by Livia Quinn
There was also no Conor, and no sign of Ridge or his men. It would be another couple of minutes before they arrived. Hopefully, I had a couple. Dark clouds were moving in on the horizon. I looked closer. Not clouds, a mass of shmoo or squonk, flying low, a couple hundred at least.
“Sheriff,” said a voice and Freddie tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find him with several of his animal friends. Great. I was going to war with a handyman, some barnyard animals and a scorpion.
Don’t knock it, Lang. You were standing here by yourself a minute ago. Freddie caught my gaze and pointed over my shoulder. I turned.
From behind every vehicle more of Freddie’s troops joined the parade, like fighter jets joining a formation. I gaped openly. I hadn’t realized Destiny had this many animals. From cows and family pets to wildlife and swamp creatures, it seemed every species was accounted for, and in a show of solidarity, natural enemies marched side by side. There were alligators, bears, deer and snakes, two of which, a large timber rattler and a stump-tailed water moccasin encircled Freddie’s thighs, to defend him during close encounters.
I didn’t know what they could do against flying goofus but the sheer weight of their numbers had to be of some help. “Mr. Jack.” Freddie pointed. I spun around, my gun drawn and groaned.
Directly ahead of me stomped a wall of those auto-regenerating spiders. We must’ve missed some. We had to take them out quickly or their numbers would increase. I glanced back towards Freddie and realized that our numbers were also still growing, with animals filing in from the woods between the houses and cars, and from fields. As far as I could see were my non-human and non-supernatural citizens of Destiny.
I felt a surge of pride in these soldiers. They were silent and obviously committed with no squawking or chatter like there’d been this morning. They’d been well coached.
A wave of animals slid toward the center of the street making way for two black vans swinging wide around the corner and jumping the curb. They dodged alligators, a bull and God only knew what else and screeched to a halt fifty feet from me on either side of the street, setting up a barrier, angled to protect our ‘men’. The doors flew open and four well armed soldiers jumped out.
Finally. I allowed myself a quick sigh of relief. Even Lola was dressed to kill, and I don’t mean for a night on the town. Her army fatigues had been replaced by an odd looking black material. She unloaded a heavy crate and walked around the side of Ridge’s van.
Of the five, Slade was the only one still in his original uniform. Smoke had ditched his drapes, Tank was fittingly armored from his knees to his shoulders, and I could see there was no better name for him.
Even Ridge was rigged for a fight. He tossed me a Kevlar jacket. Assuming it was superior to my own, I quickly switched them out. Then he threw me a smaller version of what Tank was carrying.
Slade’s odd weapon looked like some kind of state-of-the-art flamethrower. There was no fuel supply or tank that I could see. When Smoke saw the marching arachnids, he growled, “This time I won’t leave one standing.” He turned to Slade. “Burn those suckers to ash if you get a chance. They spit clones out of their Asses fully formed.”
I said, “They probably held some back as spares.”
“Who’s directing these monsters?” Ridge asked.
“Haven’t a clue,” I said. “Just because they take animal form doesn’t guarantee you’re dealing with dumb grunts though. Look at Conor.”
Smoke glanced at Slade and nodded. I looked at Ridge. “We ready?”
Slade just hefted his weapon in answer and as one they stepped into the street alongside me. Lola hopped off the curb with what looked like a game controller. At her feet hovered three of the dark drones she’d used earlier.
“Here they come,” Tank shouted.
The dark mass that had held off in the distance, probably trying to instill fear in us, began to move forward at an excruciatingly slow pace. “Jack, behind you,” Ridge yelled.
I spun to my right. Ridge backed up to me as I pointed the big gun with my left and with the pistol in my right, took aim on a lumbering form… “Fritz?”
But this was no longer Fritz. This Fritz didn’t just look like the walking dead, he smelled like it. His eye sockets were empty and when he opened his maw of a mouth a horrific raspy grown escaped, and then he batted one of the boar hogs out of his way.
