Alucard nodded at me, facing the concrete slabs from maybe ten feet away. I took a few steps back so the sunlight wouldn’t hit me, placing me the furthest from the inbound guards, but I hadn’t wanted to risk having my back to them while holding open the Gateway, so there was no other choice.
“Don’t look!” I shouted, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Oh, bring it on already! Daddy wants a tan!” Alucard shouted at the top of his lungs.
And I opened a Gateway, using my peripheral vision so as not to blind myself. Even still, I instantly averted my eyes as the Gateway screamed to life.
I felt a blast of heat sear every molecule of moisture nearby, so hot that there wasn’t even any hiss of steam from the snow. I shielded my face, stumbling backwards as my exposed skin tightened and I smelled burning plastic from my jacket. “Fuck me!” I cursed, trying to get even further away.
The side of the building warped and cracked or turned white-hot, depending on what it was made of.
Alucard was cackling and screaming at the top of his lungs like a psychopath, but I could hear machine guns firing nearby. I hoped Loki was covering my friends—shielding and counterattacking the wizards, at least. If not, I would personally throw him into the Elder’s homeland to watch him burn. With the crazy light from my Gateway, there was every chance the guards were firing blindly as they covered their eyes. Or they’d blinded themselves by trying to look too closely.
“Tell me when!” I shouted, hoping Alucard could hear me. I couldn’t even look in that direction to see how everyone else was faring, so I crouched down, hoping that I wouldn’t catch a stray bullet or blast of magic while I hid from my own Gateway.
“NOW!” Alucard screamed. I closed it in a heartbeat. I used my peripheral vision for a few more seconds to make sure I hadn’t screwed anything up and that the Gateway had definitely closed.
Then I cautiously looked over, squinting against a winged, human-shaped being of pure light who was hovering about ten feet off the ground with his arms outstretched.
And he was laughing. Even the guards and gargoyles had stopped fighting to stare up at him in disbelief, those who hadn’t been blinded by the light, anyway—of which there were many, now stumbling around and screaming as they clawed at their own faces. Then Alucard aimed his hands at the door, and a bar of neon-blue light struck the door with a chiming sound, lasting only a few seconds before it winked out.
The door stood, not looking remotely affected by Alucard’s strike.
One of the guards suddenly laughed. Alucard flicked his wrist towards the guards and another beam of light shot from his hand, lasting the span of a blink.
I stared at his target to see dozens of men screaming in agony from grotesque proximity burns, but a group of maybe a dozen charred skeletons stood upright like statues. Then they simply disintegrated, collapsing into piles of dust and rolling smoke.
The concrete door made a strange groaning sound, drawing my attention. Then it similarly collapsed into a pile—much larger, though—of fine white dust.
Alucard lifted his arms wide, staring into the dark opening. “Who’s a good boy—”
As quick as a snake, a massive wolf’s head lunged out, gobbling up Alucard in one bite.
“No!” Loki shouted, running in front of me as I lifted my hands to start throwing magic at the stupid mutt. “Bad boy! Drop it!” he yelled, storming up to the opening and waving his finger demandingly.
Fenrir suddenly gagged, spreading his jaws wide as he hacked up the human lightning bug in projectile drool. Alucard struck the ground in a wet, steaming slap, rolling like a slug as his skin rapidly burned away the drool. He was still glowing brighter than I’d ever seen, but not as much as a few moments ago.
Alucard was cursing up a storm, berating the dog the moment he landed, as he struggled back to his feet.
But I didn’t have time to marvel at Fenrir or check on Loki as I suddenly remembered the remaining guards—those who hadn’t been incinerated or burned beyond salvation.
And the gargoyles.
But…it seemed like a lot of them—men and gargoyles—were fighting each other.
I saw Loki grinning smugly up at them before he pulled his attention back to Fenrir.
I didn’t want to rely on Loki’s illusions, so I started hurling fireballs as fast as I could, lighting them up as I screamed at my team to get out of the way. They tucked tail and ran from the guards, and I threw down a long, curved shield to stop the various projectiles from hitting them in the back.
