“Up,” the thing hissed. “Always up.”
“Okay, dude, we got it,” the man said. “Now scamper home.”
Instead, the creature shed its cloak and rushed at them. Five rows of teeth glistened in the light.
Angela clutched the man’s arm, screaming.
* * *
Fanny screamed, thrashing in Tomahawk’s arms. He lost hold of the ladder. Luckily, they were only a few feet from the ground. Still, they hit pretty hard. Fanny’s screams continued as she clutched her ears.
“What, Fanny?”
“A ripper,” she moaned. “A soul ripper.”
“Shi—”
Thunder boomed, shaking the building’s windows. He covered Fanny as they shattered, sending glass into the street.
“Come on,” Tomahawk said, as he urged Fanny to her feet. “We’ve got to get out to the car.”
But the girl wilted against him, too weak to even stand.
He had to get her as far away from the warehouse as quickly as possible. Picking her up like she was a child, Tomahawk made a dash for the station wagon.
* * *
Rook fired repeatedly, yet barely stalled the beast. It charged, undeterred.
“Up,” it chanted. “Always up.”
“Dear Gawd!” Rook said as he shot off another twenty rounds. “Shut up.”
The only way he could be more annoying was to rap the slogan. His gun clicked on metal. The beast seemed to sense their vulnerability as it opened its maw even wider.
Rook turned toward Angela. “Give me the scalpel.”
But the woman was too stunned to respond, so he snatched it from her hand. The beast was coming fast, but Rook held his ground until the very last second. He let the scalpel fly from his hand, straight into the beast’s mouth. It tried to say “up” one last time, but all that came out was a garbled gurgle as black blood oozed from the wound. The beast attempted to take another step forward but toppled, letting out a death rattle.
“What…?” Angela whispered, and then repeated more with force, “What is that?”
Rook went over and extracted the scalpel. They might need it later. “It was a soul ripper. I think the name is pretty self-explanatory.”
He grabbed her hand and urged her down the hallway, but she was still fascinated by the soul ripper’s corpse.
“How did you know that would work?”
“They’ve got peas for brains. It’s just a matter of finding them.” Rook tugged on her again. “Now is science class over, so we can go?”
The woman ignored his pleas and stood rooted firmly in place. “Why did it want me to go up?”
“Probably because it’s got a few relatives up there, just waiting for your soul to be served up.”
* * *
Angela looked down at the ripper. Its fur wasn’t black, but a deep, dark blue. However, its blood ran black. Which was impossible, wasn’t it? But so was a virgin conception. So was everything that had happened over the past day.
“Angela,” the man said, “there are more of these, and others. We have got to move it or lose it.”
Despite his flippant tone, his blue eyes pinched with worry.
“What…” Angela had to gulp before continuing. “What is your name?”
“Rook,” he answered, as if that might mean something to her. “Now giddyap.”
This time, when he tugged on her arm, Angela did not resist. If up was not an option, she had no idea how to escape the building. At least Rook seemed to know where he was going. Quickly, they made it down the stairs to the main level. A dead body—that of one of the suited men—blocked the doorway.
Rook lifted the gun from the body.
“So much for Mr. Cocky,” Rook said before he carefully opened the door to the main hall.
The sound of gunfire and screams filled the air. Rook clicked the door closed. “Yeah, we’ve got ourselves a party out there.”
“Is it more of the soul rippers?” she asked trying to keep the terror from her voice.
“Nope,” Rook answered. “It’s much worse,” he added.
Angela could not believe that was possible. What could be worse than the ripper? Cautiously, she peeked out the window to find that Rook was not just correct, but had undersold the battle being waged.
Huge slugs reared up on slimy tails, sucking the heads off anyone they encountered, as another group of guards seemed to be battling huge, white yetis. She could take a picture of it all and put it in the dictionary under the term “impossible,” yet there they were.
Beyond it all, though, there was a bright green Exit sign. Of course, they would have to get past the frenzied battle. Which did not seem very likely.
