RedFire
Chapter 5
“I could have come here on my own, you know!” Jax shook his fist at the sky as soon as he was plunked down on the street in Savannah. Glancing around, he found a sign that read, THUNDERBOLT, GEORGIA. “Ah, bloody hell, woman!” he shouted to the Oracle, even though she was thousands of miles away. “You couldn’t even use your own damned thunderbolt properly. I’m in the wrong place.”
It was about midnight, he noted with a glance at his watch. The cutting edge timepiece adjusted to local time via GPS no matter where he traveled—a helpful tool for an immortal protector who was forever flying the heav ens or being teleported by his comrades, often against his will.
Up ahead he saw a small gas station with a sign that read, BOILED PEANUTS SOLD HERE and then scrawled below that, Pork Butt for Sale.
Pork butt? He shivered at the thought. Lately he’d taken to filet mignon, but already this was clearly promising not to be a tenderloin mission.
Unless Shay Angel awaits me here, he thought, his pulse skittering unexpectedly. Where had that thought come from? His vision of her had been in Greece, not Savannah. Clearly all the teleporting had jumbled his emotions.
“My flat had better still be in perfect condition when I return to London,” he grumbled quietly. “And my Mercedes Gullwing. And my clothes. Definitely my clothes.” Especially considering that the Oracle had seen fit to give him a soldier’s version of What Not to Wear, dress ing him in the sort of practical outfit he’d avoided lately: khaki cargo pants and a plain black T-shirt. Not exactly Mayfair’s finest, but it would suit for the mission’s dura tion. By his calculations, the “mission” had to be a small-time one; otherwise the whole crew would have been deployed to this Southern city. Not just him. Definitely small time, nothing else it could be.
Except ... what about the Oracle’s words? She’d said a death warrant was on all their heads. Or had she? She’d hypnotized him so completely, there was no telling what she’d really meant. As always, however, he knew that her prophecy would begin to piece together as the as signment continued; eventually it would all make sense, just not right away.
So if I’m in bloody Thunderbolt, Georgia, how near am I to Savannah? He checked his wristwatch GPS, and was relieved to discover he was only four miles away from Savannah’s downtown sector.
He set out walking; a large, hulking guy like himself didn’t ever worry about getting jumped, even when he was new in town. Or maybe it was just the confidence that came not only from being a Spartan, but also from knowing he could kick any mortal attacker’s ass. Being immortal didn’t hurt either. He kept to the roadside, his gaze sweeping the perimeter, determined to find any clue to the prophetess’s words.
“ ‘Fight upon the Savannah plain,’ ” he muttered un der his breath, sidestepping a broken beer bottle that littered the pavement. “ ‘When you begin your venture there . . .’ ” This was some venture, all right. “Thanks a lot, woman.”
He knew he should have a better attitude, but after so many years in the line of duty, he was worn out. Was it true that he could be killed? Perhaps he should wel come the threat and step into the golden fields of the afterlife.
But then a road sign just up ahead stopped him in his tracks: BONAVENTURE ROAD.
Bonaventure.
It couldn’t be an accident that he’d been set down right here, so close to the sign. This was where it would all begin, he realized, feeling that first jolt of adrenaline hit his system. And then another. And another.
Until the first flush of his transformation had begun.
Shay had driven loops around Savannah, winding her way through the many one-way streets, the squares and cobblestones that comprised her city. Earlier in the eve ning she’d hit Spanky’s for a while, hoping that a beer or two might settle her down. But the regular crowd had been too loud for her melancholy mood, so she’d started driving again. Aimlessly, as if the drone of her tires on the road and the progression of songs on the radio could soothe her tangled emotions.
Until at last she’d made the turns that would take her to her mother. She had to go to Bonaventure, had to protect her mother’s memory—maybe even her body—against those voracious demons she’d seen near her grave earlier in the day. Sure, her warfare hymn had sent them scurrying, but that had been hours ago, and the idea of her mother alone in the cemetery—the thought of the demons gathering around her grave for some vile purpose—was a haunting image that Shay just couldn’t shake. It wasn’t exactly as though the Angel family were beloved by the powers of night, and it was obviously up to Shay to safeguard her mother’s grave site.
