by Eric Asher
We made our way back up the dock and up to the little park before we began crossing a wooden bridge over the creek. The trees and branches intertwined overhead, creating a shadowy canopy that hid most of the light from above, but I could still make out a turtle and the ripples of the water.
“Look at the size of that turtle,” I said.
“I’ve seen larger,” Zola said as she leaned on the railing.
“Even here?” I asked.
She frowned for a moment, and then shook her head. “I suppose not.”
Casper tugged on my sleeve. I turned to look at her, and she cocked her head to the side, gesturing for me to walk with her. I did, following her to the edge of the bridge.
“There’s something in the water,” she whispered.
“What do you mean?” I asked, shrugging my shoulders to readjust the excessively heavy backpack hanging off them.
“Look toward the center of the creek, directly in line with the turtle. There’s an impression in the mud that shouldn’t be there.”
I figured Casper was being somewhat paranoid, which was pretty understandable after the events of the previous day. I sidled up beside Zola and glanced into the distance before letting my gaze slowly roll across the creek bottom. If we hadn’t had the rains, and the level of the creek hadn’t been so high, it might have been easier to spot.
Casper had been wrong, but she’d also been right. Water flowed everywhere except for one spot. Before I could turn to say anything to Zola, movement exploded in the water below us, and whatever had been there was gone.
“I suppose my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me,” Zola said.
“No,” Casper said. “It’s gone now.”
“We need to tell Graybeard,” I said.
“Give me a sec,” Casper said. “I’m quite sure they’ll be able to hear this.” She rapped on the railing of the bridge, beating out an organized pattern with a baton she’d pulled from her belt. Graybeard’s crew responded in moments. The hollow clack of bones banging together sounded a moment before the drums on Graybeard’s ship came to life.
“What the hell is that?” Casper asked.
“Creepy ass drums,” I said. “They’re likely creepier when that thing’s floating on a sea of fire, though.”
Casper blinked at me.
“They got the message,” I said. “Let’s get down to your troops. We need to warn Aeros too. Foster and Aideen need to be ready.”
I had my phone out and was texting Sam as we hurried back across the paths, passing a large statue of Lewis and Clark, and finally returning to the part of the Katy Trail that cut through the riverfront.
Something’s here already.
It only took a moment for Sam to respond, but I’d be lying if each passing second didn’t fray my nerves just a little bit. I breathed a sigh of relief at her response, and slid my phone back into my pocket.
“The vampires are coming.”
“Let’s pick up the pace,” Casper said.
“Will Aeros hear us from here?” I asked Zola.
“Ah’m quite sure that Aeros heard the drums,” Zola said. “If Graybeard’s on alert, Aeros will be too.”
Doubt bored into my mind. We were warning these men of the water witches, but what if the attack came from elsewhere? Or came from something else entirely? If the dark-touched descended on these people, it wouldn’t matter what kind of munitions they had. They were all going to die. And there would be very little we could do about it. The dark-touched were brutally, efficiently murderous. It was all we could do to keep ourselves alive, and maybe divert them from the commoners, which would leave a whole lot of people to die.
“We haven’t briefed him about the dark-touched,” I said.
Casper frowned at me. “You mean the vampires you can only kill through the eye?”
“Who told you that?”
“Aideen gave us the rundown. Last night. And Foster told us about the harbingers, and I have to say, hearing about them from the fairy was a hell of a lot scarier than seeing them on film. And knowing that the hull of Graybeard’s ship is carved from a skull, is frankly horrifying.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
We passed the pavilion close to some old train cars, before Casper broke away from the paved trail, and led us down into the churning mass of national guardsmen. She greeted a few, and avoided some others, while Zola and I drew some strange looks from several of the soldiers. I suspected that meant that these weren’t Casper’s crew because her squad seemed quite familiar with us. And I would’ve thought that whatever company they came from would be familiar with us, too.
“Friendly greetings,” I said.
