Lanquin, Guatemala
Allison and Charlotte raced toward the downed helicopter. One of the devil-bats crouched on the nose of the craft, shoving its snout through the shattered windshield, forcing its head deeper despite the jagged glass in the frame that dug into its pelt. One wing was torn and bleeding. Gunshots came from inside the chopper and the devil-bat's body jerked as bullets struck it in the head, but it only slowed a moment before redoubling its efforts.
The second one crashed into the side of the downed helicopter, then scrabbled with its claws at the door. The windows had to be broken but the opening was not large enough for it to do more than bite at it, trying to tear the metal. More gunshots punched into this one and it darted backward, then launched itself over the top of the wreckage to the other side, trying the same tactic there.
The one on the helicopter's nose screeched in triumph and screams rose as it dragged a soldier out through the broken windshield. It chewed him several times and then tossed its head back, trying to slide the man down its gullet.
Allison said nothing. The horror of the scene demanded the respect of silence.
'Fucker,' Charlotte growled as she dropped to the ground, transforming into a huge Bengal tiger, which bounded forward.
Tiger-Charlotte leaped atop the wreckage and kept going, jaws wide as she rocketed at the devil-bat's chest. Claws tore its flesh and she lunged for its throat. The devil-bat twisted, gouging the tiger with one of its horns and knocking her away. It bit the soldier in half and quickly swallowed as it crawled after the tiger, awkward on its broken wing.
Amateur, Allison thought.
Between one footfall and the next, she spread her arms and they became wings, growing and spreading wide as she took to the air, molecules reassembling and gathering others as she transformed from a woman to a devil-bat half as large again as the wounded thing dragging itself after Charlotte.
The tiger staggered to its feet, shuddering as Charlotte repaired her injury. Allison wondered what the hell Octavian had been thinking by bringing her into this battle. To one who could disassemble and reassemble herself from one shape to another, a wound was just another form and healing was no more difficult than shapeshifting. It should have been nearly instantaneous.
Charlotte turned, yellow tiger eyes flashing, ready to lunge at her attacker's throat. She never had a chance to leap. Allison attacked the creature, using her own talons to rake its chest and tear its wings. It screeched until she silenced it with a single dart at its throat, and then she turned toward Charlotte, just in time to see the tiger take to the air and transform again, mimicking Allison's own strategy.
The dead devil-bat twitched and bled at Allison's feet as Charlotte flew at the other one, which had continued to attack the wrecked chopper. The two creatures collided, falling to the ground in a shrieking mass of claws and wings and darting jaws, but at least the soldiers on the chopper were safe for a moment.
Allison alighted, molecules pouring into her human form again as she rushed over to the chopper, even as Sergeant Galleti kicked open the pilot's door and dropped to the ground. The Italian woman spotted her and a look of gratitude spread across her features.
'Help me,' Galleti said.
Allison reached her just in time to help a wounded soldier climb out of the wreckage, and others followed. There were six survivors, all Task Force Victor, and the last of them was Leon Metzger. Screeches and chanting continued, but the nearest commotion ceased and Charlotte came walking around the front of the downed chopper, apparently having killed the other devil-bat.
But there were others, Allison knew. A single upward glanced showed her well over a dozen, and she suspected there would be even more.
'Thanks for your help,' Metzger said, as Charlotte walked over to join them.
Allison studied the man a moment and then nodded. 'You're welcome,' she said. The past and its grudges seemed impossibly far away from them now.
Metzger had a gash on his face and his limp suggested he had torn something in his left leg, but he barely seemed to notice either. Galleti and the two others who had suffered only contusions and lacerations climbed back into the wreckage and started bringing out whatever weapons they could find.
'Where's Octavian?' he asked.
Allison frowned. She had barely had time to wonder what had become of Peter, but she knew that he must be all right. With all the sorcery at his disposal, she figured Octavian might well be the hardest person in the world to kill.
'I'm sure he's-'
The ground rumbled and she nearly lost her footing. A loud hiss filled the air, a static that built to a buzz, and as she looked around for the source she saw the wall of crackling blue light shimmer into being.
'Son of a bitch,' Metzger said, spinning around to watch as the walls went up all around them, perhaps a mile or so away in each direction.
They were practically at the epicenter of the sizzling magical barrier.
'I guess he's still alive,' Charlotte said.
'Affanculo!' Galleti barked. 'What is he doing, the idiot? He's trapped us inside with them!'