The being raised its blocky arm again and I fired, joined by Ridge. But it didn’t stop. It kept coming forward. Just as it reached me, its upper body lurched forward and then jerked backwards as if its feet we’re suddenly mired in mud. Its arms flailed and I looked down to see an alligator clamped onto one leg, shaking it ferociously, until the limb tore off at the knee.
Freddie went to hammering at its head with a hammer, missing, but connecting with its elbow. Some of the other animals started stomping the twitching foot and calf on the ground. A large bear grabbed another shoulder ripping an arm out of the putrid body. Someone else bumped the de-armed torso to the ground and then it was stomped to pieces.
Ridge called Slade over. He finished it off with a quick stream of flame just as we saw another one lumbering toward Freddie. I recognized this one as a man who’d gone missing a couple weeks ago in Amity. Somebody had been busy, turning some of Destiny’s missing citizens into… zombies? This was some weird shit.
The animals moved around us creating a buffer between our group and the variants. For a while the sheer numbers of our forces were keeping the spiders and the zombies I saw down the street at bay so Slade could fire hose the remains. I felt another pang as I saw another familiar face burn under Slade’s flame. It was another of the enemy’s strategies aimed at stalling our reactions to gain an advantage, thinking we wouldn’t fire on our own. They would be wrong.
The black swarm of shmoo on the edge of the street seemed to be waiting for someone to give them the okay to attack. It dawned on me then that all of these animal types were running on creature instinct. They would be easily dominated if my forces could last, but if someone or some thing were orchestrating a coordinated attack, that would come from more directions than I had the manpower or firepower to cover.
There was no way we’d be able to hold out.
We’re doomed. I need Tempe and sooner rather than later. But I couldn’t count on the Paramortals. They wouldn’t have full power for several hours yet.
Chapter 27
Tempe
Ahhh, there’s my zapper…
“Are you done?” Phoebe crossed her arms and looked at me severely. She was the only person still standing after my surprising weather hissy. Even the Faehad been tossed out of their perches in the trees and into the swamp. Montana helped Aurora to her feet. I felt a twinge of regret, though it was a tee-ninesy twinge. They’d all been in on it.
“Montana, did you know?” She opened her mouth but I stopped her. “No, don’t tell me.”
“I didn’t, Tempe.” She turned to Phoebe and asked the question, which was foremost in my mind. “How did you pull that off? I know for a fact they lived together, in a cottage by the fairgrounds.”
Phoebe pursed her lips. “I doubt we have time for a full explanation, but it was a spell your father put in place.”
“Glamour?” I asked, incredulous. “My life, my memories for the last two years were… glamoured?” My voice was rising again.
I felt Montana’s hand on my back, trying to keep me calm, or lending her support. It helped in very small measure. Menori was restless responding to my anger. She wanted to tear into someone, tear apart something. And then I heard it.
We’re doomed. I need Tempe, and sooner rather than later.
Zeus’ tattoed stones! He’d tried to call earlier and I’d chosen my selfish need to rail at my mother over his need and that of everyone with him. We were standing here rehashing the sins of my parents, yet again, while poor Jack faced down who knew what.
It hit me with the force of a hurricane then how selfish I was being. I had
reason to be upset, true, but that, really? I should get over it. Now. Jack needed me.
I pointed my finger at the old Cypress stump and called my fire. A wimpy smoking sizzle shot into the air then limped to the ground. “Arrrgh!”
I pointed to the LIAB and Phoebe covered it as if she thought I was going to unleash all of my pitiful sparkler power on it. “Quick. How do we use that thing?”
Phoebe held out her hand and with only a second’s hesitation I took it. I felt the power the Orbis contained as if our connection had turned it on.
“All right, we need to find out where Jack and the others are exactly,” but how. My phone wasn’t working. I turned to Arabella, who could get a bird’s eye view of the area. She nodded and changing into a heron, lifted into the air. Precious seconds passed until she reached a height above the trees and the second story of Harmony and disappeared from view.
Montana said, “I’m going out there,” and ran, fast as her half vamp self could run, which was pretty dern speedy.
In the meantime I asked, Phoebe, “What are we going to do with this thing?”
