Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) (54 page)

C
rackling energies whirled in her grip.  Drops of caustic fire fell from
her
golem fingers and turned the ground white.

“She’s better now,” Rake said with a shrug.  He was so casual about the situation, like he was getting ready for a friendly game of cards.  “We had to rip her spirit away
,
then give it back to her.  It was the only way to make her a suitable sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice…” Kane said.

Oh, shit.

“
This nice little tower of
skulls here generates a portal,” Rake said.  “
It
belongs to the Shadow Lords
, t
he mages who breached the hole
and
found a
way into the Whisperlands. 
After
we pass through, we’ll
use Cro
ss as a tool to track down the O
belisk
of Dreams
, and then we’ll use Danica to destroy it.
”  He paused, tapped a fingerless glove against his lips, and smiled.  “Of course,
you
won’t be there…”

Black’s eyes flashed
with hot light
.  The metal burned
against her skin
.  The smell of
burning flesh
filled the air. 

“Jade!”
Kane
shouted
. 

One of the Revengers,
the
dark-skinned and rail-thin woman,
stepped forward.  Kane
saw her eyes flash, and he realized
she
was what interfered with their magic
.  She was a
Fade. 

He saw Jade’s face, saw her panic
as she failed to call her spirit.  H
e grabbed her and threw them both
to the ground
. 

Left, quick!
a
voice shouted in his head.

“Left!” he shouted. 

Ronan and Maur followed them.  All four
barely dodged
a barrage of steaming razors.  Danica’s angry ghost
folded
into
bleeding fog.

The Revengers
loosed their
weapons, and the Scarecrows leveled their cannons. 

“Ronan,
” Kane shouted.
“K
ill
that bitch
!”

Ronan didn’t hesitate. 
Even as Revenger
assault rifles
and
Scarecrow 20mm cannons
took aim
, Ronan
drew
a kukri
,
dove
forward,
and
used the full force of his body to cast the
weapon
through the air.
 
He
landed hard on the ground
just as
the blade
punched
through the Fade’s skull
and
snapp
ed
her head backwards.

At the same moment,
Danica fell to the ground in a heap.

“Ja
de!
” Kane shouted.
  “Now!”

The sound of g
unfire roared through his ears. 
Kane saw blasts and bullets flash towards them
.  H
e balled up his body
,
read
y
to be torn apart.

Jade’s shield
threw back
shrapnel. A glittering
star storm
of white explosions flashed less than a foot from Kane’s face.

Rake pushed past the Scarecrows. 
The air was alight with
hex rot and electricity.  Swirling black winds kicked up a
n icy
storm. 

Danica stood up
,
and shouted. 
Her
eyes
glowed
like
an exploding star. 
Re
ve
ngers turned and fired at her.

Geist growled and charged at Danica with a h
eavy steel hammer. 
S
he lashed
them
with wave
s
of spark and
steel
.  Broken
slivers
and hot embers ripped
through armor and
flesh.
 
Geist and most
of the Revengers were dead
before they hit the ground
. 

Rake saw the attack coming at the last moment and turned his
own
spirit to deflect hers.  Energies collided in a
pillar of liquid flame
.  Rake fell back.  His cloak
burned
and his
armor
smoked.

Kane and Ronan leapt forward
and
engage
d
the
Scarecrows
.  Jade dropped the shield and was about to blast
the undead
when Kane remembered
that
Cross was tethered to one of the Scarecrow
’
s
backs
.   

“Wait!”

Chains snapped
,
a
nd
the Talon
sprang forward
.  The dark-skinned brute was the size of a male gorilla.  Knotted black muscles str
ain
ed with rage, and its six fists
pounded the
dirt
.  A decorative gold and iron mask had been surgically fused to its fanged face
.  T
he creature
issued
a guttural
and blood-curdling
howl.

The Scarecrows fire
d
again
.  Jade hammered one
of them
with a blast of
sub-arctic
air. 
Ebon
flesh peeled away as it fell to the ground.