'Forget it,' Allison said, turning to Metzger. 'We've got one move here. If Cortez is pulling the strings, then we kill him. I'm guessing the Guatemalan troops we saw with all the trucks and the lights and the tanks don't have Medusa toxin, so you six are coming with me and Charlotte and we're going after Cortez.'
Metzger had a heart of stone, ice in his veins, and a soul made of leather, but even he laughed at this.
'You're out of your mind! Take a look around you!' he shouted, throwing out his arm like a ringmaster at Hell's own circus.
Devil-bats circled above, having spotted them. Allison saw them and knew the others had as well. The serpents would be crawling from the trench now and at least one of them would doubtless find them soon. And across the grassy, tree-spotted landscape, where the bright banks of lights had turned night into day, she could see the heads of the same two giants as they climbed from the gash in the flesh of the world, slowly, as if not quite awake. One of them had huge antlers and from the side its face looked like an open wound. These, she felt sure, were the death gods of the Mayans, the ones that Brother Simon had died to drive back to Xibalba . . . and one of whom he had subsequently become, at least halfway. A demi-god. An evil Hercules.
She had no doubt that Cortez wanted the same honor.
'I'm not blind,' she said, her voice carrying despite the chanting of Cortez's coven several hundred yards away, beyond a stand of trees.
'So you see that?' Metzger said, pointing to the antlered god, whose head alone was taller than the trees.
Allison sneered at him. 'Leon. Do your fucking job.'
Whatever panic had clutched at his heart, her words were like a slap in the face. He flinched, then blinked and looked around at his soldiers, who were watching him and whose lives were in his hands. Whose blood, most likely, would be on his hands. She saw the understanding dawn in his eyes, the knowledge that even if Octavian lowered the wall they were unlikely to escape this alive, which meant fulfilling their objective was the only possible goal.
'Sergeant Galleti,' he said, 'have you retrieved all of the weapons and ammunition from the chopper?'
Allison looked at Galleti, who raised her chin, nostrils flaring as she did her best to contain her fear. She carried two pistols and had a pair of automatic weapons slung over her shoulders. The others were all armed with multiple guns as well.
'Yes, Commander!' she snapped.
The others all stood at attention, save for the soldier who lay unconscious at their feet.
'Then we're moving out,' Metzger said. 'Fast as we can. The quicker we move, the better chance we have of reaching the vampires before the things from the breach can take us all out. And everybody watch the sky.'
He turned to Allison, who nodded.
'What about Creaghan?' Galleti asked, looking down at the unconscious soldier, whose head wound was caked with blood. The side of his skull had a dent in it that made Allison wonder how he was even still breathing.
'I'll carry him,' Charlotte said.
'What?' Metzger said.
The soldiers all stared at her, some in relief but others in suspicion, no doubt worried that she'd try to drink the dying man's blood.
'He isn't going to make it,' Allison said, hating the hard edge in her voice. 'One look and you can see that.'
'I know that,' Charlotte replied, then turned to meet Metzger's gaze. 'But you're not going to let us leave him behind as long as he's still breathing and we need to go.'
The commander looked reluctant, but then a devil-bat flew low above them and two of his soldiers fired at it, driving it away for the moment, and he knew they had no choice.
'Be careful with him,' Metzger said.
Charlotte ignored him, crouching to heft Creaghan easily off the ground. To a Shadow, the man weighed little more than an infant.
'Don't waste bullets that have the toxin,' she said. 'Don't fire at the things unless they're right on top of us. We're going to need every bit of ammo you have.'
Then they were running across open ground toward the line of trees that were all that separated them from Cortez's entire coven, the chanting growing louder as they ran. Allison felt a strange calm coming over her. She thought back on all of the people she had loved and who had loved her . . . all of the loves that she had lost. And yet she did not feel alone. Octavian was here, somewhere. And Kuromaku still lived, halfway across the world. They knew her as she was, not as she had been once upon a time. They had known her when Will Cody still lived and when he had loved her.
If there was a chance she might die before the sun rose, then it helped to know there were those who truly knew her. Knowing them helped her to know herself. Even if she died alone, she would not die lonely. That was something.
Charlotte ran at her side, the soldier, Creaghan, in her arms. The other TFV soldiers followed behind, with Galleti and the limping Metzger taking up the rear. As they ran, the tanks began shelling the trench, firing at ancient Mayan death gods so huge that even a direct hit would likely seem little more than the annoyance of a gnat.
In a gap between shelling, with the echoes of warfare rolling across the grass, Allison thought she heard something else there as well. In her mind she saw the serpents crawling from the trench.