“You and your friends have a reputation,” Casper said. “Most of these people have probably been briefed about how dangerous you are. The rest have seen you in action. No training can prepare them for that.”
I looked at Zola “We have a reputation.”
“Pay attention to the task at hand, boy.”
“What the hell,” Casper said. “Ranger Rick is here, and he should still be at the hospital.”
I followed her line of sight, and found the Army Ranger closer to the river. “Did you just call him Ranger Rick?”
Casper glanced back at me and said, “No.” Her tone was deadly serious, and I couldn’t detect the lie at all. For some reason, that amused me greatly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
It took an effort of will, but I managed not to call the Army Ranger, Ranger Rick. “Hey, man.”
He offered me a nod before turning to Casper. “I thought you were setting up the nest?”
“I did,” Casper said, “but the civilians wanted a tour. And there is no greater duty than giving civilians a tour, Rick.” The sarcasm—it almost dripped off her teeth, and that was a glorious thing.
“Is his name actually Rick?” I asked, nudging Zola with my elbow.
“Hush,” she hissed back.
“Civilians,” Rick said. “Are we using that as a story? I’m pretty sure everyone here knows who they are.”
“I don’t know how I put up with you,” Casper said. “Your lack of appreciation for sarcasm is a real turnoff.”
I looked around and recognized some of the wounded from the night before. I knew Foster and Aideen had returned to the hospital to help heal them, but some of them were clearly still in no condition to be on duty.
“What are they doing down here?” I asked.
Casper turned to look, her mouth tightening into a hard line. Her brow drew down, and the furious gaze flashed back to Rick. “What the hell are they doing here? Some of those soldiers were practically dead last night. They should still be in the hospital, or at least the infirmary.”
Rick frowned. “I know. The colonel is trying to make a point.”
“A point about what?” Casper snapped.
“A point about us,” Zola said quietly. I almost missed it, spoken so softly, but Casper turned to look at her.
“Why you?” But her expression changed even as she asked the question. “Because we’re working with the supernaturals.”
“I suspect so,” Zola said.
“You don’t have to suspect it,” Rick said. “They flat-out said it.”
A string of curses exploded from Casper’s mouth, and she stalked toward one of the tents. The closer we came to the river, the more uncomfortable I felt. I didn’t think it was the presence of Graybeard’s crew in the shallows nearby, though they could certainly be unsettling, but something felt off. Something felt wrong. Casper threw open the flap on the tent nearest the river and froze.
Inside was half the squad from the previous night. At least those who had survived.
“Hey, boss,” one of the young female privates said. “Come to join the fun?”
“What the hell are you all doing here?”
“Orders. I don’t think Park even knows. Sergeant Major said if the devils healed us, we should be hellish fighters.”
“I’m going to cut that fucker’s balls
off so I can feed them to him before I rip them out through his chest, so I can feed them to him again.” Casper’s rant exploded, cutting through the relative quiet of the air, and bringing those around us into silence.
“Casper,” Rick said. “Down a little.”
Casper turned to Rick, approaching him with a fury that made him take a step backward. “If you have a problem with me being upset about my men being put in harm’s way, you can go straight to hell.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Rick said.
The earth shook.
Zola cursed. “We aren’t ready yet.”
I understood what was wrong then. I understood what had unsettled me. This was a place I’d visited often. A part of the river, flanked by a small copse of trees. Except the copse today was larger, broader, and taller. The earth rumbled when the Green Men moved.
* * *
“Flamethrowers!” Rick shouted.
Someone shouted back, “Not delivered yet!”
A man at the edge of the tents sprinted toward us. “Signal the tanks—” Before he could finish his words, a vine three inches in diameter burst from his chest. He started to look down in horror at the bloody protrusion, but lost consciousness a moment later. It only took me a second to realize what the Green Man was doing as the vines wrapped around the dead man’s arms and it appeared as if he was struggling against his wound.
“It’s baiting us!” I shouted.
“Trap!” Casper echoed.