Phoebe thought, We must become a single unit, one power, one mind and then we can access the energy I saved to your LIAB. Your voice is the key.
I heard her clearly. The mindlink, which had been non-existent my mother and me for so long, was whole again. Probably meant she’d unlocked the Pomeroy frequency.
Our human defenders were in trouble. And I might have put them in even greater danger or even killed someone with that release of temper, not to mention—what if it diminished our power? I asked her through the mindlink.
There is more than enough here to do the job, but we must be canny and work as one
Work as one. Phoebe and me. That would be the biggest challenge.
Bella returned and owing to the seriousness of our friends’ situation, transformed in flight, landing on faerie feet. “They are just over two blocks away. Apparently the downed trees and debris kept them from getting here.”
There was no condemnation about my ill-timed hissy fit, but I closed my eyes briefly, guilt flooding my senses. “There’s more than just your sheriff. There’s a young man and a street full of animals, of every species. There are four others with weapons as well. But they are vastly overwhelmed by a wave of goofus, strange spiders, and I saw several dead walking.”
Huh? “You mean zombies?”
Nodding, Bella glanced at Petre. “I recognized one, my love. It was… Sariel,” one of the Inn’s guests, an empath, who had gone missing a few weeks back.
Petre’s eyes reddened and the veins in his forehead pulsed visibly. “The Dark Faemust be behind this.” He looked at me. “The taking of a Bright Faeis an open challenge.”
Aurora faced me and said, “If I may sug—oh Great Goddess, there’s no time to mince words.” In a stance resembling Phoebe’s, Aurora planted her fists on her hips and looked at both of us sternly. “Forgiveness will bring you the most clarity and will clear the space in your Tempestaeries’ Qi’mele where your power resides. Forgive and your connection will be stronger.”
Phoebe—Mother—spent only a moment considering, then held out her hand. “We’ll only get one shot, Tempest. Will you—can you please, forgive me? I didn’t mean to hurt you, or River—”
I thought, now? We have to do this now? All right already... I said, “Okay, you’re forgiven.” Funny, it didn’t sound like it, and yet, something had changed.
I’d never seen the look that came across my mother’s face—peace, relief, and tenderness. But I had seen it—on the very day that picture had been taken, when we picnicked together as a family and played the weather game, when we’d still been a “normal” —normal being relative when applied to Tempestaeries and djinn—family.
I reached forward giving my mother a hug and realized I had meant it. My blood vessels swelled with energy, and a feeling of freedom overwhelmed me. For the first time in my life, even with everything that I’d been through, everything that was happening, I was…happy. I wanted to tell Jack but—first things first.
I gripped my mother’s hand tightly and this time when my eyes met hers, I let her see inside. “Let’s do this.”
Jack
If you can’t beat ‘em, it’s time for a dragon. Hellooo, it’s frickin’ time…
The fight was intensifying with combatants on both sides and of every sort creating an unrecognizable, disorganized Chaos. I had to do something to get our people back into some kind of battle strategy. The street was littered with not only the charred remains of shmoo and armored spiders but also some of Freddie’s guys. Fallen heroes. I hadn’t expected to feel a twinge of pain at the sight.
As I watched, a rattlesnake shot into the air and sank its fangs into a shmoo, pulling it from the air, squeezing it unconscious on the ground. A blade swooped out of the air and severed the shmoo’s head. I looked up and exhaled in relief. Thank God, it was Montana.
I was so happy to see the fighting Dinnshencha I’d have kissed her, except a big black dragon might appear out of nowhere to torch me. On second thought, with the enemy closing in and so many of our animal soldiers dropping…if it would get him here right now, I’d try it.
Tank yelled and I heard a burst of gunfire from his big gun. Ridge had put Lola and her drones on point. I was scanning that area when it happened. “What the hell—” I said to no one in particular, and everyone. Except for Tank, shock had most of us frozen in place.
