Chapter 126

Henry saw Thom reach for the door. “Dad, no!”

Fracas gushed through.

The first three Fracas jumped right at Thom.

He met them with a giant arrow in mid-pitch, a huge bolt of blue light he threw forward like a javelin. The arrow impaled them and they sailed away and stuck to the far wall.

Thom sprang backward.

Fracas squealed and pressed forward, but in the eagerness of their appetites they smashed against each other and fought to be the next ones in.

They were bottlenecked at the door. They could only come in a couple at a time.

Thom notched two fresh arrows, knocked down two more Fracas. He jumped forward and kicked the door closed again. The door latch engaged.

He generated a new cluster of arrows in each hand and buried them into the wall next to the entrance. The splayed arrowheads pointed out and glinted—an awaiting death trap.

A spindly creature burst in and flew at Thom’s face.

Thom anticipated it, arrow in hand.

He threw an uppercut through the spindly, sore-covered chin with the arrowhead. It went through the head of the Fracas and stuck in the ceiling. The creature hung limp, like it was dangling from a gallows.

Two more Fracas jumped into the room. Thom’s bow instantly relit in his hands. With a mighty sweep, he launched the Fracas into the arrows protruding from the wall.

Skewered, they began to sizzle.

Two more handfuls of arrows appeared. He jammed them into the door, creating a spiked transit-way. Thom kicked the door closed again, and more Fracas were impaled on the new arrows.

The Fracas hung like decrepit trophies from the wall, from the ceiling, from the door—a mausoleum of macabre taxidermy. They slowly decayed and smelled like sulfur. The pile of dead Fracas was growing bigger, and black smoky tendrils snaked off it.

Yet for all this, the Fracas were still persistent.

They poured in.

But Thom was glowing.

He would not relent.

Thom sprang forward. He broke off the door handle with a downward smash of his bow, and the metalwork fell to the ground. The small hole from the door handle became a gateway of death. He crouched and streamed glowing arrows through the hole in furious succession.

Then a tethered arrow flew through the hole of the closed door with an unfurling blue line behind it. The line tugged on the other end with pierced Fracas.

Just like fishing, Thom had caught something.

He ripped the line. Avulsed it. Three Fracas were tethered on the other end and flew forward to open the door again with their dead weight.

It was a dance. He moved with the door, flinging it open, slamming it closed, impaling Fracas on its every movement.

An arrow released to the right, inside the room. Thom barely gave it a glance. It sunk into the Fracas squeezing with dislocating joints through the ventilation system.

Thom bolted forward, shoulder-checked the door. It couldn’t close because of the growing mound of dead Fracas. The entrance was only a foot wide.

He launched two arrows into the ceiling, two into the floor. The stems of the arrows held the door tight against the growing mound of the dead Fracs, barricading the entryway nearly closed.

The arrows tightened the funnel.

The Fracas streamed into the narrow door jamb.

They streamed into arrow after arrow, into a flurry of deadly light.

Thom held up his bow and tightened his grip. He brought it down in a huge, over-the-top blow. It crushed the Fracas slinking underneath the disintegrating corpses. It was the cymbal clash at the end of his symphonic performance.

Then, the song was over, the dance was done.

Rotting Fracas corpses adorned the room. Nothing else moved.

The cold fear in Henry’s neck stopped. He gazed at his father.

Thom had stood against the entire horde of Fracas with nothing more than his connection to the Light and a hinged door. He had become a one-man wrecking crew, insatiable, unstoppable.

Thom turned around to Henry. Veins bulged and his face was red, contorted with pain. He went lax.

Then he exhaled.

He collapsed unconscious to the floor.