Alucard had a faster solution. He buffeted his wings against the ground in a powerful sweep that ignited any of the surviving grass from under the snow—even catching War’s beard on fire. The Biblical Horseman cursed and patted it out as the rest of my team scrambled my way, staying well clear of the open hangar.
Alucard landed on the ground between my shield and the surviving guards. “Morningstar is here!” he shouted.
A horizontal arc of brilliant purple light no thicker than a sheet of paper screamed through the air about waist-high, slicing every single guard in half.
But it kept right on going into the forest of our valley—ripping through every single tree with a flash of flame—before finally slamming into the snowy ridgeline with a blast of steam and debris.
For all I knew, it kept on going beyond that.
For a single moment, crystal-clear silence rang out as loud as a bell. Even the gargoyles hovered in stunned silence, staring down at the gory halves of their allies now painting the snow.
And then the trees began to fall, flames racing up their trunks as they toppled into each other on their way down to the ground. They hit with crashing thuds that I felt in my toes. The best part was that several of them caught a large group of gargoyles, hitting them like industrial fly swatters, and pinned them to the ground.
The evergreen branches stubbornly refused the flames for a few seconds, and then went up like they had been doused in gasoline. Luckily, we were in a valley, so we didn’t have to worry about immediate fires spreading through the Rocky Mountains.
But I knew wildfires were not uncommon in the state, so I would have to take care of it—
A stone spear slammed into the ground right beside me, and I looked up to see a line of pissed-off gargoyles hefting more spears above their heads, aiming down at us.
Alucard stumbled woozily, but quickly regained his balance and swept his wings to launch him into the sky. He flew around like a drunken bat, but his aim was almost better in his practically delirious state. He released solar buckshot from his palms—each blast consisting of hundreds of tiny orbs of light—that shredded through three or more gargoyles at a time. Within seconds, it was raining hot chunks of stone down around us. I cursed, throwing another shield above our heads as I shouted at everyone to get beneath it.
War and Carl obeyed, but I didn’t see Loki, Gunnar, or the pups. I cursed, shouting their names louder as Alucard zipped back and forth above our heads, finishing up the last of the gargoyles.
Then he began to fall, his glow winking out like a bad light bulb. His wings evaporated and he dropped like a limp doll.
I dropped my shield and prepared another one to try and catch him, but my head was suddenly spinning, and I lost my grip on my magic.
I heard a fleshy thump that made me cringe, and I glanced over to see Carl kneeling on the ground, holding Alucard in his arms.
The Daywalker didn’t appear to be breathing.
I stumbled to my feet, watching as red-hot pieces of gravel struck Carl and his pink vest, but he paid them no more mind than if they had been light rain. I watched him brush the hair back from Alucard’s forehead in a concerned, loving gesture.
I reached his side and knelt down, grabbing his wrist for a pulse. I ignored the heat of his skin, even though my knee-jerk reaction was to pull away. I felt a faint, thready pulse and let out a sigh of relief as he took a sudden breath, followed by a wheezing groan.
Alucard looked
like the star of a documentary special on people addicted to spray-tans. He was so orange that it was almost a shade of brown. Except for his eyelids. Those were as white as snow.
“How did I do?” he whispered, his voice as dry as dust.
“Superstar,” I told him, patting him on the chest. “Lay low while I check on everyone else,” I said, suddenly remembering I hadn’t seen the wolves or Loki for a while.
I also hadn’t heard Fenrir make a single peep. I ran past War, who was staring into the darkened building with an unreadable look on his face.
Chapter 43
I skidded to a stop a few strides into the building, suddenly realizing the idiocy of running aggressively towards a chained-up monster as I felt a rumbling vibration deep in my bones.
Fenrir was growling warningly.
Luckily, Fenrir was growling as he stared down the Alpha werewolf of St. Louis, not at me.
Gunnar—still in his four-legged wolf form—stood before Fenrir, his body partially angled so as not to face him directly. But he held his head high, refusing to submit to the obviously superior wolf.
