Blood Winter (14 page)

Both nodded, faces intent. Gone was Simon’s smartass attitude. He was all business. He was holding a .45. Nami’s expression was predatory and ruthless. She had drawn her pistol-grip shotgun. Max’s had been destroyed by the flood of acid goo when the birthing sac exploded.

Max slid her sword into her belt and pulled out her .45. As the demons landed outside the charred woodpile, she started shooting. She aimed quickly, snapping off shots with accuracy born from years of practice. Her .45 was loaded with hollow-points. Each bullet went through a demon’s head, taking its brain and half its skull with it. Nami’s shotgun took off entire heads. Behind her, Liam’s men shot, and their aim was nearly as deadly.

But even so, the demons were hardly fazed. They staggered about for a few seconds as blobs of flesh oozed up from their bodies and repaired their wounds. Within a minute, they were coming again, and this time, shooting them did less damage. They became almost elastic, the bullets passing through their flesh with minimal effect. Anything that lodged within was soon squeezed out, along with more of the oozing puslike liquid that slicked their skin. Max wondered if their new regenerative ability had come from the addition of the baby demon bits.

The milky mist they were manufacturing didn’t just hug the ground anymore, but it reached out in ghostly fingers and attacked the small group of defenders. Its potency had increased, too, and Max’s skin bubbled and blistered the moment it touched her. Breathing it was like sucking in mustard gas. Instantly, her mouth, nose, throat, and lungs turned into raw hamburger. She fell back a few steps to get away from the tendrils reaching for her, but they followed tenaciously.

All around her, she heard wet, choking coughs. She retreated a few more steps. “Fall back!” she called, but it came out more like a whisper. Her Blades heard, though, and began a slow retreat. She kept slightly forward, chopping at the demons with her sword. The mist brushed her eyes. It felt like an army of fire ants was chewing at her eyeballs. They blistered, and her vision blurred into a gray haze.

Talons raked her scalp and then her hip and thigh. Poison burned in the wounds. She spun away and ran into one of Liam’s men. She shoved him ahead of her. “Back!” she rasped.

He grabbed her vest and yanked her after him, all the while firing at the demons following behind.

The next few minutes were a nightmare. Max outdistanced the mist long enough to gain her vision back but then plunged back in to drag out Jody, who’d fallen. Simon stood protectively over her, jabbing blindly at the demons with a pair of combat knives.

Holding her breath, Max hoisted Jody by her collar and grabbed Simon’s bloody shirt. “C’mon,” she said, and hauled them both back.

“Get to the creek!” she hollered, and then leaped to head off a trio of demons who’d homed in on one of Liam’s soldiers. She slashed at their legs and kicked at their chests. They careened together. A split second later, they sorted themselves out and lunged at Max. Swinging with short, hard chops, she hacked them apart with brutal efficiency, just in time for the mist to steal her vision again.

She dropped back to heal her eyes and then dove in again. It became a kind of odd rhythm, with her Blades tag-teaming as they all slowly worked their way to the relative safety of the creek.

Once there, Max halted on the bank. Four of Liam’s men stood in the middle, firing back the way they’d come. Jody lay on the far side, her body twitching uncontrollably. Simon stood over her, hands on his knees as he panted raggedly. Blood streamed from his wounds and ran down his nose and chin.

A wedge of demons had cut between them and the rest of her Blades, blocking them from the safety of the creek. Liam and one of his men stood with him. The other two of his men sprawled a dozen yards away, demons ripping hungrily at their flesh.

There was no way the small group was going to get through the demons without losing someone else. They were nearly surrounded. Liam and his man were a liability. Without them to protect, her Blades might fight free. Max didn’t think. She jammed her sword into its sheath. Using the angel feather embedded in her palm, she leaped into the air, vaulting over the swarming mass of demons.

She landed behind Liam and his remaining soldier. “I’m taking them,” she told Tyler, and then grabbed each of them by the arm. “Get the hell over to the creek.”