'Watch your back,' she told Charlotte.
The girl did not reply, her grim gaze looking only forward, as if she could see Cortez through the trees and amongst so many other vampires.
Twice the soldiers fired skyward at a devil-bat that flew too low, but the things veered off without attacking, at least for now.
Then they had reached the trees, and Allison paused in the midst of that cover to let Metzger and the other survivors of his unit catch up. One by one, they straggled in amongst the trees, staring at Charlotte for some reason. Allison waited on Metzger, watching him limp as she listened to the chants of the vampires, which were much louder now, and she knew the commander would have to stay here, taking cover in the trees. If he couldn't run, he couldn't stay with them.
But when Metzger joined her, he did not even glance her way. Like the others, his attention was on Charlotte. Frowning, Allison turned toward her. For a moment she did not understand, and then she saw the way that Creaghan lay in Charlotte's arms, his limbs hanging lifeless, his head lolled to one side.
'Put him down,' Metzger said.
Charlotte winced. Despite the hard edge she'd acquired, his tone had hurt her. She set Creaghan down beneath a tree and took a step back.
Galleti was kinder than her commander. The Italian woman put a hand on Charlotte's shoulder and whispered her gratitude. Charlotte nodded and then retreated to stand beside Allison as the soldiers shared a moment of silence. When Metzger turned he had a defiant glint in his eyes that made Allison realize there would be no leaving the commander behind.
'We'll bury him when this is done,' Metzger said, though it was clear he thought they'd all be dead before they could manage it. Dead and left to rot, just like Creaghan.
Again, Allison heard a rustling noise out in the grass behind them. She went to the edge of the tree line, peering back the way they'd come, and then jumped back a bit when she saw the serpent sliding by, perhaps thirty yards away. If it noticed them, or cared to kill or eat them, it gave no sign.
'They're far from the worst things trapped in here with us,' a voice whispered beside her.
Allison spun, baring her fangs before she realized she knew that voice. Octavian stood beside her, his face streaked with some dark substance but otherwise none the worse for wear. She thought it must be blood, perhaps from a devil-bat, but it seemed unimportant in that moment.
'Where the hell were you?' she asked.
His eyebrows went up. 'The beach. Where do you-'
Charlotte practically tackled him, throwing her arms around him and holding him tightly. Allison watched in surprise, wondering for just a moment if the young vampire had feelings for him. Then Charlotte backed away and punched Octavian in the arm, and Allison realized the girl did have an attachment to him, but it wasn't a romantic one. At the age of nineteen, she'd been dragged into a world of horrors, with no one to look after her, no figure of strength for her to turn to when life took an ugly turn. Somehow Octavian had become a kind of father figure to the girl.
Metzger and the other soldiers had finished saying goodbye to their dead comrade, and now they approached with grim and expectant faces.
'You've locked us in here,' Metzger said. 'You might as well have killed us all.'
Octavian pulled away from Charlotte and took a step forward to face him. Sparks danced in his eyes and along his arms to his fingertips, and Allison realized that they had been there all along, only fainter and barely noticeable. Flickers of gold and coppery red swirled around his hands.
'You'll recall I wanted to come alone,' Octavian said firmly. 'Even stole a helicopter to make it happen. Now here we are, Commander, and we all share the same goal.'
Metzger glanced at Sergeant Galleti, who turned away to hide her frustration and fear.
'True enough,' the commander said. 'But I'll tell you this much, Peter. You'd better have a plan.'
Octavian cocked his head a bit, staring at the commander.
'A plan,' he said, as if musing on it.
'Peter?' Allison asked. 'You do have some kind of plan, yes? Something other than just yelling "charge"?'
Octavian gave her his familiar, lopsided grin. 'Well, there is something I've been thinking about since before we left Philadelphia, but I wouldn't call it a plan.'
Charlotte gazed at him, mouth set in a tight line. Her hard exterior had crumbled for a second when he had rejoined them, but now it had begun to return.
'It's more like a prayer,' Octavian said.
With that he turned away from them and knelt on the soft ground beneath the trees. The magic crackling around his hands grew brighter, the gold and copper sizzling the air as it expanded. Allison and the others watched, first in wonder and then in surprise and consternation as he thrust his hands into the ground, the magic around his fingers allowing them to spear the earth, digging deeply into the soil.
He spoke so softly that Allison doubted anyone else was close enough to hear him.
'Come on, Keomany,' he said. 'I hope you're paying attention.'