Some heeded the warning, falling back into the cluster of tents, the flimsy shelters that would offer no protection against the lumbering Green Men. Others charged. A series of vine-like branches erupted from the soil when they closed within a few feet of their fallen comrade.
The vines lanced up, cutting through torsos and skulls alike. Blood fell in waves, and the men never had a chance.
Zola raised her staff, taking aim at the men writhing in their final moments on the spikes of the Green Men. She unleashed a hellish vortex of fire, which ended the men’s suffering in a heartbeat and lit up the nearest Green Man like a dried bale of hay. The creature screamed, trying to draw his vines and branches back into his body, but they sizzled and broke as the unnatural fire climbed his body, consuming the moisture inside it.
The Green Man stumbled and threw himself into the river, extinguishing the fires, but putting himself within easy reach of Graybeard’s crew. They fell upon the tree like piranhas on the flesh of a freshly made corpse.
Casper, while frozen for a moment either in surprise or horror, moved into action with the practiced discipline of a career soldier.
“Get your soldiers out of here,” I said. “Rick, help her.”
“We can help,” he said.
“No,” I said as I dumped the shells out of my pepperbox, and slammed home a speed loader full of Mike’s incendiary rounds. “Until you have those flamethrowers, you have nothing. Stay the hell away from those things. Their reach is a hell of a lot longer than you’d think.”
The Ranger hesitated for a moment, but then he hurried after Casper. “Fall back!” The call for retreat echoed around the tents. It didn’t come soon enough.
The horn on Graybeard’s ship blared into life. I was surprised he’d sounded it for the appearance of the Green Men. As deadly as they were to the commoners, Zola and I could at least fend them off for a time. These were smaller, and appeared to be more flammable, than the ones we’d encountered the night before.
But the horn wasn’t for the Green Men.
Down by the old railroad bridge, the river surged. At first, I thought it was an illusion, until some of the quarry equipment on the far side of the river vanished into the swelling mass. I could scarcely comprehend the sight as the waves roared higher, and I turned to fire two quick bursts of flame into the Green Men.
“Zola,” I said, taking a step closer to her as her latest incantation died away. “Are you seeing that?”
“I see it,” she said.
“Casper! Get out of here now! We can’t stop this! Tell Graybeard to warn Alexandra and Nixie! The Queen’s Army is here.”
One of Graybeard’s crew heard me, and the skeleton ran down the length of the now-still Green Man in the river. The bony figure banged its forearms together, and the rapid Morse code spread down the bank of the river until Graybeard’s horn sounded again. This was not the roar of a single horn, but the stuttering growl of a march. The horn took on a stalking beat as the drums came to life, and the Bone Sails pulled away from the shore.
Casper sprinted out of the tent. “We can’t get them all.”
Her calm fractured, and she stared in plain horror at the monstrous wave bearing down on us. Even though it was moving slower than I had expected, it had split, and two dozen translucent forms burst from the water. They grew cloudy as their deadly forms took to the shoreline, and the thought of how many more resided in that wave made my skin crawl. I doubted we had more than half a minute before it crashed down on top of us.
My brain scrambled, trying to think of some way to buy more time for the soldiers.
Two large gray blurs streaked down from the sky, revealing themselves beside me a moment later to be full-size fairies. Foster barely had time to curse before Aideen said, “We don’t have time to get them out of here. Casper!”
“What?”
“Fire into the wave when it closes!”
Casper dashed back into the tent. I came to the horrifying realization that the wave was far wider than the river, and we were going to be swept up in it.
“Circle shield,” Foster shouted. “Now!”
Zola and I exchanged a glance before we each carved a narrow circle in the grass beneath our feet.
“Get out of here!” I shouted.
Foster drew the enchanted blade from his belt and raised it into the air as he and Aideen each grabbed a soldier and took flight. Casper and the others still hadn’t made it back out of the tent. I glanced to the west and saw some of the soldiers running, trying to beat the wave.