Here it was close to midnight, and she stood staring up at the locked gates of Bonaventure Cemetery. They kept tight security around the place because the hoodoo and voodoo had escalated during the past few years—so much, in fact, that they’d had to cancel the candlelight tours that used to be a regular occurrence in the old graveyard. She gave the wrought-iron gates a tug, rattling the loose padlock and chain that fastened them shut.
With a glance upward, she figured the gates were only about seven feet high at most, surprisingly unimposing.
I guess the folks who run this cemetery know they can’t keep the ghosts and witch doctors out, not even with gates as high as a mountain, she thought. Then she shivered at the image of her mother spending nights in the cold, hard ground alone with practitioners of the dark arts.
She’s not here; she’s gone, she tried to tell herself. She is not inside this place.
At least, if all that she and her churchgoing family be lieved was true. Ironic, but Shay’s faith in God and angels had truly awakened only the moment she’d glimpsed her first demon. It was like a math theorem: If totally, horribly, evilly bad exists, then something perfect has to exist to balance it all out.
She’d been praying to see an angel ever since. Just one winged, magnificent creature, a being who watched over her, protected her from evil—and who might drag her family out of this harrowing profession of theirs. Hope fully before she lost Jamie and Mason in the same way that she’d lost her dad. At the memory of her father’s murder, Shay winced, glancing back at the hard iron gates barring her from her mother’s grave.
Oh, angels, are you here? she half prayed. Can’t I see just one of you before I attempt this moronic idea?
Like some sort of homing instinct, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from putting her booted foot on the metal gate. As she started over, she saw nothing. Just midnight and drooping Spanish moss as mosquitoes practically crawled right up her ass.
“Figures,” she whispered aloud. “In the words of George Bailey, you’re about the sort of angels I would get. Only mine are nonexistent.”
Nope. She never got angels . . . just demons. Hordes upon hordes of the nasty guys. And they were males, never females, something she hadn’t quite puzzled her way through yet. Jamie said Mason had some supersecret theory as to why that was, something he’d figured out in Iraq, but in the four months since his tour ended, he hadn’t given up the goods about all that. At least, not to her.
Mounting the top of the gate, she cut her knee on a jut ting spike, ripping her jeans straight through to her flesh. With a cry she catapulted on over, hitting the ground hard. She crouched there, regaining her equilibrium, and gave her injured leg the once-over. Damn it, these were her Lucky jeans, too. Only they hadn’t turned out to be so lucky after all.
Flipping open her cell phone, she used it as a flash light and, sticking to the gravel road, headed toward her family’s plot. She knew the way from all the years she’d spent sketching in the cemetery, not to mention the Sun day afternoons when her mama had dragged them out to visit “the family.” In the South, visiting the peeps ex tended far into the afterlife. If her mother could have gotten away with it, she’d have left regular helpings of biscuits and fried chicken at the cemetery.
The eerie arc of light from her phone illuminated only a few feet ahead at a time, so Shay made her way care fully. One step, another; the trek was slow going without more light, and the overhead oaks obscured the nearly full moon. But then a flash of brightness straight ahead made Shay blink, then squint. At first it vanished, but then reappeared larger, a luminous orb right in the middle of the unpaved road.
Shay’s heart began to slam hard, her throat tightening. Get the hell out of here, girl. No telling what kind of witch doctors might be around this late at night!
Her feet froze, and no matter how hard she tried to back away, it was as if something magnetic kept her glued to the ground.
“Hellfire,” she mumbled beneath her breath—right as she heard the first of the whispering.
“Soooo pretty,” one hollowed-out voice sang, its shrill voice off key.
“Lovely, lovely!” a more masculine one cheered.
“Ours!” Several clanging tones sounded, the noise seeming to come from overhead, from out of the dark ness. From everywhere and absolutely nowhere, all at once.
Shay’s scalp tightened, her hair standing on end. A flush swept down her arms, followed by an ice-cold sensation. Her hands grew numb, and the cell phone slipped from her grasp, clattering onto the road. The aroma of early spring flowers was instantly replaced by that of sulfur, an acrid smell, as if human skin were burning. As if her own skin were burning.
“Holy Mother!” she cried, but the words were caught in her throat. Caught just as tightly as she was, in some sort of supernatural trap.
