Matt Archer: Legend (16 page)

Zenka stared across the grass, and I wondered if she could
see the future. I was pretty sure Jorge could; maybe she could, too. “No. I
think the Shadow Man’s something different, something older and more powerful.”

“Older than your creator?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Something about the logic wasn’t working for me.

“There are things in the universe older than we are,” Zenka
said. “And some of them didn’t appreciate our creation.”

“That’s reassuring,” I muttered.

She laughed sadly. “I wish I could say it will be all right,
but we both know that would be false.”

“Yeah,” I said. “All we can do is hope.”

And hope that one day, we’d have answers to all our
questions.

We’d finished staging our stakeout at Zenka’s place and were
back in camp to “rest up.” Uncle Mike seemed to think that sending Will and me
to our tent would ensure that we’d nap. Not a chance. After fourteen hours of
sleep last night, Will wasn’t tired and I was too jacked up to try.

“You ready for this?” I asked. “You didn’t look too good
yesterday.”

“I’m fine, man,” Will said. His cot creaked under his weight
as he lay down. “I have everything packed up, too.”

“Okay, good.” I hoped the major wouldn’t notice Will
carrying a few extra “supplies” out to the village. “Time to see if all those
drills we came up with back home work or not.”

“They’ll work,” Will said, a hint of diabolical laughter in
his voice. “Trust me.”

“I do, even if it’s against my better judgment sometimes.”

I stared at the tent’s walls. The sun had started to sink
toward the horizon, and the green canvas looked darker. Only six hours until
the earth started to block the moon from the sun. We’d be leaving soon to
return to Zenka’s village, taking a full convoy with all the weaponry our
Humvees could carry. I’d seen Dorland packing up crates of grenades, a grim
cast to his mouth, but Tyson had run around camp like he was on acid. Luckily,
Murphy shadowed every move Tyson made; Murph hadn’t forgotten his promise to
keep an eye on the new guy.

My eyes grew heavy despite the turmoil churning in my head.
I thought Tink wanted me to nap even if didn’t feel like it, but something was
off. She was whispering in another language, and four voices answered, alien
but still familiar. Two were very close and two were distant.

“Conference call?” I mumbled, barely conscious.

“What?” Will asked from far, far away.

A tingling built along my spine and spread down my legs to
my toes. Another ping radiated from my heart into my arms. Tink’s whispers
turned into a song, and the others sang with her, growing louder and louder.
The tingling increased until it became an itch…then a burn. I cried out, scared
that the spirits had gone overboard somehow, that their power would be too
strong and this time they’d kill me. I could only take so much, Tink had to
realize—

As if I’d been struck by lightning, power slammed into my
chest. I shot off my cot, going from lying prone to standing up in one motion. Teeth
gritted, I clapped my hands to my temples and went down on my knees.

Will rolled off his bunk and knelt next to me. “Look at me,
Matt.”

I forced my gaze from the floor to meet Will’s eyes. Even in
the dim lighting, I could see each individual hair on his head, like Will was
in hi-def. Not good. “They’re spinning me up. We need to get out to Zenka’s.”

Will squeezed my shoulder. “Your eyes are glowing in the
dark. I’ll go for the others.”

As soon as he left, I sank to the floor, resting my cheek on
my outstretched arm. “What did you just do to me?”

Focused your potential. It will wear off after the blood-red
moon.

“Okay, but next time, could you warn me first? That was a
big jolt.”

I forced myself to my feet and took a deep breath.
Everything…I could smell
everything.
I could hear Johnson humming out of
tune across camp and Will sounded concerned as he reported in to Uncle Mike
over at HQ. Curious, I reached out to touch the blanket on my cot. Drawing my
finger slowly along the fabric, I could distinguish every individual thread.

“This is freaky,” I muttered, holding my hand out in front
of me. I could see well enough to count the hairs on my knuckles from an arm’s
length. “Freaky, but badass.”

The knife-spirit chuckled.
And you thought we made a
mistake by choosing you.

“Not today.” Shoulders squared, chin up, I left the tent.