With that, she dove deep inside herself and into the abyss between worlds. It wasn’t easy. She was exhausted, and her body screamed with agony. Her healing spells were working overtime, and she didn’t have the energy to spare to haul herself through the abyss, much less two passengers. Still, there was no choice. She wasn’t going to let them become demon food.

Traveling through the abyss was one of her unique talents. She wasn’t sure there was anybody else in the world who could do it, and she had no idea why she could. It wasn’t easy. It was like putting herself through a meat grinder. It was agony. She ignored it. Pain was just motivation.

Then, suddenly, in the blink of an eye, they left the demon battle behind and entered the chill silence of the abyss. The ebony night stretched out forever, broken only by swirling flashes of jewel-colored magic and thin strands of rainbow light.

Her companions looked terrified. They both sported scrapes and gouges, and Liam’s left hand hung limp and useless. They opened their mouths to speak, and nothing came out. There was no sound in the abyss. Max shook her head at them and took a breath. Then she reached for her destination. All it required was a thought—where did she want to be? And she would go there.

Pulling them with her, she dove out of the abyss. The pain this time was doubled. She had few reserves left, and the demands on her ravaged body were excruciating. Still, she had no choice. She had a feeling the demons weren’t going to let the water stop them for long. If Benjamin Sterling was helping them, they’d find a way across all too quickly. If she didn’t bring help, everybody was going to die.

She dropped out of the abyss onto a snow-covered dirt road. She crashed to her knees, and her companions sprawled beside her.

She staggered to her feet, turning to look around her. Snow fell thick and heavy, shrouding the world in white and silence. Where was Giselle? The witch-bitch was the only one who could stop the demons at this point. Max had homed in on her location, but where the hell was she?

She turned in a circle. The road cut through the mountains following a narrow, twisting course. To either side, the jagged slopes rose sharply, trees towering high up into the sky. Just then, she heard the roar of a four-wheeler engine revving to life.

She followed the sound to a fire road on the other side of a rock jut. Giselle was straddling a four-wheeler in the back of a pickup truck. The tailgate was down, and wheel ramps were clamped into place to allow her to ride the four-wheeler to the ground.

The witch looked up as Max came into sight. She cut the engine, slid off the four-wheeler, and stood. She wore jeans and a jacket, with hiking boots and thick gloves. Snow caught in her hair and eyelashes. A heavy backpack lumped on her back.

“Max! What happened? Where is everyone?”

“You came alone?” Max demanded, fury churning in her stomach. As powerful as Giselle was, would she be enough?

The witch’s chin jutted. “I didn’t want to leave Horngate unguarded. Where is everyone? Where are the demons?”

Max gritted her teeth and then let it go. “We’ll go through the abyss,” she said, holding a hand out to help the witch down.

Giselle ignored her, leaping lightly to the ground. She scanned Max from head to foot. “Can you do it? You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“Do I have a choice? Give me your hand. There’s not a lot of time.”

Just then, Liam found them. To his credit, he didn’t ask what had happened or how they’d gotten there. He glanced at Max and then Giselle. “This is the Wicked Witch?” he asked, his brows rising in obvious skepticism that anyone as small and delicate-looking as Giselle could be a threat.

“Yes,” Max said at the same moment Giselle repeated, “Wicked Witch?”

“I call it like I see it,” Max told her.

Giselle glared. “Since when do I have green skin?”

Max stared a moment and then smiled despite herself. Lately, Giselle had rediscovered her sense of humor. She was still ruthless, vicious, and extraordinarily dangerous, but she was also learning to embrace her human side—the side that had once made her and Max best friends. Of course, that didn’t mean they’d be friends again, especially with Giselle willing to harvest angel parts to fuel her magic.

Max’s smile slid away as her anger returned.

“Who are you?” Giselle asked Liam.

“Name’s Liam. Liam O’Ryan,” he clarified when she just waited.

“Chief and his men have been tracking the demons,” Max said. “Looks like the preacher witch—Benjamin Sterling is his name—is behind the attack.”

Black magic twisted around Giselle’s hands and turned her eyes to pits of smoke. She was pissed.
Good.
“Where are they?” she asked.