Rook gripped her shoulders and turned her toward him. “I can protect us,” he said. “I can shield us both, but you must trust me.”
“Trust you?” she questioned. “You said you’d kill me.”
“Hey,” he said. “You said it first.”
She trembled under his grip. This wasn’t funny. Not at all. How could she trust him if he couldn’t even be serious?
Rook held her gaze. “I can do this.” His words might be sarcastic, but his eyes were determined.
Still, she glanced out the window to the mayhem beyond. “I don’t understand. How can you get us past all of… all of that?”
He did not answer her. Instead, he took off his coat and murmured something under his breath. When he swung it back over his shoulder… his shoulder disappeared. As Rook put the coat back on, his entire body shimmered, seemingly not there at all.
That could not be. She reached a tentative hand out and felt the leather of Rook’s coat and the hard muscles underneath the fabric. He was there, but she could not see him. Rook removed the coat and appeared before her.
“I have the power to hide both of us, but only if you hold on to faith.”
Faith? Angela had very little of that to spare.
Rook cocked an eyebrow. “Okay, chickadee. You come up with a better plan.”
Of course, she had no other plan. The path to the exit was a massacre. But to believe that invisibility was possible, and that her faith had anything at all to do with it? That wasn’t a plan. That was the first step toward insanity.
* * *
Chicks, man. They could never make up their minds. He needed to persuade Angela to put aside all the doubt and fear. She had to commit, or they were both going to die.
“All right. Best of luck to you,” Rook said as he put the coat back on.
A shimmer passed over his vision, casting Angela in a silver glow. Near panic, her eyes searched for him. Good. He needed reality to hit her a little harder to get her out of denial.
Civilians. They saw a little magic and got weak in the knees.
If a guy offers an invisibility spell, take it.
Rook put his hand on the doorknob and turned it. Angela’s eyes went to the knob, and then to the spot where he had been standing.
“Wait,” she said. Tears brimmed, dancing along her eyelids. “I believe.”
Belief wasn’t necessarily faith, but it was going to have to do.
He opened the coat and watched her eyes dilate as she adjusted to seeing his form again. “I need you tucked inside.”
Tentatively, she stepped inside the confines of the jacket. Their body heat mingled.
“Closer,” he urged. He didn’t necessarily need her closer for the spell to work. It felt nice to have her alongside him. With her apricot scent, she smelled good.
Angela wrapped her arms around his waist and tucked herself under his arm. Rook closed the coat, murmuring words of sealing. It would not do for the damn thing to flutter open halfway down the hall.
Certain that their disguise was light-tight, Rook opened the door. The battle had carried further down the hallway, and there was no clear path to the exit. They might be invisible, but if they bumped into any of the combatants, their presence would be revealed.
As a bullet whizzed past, ricochets also
climbed high on the list of dangers they still faced. He guided Angela along the side of the hall, giving wide berth to the Theolan slugs. A guard nearly ran into them as he fled the hungry mollusk.
Rook clutched Angela’s waist and spun them around, as if they danced a deadly tango. A Yetian took a swipe at a downed man as Rook brought them around the other side—then stopped them abruptly as they ended up at the end of a gun barrel. The guard was about to shoot the Yetian.
Worse, the spell around them began to warp. Angela’s fear could be their undoing.
He held her close, letting the strength of his arms flow into her.
“Faith,” Rook whispered.
* * *
The hairs along Angela’s arm went up as Rook’s words caressed her ear. Pulling her weight to him, he pivoted them just as the gun fired. From there, Rook wove them through the fight as though it was merely a waltz. His steps swept them through battles and around claws.
Angela pressed up against him. She wanted to close her eyes to the carnage surrounding them, but could not. It was like a movie playing for just their benefit. Angela had truly believed that she had no faith left in her bones, yet she noticed that the spell protecting them had gone from sparkling silver to a nearly clear surface. She looked out at the scene as if underwater.