The harsh cries of unknown animals circled about her, like something right out of the Blair Witch movies—only this was real, and it was happening to her. All these months she’d dodged the demons, stayed below their radar, and now she’d apparently walked right into their nest.
“Delicious . . .”
“Wholesome . . .”
And then, with the most glee of all, the cavernous voices cried in unison, “Hunting!”
She began to hyperventilate, struggling to move her feet, but she felt tight hands clasp her calves, even though she couldn’t see anything. Not in the dark, but it was also far more than that: Whatever held her was invisible even to her hunter’s eyes.
“Let me go!” She searched the blackness, reaching inside herself for anything to battle the onslaught. She dug deep, trying to find some latent talent that she’d never been trained to use. But fate greeted her with only empty hands.
The sounds grew closer, the circling of the demons like a stranglehold on her body and mind. At last she stood fully frozen, barely able to breathe, much less move her hands or blink her eyes.
Help! she prayed, eyes fixed on the sky above. God, help me! Angels, I need you!
Even her heart within her chest began to thud slower; her entire body was freezing, molecule by molecule.
“You’ll make a pretty, pretty statue,” a voice cawed from the trees above. “Pretty here in our home.”
“We devour her!”
“We rape her!”
An argument broke out, wild demonic voices whipping across the inky blackness.
And all the while Shay’s heart grew thicker, beating heavier and slower. And even slower still, like the fading drumbeat of a low, sad funeral march.
Something brushed along her arm, scratching. All at once her right calf erupted in sharp pain, the metallic smell of blood battling against the dreadful odor of sulfur that wrapped about her like a cocoon.
She would die soon. God, let them make me a statue; just don’t let them tear me apart alive! she cried within her spirit. After all, at least Jamie might be able to free her from a paralysis spell. She’d been reading something about that very thing just the other day. What had it been? She tried to recall, panicking.
“A thousand years, unmoving,” a new voice said, male and deep against her ear. “Now that, lovely huntress, that I would like to see.”
Holy Father, they can hear me. I’m powerless if they can even hear my prayers.
“Not all of us,” her captor purred, his breath warm against her cheek. “Only I am that powerful.”
“Who . . . are . . . you?” she barely managed to rasp, her mouth thick, as if she’d been given Novocain. “Name?”
He laughed, a tinkling, light sound that mocked the utter blackness that his presence cast between them. “Little huntress, think me such a fool?” A warm hand pawed at her nape, lifting her hair, then let it fall to her shoulders again, but not before the scrape of sharpness bit into her skin. Long nails or claws, it had to be.
The entity was solid, formed of flesh, not like the others, who were little more than dim echoes calling from the depths of hell.
She tried to argue, but her mouth had frozen solid, cast harshly midcry. With more force and will than she even realized she still possessed, she managed to cut her eyes toward the demon. But he had vanished, and there was only the unexpected clomping of horse’s hooves, the sound of trotting on gravel as the creature rounded behind her. Cloven hooves, maybe? She’d seen a few demons like that while driving down Harris Street last month. Their puckish feet had been at odds with the black leather they wore and the chains they dragged behind them along the sidewalk.
“The statue plan was clever! Thank you, brethren,” Hoof Demon announced from behind her in a strong, eerily human voice. A voice dripping with horrible sen suality and cunning. He was definitely the ringleader here, and smarter than all the others—perhaps smarter than any demon she’d ever seen before. How else would he have managed to freeze her as he was doing—and so quickly?
“Oh, I’m smart indeed.” Clawed fingers stroked her arm. “Smart enough to know that hard marble will never do your beauty justice. No, taking you myself is appeal ing. It’s been far too long since I’ve lain with a woman. Although”—he began to laugh, that deep, husky sound again—“I doubt you’d know what to do with a sword quite like mine.”
Sword? Surely he didn’t mean . . .
She shuddered beneath her skin, every part of her reacting in revulsion—every part, that was, except her frozen marble exterior.
“Oh, indeed, you should glimpse my shaft at full mast. The length of a bronze spear, I guarantee that.”
Get out of my head, you bastard freak!
An explosion of leaves and branches overhead set the demon moving away from her. The heavy sound of his clomping hooves echoed off the road; he circled be side her, staring overhead while dropping into a half-crouching posture.