“Through the abyss. Ready?” Max held out her hand, and this time, Giselle took it. Max drew her gore-covered sword. “You’ll have to stay here,” she told Liam.

He started to protest, but she didn’t bother to wait. Max dropped into the abyss.

She pushed hard, dragging herself and Giselle into the infinite blackness. Her body throbbed, and her heart ratcheted in her chest like a jackhammer. Her head spun drunkenly, and she felt bitterly cold. Temperatures had no effect on Shadowblades, but now she felt like she’d been trapped in a freezer. She shuddered, and her teeth chattered.

Grasping Giselle’s hand tighter, she focused on the demon canyon. She pictured the opposite side of the stream and hoped the demons hadn’t crossed.

A few seconds later, Max hauled them through. They dropped out of thin air onto the rocky bank. Max collapsed in a boneless heap. The sword clattered onto the rock, and she let go, unable to hold it any longer. Her muscles cramped, seizing into tight knots. It took all she had just to lever up on one elbow. She continued to shiver convulsively. She clamped her jaws together to keep her teeth from clacking.

Giselle had landed on her feet. She took in the scene quickly. Max felt her drawing in magic. It was a powerful surge. It came from the air and the ground and the water—Giselle was an elemental witch, taking her power from the natural world. Power spun around her like a black whirlwind. Dark green lightning forked through the air around her.

The whirling magic condensed into a tight knot. The air in the canyon went still. Even the yelps and howling cries of the demons seemed muted. Max could hear Giselle muttering a chant. Her voice was harsh with fury.

Power erupted from her. It rolled across the creek and through the demons like a nuclear shock wave. Rocks exploded into powder. Across the clearing, trees snapped and flattened. The sound of the destruction roared and echoed. After several minutes, silence descended, broken only by the sound of rushing water.

The cloud of magic surrounding Giselle settled over her like a cloak of smoke. She strode forward, splashing through the creek. She slipped, and Steel caught her arm, holding her erect. On the other side, Flint took her other arm and helped her across.

The only three men Liam had left knelt on the ground near Jody, who now lay all too still. Her chest rose and fell, and relief sluiced through Max. One of the men had tucked his vest under her head and was stroking a hand over her hair, talking to her all the while. The others stared at the destruction on the other side in awe or horror or maybe both.

Tyler, Oak, and Nami lurched up out of the water like bloody rag dolls. Max swiveled her head, looking for Simon, the only Blade left unaccounted for. He was nowhere to be seen. She struggled to her feet and instantly sagged. She caught herself against a rock and scanned the canyon again. No sign of him.

No.

Her chest hurt like someone had impaled her on a chain saw.

Not again not again not again.

She found herself whispering the words over and over like a prayer.

Giselle slipped her backpack off her shoulders and unzipped it. She withdrew a silver knife. Without any ceremony at all, she slid it across her wrist. Blood dripped to the ground. She started walking around the outside of the battlefield, chanting all the while.

The ward circle she was creating was enormous. She was going to lose a lot of blood. All the same, when she came back around and closed the circle, she didn’t seem to be any worse for wear. The witch stopped, and her voice rose as she finished casting her spell. The circle flared with orange light. Max looked away, blinking, but orange splotches swam across her vision even after the light faded to a dull glow. It startled her. Witchlight didn’t usually affect her vision.

Max felt magic collecting again. It prickled all over her body, and scraped along the underside of her skin. It warmed her slightly, although she continued to shiver uncontrollably.

Magic wound tighter, making it hard to breathe. The pressure increased for another minute and then popped like a champagne cork releasing. The night turned dull green, as all across the interior of the spell circle, worms of green magic wove back and forth. They burrowed into the ground and knotted together, forming a thick tapestry of pure magic. When it was done, Giselle spoke again, and the weaving began to glow, turning a clear emerald color.

For a second, Max could see darkness beneath it—black blotches and trails of demon blood. There was no sign of any actual bodies.

Slowly, the emerald color sank into the ground. It limned the rubble and pulled any demon remains down with it. A few minutes later, the emerald light faded. As it did, a swirl of red dust rose in the air and disappeared. A moment later, snow began to fall over the canyon.