It would have been magical if it weren’t for the bloody cries.
One more sweeping turn, and they were past the fighting. Only a few steps separated them from the exit. Rook held her tightly, her toes still inches from the floor and their bodies pressed against one another.
“You saved us,” he whispered as he set her down.
How could she have saved them? She was the one who nearly panicked. Angela went to retort, but Rook put his finger to his lips and indicated the door. Angela got it. They could talk about it after they were safe.
Angela watched as Rook turned the handle on the door. It cracked open, and then an alarm blared. The entire hallway turned toward them. Monsters and guards. Slugs and Yeti. They might still have an invisibility cloak on, but everyone knew exactly where they were. Bullets flew as Rook hurled them out the door, and then slammed it closed behind them.
He looked up and down the alley.
“Damn it! Where in the hell is Beauty?”
Angela had no idea what he was talking about, but when Rook grabbed her hand and ran full tilt, she did not argue.
* * *
“Where in the hell is Rook?” Beauty asked Tomahawk as she slammed on the brakes, cranking the wheel as far as it would go as they careened around the corner.
Of course, the winged demons chasing them easily banked in the air and followed them, gaining precious feet on them. Beauty had to swerve to the right to avoid hitting a guard. The place was swarming with enemies, but they had yet to find Rook’s extraction point. He had been a little thin on that detail of his grand plan.
“Can you sense Rook?” Tomahawk asked Fanny in the backseat. Beauty glanced in the rearview mirror. Poor Fanny did not seem able to sense their presence, let alone Rook. She rocked compulsively, spittle at the corner of her mouth. To be so close to so many creatures that were rich in magic, the girl was on overload.
And things only got better as Chad sat up in the far back. “What’s happening?” he asked groggily.
“Darlin’, it’s just a nightmare. Lie back down,” Beauty encouraged, wishing it were actually true.
Luckily, Chad flopped back down and out of sight. Unfortunately, that allowed Beauty to see the winged, clawed, and fanged demon barreling down on them.
* * *
Rook held Angela’s hand as they skidded to a stop. The alleyway was blocked by a huge chunk of a demolished building. He turned to find several guards chasing them. The other alley, well, that wasn’t an option, since a large shadow moved of its own accord. They were cornered.
“Can they see us?” Angela whispered.
“The guards? No, they are just taking their best guess,” Rook explained. “But those,” he said, indicating the shadows, “Those can see us as clear as day.”
The Amiculum e’Felos spell worked pretty damned well against most talented creatures, but Night Shades? Their vision worked perfectly fine in pitch black. His spell was nothing to them. But since when did Night Shades act as mercenaries? The woman in his care must truly be someone coveted.
He had to face it. He was outmatched.
But not outsmarted.
He closed his eyes and pictured those colorful ponytails.
“Fanny,” Rook breathed out.
* * *
Tomahawk held on as Fanny went stiff in his arms, and then her eyes flew open.
“Rook!” Fanny screamed as she leapt from his hold, scrambling over the front seat, where she clenched the wheel with white knuckles and yanked it to the right.
Tomahawk grabbed Fanny by the waist and tried to haul her back as Beauty pried her fingers from the steering wheel.
“Fanny, you are going to wreck us!” Beauty scolded, but it did no good. Fanny forced them down a side alley.
“Rook. He’s this way!”
Ahead of them, a wall of black appeared. Not shadows, but darkness itself.
“Oh, dear!” Beauty exclaimed. “Those are Night—”
They plowed through the line of creatures as Fanny dove headfirst and pressed the brake with her hands, skidding them to a stop right in front of Rook and—who Tomahawk could only assume—was Angela Morrey.
Fanny’s head popped up. “See! Told you!” she said as she clapped.
Tomahawk helped Fanny into the backseat as Rook and Angela piled into the car. Beauty did not waste any time doing a donut, spinning them around one hundred and eighty degrees as the guards sprayed the car with bullets. Rapidly, they outran the gunfire. However, the winged horde was another story completely.