Bratteleboro, Vermont
Deeply asleep and dreaming of her mother, Tori felt herself being shaken. Her head swayed on her pillow and her eyelids fluttered as she returned to consciousness. She groaned, reaching up to wipe at her mouth and cheek even before she recognized that the single voice in the room was addressing her.
'. . . up,' she heard. 'Tori, please wake up.'
Blearily, she turned in the darkness of her bedroom to see that Amber Morrissey knelt on the edge of her bed. Amber reached over her and started to shake Cat and for a moment Tori thought she might still be dreaming, because Amber didn't seem to notice that she'd woken up.
'What's wrong?' Tori breathed.
Amber recoiled, pulling away quickly, as if she had given up on waking Tori and was now startled to have accomplished it.
'Oh, God, listen,' Amber said, so anxious and ordinary that it was hard to accept that her features were an illusion, that beneath the glamour she was a beautiful monster. 'Something's going on. You've got to get up, both of you.'
Tori frowned but dragged herself up to a sitting position. She felt exhausted and fragile and just wanted to hide in her bed, but the world was in crisis and Tori and Cat had become inextricably linked to it through Keomany and the events of the past couple of days. And through Gaea, of course. They would do anything for their goddess.
She reached out and shook Cat. Tori sometimes had trouble sleeping, but Cat slept as if she had an off switch and she'd been powered down for the night. It would take more than a gentle nudge, so she shook harder.
'Wake up!' Tori said. 'We've got trouble.'
Cat began to mumble and her eyes slitted open, none too happy.
'We do, right?' Tori asked, looking at Amber. 'Have trouble?'
'That's just it, I don't know,' Amber said. 'We're not under attack or anything, but something's happening with Keomany.'
'I'm up,' Cat said, tired but awake now. She looked from Tori to Amber and back, then threw back the covers. 'Talk while I find pants.'
She didn't have to go far; the jeans she'd shucked off were in a neat pile on the floor beside the bed. Cat grabbed them and began stepping into them, even as Tori rose and grabbed the thin, pink-striped cotton robe that always hung behind the bedroom door. Sockless, she slipped her feet into the slim boots she wore while working. They were moving quickly now, but Tori still didn't know why.
'That's it?' she asked. 'You don't have anything more than "something's happening"?'
'Miles is talking to her,' Amber said, and for just a moment her face seemed to flicker, as though her glamour was slipping and the wine-dark, terrible beauty of her true visage might emerge. She was clearly troubled.
'And?' Cat said, irritated and unsympathetic. She pulled a sweatshirt on over the threadbare Mickey Mouse t-shirt she'd worn to bed, then grabbed a pair of old sneakers and didn't bother to lace them up.
'Well, he was,' Amber went on. 'But now he says it's like she's talking to someone else. She's babbling about healing wounds and about being a harbinger of rebirth. That's like a messenger, right?'
Tori glanced at Cat. 'Something like that.'
Cat led the way out the bedroom door and down the stairs. Amber had left the front door open, the autumn air gusting through the screen. They pushed out into the night and let the screen door slam behind them, hurrying into the orchard with the unfailing direction of those to whom it was home. It had rained and the ground was wet. Amber kept pace with them, though Tori knew she could have flown ahead, and in a handful of minutes they were racing toward the enclosure in the clearing where they had left Keomany to continue to grow and become . . . whatever she was becoming.
Tori dashed into the clearing with her beaded hair jangling and Cat right behind her. She ran to the opening in the enclosure. The rain had stopped and the clouds had begun to break up, letting through pools of moonlight. The thing that stood in one of those patches of silvery light looked at first like some exotic scarecrow.
'She's . . .' Cat began, coming to a halt beside Tori, who had barely realized that she stood frozen in place.
'Keomany?' Tori ventured, frowning as she studied the figure before them.
Though she had been lying on the ground before, rooted to the soil, this strange manifestation of Keomany now stood, but she did not lift her head to look at them. If she had eyes, she did not meet their gaze. The vines of her hair hung before her face and cast dark shadows that hid her features.
'Hey,' Cat said, taking two steps toward Keomany. 'It's us. Are you . . . are you in there?'
Tori turned back to Amber, who hadn't come any further than the opening in the enclosure. 'Was she like this before?'
'No,' Amber said. 'This is new.'
Nodding, Tori moved closer to Keomany, but warily. The creature - her friend - had not so much as twitched since they had arrived. Her first thought, that it was some kind of scarecrow, seemed unsettlingly accurate as she drew nearer and saw that Keomany's new body seemed to have withered since just a few hours before. Her new skin looked dried and her hair wilted, and an awful, hollow feeling touched her.
