Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4) (12 page)

She grumbled and blasted me with endorphins, but didn’t dig
in her heels. I ran hard and fast at the Quills, and Will kept pace with me,
muttering in French as we went.

We drove right into the big middle of the monsters, whirling
and slashing and making a general mess. One of them clawed me across the back
before Will stabbed it and he got a couple Quill spines in his thigh, but
otherwise, we owned the field.

Then the screaming started.

Rapid shots fired from the M240, occasionally overlaid by
the pop of Dad’s long-range rifle. It didn’t seem to be making a difference,
because the group was being overrun.

As we sprinted back, I told Tink, “Spin me up. All the way.”

You better remember you asked for this
, she muttered.

Something like an atomic blast went off in my head and I
started running so hard it felt like my boots were tearing under the impact. I
flipped my knife handle into an overhand grip and took out two Dingoes with two
swipes. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Will, his face scrunched up in
determination, killing monsters in a frenzy that nearly matched mine.

So many, there were so many. At least thirteen more of each.
My arms, chest and face were covered in blood and a pile of dead Dingoes and
Quills were left in my wake. Tink had taken over full time, but for some reason
she left me more or less aware while she did it. The view was crazy.
I
was crazy. I stabbed and parried faster than any human had a right to while my
feet danced, keeping me out of reach until I had room to strike.

Three Quills tried to corner me against a Humvee, but I
jumped straight up and landed on the hood, just in front of Lanningham’s big
gun. I leapt over to Dorland’s truck, then to the next, leading the Quills on a
chase away from the men taking cover behind the vehicles. When I reached the
last Humvee, a Dingo jumped up behind me, denting the metal hood and throwing
my footing off so that I slipped.

With a growl in my head, Tink flung me at the Dingo and we
fell off the trucks onto the Quills waiting to stick us full of holes. The
monster took the brunt of it and I landed on top of the pile. There I made an
important discovery: Quill spines could kill Dingoes without any trouble, and
the carcass made a perfectly good meat shield for me.

I took care of the Quills stuck under the now-dead Dingo. As
I stood to get my bearings, two new Dingoes leapt over my head, over the
Humvees, right into the middle of our team.

A grunt-wrenching cry followed and the Dingoes took off…each
carrying a man.

I fought my way past two Quills, thinking this was already
horrible enough when Uncle Mike yelled, “Erik! They have the colonel. Slow them
down!”

Immediately Dad fired at the fleeing monsters, causing one
to stumble and drop its load. It paused to stomp down hard on the man lying on
the ground. A weak moan carried over the wind.

“Stop shooting,” I shouted. “I’m going out there!”

With Tink’s help, I practically flew across the gravel. The
wounded Dingo brought its paw up to smash the skull of the man it had dropped.
I flung the knife and caught it between the shoulder blades. I slid to a stop
to retrieve the blade and check on the man.

It was Davis.

He looked up at me wide-eyed and his right foot stuck out at
an odd angle. “Get me out of here.”

“Will!” I turned and couldn’t see him for the crowd of
monsters now surrounding the Humvees. Cries of terror nearly split my eardrums.
No help. No help but me.

“I have to get the colonel. We’ll come back for you. Hang
tight.”

I left Davis and took off after the stray Dingo. It must’ve
sensed I was behind it, because it turned, held Colonel Black over its head and
heaved him twenty feet. His body hit ground with a crunch.

“Don’t make ‘em like they used to, eh, boy?” the Dingo
snarled. “That one popped like a lizard under my toes.”

Blinded by Tink’s wrath and my own, I was on that dog-faced
bastard in an eye blink. I climbed its back, slashing as I went, until I
punched the blade through the base of its neck. When it toppled, I stabbed it
once more out of pure rage, then ran to the colonel’s side.

He lay twisted on the ground in a tangle of limbs, and I
knew right off it was bad. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth and his
hands were cold as winter. I was scared to move him, so I leaned over to see
his face, trying, just for a moment, to ignore the battle behind me.