Rook looked around. “Is it just me, or has this been way too easy?”
* * *
A unanimous “Just you!” came from all of them. Rook didn’t buy it, though. Just a few soul rippers, Yeti, and Night Shades? You would have thought the forces that wished Angela for their own would have brought at least one cleanup hitter.
“Uh-oh,” Fanny said.
“Uh-oh, what-o?” Rook responded, as he turned around to look out the back window. A huge, at least two-story tall, purple lizard was barreling toward them.
“That’s not …” Tomahawk said. “That’s not a Tainted Dragon, is it?”
Fire shooting from the thing’s nostrils confirmed Tomahawk’s assessment without Rook having to utter a word.
“Okay, now this just got hard enough,” Rook informed the group. But they seemed none too thrilled. He looked at Tomahawk. “You got anything useful back there?”
Tomahawk tossed him an automatic rifle.
“No rockets?”
“We’re clean out,” Tomahawk stated as he, too, grabbed a rifle. “Fanny, get your head down,” he encouraged as they both fired out the back window.
They hit the thing about a dozen times, but the bullets only seemed to tickle the dragon. Seeing their compatriot take so many hits and not bleed, the winged demons swooped down, surrounding the car.
“Um, we’d better think of something quick,” Beauty said.
Um, what did Beauty think he was doing? Rook was about to retort, when a glimmer caught the corner of his eye. Great. Now they had an angel joining in the fun. Too late, he saw Angela’s hand reach for the handle.
“No!” he cried, but she opened the door. Angela was halfway out as he dove to her, catching her around the waist. Only Beauty catching his pant leg saved them both from getting smeared on the pavement as they sped along the street.
The angel floated alongside them.
Rook shouted to be heard over the harp strings. “Angela, now is not the time for this.”
* * *
Angela struggled against Rook’s restraint. “Let me go!”
“To what?” Rook asked, the muscles of his jaw taut. “To him? Look at w
hat his kind have done to your life, Angela.”
Could Rook not see how beautiful the angel was? How calm he made her feel? All else—the dragon, the demons, and even the asphalt just inches from their faces—was washed away by the angel’s glow. Angela was cocooned in heavenly light.
Rook tried to pull her back into the car, but the angel extended his arm to her. “Come, my child. All will be well.”
Letting go of the door handle, Angela reached out for his perfect hand. She would have finally touched the divine if the car hadn’t skidded around a corner, nearly throwing both Rook and her out. She could not die. Not before she heard the angel speak one more time.
Rook, however, glared at the angel. “You know what, buddy, let’s show her what you are all about … Speak your true intent.”
The angel’s eyes flared golden, like the sun just before it set. “How dare you—”
“Stop!” Angela screamed at Rook, but he refused.
“Speak your true intent, or be gone!”
The angel swelled to double his size, filling Angela’s vision with a white so pure that it strained her eyes. Then it was gone.
“No!” she cried.
But Rook shook his head. “Typical.”
He tried to tug her back into the car, but Angela braced against the door. If she couldn’t touch the divine, what else could Rook offer her in the car?
Rook gripped her arm, forcing her to look at him as her hair streamed in the wind.
“Look, I don’t know what they offered you, but I can guarantee you it wasn’t milk and cookies.”
“But he said—” she retorted.
“That you had to be strong? That God acted in mysterious ways?” Rook drew closer, ensuring that they would fall from the speeding vehicle even more. “Babe, that’s the oldest line in the book.”
Gunfire rattled from the car as Tomahawk shouted, “We’d appreciate some help inside the car!”
Rook’s grip became like a vise. His voice was low and filled with intent. “I could let you go right now. Let you die.”
The dragon took another swipe at the car. A purple claw barely missed their rear tire.
“Trust me on this,” Rook continued, once the car stopped fishtailing. “Your death would make my life a whole lot easier, and end this battle.”
Rook: Let's Avoid the Apocalypse, People Page 7