* * *

We reached the village just as the sun set. Brandt’s guys
made sure to ride in another Humvee on the way over. It must’ve been the
Day-Glo eyes. Or maybe the I-dare-you-to-ask-questions expression I was
wearing. Either way, his team steered clear. Even Ramirez’s guys seemed
shocked, but Johnson had merely taken a good look, shrugged and hopped into the
seat next to me. At this point, I didn’t think I could surprise him.

The ride over was pure hell. My heightened senses made every
bump in the road feel like a bus crash and Johnson sang the entire way. The
words to “Shining Star” by Earth, Wind and Fire echoed in my brain like dice,
banging into every corner of my skull. Did the guy know any songs written after
I was born? It sure didn’t seem like it, and I nearly climbed out and ran
alongside the vehicle just to escape.

A small crowd had gathered at the edge of the village by the
time we pulled up. Before I got out of the Humvee, I turned to Will. “Think I
should put on some shades?”

He chewed on his bottom lip a second, then asked, “Can you
see in the dark with them on?”

I raised my eyebrows. “What do you think?”

“Okay, better question—will you burn holes in the lenses if
you wear them?”

We stared at each other a minute, then cracked up. “God, I’m
such a freak.”

“Nah,” Will said. “Well, maybe a little. I think the shades
are a good idea, though, at least for now.”

I felt like a poseur greeting people in a pair of knockoff
Ray Bans like I was some stoned rock star, but no one ran for holy water or
torches to burn me at the stake because of my eyes, so a little poseur behavior
was probably excusable.

While Uncle Mike directed the civilians to gather in a
central location so we’d have an easier time guarding them, I went to Zenka,
Will at my side. Her white hair was braided tight against her scalp and she was
wearing pants, boots and a long smock-like top, almost like she’d dressed to be
mobile. Was she thinking of jumping into the fight, or just planning in case we
needed to move fast? I hoped she didn’t have to do either, but I was glad to
see her prepared.

Zenka looked me up and down then snatched the sunglasses off
my face before I had a chance to react. She cackled when she saw my eyes. “I am
glad I lived long enough to see this.”

Will cleared his throat and shifted uneasily. Zenka focused
her stare on him. “It’s good you are here, too, William Hudson Cruessan.”

He skittered back a few steps. “How’d you know my name?”

Zenka turned back to me without answering. “They’ll come
from the southwest. The thing that controls them lives in the cliffs there.”

“We checked that area,” I said. “We didn’t find anything.”

“It will not be found if it doesn’t want to be.” Zenka
stared at the sky. A few stars had become visible and an arc had been cut from
the moon’s side from the shadow of the Earth, an omen of things to come. “If
you deal its minions a blow this night, it will have to try to destroy us
itself. Then you will find it easily enough.”

“Is it Gaunab?” I asked.

“Gaunab is not of this world,” she murmured. “But creatures
who serve him are.”

Zenka left to check on her people and Will faced me. “Dude,
how’d she know my name?”

“She knows things.” I searched the crowd for Uncle Mike. I
needed to make sure my team was stationed on the southwest side of the village.
“You’ll get used to it.”

“No,” Will said, following me between the huts. “No, I
won’t.”

It didn’t take much to convince Uncle Mike to let me stage my
guys where I wanted them and I picked a ramshackle house made of loose boards
right at the edge of the village. I settled in the dirt behind the little
building, Lanningham and Johnson at my back. Tyson and Will covered the other
side. Tyson hadn’t been my first choice, but Murphy was on Ramirez’s team, and
it wouldn’t be fair to trade out my B movie fanatic for another wielder’s best
guy. Dorland had stayed behind with Uncle Mike’s team to protect the villagers,
but he’d be ready with the grenade launcher if we needed ordinance support.

We’d offered to evacuate the village, but that had been shot
down almost immediately—the people weren’t willing to leave Zenka behind, and
where Zenka went, monsters would probably follow, so they’d make their stand
here with us. Uncle Mike had gathered everyone into the center of the village
and surrounded them with a wall of soldiers. My job was to make sure their job
was easy.

