A sword flickered through the fiery light at the other side of the field, and a brief glimpse of Sam untied a knot of worry in my gut. She vanished into the smoke and flames a moment later.
A bandaged head peeked out from the cinder block wall before ducking inside once more. Someone bellowed an order to fire, and the clearing lit up with the rapid clatter of M16s.
One of the fairies went down in that hail of bullets, and I realized the soldiers must have had steel-jacketed rounds. A wailing cry echoed up from the earth as the Fae dissolved into the ley lines.
It became readily apparent that I was standing on the wrong side of the field when a round shattered a tree branch by my head and whined as it ricocheted off a stone by my foot. I cursed and summoned a shield, willing to risk tipping off the dark-touched to avoid those bullets.
I almost missed the clawed arm reaching out for me, the gray metal nails swiping through the air, embedding in my shield with an explosion of electric blue lightning.
They might have caught the fairy with their rounds, but the soldiers didn’t understand the dark-touched’s weakness. Round after round pinged off the vampire’s helmet and slammed into its obsidian flesh. Ten, twenty, thirty rounds found their mark, until the creature finally stumbled backward, dark blood pouring from dozens of wounds. But still, the thing came.
I reached down for the Fist of Anubis, thrusting my arm upward and splitting the earth beneath the dark-touched. The impact of that solid mass of dead flesh sent the dark-touched vampire spiraling fifteen feet into the air while the soldiers peppered it with more rounds. We’d caught the attention of the other dark-touched then, and their shadowy forms zipped across the clearing with terrifying speed.
A string of curses fell from my lips as I clumsily deflected the claws of the nearest dark-touched. The creature slowed as another hail of gunfire tore into it a moment before it managed to get its claws into me. The vampire tried to lash out with a foot, tried to slip a hidden attack beneath my shield. But I saw it coming and crushed the shield downward, so the dark-touched tripped and smashed his face into it.
Electric blue lights sparked all around us, and that awful face, dripping black venom from its mouth, inched ever closer. A series of booms echoed behind me, and the roar of the water spout as it tore through the flaming tent city grew louder.
Through it all, I glimpsed the first water witch slipping into the cinder block building.
I ground my teeth, and the muscles in my forearm knotted, trying to aid the shield in fending off the dark-touched. Those horrible, pale white lines that showed the shield fracturing etched their way across the blue dome. I knew it wouldn’t be long before the shield fell. I slid the enchanted blade into my belt and drew the focus. A soulsword snapped to life, lancing out at the first dark-touched, who was now back on his feet and stumbling toward me. The instant the blade made contact I said, “Magnus Ignatto! ”
The spell was too strong, and drew power like a starving vampire. The hurricane-force winds of the fiery maelstrom did their job, hurling the dark-touched across the clearing to smack into the flaming ruin of a tent. But it drained too much power. I couldn’t hold my concentration, couldn’t keep my shield lit.
The half dome of power shattered. The screeching clatter behind me was a death knell of gods knew what. I gathered the dead around me once more to raise another Hand of Anubis, but it would be too late. My best bet was that the dark-touched vampire wouldn’t cut through anything vital. But if it was on me for more than a second, I was already done.
At that moment, I remembered the Timewalker Seal. I remembered that my life was tied to Vicky’s. If I died, she died. Sam died. Instead of inspiring me to action, that thought paralyzed me. Despair leeched into my bones. The vampires outmatched me.
Pain brought me back into the moment. “Sam!” I managed to bark out as a dark-touched’s claws bit into my arm.
It was only then I realized what had happened to the third dark-touched. It was battling my sister at the far end of the field. “Goddammit.”
The sword nearly cut my nose off. The skeletal arm that followed confused me. It had no flesh, no muscle to give it life. But its blade bit into the dark-touched’s eye just the same. The vampire squealed and backpedaled, flinging his claws into the night air. That gave me a much-needed split second to raise the soulsword once more.
I found myself standing not beside Graybeard, but beside one of his crew. The old stained bones knocked his teeth together, glanced at me, and then surged toward the reeling dark-touched.
But if that skeleton had come from behind us, and it had come through the water spout … a glance behind me showed the water spout failing. The cyclone broke, and fire rose where there had been water moments before. The entire structure collapsed, sending debris soaring through the air. Water witches fell from that spiraling torrent, more than I would’ve thought possible. The water spout hadn’t been the work of single water witch, but dozens working in tandem.
I cursed as I realized the spout might have been broken, but now we had more enemies on the ground. Two more of Graybeard’s men charged past me. These didn’t carry swords like the first—they carried long narrow spears. These skeletons had fought against the dark-touched in the Burning Lands. They’d honed their weapons and learned how to strike the dark-touched vampires when the odds against them were far worse than what we faced now. I didn’t think the skeletons would be able to overpower the dark-touched vampires, but they didn’t need to.