“Colonel?” I whispered, too choked up to speak louder.

His eyes blinked slowly and, with a little smile, he said,
“Be good.”

“Always.”

The smile widened. “We know better. Take care of my men.”

“I need to get you out of here.” But how? It was obvious his
back was broken and he was bleeding internally. Where could I even take him? I
clutched tighter at his hand, unwilling to go. I couldn’t just leave him.

“Too late for that.” He paused, wracked with a wet cough
that sent more blood trickling down his chin. “Go save the rest of them. You’re
the only one who can.” He drew in a shallow breath. “The light…it’s beautiful.”

God, he was nearly gone already. A tear ran down my cheek
and dripped onto his hand. “Stay with me. Please don’t go.”

“Keep her safe,” he whispered. “From the dark.”

“What?” But he didn’t say more. “Colonel?”

No answer. I felt his pulse…nothing.

I turned him onto his back and folded his hands over his
chest before closing his eyes. I hadn’t been able to do the same for the other
men I’d lost, but even if hell raged around me, I’d take care of him.

A cold anger settled about my shoulders like a heavy cloak,
holding me together when I wanted to break apart and take the world down with
me.

“At the very least,” I told Tink as I started to run back to
the others, “I’m going to kill every last motherfucking monster left standing.”

We will have blood. Count on it.

I zipped through the line of Quills at the back of the mob,
stabbing and cutting, not giving a damn about the spines slicing up my arms.
I’d fix it later. Tonight, they were going to die, no matter what I had to do
to make it happen.

I could barely see Will, who was fending off a half-dozen
Dingoes single-handedly. Three guys lay crumpled on the ground, and I could see
Blakeney lying in front of them, covering them with his rifle every time one of
the Dingoes got close.

I waded into the middle of the fray, picking off a wounded
monster before it even knew I was there. Rage and pain made me clumsy, but Tink
was there to bat clean-up, and she took care of what I couldn’t. We were down
to the last two Dingoes before Will really saw me. He glanced up for just a
second…

The Dingo to his left swung out an arm, caught him up, and
threw him against a Humvee so hard the vehicle rocked under the impact. Will’s
mouth made a little O of surprise, then he went down like a bag of noodles.
Terror paralyzed me and I almost got knocked off my feet too. Ducking the
monster’s arm at the last moment, I drove my blade into its belly, slashed, and
whirled around to meet the other one. Tink flew into an nuclear rage in my
head, and I attacked the Dingo in a fury, not caring about anything but ending
its life.

It took a distant shout to snap me out of the zone.

I turned to the tree. “Dad!”

No answer.

Not him, too. Not him, too. Not him, too. That litany of
fear beat in my heart as my feet slapped the ground, trying to get to him in
time.

Three Quills had crept out of the darkness, the last
monsters standing, and had surrounded Dad’s tree. They were too close to fire
on with his long rifle, so Dad was pounding at their snouts and shoulders with
the stock, even as he scrambled higher up the tree. I had to admit, the guy’s
balance and upper body strength were exceptional. He climbed with one hand,
holding his weapon tight with the other. Once he was high enough, he crouched
on two slender branches, whipped the rifle around and shot straight down in the
skull of one of the Quill’s. The high-powered slug, at such close range, drove
through bone and the monster dropped. It was the first time a bullet had downed
a Quill, but we found out how too late.

The other two, instead of backing off, got more desperate.
They rammed into one side of the tree, sending the top swaying. The small
branches Dad was balanced between cracked, and one gave, sending him sliding
down to the next set. I was almost close enough to throw my knife when he fired
again, catching another Quill in the head.

It cost him, though. In the time he took to shoot, the last
monster had jumped and wrapped its front paws around his calf. It held on as it
fell, dragging Dad down. He braced the rifle in the crook of the tree to make a
handhold and was hanging on, but I could see his fingers slipping. The Quill
gave a vicious tug and I heard something crack. Dad groaned, but didn’t let go.

