I materialise on the beach, feel the agitation.
Rafa meets me. ‘Everyone okay?’ He looks wild, rattled. Something quivers in my chest.
‘I’ll explain in a second. What’s happened?’
‘Take a look.’ Rafa moves aside so I can step up between Jude and Daniel. Neither acknowledges me. I peer into the gloom and it takes a second for me to understand what I’m seeing.
The number of Immundi has doubled while I’ve been at the resort. No, tripled. No…more. There must be over a thousand bobble-headed demons. Nausea bubbles up. My palms are instantly slick again. The Immundi lift their short blades and rattle them together. They’re like an ancient barbaric force screaming at the sky, and it’s deafening, even at this distance.
‘What the…’ My mouth is so dry I can hardly speak.
Boom.
The ground beneath me shudders. Another explosion in town, this one further away. The highway. I drag my eyes from the horde and check the boardwalk. Was that one of the Butlers, or something else? No sign of Jess or the Pan Beach crew. Please let them be far away from this nightmare. I hope the rest of the town made it out.
‘The odds aren’t in our favour,’ Daniel says. I barely hear him over the waves. Sea spray kisses my cheeks, settles on the back of my throat. The wind has picked up again.
‘You leaving then?’ I ask, anger stirring beneath the fear.
‘No, Gabe. We’re here until the end.’
I look from him to Jude. Clearly I’ve missed something.
‘Daniel’s with us,’ Jude says. ‘Either we’ll get support or we won’t, but we can’t just hand this town over to Zarael.’
I don’t know if he means support from Nathaniel or the Garrison or both, and I don’t get the chance to ask because the Immundi army surges forward.
‘Now,’ Jude yells and I have a heartbeat to prepare myself for the violence.
The shift gives us the element of surprise—for a split second—and then we’re swamped by the monstrous pack of snarling Immundi. I attack with katana, block with saya. Kick, elbow, headbutt. Smell blood and sulfur. Demon sweat. Something foul from spilled intestines. I keep moving, don’t think about what I’m stepping in, and on and over.
I feel it quicker this time: the burn in my calves, the ache in my shoulders. The way my bones rattle with every block and thwarted strike. The pull and tear of muscles as my blade finds its mark. The fierce concentration, how hard it is to spot the nearest threat with so much shadow and movement. Whenever lightning cuts over the beach, I see the endless sea of demons pressing to reach us.
It’s like fighting against the tide.
Jude is ahead of me, so I see when he stumbles. He keeps swinging and blocking, but he can’t buy himself enough time to get up from his knees. I fight my way towards him, decapitating an Immundi, running through two more. Jude’s holding his own, he’s—
A demon blade slashes across his back, slicing through fabric and flesh and muscle. Jude arches away from it, tries to turn. Exposes his neck to the snarling Immundi now behind him. The scream is there, right in my throat. And then Daisy materialises between Jude and the blade flashing down. She blocks it—at the same time I have to duck to avoid a sword aimed at my temple. I hamstring the two demons hindering my view and spring up to see Daisy in a stabbing frenzy, her sais plunging in and out of Jude’s attackers with blinding speed and precision. And then she and Jude are gone. I have a heartbeat of relief, and then the next wave of Immundi sweeps towards me.
Before they can strike, the beach is bathed in blinding blue-white light. The horde snarls and shrinks back. I turn, squint against the glare. Nathaniel is on the beach behind us.
Thank god.
But the Immundi don’t retreat. They lower their heads and rush past me, as if Nathaniel’s arrival is a signal. They smash against me. Shoulders knock mine, spin me one way, then the other. My sword is almost wrenched out of my grip. I grapple for the knife at my hip but I can’t get to it because I have to use my hands to push away the crush of demon bodies.
It’s only going to take one of these pricks to stab me on the way past—
‘Boardwalk!’ Rafa shouts from somewhere to my left. I don’t need to be told twice. I slip into the void—it’s almost a reprieve after the chaos of the beach—and re-emerge a few metres from Rafa. I look around, frantic, for Jude and Daisy.
There. Jude is leaning over the boardwalk railing, shirtless, shielding his eyes to watch the beach while Daisy cleans his back. She’s using his torn t-shirt. The boardwalk is crammed with Rephaim. I scan faces as I push my way to my brother, find Micah, Malachi and Taya. Mya—blood soaking the right side of her head, matting her hair—Uri, Callie, Seth and Jones. Zak and Ez.
‘It needs stitches, Jude,’ Daisy says as I reach them and I can see the gouge running from his shoulderblade across to his spine. The shift has stopped the bleeding, but she’s right.
‘I don’t care about it scarring.’
‘I do,’ she says. ‘It won’t take Brother Ferro long to—’
‘We’re not going anywhere, Daisy. Look.’
I force my eyes from the two of them to see what Jude and everyone else are watching on the beach. Nathaniel is still in full glory so my eyes sting with the effort. The fallen angel is clearing a path through the Immundi like he’s wielding a scythe instead of a broadsword, light radiating from him.
The Immundi scream—the blue-white brilliance actually burns their flesh—but it’s not slowing them. They keep swarming, rushing him. The fallen angel stands head and shoulders above them, his entire being blazing, watching the demons stumble before they reach him, shielding their eyes. They keep falling, piling up around him. But they’re not falling haphazardly. They’re dropping to their knees and positioning themselves. And then the next wave does the same, on top of the first. Holy shit…
They’re sacrificing themselves to build a wall around him.
Nathaniel realises what’s happening. With a strong beat of his wings, he’s airborne. But before he can clear the mass of demon bodies, half a dozen Immundi scale the backs of their brothers and launch themselves at him, faces turned away. Nathaniel beats his wings, harder now, slashes at them with his broadsword. More jump and grab the legs of the dangling Immundi, weighing the angel down.
What is he trying to do? Shift, for fuck’s sake.
Nathaniel tries harder but there are too many. They’re howling, skin burning where they touch him, but they don’t let go.
Shift!
He looks in our direction, his chiselled face bleak, and my breath catches in my throat.
Nathaniel doesn’t shift.
He falls.
And then his light goes out.