by eden Hudson
When He stepped away from Tiff, Mom ran and took his place. Her and Tiffani didn’t say anything to each other, just hugged and swayed back and forth.
“Looks like Mom’s trying to steal your girl, Sunshine,” Ryder said, stepping up beside me.
I cleared my throat so I could talk. “You would ruin a moment like this.”
“I like to make a fashionable entrance,” he said. “So, you coming?”
“That’s what she said.” We both got it out at the same time. Tie.
Sissy came around my other side. You could practically hear her rolling her eyes.
Mom and Tiffani’s reunion was still going on. Dad went over to them. Mom finally let go and stepped back, one arm still around Tiffani’s waist.
“Welcome to the family,” Dad said, holding out his hand.
Tiff grinned at me. She shook Dad’s hand. “Thanks.”
Dad pulled her into an awkward hug, but Tiff let go of Mom and put both arms around him. Dad laughed.
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen either one of them truly happy.
“So where are we going?” I asked. “I thought we were already…you know, home.”
“Last battle for Earth.” Sissy held up the shining sword in her hand. It wasn’t on fire, but the blade burned with that concentrated Heavenly light. “We’re gearing up. JC didn’t ask you yet?”
I looked at Him.
“Well, we do need someone to reclaim the Sword and carry out the Judgment,” He said. “I know that you could do it, Colt, but you’ve been fighting for so long. I wouldn’t ask for more than you’ve already given. You deserve to rest.”
“What about Tough?” I asked. “Is he still alive…I mean, undead? Or is he in Hell?”
He shook His head. “When viewed from inside time, Tough is still on Earth and he’s still fighting. But he’s losing.”
“I want to go back,” I said. “If it’s not over yet, I don’t want to rest.”
Ryder giggled his high-pitched giggle. “Told you! I told you he’d say yes! This bitch don’t run from a fight! Ain’t that right, Sunshine?”
“Will you grow up?” Sissy said.
“I’m happy, Bossy, this is how I rejoice. If you got a problem, take it up with JC.”
Sissy looked at Him.
He smiled at Ryder. “You could stand to tone it down some.”
Instead of flipping Him off, Ryder just giggled again. Sissy laughed, too. Even Dad cracked a smile, like this was a running family joke.
A soft hand slipped into mine.
“If you’re going back, I am, too,” Tiff said. “Wherever you go, I’m going.”
I kissed her. She exhaled through her nose and pressed her forehead to mine. She was breathing—breathing and so warm.
Tough
The convoy sped down the gravel road to the Dark Mansion, kicking up enough dust to choke a tornado. Clarion was driving the lead Jeep, followed by the Broncos, all full of coyotes. I kept on their tail in Dodge’s truck. Behind me came Jim’s tow wagon, Drake’s S-10, and Addison’s El Camino—all three crammed with humans, and one crow and coyote apiece—then two more packs of coyotes bringing up the rear.
Across the bench seat from me, Harper was holding that shotgun on her lap, flicking the metal ring holding the strap to the butt of the stock.
We hit the barricade right where Lonely’s spies had said it would be—an overturned tour bus across the road, still about a mile out from the Dark Mansion.
The foot soldiers stationed there opened fire. Somebody screamed a vehicle or two back, but he got it under control fast.
The adrenaline kicked in and the vamp senses went into overdrive. I could see every dust particle the lead trucks threw up as they swerved toward the ditches. Headlights glinted off the portable strips of tiger teeth.
Through the busted-out back window of Dodge’s truck, I heard Tawny Hicks holler, “Get ready to run!” Fists tightened on stocks and grips. Someone was breathing too fast, close to hyperventilating. A couple hands grabbed the sides of the truck bed, ready to hop out.
Clarion’s Jeep hit the tiger teeth. Its tires shredded and the strips wrapped around the axle. Doors flew open and Clarion and his pack bailed out. They changed on the fly, from a bunch of armed dudes in woodland camo to a pack of scraggly-looking gray and brown coyotes. The foot soldiers turned their fire on the coyotes, but the coyotes healed too fast. By the time a foot soldier had put one coyote down, then turned around to take out another, the first coyote was already on the foot soldier’s back.