A god-awful terror levitated in front of us, a bloated gray head with no body. It had tiny wings for ears, protruding yellow eyeballs and a square mouth that when open looked like the spiked door of a medieval castle leading to dark nothingness within. Something that looked frighteningly like intestines dripped from under the head. Before anyone saw it coming, it bit down on Lola’s neck suspending her in mid-air from its mouth. Her head flopped to the side; her spine probably severed.
Tank fired so many rounds into the thing I was certain it would at least drop Lola, or fall to the street dead, but unfortunately, it didn’t seem phased by the bullets. The head monster shook Lola like a dog with a toy. Her limbs flopped but then surprisingly, the shaking stopped and the angry mouth dropped her. It flew back and forth erratically like an enraged bumblebee Szz..zzz Vszz..szt.. its head vibrating loudly.
I heard more sound overhead and looked up. It turned out to be Montana’s sword as it cut through the trailing intestines of the creature, efficiently avoiding Lola. I hit the dirt just as Montana’s second slice cleaved the head in two, spilling its disgusting contents across the pavement like a rotten melon splattered at a summer festival. Blood, guts and a malodorous stench exploded from its remains.
Lola was on the ground unconscious. I heard Montana shout, “It’s fengbo,” before she stepped back to allow Slade’s fire hose to do its work.
“Is that the only way to kill them?” My question was met with a nod from Montana and a cry from one of Freddie’s troops. Montana guarded my back as I turned to see another flying head—fengbo—fly away with a two hundred pound buck.
Oh, Jesus, help us.
I watched as Montana walked through the animal soldiers, some dead, many wounded, followed closely by Slade. And I knew, damn it all I knew, there was no way we could win this fight. Pain, sharp and damn near incapacitating, hit me in the gut making me draw in a ragged gasp. Tempe, Jordie… I’d failed them both.
I looked back at Ridge, who’d knelt by his fallen soldier, and started toward them, ducking as another fengbo swooped toward me. Montana leaped into the air with a cry and decapitated the thing. Wow! I’d have to remember when this was over—if we lived—not to piss her off. I would gladly kiss her size thirteens if she asked.
Then I saw Lola’s legs move. “No way!” I said.
She sat straight up from the ground, her body strangely stiff, head lolling sideways as she looked at me with a lopsided grimace and a wink with the eye that wasn’t drooping, “Way.”
Her other eye closed an
d opened brokenly making her look like a ventriloquist’s dummy. I realized this would have been a great time for one of Tempe’s Zeus curses.
Lola was a drone. No wonder Ridge had put her on point. She tinkered with the controls in her hand and her head righted itself, though the eye kept blinking.
No time to marvel…I looked up at the sky. Tank and the others open fired on the now constant influx of attackers, shmoo, squonk and those nasty stinking heads. We weren’t the only ones at risk. I knew if they took us out, which looked like it was inevitable if Conor didn’t get back in time, the townspeople would be next, or Tempe and the defenders at the Forge, because it was clear to me, they wanted Destiny, badly. And they were smelling victory.
I waved at the others, “Circle up. Freddie get your troops over here.”
We created a five-pointed star with two defenders on each point, back to back, and started blasting or killing everything that dove at us from the sky. We left the animals to crush the spiders and stomp whatever hit the ground. That simple strategy worked. As each one fell, Slade sent a never-ending stream of fire at them.
Our ammo had a limit though, and we reached it. Soon, all but Montana were reduced to fighting by hand, though Lola’s drones were still zapping some shmoo and fengbos with electrical charges.
There was a long rumble of thunder and every one of the attackers fluttered up simultaneously. I looked past them to the end of Harmony Lane. A figure stood alone in the middle of the bare street. I couldn’t make it out except that he stood completely still …waiting or perhaps directing—
A long ground shaking roll of thunder broke my train of thought and I heard Montana say, “It’s about damn time.”
The figure at the end of the street had disappeared.
Chapter 28
Conor
This is not a drill. Dragon at twelve o’clock.
I flew toward Destiny at top speed. Even though the fat white clouds obscured the full view of the sky, I wasn’t worried about having a head on collision with a jet, as Montana had teased. How was she farin’? I felt a twinge of worry as I thought what they must be facing without me.