The second I was in range, I whispered, “You know what to
do.” Then I flung the knife hard. It zipped through the air a good twenty
yards, sliding past Dad at a weird angle, to plunge into the monster’s skull
right between its eyes.

It didn’t release Dad’s leg when it fell, and he was dragged
down with it, landing on his side on top of the monster.

I dropped down next to him and carefully lifted him off the
Quill’s spine-studded arm. Two of them had gone through the rib muscles on his
right side and Dad’s breath whistled when he inhaled.

“Don’t talk,” I said. “I’ve got you.”

Dad reached up to touch my cheek. “Never…had any…doubt.”

Then his hand fell away and his eyes rolled back in his head
as he went limp in my arms.

“Help!” I shouted to Uncle Mike. “Hurry!”

He and Klimmett came running. I wondered who was tending to
Will…and remembered Davis.

“Dad’s hurt bad. A collapsed lung, maybe? And his leg has to
be torn up somehow.” I clenched Mike’s arm. “Davis is wounded. He was still
alive when I left him, but his foot was crushed.”

“Where’s the colonel?” Uncle Mike asked, helping Klimmett
bind a discarded camo jacket around Dad’s chest.

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. He looked up at me
and his tense, worried expression slowly fell into pain as he realized what I
couldn’t say.

“I was with him,” I whispered. “I was there.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then hardass Major
Tannen came back online. “We’ll see to Davis and the colonel. Why don’t you—”

“Sir!” Johnson called. “Incoming, from the northeast.
ETA…two minutes.”

“Again?” He looked at his watch. “Jesus, we still have
sixteen minutes of totality left.”

“Take them out of here,” I said, pushing myself to my feet.
“Run for the Humvees and drive until the moon passes through the eclipse field,
then come back for me.”

“Matt, we can’t just—”

I stood up tall. “That’s an order, Major. We’ve lost one
wielder, our best sniper and the CO. I’m our only chance. The colonel said I
was in charge out here while we were in totality, and I’m telling you to load
up the wounded and get the hell out of here. If you don’t do what I say and my
dad and Will die, I’ll never forgive you.”

His eyes flashed angry, but he told Klimmett, “Prepare to
evac.” He gave me one last glare. “If you die, I’ll never forgive myself, so be
careful. I’ll be back in seventeen minutes.”

“Make it twenty. I’ve got work to do.”

I ran over to Will. Colonel Black’s best medic was working
on him. He was still out cold and I had no idea what his injuries were, or if
he’d even be okay. So I did the only thing I could—I took his knife.

“You’ll get this back. I promise.”

I started jogging northeast before anyone else tried to stop
me. I moved fast, putting distance between myself and the team, hoping I’d
reach this next wave of creatures in time to slow them down so the Humvees
could pull out. With sixteen minutes left, I had no idea what else would come
crawling out of the desert after this wave…but if the fire-breathing lizard was
next to arrive, I wanted everyone else out of range.

“Tink? If dying out here will save them, then send me out
with a bang, okay?”

As if I’d let you die here.
She was cold, practically
humming with violence.
We’re here to send dark brothers home, not waste your
life.

We’ll strike them down where they stand.
Coach Shaw’s
voice burned compared to Tink’s ice, but they both wanted the same thing.

We were on the hunt, and this time, I wouldn’t be too late.

I closed in on another set of Dingoes and Quills a
quarter-mile away from the Humvees. They had a gang of Spiders with them. As I
plowed into the middle of their ranks, both knives at the ready, I glanced
back. The trucks were pulling out. The monsters seemed to realize the rest of
their prey was fleeing, too, because none of them tried to get past me.
Instead, they drew close, a pack of wicked claws, sharp spines and glistening
fangs, ready to fight to the death in an effort to kill off a wielder.

And the knife-spirits decided to use me to their fullest
extent.