'There's something else,' Amber said, voice tinged with worry.
Tori turned to her again. 'What is it?'
'Miles,' Amber replied. 'He's not here.'
'The ghost is gone?' Tori asked.
'Goddess,' Cat whispered.
Tori turned around just in time to see Cat's fingers brush Keomany's cheek, which cracked like dried parchment with a puff of dust. The scarecrow's head sagged in that direction, then cracked under its own weight and fell to the ground with a dry thump.
With a gasp, Tori jumped back, staring at the shattered head. It reminded her of a long-abandoned wasp's nest, split and broken and dried out.
'Miles isn't the only one who's not here,' Cat said, looking up at Tori.
'Is she dead?' Tori asked. 'It doesn't make any sense-'
'Not dead,' Amber said, crouching at the scarecrow's feet now and poking around in the grass, revealing the thick roots that went deep into the ground. 'Just gone, I think. And wherever she went, it looks like Miles went with her.'
Languin, Guatemala
The trees seemed to stand guard over them as Octavian stood to face his allies. The magic around his fists diminished but still a frisson of static danced around his fingers and raced up his arms, and he could feel the same electric crackle in his eyes. The magic simmered inside him, almost as if it had some awareness of its own and knew that combat was mere moments away.
'Commander,' he said, turning to Metzger and his small cadre of TFV soldiers. 'You need to arm Charlotte and Allison.' He pointed at Sergeant Galleti, who was still draped with guns, including a pair of assault rifles. 'With those. They need as much Medusa ammunition as you can give them and the most firepower behind those bullets.'
'What're you planning?' Metzger said. He glanced at the dirt that remained on Octavian's hands and then at the place where the mage had been kneeling only moments before. 'What the hell was all of that? I'm not some amateur at this, Peter. If you've got some strategy, share it with me. Let me help.'
Octavian glanced at Allison and then Charlotte before turning his focus back to Metzger. He pointed at the place just to the east of their position, where the giant Mayan death gods were still emerging from the trench.
'With all due respect, Leon, you've killed a lot of vampires but you've never faced anything like those,' Octavian said. 'This situation we find ourselves in now . . . in this, you are an amateur.'
'Now hold on-' Metzger began, bristling at this embarrassment in front of his soldiers.
'If I had half a dozen more Shadows, I might feel good about our chances of killing resurrected gods,' Octavian went on. 'But this is it. Us. I trust your people to be able to protect themselves if those devil-bats come at them, and not to let the serpents eat them, at least as long as you still have bullets to defend yourselves with. But that's a game of attrition and you know it. What your people do best is kill vampires, so that's what we're going to do. It's not pretty, and it's not any kind of strategy. But you need to arm the hell out of the only Shadows we've got and send them in there with the element of surprise and a shitload of Medusa toxin. Take away the ability of Cortez's people to shapeshift, and you and your people can kill them easily.'
Metzger scowled and looked away. 'You can't be . . .' He rubbed at his eyes. 'You're serious? This is your plan? There have to be over a hundred vampires over there. There's no way two of your Shadows are going to be able to hit them all with toxin.'
'I can improve their aim,' Octavian said, watching as the magic misting from his eyes and dancing around his fingers turned a vivid cerulean blue. 'And with luck, I can take down the ones they don't get to put a bullet into.'
'Still . . .' Sergeant Galleti said.
Metzger exhaled, nodding heavily. He held up a hand to Galleti.
'All right,' the commander said. 'We don't have a lot of options. I just hope you're right and that when Cortez is dead, these breaches slow and you can seal them up again.'
'So do I,' Octavian said, brushing the dirt from his hands, magic crackling around them.
Looking at Galleti and the other TFV soldiers, he almost told them that things might not be as grim as they seemed, that he had an ace in the hole. But he wanted them to fight for their lives, without relying on magic to save them. He thought that Keomany had heard him, but he couldn't be sure she had, or if she would be able to do anything to help. All he knew was that every one of these breaches was like an open wound in the soul of the earth, and it had to be tearing Gaea apart.
She heard me, he thought. I felt her listening.
And yet thus far the trees were only the trees, the ground only the ground. The best he could do was to follow his plan. No matter what else happened tonight, Cortez must die.
'All right,' Allison said, stepping over to Galleti and reaching out for a weapon. 'Let's do this, before something crawls out of that pit and eats us.'