“Nothing gets through us,” I said, watching the plain of
sand, grass and scrub-brush. “Nothing.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Lanningham said. I turned to see if he was
being sarcastic. He met my gaze and puffed out his wide chest. “Nothing gets
through, sir.”

Sir…from an officer. When I first started out with the team,
I’d begged the colonel to be compared to a corporal, rather than a private. Now
the guys saw me as a fellow officer. A year ago, that would have thrilled me.
Tonight, I realized exactly what it meant.

I’d work hard to deserve the title.

The minutes ticked down. A wan, lukewarm breeze grazed us
every so often; otherwise, it was dead quiet. Not even the nocturnal creatures
were out to scavenge. I shifted, feeling a prick of uneasiness tease my brain.

“Orange,” Johnson whispered. In the dark, his large frame
was barely visible.

“What?”

“Your eyes. They were yellowish before, but they’re turning
orange.” He pointed at the sky. “Kind of like the moon.”

I glanced up. The moon had changed color from its usual
creamy yellow to a sherbet-orange. We’d been watching as the earth carved an
ever-widening arc in its side. Now the last sliver had disappeared, leaving a
blood-red moon to reappear in its place.

“We’ve got totality,” I said. “It’s starting.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, screeches and howls
echoed across the plain. Tyson chattered excitedly to Will and I barked,
“Quiet!”

I stared at the moon. The guys at NASA said that once we
moved into the total eclipse phase—now—it would be forty-two minutes until the
moon started exiting the earth’s shadow on the other side.

Forty-two minutes. How would we withstand a full on assault
for that long?

Listen,
Tink commanded.

I closed my eyes so I could hear better. The screeches
mingled and mixed into a chorus of terror. A baby started wailing in the
village. Someone ignited on a flamethrower. Tyson started breathing faster.

Listen harder.

I drew the knife slowly, cringing at the loudness of the
metal rasping against its sheath, and forced myself to tune into every sound.
Boots crunching grass. Lanningham clicking the safety off his Berretta.
Then…there, under it all.

A dark voice chanted in a guttural language I’d never heard
before. It seemed to come from underground. Not under my feet, but deep in the
earth. The screeches of the beasts prowling outside the village rose and fell
in time with the dark voice’s chants.

“What is it?” I whispered.

What we’re here to find.
The spirit sounded cold and
hard. She was angry.
Ready yourself. This will be a hard fight.

In response, the muscles in my arms and shoulders tensed. I
felt like a spring, coiled tight with the spirit’s finger on the release.
“Stand tough, guys. They’re on the way in.”

In the distance, shadows trotted back and forth. My night vision
had kicked in, lighting the desert that weird blue like before, but the
creatures lurked just out of my range. A smell, like burned meat and stale
grease, rode downwind from that direction. I snorted in disgust. Enhanced
reflexes and sharpened vision were one thing; being able to smell monsters from
more than a quarter-mile away was just plain nasty.

The howling quieted. As the minutes ticked past, I tightened
my grip on the knife’s handle. Johnson shifted next to me, peering through the
night-vision scope on his M4. “Archer, there are dozens of them out there.”

“Cats?” I asked. I couldn’t see well enough to know for
sure, even though it sounded like them.

“Yeah.” He let out a low whistle. “At least I think so.
These are…bigger. Tank-class.”

I was about to ask him to give me a more accurate count when
gunfire erupted on the far side of the village.

“Incoming!” Ramirez called out on the radio. “Northeast
side!”

“They flanked us,” Johnson said, looking back at the
village.

We didn’t have time to worry about it. The Cats on our side
gathered together and became distinct as they ran at us full tilt—twenty, maybe
thirty of them, driving in a huge pack. They were bigger than last time—a lot
bigger. Hard muscle rippled and claws like knives dug into the earth to propel
them forward. The leader let out a yowl, showing off killer fangs, and the
others joined in.

 I checked the moon—a blood-orange circle glowered back.

My watch said we had thirty-six minutes to go.

The Cats came in a wave. Johnson was screaming for
ordinance, but I hardly heard him. The thrumming chant of that dark voice
filled my ears. I didn’t understand the words, but I knew what it said.