His lips were even curled back, matching Fenrir’s growl in a cute little echo—a chihuahua challenging a Tibetan mastiff.
“Fenrir,” I whispered. “What big…everything you have.”
His eyes latched onto me and I instinctively stepped back, even though he hadn’t moved.
He was fucking huge.
And he was lying down in deep shadow, so I wasn’t even seeing his true length, mass, or height. He posed like the Great Sphinx statue in Egypt—his front paws stretched out before him and his head held high. His teeth were easily four-feet-long and his muzzle was the size of a double-decker bus. Ten feet above my head, a wide band of thick metal encircled his throat, and it was glowing with familiar golden runes—exactly like the door we had just destroyed. He had matching, rune-stamped manacles around his two front paws, and chains connected them to his rear legs deeper inside the building. The chains were so large that I could have taken a nap inside one of the links.
He had a thick coat of long, reddish-brown fur, but I noticed striated shades of white, black, and gold breaking it up.
“Shit,” I whispered, my shoulders sagging. Alucard was out of juice, so how the hell were we going to break the runic enchantment on the manacles and collar?
Loki cleared his throat softly. “My son—”
Fenrir lunged with a coughing snarl, snapping his teeth three times in rapid succession—about two feet from Loki’s face, slathering him with drool and blasting his hair straight back.
Fenrir’s attention shifted back towards Gunnar, and I frowned, suddenly noticing a second and third set of growls coming from…
The two pups standing in front of Gunnar’s barrel chest. I hadn’t even noticed Calvin and Makayla. It almost looked like they were cowering, but I saw that the fur on the ruffs of their necks was sticking straight up. Their growls hadn’t been audible over Fenrir.
Until he had momentarily ceased to snap at his dad, Loki.
For whatever reason, Fenrir watched them warily, almost seeming hesitant—like Gunnar should have looked right about now.
The pups cautiously advanced, keeping their heads low to protect their necks.
Fenrir lifted his head, as if trying to move his throat further away, and he snorted unhappily before letting out a huge, whining yawn that really showed off his jaws and teeth. I frowned, cocking my head. Canines sometimes yawned when they were stressed.
The pups moved closer to Fenrir’s right paw, sniffing curiously.
Fenrir shifted it away, causing the pups to snarl and bark aggressively, snapping their teeth at him. Fenrir snorted again, keeping his eyes trained on them but his throat as far away from the pups as possible.
Calvin trotted over to the left paw so that they were now back-to-back between Fenrir’s front legs, and I watched as that chilling Niflheim mist began to roll off their fur, accumulating beneath them like dense fog.
Fenrir let out another uneasy whine, followed by an anxious growl. Gunnar stood tall, glaring up at Fenrir in a challenging pose, daring the colossal wolf to do something stupid. For whatever reason, no matter how much I wanted to, I knew that if I opened my mouth to intervene in any manner whatsoever, something terrible would happen. Gunnar—their dad—was obviously on board with this ultimate game of poke the wolf.
I shot a concerned look at Loki, but he was staring at the pups and the mist in disbelief. He might have even looked a little pissed-off about them getting closer than he had.
Calvin and Makayla’s mist connected into one large blanket of shifting fog, and Fenrir began panting anxiously, his shoulders rigid.
The pups sniffed at the manacles, snorting out frigid puffs of thicker mist that instantly iced over the metal, but then melted away just as swiftly.
And the pups didn’t appear to like that.
Not.
One.
Bit.
They snarled furiously, hunkering their chests low with their rear ends in the air, and the mist really began to pour off of them, too thick for me to actually see through. Fenrir was panting louder, now, filling the space with hot air, and I realized that I was rubbing my hands together for warmth, my fingers numb from the cold mist. No wonder he was unhappy. He was probably freezing to death over there.
The mist continued to grow thicker, spilling over a wider area and even rolling over Fenrir’s paws like slithering serpents. It rose over their heads and they disappeared from view—the only proof of their presence was their snarls growing louder and deeper, more confrontational.