Duck!

The voice came just in time.  Kane
barely
dodged one of the Talon’s incredibly long arms.  Claws the size of steak knives raked
against the
stone.  Kane jumped back.

DUCK
!

It was Danica’s voice inside his head.  Kane flattened himself
against the
floor
.

A screaming cone of fire and force tore the
Talon
open
.  Its chest cavity twisted and exploded in a mass of skin and molten
guts
.  The beast’s howls rang loud and long as it
fell
to the ground.

Kane
looked
at Danica.  Her
steel
arm smoked, and her body was
shrouded
in
a corona of white fire.

“How did you do that?”

You were bi
t
t
en
, her voice told him. 
So was I.  That’s how they kept me alive when they hacked off my arm.  But I’m not going to
T
urn.

“Neither am I,” he snarled, and
he
rose to his feet. 

Jade and Rake
did battle
with arcane blades and hex missiles.  Their attacks spiraled and bounced off
of
one another, sparked green and red explosions
that
smelled like a furnace. 

Maur dodged around the perimeter of the battle, trying to get a c
lear shot
at the Scarecrow that held Cross
.
Ronan circled the
same
undead
and looked for an opening
, his blades ready; h
is wrapped face and dark hair made him melt into the shadows. 

Cross
was
tightly secured to
the
Scarecrow’s
back
, but
he
was still unconscious
. 

Ronan
found an opening.  He
raced in and
sliced
the Scarecrow’s cannon in half. 

Kane!
  Help!

Burke
was gone.
He was
Krage
now
, a vampire
with pale eyes
,
pale
r
skin and enormous claws
.  He held Danica by the throat and dragged her towards the obelisk
. 

Krage’s
vampire
servants
poured
grave dust and unholy oils in a perimeter
around
the
obelisk
. 
T
hey were preparing s
ome ritual to breach the barrier
to the Whisperlands
. 

“Hey asshole!” Kane shouted.  He aim
ed
the cannon
at Krage
.

Duck
, he thought
to Danica
.

The
recoil
threw him back. 
Danica
pulled
away and
scream
ed
as
Krage
’s talons tore out of
part of
her
good
shoulder
. 

The
shell
took
Krage
in the chest and tore him in half. 
Bloody meat
and bone
fragment
s
splattered all over the obelisk.

One of the
other
vampires
thr
e
w
vials of blood to the ground
and
chant
ed
in some
sibilant alien
tongue
.  T
he other
one
leapt
on top of
Danica.  They grappled, and claws
slashed
into
Danica
’s
ribs
before Kane could
find
a shot. 

He felt Danica’s scream more than heard it
.  T
he force
of it
tore
through his chest and filled him with loss.

“Dani!
” he shouted. 
He
dropped the cannon and
ran
. 

He heard a scream behind him. 
Jade
fell to the
ground.  Blood seeped
from
her mouth and nose, and the side of her face was burned. 

A fi
st of light
crashed into Kane’s side
. 
H
e felt
his
ribs crack.  Blinding pain spread up and down his body.  He
went to his knees and
fell inches away from Jade.

“Nice try,” Rake said, but he wasn’t talking to Kane or Jade, but to the vampires.  “We knew the Ebon Cities would try to beat us to
the Obelisk
.  Too bad.”  The red-headed warlock
held his
clenched fists together.  Whips of razor light shot out and tore
a
vampire’s head from its shoulders.  The
last vampire
bore her fangs and soared
at
Rake
with a dark-bladed scimitar
in hand
. 

Danica
struggled to rise. 
B
lood poured out of her ruined stomach.  Her eyes were
lifeless
. 

Kane
stood up
. 
His head swam, and h
is
ribs
felt
like
they
w
ere
on fire
.  He
drew
his blade and ran at Rake.

Rake
pulled out a Mac-10
.  He
gunned the vampire down with hexed bullets
. 
Kane was less than a yard away when Rake
turned and shot
him
in the stomach.