Kill them all.

My knife’s handle heated up in my hand in response. Rage
made my arms shake, and I stood firm even as grenades whistled over my head to
explode in the middle of the pack of monsters. A half-dozen Cats were thrown
from the force of the impact, and many more caught fire. Their howls were
terrible. The rest kept coming, flying across the plain like they’d been
launched by a rocket.

Walking on steady legs that moved without my brain directing
traffic, I left the shelter of the small building and faced them head on.
Lanningham shouted for me to get my butt under cover, but the knife-spirit had
other ideas. So did I.

Despite the grenades, more than a dozen Cats were still on
their feet and closing fast. I dug my heels into the dirt, bracing myself for
the onslaught. Dorland fired another volley, catching the stragglers, but nine
Cats made it through the last barrage of ordinance and were too close to be in
range for grenades. Bullets did no good; now it was up to me and the other wielders
to keep Zenka and her people safe.

“You have control,” I whispered to the knife-spirit. “I’m
just here to kill stuff. Put me to good use tonight, okay?”

My knife flashed blue and Tink let off a battle cry in my
head that spilled from my own mouth. Then I ran.

I couldn’t let the Cats make it into the village, so I went
to meet them on their turf. I didn’t know how I’d keep nine in check by myself,
but it didn’t matter. Nothing would get through.

I plowed into the middle of the pack, whirling like a dervish,
and struck down three before they knew what hit them. Now surrounded, I ducked,
swiped, swung and slashed as huge paws with wicked, hooked claws batted at my
body. One cut through the heavy canvas jacket I wore and, based on the
stinging, cut my skin. Another caught my thigh.

As soon as they drew blood, a haze drifted across my vision
and my movements sped up beyond what I could do on my own. I hopped onto the
back of the closest cat, stabbing the knife between its shoulder blades, before
rolling off to face the others. Two of the remaining Cats pounced and knocked
me flat on my back. One pinned my shoulders, growling low in its throat as the
other raised a paw over my head. I worked the knife free just in time to stab
the first Cat in the heart. That gave me the leverage I needed to roll away
before the other Cat smashed my skull; instead, it slammed its paw into the
dirt so hard it sunk in six inches and hit a rock buried in the ground. The
monster let out an angry howl before crawling away with its hurt leg cradled
against its chest.

The other three Cats circled around me, looming over me
upright on their back paws, at least nine feet tall. No matter where I moved, I
couldn’t keep all of them in my field of view. Plus, the wounded one was out
there, hiding in the shadows. I kept my knees bent slightly as I weaved back
and forth so I’d be ready to dive to one side if I had to. Gunshots and screams
echoed from the village. Ramirez yelled at Brandt to watch his back. From the
sound of things, I needed to finish up here and go help.

One of the remaining Cats leapt at me and I dodged it,
shouting, “Will! Now!”

We hadn’t told a soul what we had planned, because there was
no way my uncle would’ve let Will use a flamethrower on a practice range, let
alone in the middle of a fight with me in his line of sight. So we got
creative, and kept it to ourselves.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Will dart from behind the
building. Johnson shouted for him to stay back.

“Like hell!” Will yelled. “Heads up, Matt!”

I tucked and rolled into the shadows as fast as I could,
while Will ran up behind the Cat and sprayed a stream of fire at its back. We’d
gotten the idea from our fight with the Takers last summer and, with a little
experimentation, had discovered most forms of Axe body spray had enough alcohol
in them to light half of Will’s backyard on fire. Even better, the other
soldiers never thought to question why we each needed three aerosol cans of the
stuff while stationed in the desert…despite the fact that neither of us had
ever used it.

The Cat burned in a pine-scented fireball. In its panic, it
ran at the others, proceeding to light one of them on fire, too.

“Yeah!” Will shouted, pumping his fist in the air.

By now I was back on my feet, and I cut down the burning
monsters.

Someone shouted for help behind us. The last Cat standing
had cornered Tyson against the house. He was gasping, and his expression went
from awe to terror and back again as he ducked under a paw aimed for his skull.
The Cat punched through the boards of the house, and Tyson used the time to get
away.