At that precise moment, the branches above parted enough that the bright moon arced down on her captor, and she would have screamed if she could have. His face was mottled and disfigured, with horns curling inward against his scalp—and, God help her, his body was half horse and half . . . demon. Or half human? She couldn’t say, but monstrous didn’t begin to describe the terrifying nature of the demon beside her.
“Elblas, stand down,” a deep, commanding voice called from above, the trees rustling and swaying. “Leave the human be. She has no part in this battle.” Instantly she felt safer, even though she had no rational reason for doing so.
The demon hissed, his lips curling back viciously. “Mine! Spartan, this one is claimed already!”
“Mortals are off-limits, Elblas. Leave her now or I will cast you into the depths forever this time!”
Then, with a snarl, the one called Elblas swooped back toward her, baring a gleaming set of sharp teeth. “Before he comes, I’ll have you. Because he wants you, I’ll consume you,” the monster hissed, lowering his head to her breasts. “I sense his desperate hunger. But he’ll not have you, my choice little pearl, because what Ajax craves . . . Sable takes.”
Ajax dance-stepped out the length of the tree branch. Not that he needed a promontory in order to observe the demons hording below. He’d seen and sensed plenty already. Discovering Sable, of all creatures—after more than two thousand years—had thrown him completely off guard. He’d been ready to dispatch the gathered band of demons, right until he’d spotted Sable, looking exactly as he had the last time they’d battled it out—perhaps even more hideous.
After Ajax’s devastating reunion with his wife and sons, the rage within him had been immense. Ares, al ways the lover of bloodlust, had told Ajax the identity of the demon who had gotten to his family—and granted Ajax free rein to seek vengeance as he saw fit.
In a godlike fury, Ajax met Elblas in battle, and almost immediately bested the demon’s attack. To punish Sable, Ajax took away that which was most precious to the demon, just as Sable had done to him. However, the only love in Sable’s base existence was for his wings—their beauty and the freedom of flight they provided. So, when Ajax had finished with him, those once glittering wings were gone forever.
Ares himself was disappointed by the battle, specifi cally by Sable’s poor showing. So as his own form of punishment, he banished Sable to an indefinite desert exile, and cursed him with the form of a hideous centaur, eradicating any trace of the beauty of which he had once boasted.
At the sight of his old enemy, instincts raged within Ajax, their voices as primal as the guardian’s blood pumping through his body. To protect the mortal would always be his first priority, but Elblas Djiannas? In the Americas? And set free from his eternal prison? The danger that Elblas—or Sable, as he liked to call himself—posed to all of mankind complicated things. And Ajax hated complications with a fiery, determined passion, especially if it meant he couldn’t save one of his charges. Again his gaze went to the human below, his heart thudding loudly in his chest as he deliberated a course of action.
He could practically hear Leonidas’s charge in his ears: Take out the demon; then get the mortal to safe ground. But protecting the human is your top priority.
But something about the human made him hesitate. That rounded shape of her lips, the cry frozen there, unsettled him. Made the odds seem even more treacherous.
Narrowing his eyes, feeling their silvered power flow into the rest of his body, he saw the landscape below for what it truly was: littered with demons and dark spir its, and even a few lost ghosts. He also confirmed the identity of the centaur below, that he was indeed Jax’s greatest enemy.
Sable cast him a quick glance, then bared his fangs and moved in for the kill. Jax knew exactly what the de mon would do next: He would drain the woman of her life force, suck her spirit right into his own, and leave her as little more than dried leaves spread beneath his feet.
Unless Jax got his Spartan arse in gear—and lightning-fast.
Wyszukiwarka
Podobne podstrony:
quin?81101129081 oeb?9 r1Blac?80440337935 oeb?8 r1de Soto Pieniadz kredyt i cykle R1Pala85515839 oeb toc r1mari?81440608889 oeb?9 r1Pala85515839 oeb?6 r1Thom?80553904765 oeb?4 r1knig?81440601187 oeb fm3 r1Bear53901087 oeb qts r1byer?81101110454 oeb?2 r1knig?81440601187 oeb?0 r1Lab2 4 R1 lab24anon?81101003909 oeb?6 r1Bear53901826 oeb p03 r1byer?81101086520 oeb?0 r1knig?81440601187 oeb?1 r1R1 1schw?81101134702 oeb fm1 r1więcej podobnych podstron