already gone.