He only made it three steps before the Cat yanked its arm
free, swung and knocked him off his feet. Tyson sailed into the darkness, where
he landed with a loud, “Oof!”

“Go get Tyson,” I yelled to Lanningham as I stalked toward
the Cat. It bared its fangs and rumbled out a roar.

And headed straight for Will.

Not sure why it was trying to take out my support staff when
I was standing right there, I threw my knife as hard as I could and it slammed
into the monster’s eye. The Cat went down in a mess of floppy limbs. When I
went to retrieve the knife, Will covered me with our second can of Axe in his
left hand and a fireplace lighter clutched in his right. I had to give him
bonus points for courage; his hands weren’t even shaking.

“That last Cat is out here somewhere,” I said, breathing hard.
Blood trickled down my back from the scratches, but I was still tripping with
knife-spirit magic so it didn’t hurt. “Come on; we better go help the others.”

“What in the name of all that’s holy were you two thinking? You
were so tangled up in there, I had no line of sight,” Johnson snapped as Will
and I tromped by. “And that can of deodorant could’ve exploded in your hand,
Cruessan!”

“No time for that now.” I stalked toward the village without
slowing. “Yell at us later after we put down the rest of these monsters.”

Tyson came limping back, whooping and hollering. “That was
so badass! You
owned
those Cats!”

“Yeah?” I said, giving him a hard look. “How about the part
where you nearly got turned into
Fancy Feast
?”

“Best night of my life!” Tyson said, laughing.

Will laughed a little, too, but stifled it when I shook my
head. “Tyson, stay here and watch the perimeter. Call us if anything shows up.
Do not try to fight these things on your own.”

Tyson gave me a disappointed look, but stayed put like I
asked. Lanningham fell in behind Will, keeping close. I checked the moon—the
red had faded a bit. My watch said we had twenty-four minutes left in totality.

We burst into the center of village to find a complete
melee. Houses had been smashed and broken boards littered the ground. A few
buildings were burning. Inexplicably, laundry was strewn everywhere, too, and
shattered pottery crunched under our boots. The whole scene was lit orange from
the flame throwers.

Murphy and a group of soldiers had surrounded the villagers,
acting as a meat shield. Most of Murph’s guys had black streaks of soot and
dust on their faces, but no one seemed to be seriously injured. Twenty yards
away Ramirez, with Dorland as backup, was fighting six Cats at once. Brandt was
on the far end, engaged with his own gang of monsters. Ramirez seemed to be
holding his own, so I took off running toward Brandt, Will and Lanningham hot
on my heels. As soon as the Cats saw me, three of the four broke away from
Brandt and charged us.

“Time to fly,” Will said. He ran ahead a few steps, then
dropped to his knees with his hands out and fingers interlaced.

Without breaking stride, I jumped onto his outstretched
hands and he flung me through the air. I held the knife out in front of me,
bracing the handle with my left palm for the impact. Two of the Cats tried to
scramble out of my way, but I slammed into one of them and stabbed it in the
neck, taking the other down with us as we hit the ground. A quick thrust of the
blade, and the second one let out a gurgling yelp before going limp.

I was on my feet before the third one could get close enough
to swing a paw. It tried to fake me out by feinting left, then ducking right,
but I stayed with it, backing the Cat up against the wall of a house. The
monster stared into my eyes as I advanced and once I had it cornered, the Cat
didn’t make a sound or try to fight. I dispatched it quickly, but something
about its resignation made me uneasy…almost like it knew it was merely a
distraction before the big show.

When I turned to check on everyone, Brandt was standing over
a dead Cat, watching me with his jaw slack. Ramirez stalked into view, his
knife bloody and his face grim. He nodded when he caught me looking. The Cats
were finished, with seventeen minutes of totality left—the whole fight had
taken less than half an hour.

I wiped the blade on my pants and shoved it into its sheath.
That’s when I noticed how quiet the village had become. In the center, Zenka had
joined Murphy and Uncle Mike, and all of Zenka’s people stood in a crowd behind
them. Every person there was staring at me.

“Dude, you want your shades?” Will whispered.