I slammed on the brakes, threw Dodge’s pickup into park, and jumped out. A few seconds behind, almost like she was moving in slow motion, Harper’s door slammed open and she followed.
Metal knocked against metal—weapons banging against the tailgates and sides of the trucks. Shoes and boots hit the gravel. I whistled so my team would know where I was, then took off, skirting around the side of Clare’s incapacitated Jeep and heading into the tree line.
“This way,” Tawny yelled. The rest of my team took up the call as we headed out, making sure everybody knew which way to go.
I tried to keep it slow, stay with my team—I’d picked them, so they were my responsibility—but even trying to keep everything under control, my vamp speed kept kicking in. I had to stop and wait for them to catch up.
The tail packs loped past, weaving in and out of trees, knocking into each other, and howling and yipping like this was the most fun they’d ever had.
My team caught up and I started running with them again. I spotted Clarion and his pack coming up the middle. He barked, checking in with the rest of the packs. They answered him, and all the coyotes at once threw it into high gear, running in a dead sprint that even I couldn’t keep up with.
Gunshots followed us away from the headlights and into the darkness. I wondered how many humans had made it away from the barricade without getting shot. Even if they couldn’t see us, the foot soldiers were sending enough lead our way that some of it had to be hitting bodies on accident. Hopefully there weren’t any other blockades between us and Dark Mansion property.
We came out of the trees, crossed a terraced strip of field and a drainage ditch, then came up on the remains of the Dark Mansion. In the bloody reddish-brown light, I could see the silhouettes of the shot-up armored vehicles and burned-out helicopters that’d been dragged into a circle around the mansion’s bombed-out foundation.
I didn’t know if I actually saw the fallen angels or if it was a trick of the vamp senses, but I knew that they were waiting at the center of that circle. Most of them had their wings flared, too psyched to keep them folded.
That shot an extra jolt of energy into my system. This was where they’d hurt Desty, made her into something she wasn’t. This was where they’d hung Colt’s body up on a pole for the maggots to eat, where they’d cut my dad’s head off, and burned down my farmhouse and taken away everything good I could ever remember.
This was where they were going to pay for that shit.
A mine went off to my left, throwing dirt and droplets of human blood. I didn’t look to see who had stepped on it, just kept running. A second mine went off behind me. Dirt rained down everywhere, but no blood this time.
Someone up at the mansion let loose a war cry. Then the fallen angels were in the air, darting at us like pissed-off birds when you get too close to their nest. I hadn’t realized they could fly. I’d thought the wings were just for looks—that the tar somehow kept them from getting airborne—but they must’ve spread that lie so they would have the element of surprise during a battle.
A foot soldier slammed into my chest. It felt like I’d been hit by a train. I flipped backward and landed on the side of my left foot. The ankle snapped.
The vamp healing wasn’t working fast enough, so I hauled myself up onto my opposite knee and brought the shotgun to my shoulder.
Overhead, a guy screamed. He was dropping. A couple seconds later, there was a
wet thud and the screaming stopped.
A winged shadow with a human body crossed in front of the moon. I squeezed the trigger, took a chunk out of its thigh and hopefully most of its nutsack, too.
More screams. More thuds. Some of the bodies got back up and howled or yipped as they shifted from coyote to human form. Some rolled up and cradled broken legs or arms. But most didn’t get back up.
Little black shadows swooped in and out of the bigger shadows, scratching and pecking at eyes, and tearing away weapons. The crows moved so fast that it seemed like there were a hundred of them instead of just twenty-six.
I took a few more shots at the angels overhead, but only hit one.
Finally, the vamp healing kicked in. My ankle popped back into place, barely loud enough to hear over everything else.
I couldn’t see Harper. Didn’t remember hearing her scream. But she had to be in this mess somewhere. I took a couple running steps with my shotgun up.