“Orbis Tego,” I said, keeping my toe on the line of the circle. Done right, it was an effective extension. Done wrong, and I would’ve cut my toe off. The glassy dome of energy snapped closed a split second after Zola’s did the same.
The soldiers around us opened fire. I glimpsed Graybeard’s warship slamming into the front of the waves. The ship didn’t rise like it would have in normal water, unable to ride the wave as the witches didn’t have the buoyancy to raise Graybeard and his crew. Instead, the bow cut into the wave, splitting the entire mass in two. The water crashed into us a moment later, and I lost sight of everything as a torrent of murky water tried to choke the life from my lungs. Forms drifted by. Some were clearly water witches, their translucent sneers as they smashed into the circle shield an unnerving sight before they dragged soldiers to the ground. My first instinct was to drop the shield when Casper’s face was crushed up against that translucent dome. Sheer terror pulled her eyes wide as her focus flashed between me and the ground.
The strike wasn’t smooth underwater. It was sluggish and slow, but the water witch didn’t expect Casper’s blade to be tainted with the metal of the stone dagger. The undine recoiled, leaving Casper to launch herself higher into the waters, where I hoped she could catch her breath.
Some of the others were not so lucky. I watched in horror and rage as those waters pulled soldier after soldier into the deep, the lithe translucent forms smothering their faces, watching their lives seep away, and capturing their last breaths. I met Zola’s eyes, two beacons in that pit of water and death. She held up three fingers, keeping her middle tucked securely against her palm as she folded her arms across her chest.
It was a symbol I’d learned long ago. She meant to use a fire incantation. We hadn’t needed to communicate with symbols in a very long time. Her gesture changed, and now she held up three fingers together; her index, her middle, and her ring. The first folded down, and a surge of adrenaline shot through my bones. This was it. She
was going to drop a shield and attack from a most unexpected position. She wouldn’t be alone.
Two fingers down.
I switched the pepperbox to my left hand and drew the focus from my belt.
Three fingers down.
Zola’s shield vanished, and in that same instant, a hurricane of fire burst to life, turned on its side, and tore through the river of water witches. Steam and screams breached the muted sounds of the water around me. I could see the forms lifting, turning away from their prey to close on Zola as the weight of the river fell into the void on top of her.
I dropped my own shield and aimed the soulsword. It wasn’t as precise as the demon staff I’d once had—a demon staff that had tried to kill me—but it would have to do. “Magnus Ignatto!” A maelstrom of fire, not so refined as Zola’s, spiraled out into that abyss of murky water. In the back of my mind, I knew if there were any soldiers in front of me, they wouldn’t survive it. But I also knew the chances of them still being alive were virtually nothing.
For a moment, I didn’t understand what I was seeing as the water crashed in around me. I waited for the cold strike of a water witch’s sword, but it didn’t come. Instead, the waters burst to life. Massive streams of bubbles and flame fired downward at a sharp angle. Confusion overwhelmed me until the upturned skull of a long-dead harbinger cut through the waters not far away. Graybeard had brought the Bone Sails ashore.
The tide of water collapsed around me and surged back toward the warship. I coughed and spluttered as the air suddenly returned to my lungs. A handful of clumsy steps brought me to the place Zola had been, but she was gone. I pushed forward, reaching the great gouges in the earth where tent stakes and larger things had been torn away.
What had been the edge of the bank before that wave struck was gone. The land that had been beneath both Casper’s tents and her squad was no more. I didn’t have time to mourn that loss or look for the dead. I turned toward the raging waters, and the soulsword in my hand grew into a blistering light.
The undines along the front line of those engaging Graybeard’s warship were plain to see. I raised the pepperbox and fired into them. The hellish flame of Mike’s rounds was enough to draw their attention. I holstered the gun and palmed a dagger. If they thought we’d been left defenseless, they’d been wrong. The weight of the backpack slowed me down, waterlogged as it now was. But that didn’t matter. It only added to the fury in my bones.