It was too late; they’d seen my eyes. But not just that.
They’d seen me fight, under the knife-spirit’s influence, which wasn’t
something too many civilians could say. “No. Glow-in-the-dark eyeballs are
probably the least weird thing these people have seen all night. Might as well
let my freak-flag fly, right?”

Will gave me a half-smile. “Yeah. Loud and proud, man.”

Lanningham, who’d been watching our backs the whole time,
walked over. “I can see why Lieutenant Johnson complains that the two of you
are going to give him heart failure. What was that flying through the air
thing?”

“Just something we worked out at Will’s house last summer.”
I grinned, tired and a little punchy from the knife-spirit’s adrenaline push.
“We practiced on the trampoline to see how much hang-time I could get.”

Lanningham shook his head. “When they told me I’d be your
watchdog, I thought, how hard can it be, keeping track of two teenagers?” He
stood up taller, maybe to remind me he had an inch of height and about twenty
pounds on me. “Now, I know better. I’m sticking to you close for the rest of
this mission.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” I said.

Uncle Mike finished doing a headcount on the villagers, then
came over to join us. Grease and soot had left a black swipe across his
forehead, but he wasn’t bleeding anywhere. “Two things.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“First, we’re going to have a chat about the makeshift
flamethrower tomorrow, have no doubt about that.”

His glare could have frozen plasma; Will and I exchanged
glances before nodding. “Sir, yes sir.”

“Second…” Uncle Mike’s expression went from
Major-Tannen-Pissed to confused. “We had probably fifty Cats coming at us from
all directions, and we put all of them down in, what, twenty-five minutes?
How’s that even possible?”

“There were fifty-two monsters, sir,” Dorland called. “I
kept count through my scope.”

I grunted out a laugh. Of course he did…Dorland was too good
to miss anything. “That’s a multiple of thirteen, so it sounds about right.”

“Fifty-two.” Uncle Mike said. “Does anyone else think this
fight was too easy?”

“Well,” I said, glancing into the darkness. Even with my
blue night vision, nothing stirred outside the circle of huts. “There’s an
injured Cat out there somewhere, but come to think of it…yeah.”

“Your eyes are still glowing in the dark, and we’re still
under totality, but the monsters are gone. And it’s not just that,” Uncle Mike
said. He waved Ramirez and Brandt over. “The Cats did some damage, but no
casualties. Injuries are minor, too.”

And I wasn’t in pain—no post-fight hangover. Tink had me
firmly under her control, which could only mean one thing. “We’re not done.”

“I don’t think so, either,” Ramirez said. “I’m
still…buzzing.”

Brandt joined our little powwow. He had a cut running down his
knife arm and he looked dead tired. “I got nothing.”

Will, who’d been standing by listening to the conversation,
doubled over suddenly and wrapped his arms around his middle. Brandt put out a
hand to steady him, but Will staggered away, saying, “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

“Dude,” I said, approaching him slowly, “what’s going on
with you?”

“Just a cramp. It’s nothing.” He kept his back to me and
took a few heaving breaths before standing upright.

I didn’t believe that for a second. From the way his
shoulders bunched up, forcing himself to unbend hadn’t been easy. First that
strange bout of the flu, and now this? No matter what Will said, I thought he
needed a medic. “Ramirez, is Klimmett around?”

Ramirez ran a hand over his dark hair, watching Will with
worried eyes. “He was checking on a few kids who got knocked around in the
scuffle, but I’ll get him.”

“No,” Will snapped. He turned around, glaring. “I’m fine
now, okay? Let Klimmett take care of the kids.”

Even in the firelight from the torches, I could tell how
pasty his face was but he looked like a guy ready to throw down with anyone who
asked too many questions, so I let it go. Maybe he’d eaten a bad MRE or
something.

“Fine, okay,” I said, checking my watch. “So, back to the
attack. We’re still under totality for another fourteen minutes. What do you
think—”

My question was cut short by a snarl, and the missing Cat
appeared out of the shadows between the houses at the edge of the village. It
was walking upright on its back legs, holding its damaged paw against its
chest.