“Tough, we’re here!” Tawny was by my side. So were Jim and two of the four kids from my team. One girl was white-knuckling a can of hairspray and a lighter. A homemade flamethrower.
A foot soldier swooped out of the sky at Flamethrower. Without the vamp reactions, I couldn’t have made the shot. With them, I just barely managed to put a round in his face. He veered off to the side and dropped, holding his mouth and screaming through bloody fingers.
I whistled at what was left of my team to get their attention, then slapped my chest a couple times and pointed at the circle of vehicles around the Dark Mansion’s foundation.
“We’re with you!” Jim revved his idling chainsaw. “Lead on!”
Godkiller
Tears were dripping from my cheeks when I finished seeing Tough for what he truly was.
“I love him,” God said. “It cut my heart open when he left me. I just want him to come back. Every second of every day I follow him, hoping he’ll stop going the wrong way, just turn around and see me. And the second he does…” He smiled. “The very second he does…”
A lot of time passed before I was able to get myself under control enough to speak.
“So, now what?” I asked.
“Same as always,” He said. “You have the information. Now you choose what to do. Like always, your choice determines your future and the future of billions of other humans and non-humans alike.”
“The butterfly effect?” I asked.
“More like the hurricane effect. You happen to have a little more influence on the weather than most.”
“Do I even really have a choice?” I—we—asked. “I mean, do I actually have the power to destroy you?”
He shook His head.
“But the translation—”
“It was a good translation.” He smiled. “Bailey’s got a true gift for language.”
“The translation called me the Godkiller.”
“Earthly language is so rarely immediate. It can describe ideas and label things, but the name isn’t the thing. That’s the problem. You’ve considered the concept several times—especially since coming to Halo.”
(Lying with the truth. I know you’re not a murderer, Tough. If you can supply me with another word which means that Colter Whitney hates an entire race, I’ll be happy to amend my statement. I don’t have to betray anyone.)
“The history of the Nephilim that Bailey translated the Godkiller prophecy from was written in unborn hopes. You know what that’s like. You’ve hoped for things you knew would never happen. You prayed for them every night, wanted them so badly that your heart hurt, spent every second wishing for and doing everything in your power to make them happen. That’s the thing about hope. It’s not bound by reality. And sometimes it’s twisted by selfish desires or hatred.”
“Kathan,” we said.
“And others of his kind. They wanted so badly for you to be a means of revenge against Me that they went so far as fooling themselves with their own baseless hopes for your nature. Kathan is a good liar. So good that he eventually convinced himself.”
“But these powers…”
“The Destroyer is real and you have become that Destroyer. But you’re also —. You have a choice. You can choose to destroy the world and end all life on Earth. There are no truly sinless living beings, so you would technically be fulfilling your purpose of wiping out evil, but…”
“But Tough,” we said.
He nodded. “Exactly.”
Tough
My shotgun ran dry about twenty yards from what used to be the Dark Mansion’s huge front steps, so I flipped it around and held the barrel like a baseball bat. Jim was doing a great job of keeping an eye on the sky, swinging his chainsaw at anything with wings that got too close.
We’d made it ten more yards when a fallen angel swooped at us. He was being careful to stay out of Jim’s reach.
Flamethrower-girl flicked her lighter. There was the whoosh of aerosol. A cloud of fire lit up the night. Fire clung to the angel’s skin. He hit the dirt and rolled, trying to put it out, but the tar on his feathers went up next.
The other kid from Scout’s class hollered, “Hells yeah!”
A foot soldier hovering over the circled vehicles put a bullet in the kid’s mouth. The kid went down choking on pieces of his own tongue and teeth.
Shit. For a second there, I’d almost forgotten that we couldn’t win this fight.
I let the vamp speed go crazy and got out in front of my team. I wanted to draw fire away from them. If I was good for anything now, it was bullet-catching.