Things started happening so fast, I could hardly process it.
I’d get brief flashes, like jumping hard to kick two Dingoes—one with each
leg—before twisting in the air to crash down, knives first, onto the skull of a
Quill. Or running and sliding between a Spider’s legs, slicing through its soft
underbelly before wriggling out on the other side. Or working the crowd in a
certain direction so that a Dingo crashed into a couple of Quills and got
impaled. Some part of me knew this fight was taking a big, big toll on my body,
but I didn’t stop.

I just killed monsters.

Finally, it was down to me and one last Dingo. It kept
leaping at me, catching air in an attempt to smash me into putty. I was too
tired to play that game, so I timed its next jump, ran underneath it, turned
and jammed Will’s knife into its tail, pinning it to the ground. My legs,
working as if I was a marionette pulled by Tink’s strings, took me around the
beast and I stared into its eyes before sending it home to the dark master with
a slit throat.

Panting, I collected Will’s knife, then sat among the
bodies. Everything was painted with a green haze and I began to feel the hurts
I’d sustained over the last hour. Headlights approached in the distance—a
single Humvee on its way back. I glanced at the moon; a tiny arc of silver had
reappeared, a sign we’d passed through totality and no more monsters would come
this night.

Exhausted beyond anything I’d ever felt, I passed out before
the Humvee arrived.

* * *

Two hours later, I sat on a cot in the new medic’s tent. I’d
picked one at the end of the row so I could watch both Dad and Will. Neither
one had regained consciousness. Dad’s breath wheezed weakly in and out.
Klimmett and the senior medic were discussing if they’d need to insert an
emergency chest-tube because his lung had collapsed. They’d told me—once I’d
woken up in the infirmary—that Dad’s hip was dislocated and the ligaments in
his knee were probably injured, too. He was in bad shape, and we didn’t have
anything we needed to help.

“We have to get that hip fixed, because having the bone out
of socket could block blood flow. We’d put him in traction and set it, but with
his pulse-ox so low, we think he’d go into shock,” Klimmett had explained. “In
fact, I’m kind of sick we even had to move him given the pain he’s in. There’s
no good solution out here.”

Instead they were keeping him sedated until he could be
evacuated.

Will had a severe concussion, a fractured forearm—his left,
which was his knife hand—broken ribs and who knew what else. No internal
bleeding, thank God, but he was wrecked.

With all the other troubles, I tried to ignore the
blanket-covered cot at the far end of the row. I couldn’t think about it now,
not here. Colonel Black had been the first person to believe in me as a
wielder. Not even Uncle Mike was convinced when the colonel put his trust in
me. Losing him…no, I wouldn’t go there. Later, when we were home and I could
bury my face in Ella’s hair, I’d let it hit me, but not here. I was the only
wielder left standing and I couldn’t break until everyone was safe.

Klimmett had woken me up with smelling salts once we hit
camp, asked me what my name was, where I was from, all the standard stuff to
rule out a head injury. My head was fine; it was my body—and my heart—that was
torn up.

I’d needed about sixty stitches on various parts of my arms
and legs. My torso was a map of bruises and the bottoms of my feet were swollen
and blistered raw from my crazy runs across the plain. To add insult to injury,
as Tink and Coach Shaw withdrew, their magic stopped blocking my pain. Klimmett
offered to dope me up, but I needed my head clear, so all I accepted was
ibuprofen. Compared to Dad, Will and Davis, I had nothing to complain about.

Uncle Mike ducked into the tent and came to join me on the
cot. The metal creaked under our combined weight. “The Royal Flying Doctor
Service is on its way in. Should be here in another hour or so. They’re
bringing a doctor and a couple of nurses with them since we have two critical
and one serious.”

I nodded. Behind me, Davis moaned. They had him on some
pretty strong drugs, but his pain was awful from what I understood. “What’s
going to happen to the sergeant?”

Uncle Mike and Klimmett exchanged looks and Klimmett moved
to the far side of the tent. “Most of the bones in his foot and ankle were
crushed. There’s…no way to save it.”

Bile crept up my throat. “They’re going to amputate?”

“That’s what we think,” Uncle Mike said quietly. “We won’t
know for sure until an ortho-doc evaluates him, but…it’s not good, Chief.”