From six feet out, ten feet out, they struck at the vampires, their spears thrusting, returning, and thrusting again. The strikes glanced off the dark-touched’s armor three times before one found its mark. The vampire collapsed as the spear pierced just the right part of its brain in its long sloping skull. Two of the skeletons were still beside me, but the third had charged-off to help Sam with the remaining dark-touched.
“I think you’re better at this than I am,” I said, earning what I imagined was a chattering laugh from the skeleton. “I’m going to help the others. We have water witches.”
The skeleton nodded at me, a disturbingly human gesture. I didn’t know why that had bothered me more than a reanimated skeleton, but something about it just seemed unnatural.
I glanced back one last time as I closed on the cinder block building. Far in the distance, I saw the ghostly masts of the Bone Sails, and the cannons on Graybeard’s ship roared to life once more.
“Sam,” I shouted. “Right!”
I didn’t alter my stride. I stayed focused on reaching the cinder block building, but I caught a glimpse of Sam’s sword slashing out to her right, catching a surprised water witch. The wounded cry was all I needed to hear to know Sam had found her mark. By the time I reached the edge of building, the skeletons had engaged the last of the dark-touched.
Or, at least, the dark-touched I could see.
I sprinted toward the cinder block wall, sliding on damp grass and slamming into the structure with my shoulder. The stone wall felt gritty beneath my skin. I edged to the corner and peeked around in time to hear a boom from inside the building. I took a half step back as a water witch’s body flickered between translucent fluid and gray stone near the doorway.
She screamed, but the sound cut off intermittently as fragments of whatever had hit her moved through her body. Parts of the witch became stone, and then flesh, only to return to a clear fluid. Her face contorted, creased in agony until a soldier reached out with one of the daggers Mike had enchanted. The dagger embedded in her neck finished the job.
“Take her head off.”
The soldier looked up at me in surprise, and I was glad to see that the youngest of them was still alive.
“Welcome to the party,” she said.
“Get back inside. I’ll finish this.”
The soldier ripped the dagger through the water witch’s neck before raising her M16 and firing point-blank into the wounded undine.
I heard the ricochet of a bullet before someone squawked in pain inside the building.
“You shot me!” a familiar voice shouted.
“Shit,” I muttered. I followed the private into the building. Maps, posters, and documents I couldn’t identify at a glance adorned the walls. Half a dozen workstations were set up with multiple monitors. Frank was in the corner.
“I’m so sorry,” the private said. She reached out to Frank, and he yelled when her fingers reached the wounded arm.
“Isn’t that exactly where the vampire bit you?” I asked, eyeing Frank’s wound.
“Yes!” Frank snapped. “How kind of you to notice.”
I frowned at the table behind Frank, where Casper was working furiously with what appeared to be a reloading die and three cans of gunpowder.
“Two hours?” Park shouted from the far corner opposite Frank. “We’re under attack now! Get those reinforcements out here now, or it’s your ass.” Park angrily smashed his finger against the screen. It just didn’t have the same effect as slamming a receiver down.
I snatched the first aid kit off the wall and tossed it to Frank. “Wrap it for now. The fairies can fix you up later. Just, you know, don’t bleed out or anything.”
“Your compassion knows no bounds,” Frank muttered.
“Today’s lesson,” I said, turning from one private to the next, “Don’t shoot the water witches after they turn to stone. Bullets can ricochet off them as easily as a rock.”
I tucked the focus securely into my belt and crouched down beside Casper. “Did you take that shot?”
“Of course,” she said. “Damian, powder.” I popped the top off the can and slid it to her. She didn’t even look, just kept her eyes on the scale as she tipped a few grains into a small cup. She measured and poured the rest into some brass before sliding the entire assembly into a die, placing one of Mike’s bullets at the tip. A quick throw of the lever and she had a fully functional round for the rifle on the table. “How many of those have you made?”
“Three left in the magazine,” Casper said. “And don’t ask if you can help.”
Casper wasn’t the first person I’d met who was very particular about reloading. She was, however, the first person I’d met who was very particular about reloading while in the middle of a firefight.
“There’s at least one more water witch to the west. The others are closer to the river. Has anyone seen Foster? The fairy I came here with?”
“Not since he was fighting that fireball,” a private said.
“I saw him at the other end of the tents,” Park said. “Before I made it back here to command.”
“Good,” I said. “Oh, and if you see any skeletons running around, they’re on our side.”
Park blinked at me.
A private nestled in the front corner of the building, stuck so deeply in the shadows that I hadn’t seen him, said, “Water witch incoming.”
Casper laid two more rounds on the table. She left them standing on their primers and scooped up the M16. She leveled it at the doorway, and we waited.