Then I saw Kathan, standing there at the center of the vehicles, on whatever was left of the Dark Mansion’s first floor. His eyes were so black that they glowed in the red-brown light. He looked right into my face and he smiled and opened his mouth. Even without the vamp senses, I would’ve heard him. His voice drilled down into my brain.
“Don’t waste your ammunition on the vampire,” he ordered. “Aim for creatures with heartbeats only.”
Like a firing squad, the fallen angels all shot at the same time.
Behind me, I heard Jim’s chainsaw drop out of gear and idle off as it hit the ground. Tawny Hicks screeched. Bullets whined past me on all sides. Aerosol sprayed, but never got lit.
I didn’t have to look back. I knew. My team was dead.
Mikal had called it. You are a disease, Tough. You ruin everything you touch. You will be the reason we win the last battle.
Kathan grinned like he could hear what I was thinking.
“They’re all going to die,” he yelled. “Even the extra manpower you’ve got sneaking in through the back pasture. Oh, yeah. I know about them. I’ve fought wars you will never conceive of, boy. There isn’t a maneuver that I haven’t seen. Hell, I invented most of them!”
Angels—way more than I would’ve guessed could fit inside that circle of vehicles—poured out through the cracks and flew over smashed-in roofs. I swung the empty shotgun at them, but they ignored me.
Coyotes and crows met the fallen angels in the air and on the ground. Snarling, cawing, yelping, gunshots.
I spotted Rian. The first reaction I had was to throw the shotgun at his fucking head. It hit and spun off. He didn’t come after me, just gave me a grin and grabbed a crow out of the air. There was a wet ripping sound as Rian tore its wings off.
I sprinted toward Rian, ready to break his neck, but the second I got within arm’s reach he snapped his wings open. The hit knocked me off my feet.
Rian let the crow drop and spun around to face me. I ran at him again. Without the vamp senses, I wouldn’t have even seen him move. One second he was standing over a wingless, croaking crow, the next he was throwing everything into a punch that almost tore my jaw off.
While I was still trying to recover, Rian whipped out his revolver and shot me in the chest, three times, right through the heart. It stopped me cold.
Pain radiated out in waves, making my arms and legs go weak. I fell to my knees. My heart beat—once. Twice. Three, four, fiv
e, six times. It was speeding up.
Destroyer blood.
Rian grinned that shit-eating grin. He grabbed me by the arm and threw me. I rolled across the ashy dirt, then slammed into the landing gear of the burned-out helicopter. Something in my back snapped.
I opened my eyes just in time to see Rian stake the crow to the ground. The crow tried shifting forms to get away, flickering from Lonely’s human body to the crow and back again so fast I could see the fighting on the other side of him as if he was see-through, but he couldn’t escape. His soul was pinned down.
Rian pulled the knife out of Lonely’s boot between shifts and pried open the crow’s mouth.
Cut off the wings, cut out the tongue, stake to the ground, light on fire.
That fucker had the Sword of Judgment, but he was going to kill Lonely the long way. No need to go with the easy, sure thing when you knew you were going to win the war. Might as well enjoy yourself.
My shotgun was gone. I swiped my hands out in both directions, but there was nothing. My hand skimmed across rocks that had melted into the dirt. Under the ash and dust, that nuclear explosion that tore the Dark Mansion apart had turned everything into melted, glassy stone.
I wasn’t even sure I could hold a weapon if I found one. The pain throbbed down my chest, through my arms, to my fingertips, weakening my muscles. I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t move. The vamp healing couldn’t kick in with the Destroyer blood fucking up the crow magic. The best I could do was pull myself along on my stomach.
Lonely cawed and coughed blood. Rian picked up the lighter and hairspray can Flamethrower-girl had dropped when they shot her.
Other crows were diving at Rian now, screeching and pecking. He turned the hairspray at them and lit it up, backing them off.
I tried to crawl faster.
Rian sprayed Lonely down with fire.
Off to my right, another crow got shot out of the sky. It shifted to Talitha when it hit the ground. She raised an AK-47 and took aim just in time for a foot soldier to saw her legs off with a .50 cal machinegun.