And I left him lying on the ground in the middle of a brawl.
“If I’d brought him back sooner, would that have changed anything?”

“No.”

I wasn’t so sure. Never enough. It was never enough.

You weren’t the one who brought him here. And you had no
way of knowing we’d be overrun like that
, Tink whispered.
But now you
do, so there’s a decision to be made.

Yeah, there was.

“We need to limit who’s on staff for operations. Fewer guys
means fewer people for me to keep track of,” I said. “When the last eclipse
hits Montana and Peru in August, we should use small teams. If Will’s well
enough, I want him with me, and maybe one to two other guys max. We need to
send Ramirez to Jorge.”

“I think you might be right,” Uncle Mike said. “We seem to
have better luck when we run light.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you. Parker reported in. Even though this
was China’s second eclipse, he said they’ve only seen thirteen Pandas so far.”

Numb, I wanted to sleep, to block it all out, but there was
something weird about what Uncle Mike said. “Only thirteen? We had…” I had to
stop and think. The fight had been a blurred nightmare. “…um, how many where
there?”

He took a slow breath. “A hundred and thirteen. Eight sets
of thirteen, plus those nine random Quills that came with the first wave of
Spiders. The ones we hit with C4 at the riverbed.”

A hundred-thirteen? “The nine weren’t random. They were the
leftovers.”

“Leftovers?” Mike’s brow wrinkled then he nodded. “Right.
Only four showed up during that very first attack, when Cruessan got possessed.
Plus we had those thirteen Dingoes. Matt...over the last two weeks, you two
have put down a hundred and thirty monsters.”

So many. “There were only fifty-two in Africa during the
last eclipse.” I rubbed my face. “Carrie was right…the covens have been busy.”

But what about the Fire-lizard? It had no-showed on us. Why?

I was so tired, I couldn’t think. No, store it away, make
some mental notes and feed it all to Mamie later. She’d crunch the data with
Aunt Julie and they’d tell us what it meant.

I closed my eyes a moment. Bad idea; behind my eyeballs I
kept re-seeing all the horror from the fight. Plus it made it harder to ignore
the sledgehammer renovating my skull. I forced my eyes open, careful not to
look to closely at the blanket covering Colonel Black. “So now what?”

“I spoke with the general. The three most wounded will be
shipped to Perth by air, and I’ll go with them. The others will be evacuated by
Humvee. Captain Johnson and both wielder teams will stay here with you for a
few days to keep watch. I doubt we’ll see anything else, at least for now, but
I have the Australian military monitoring all channels, so if any reports come
in, we’ll know about it.”

They were going to make me stay. I knew it was the right
decision, but…“What about the rest of the colonel’s team?”

“We send them home.”

“And the colonel?”

Mike put his good arm around my shoulders. “We’ll bring him
home, too. He’ll be buried with full honors at Arlington.”

I hated funerals. Especially when the dead rested on my
shoulders, reminding me of all the things I still couldn’t do. “I’d like to go,
assuming I’m home in time.”

“I think he’d want you there.”

“I’d like to see these guys off before reporting to the
captain, too.”

“Actually,” Mike said, with a small smile, “He has orders to
ensure you sleep for about ten hours after we leave. You should be safe once
the sun’s up.”

I hoped so. “Sir, yes sir.”

An hour later, the plane arrived. The trauma doctor, with Klimmett’s
help, reset Dad’s hip. I hid on the other side of camp for that. I didn’t like
anything to do with resetting bones, and this was probably the worst I’d ever
heard of. Everything else required a hospital, so once they were done with
Dad’s hip, off they flew.

After they left, I cleaned up, then went to bed. Maybe when
I woke up, I’d see it was just another nightmare.

But it wasn’t, and when I stumbled out of my tent just
before sunset, Captain Johnson let me know that Dad was recovering from surgery
to fix internal bleeding from the puncture wounds to his chest, Will’s arm was
fractured in three places…

…And that Davis had lost his foot.