The temperature in the room dropped by about twenty degrees as an ephemeral form began to rise from the mist—a glowing, golden set of manacles and chains that stretched back into the shadows of the building on either side of Fenrir—looking like holograms of the actual restraints.
Except, those shadows had turned white, replaced by the dense blanket of mist, and I saw another golden glow hovering just above the white fog—that had to be from the rear manacles.
It was almost like…
This glowing apparition was the spirit of the runic manacles and chains, breaking free from the physical representation. I couldn’t even see the real restraints anymore, just the blanket of roiling mist that now entirely surrounding Fenrir, making it look like he was lying down on a cloud.
His eyes were wide and wild as he stared down at the spiritual restraints, but he didn’t move a muscle, and he didn’t make a sound.
The pups were entirely submerged, but I sensed movement where they had been standing, the mist shifting faster from their movement below.
I abruptly stiffened as two wolves rose up from that mist, their heads standing higher than mine, and their eyes crackling with arcs of lightning—like those storms you sometimes see up in the clouds where the lightning bolts ricochet off each other for ten or twenty seconds to produce an incredible light show in the sky.
And I realized that these new wolves were made entirely of mist, their bodies flickering with a fainter version of the piercing light in their dazzling eyes.
They lifted their heads and howled—but it wasn’t a physical sound. It was more like a sound straight from the soul. Fenrir snorted, lifting his head back as if to get as far away as possible from the terrifying mistwolves.
Then they lunged forward, their jaws stretching longer and opening wider than possible, and they clamped down on that spectral chain. There was a flash of blue light, and the golden runes intensified, growing bright enough to make me squint as I sensed a desperate scream of protest emanating from them.
The ephemeral chain suddenly froze over beneath their jaws, and then that ice screamed down the length of the chain like a lit fuse, even shooting out blue sparks in a deafening series of snaps and cracks. I watched, stunned, as the ice met somewhere back in the depths of the compound with a thunderous cracking sound that made Fenrir flinch and yelp—possibly striking dangerously close to his rear.
Next, the chain between the two front paws—and directly below Fenrir’s muzzle—duplicated the icy ignition sequence, saving that section for last. I cringed, unable to turn away.
I held my breath as misty ice met misty ice with a sudden blast of arctic cold, and a percussive crack sent me skidding back on my ass as the spectral chain and manacles abruptly snapped free.
I stared in shock as Fenrir shook his head—looking dazed—and the mist began racing back towards where I had last seen the real pups. Almost like they were vacuuming up their mess.
The last of the mist dissipated with a muted thumping sound between Fenrir’s front paws, revealing Calvin and Makayla wobbling on unsteady paws.
They promptly passed out, collapsing into a pile. I saw their chests rising and falling, so I knew they were still alive—merely exhausted from their work.
The real chain and manacles abruptly shattered into small pieces of crushed ice, spilling down into a pile that surrounded Fenrir like a ring of salt.
I quickly and discreetly shuffled out of his direct path, wisely choosing to be out of the way when he made his dash for freedom. But Fenrir didn’t move a muscle. In fact, I wasn’t sure he was even aware that he was no longer restrained.
Instead, he lowered his head to stare down at the pups. He crossed his front paws, one over the other, as if to protect his favorite puppy toy. Then he lowered his nose and sniffed them curiously as he let out a nervous whine. He gently nudged them, sliding them a good three feet. They finally stirred with sleepy puppy groans and Fenrir seemed to shudder, letting out a breath of relief.
Gunnar calmly took a step closer and Fenrir looked up at him with a chilling glare.
“This is Gunnar,” Loki said. “He is their father. They all wanted to help me save you from this place. To help Nate Temple save you from this place,” Loki humbly admitted, correcting himself.
Fenrir’s eyes had locked onto Loki the moment he spoke, listening to his every word. They shifted my way with startling intensity, and I seriously considered denying my involvement in the rescue.
Ascension: Nate Temple Series Book 13 Page 26
