“No big deal there—but I’ll wait until after midnight, after the area around it’s mostly going to be clear of people.”
“I’m not sure it matters.” Sasha sighted the bow. “We’ve had three ugly battles, and no one outside of us seems to have noticed a thing. I think what we’re doing isn’t making a ripple on reality.”
“Maybe, but when I was sixteen and training, I dropped down into a strip club in Amsterdam. It caused a ripple. My coordinates were a little off, and well, being sixteen, naked women were always on my mind.”
“I like clothes. They’re pretty. But for swimming, naked is best.”
Sawyer glanced at Annika, then carefully away. “Okay, now that’s on my mind.”
“Set it aside, pal. I for one don’t want to drop into a strip joint. Sun’s setting,” Riley added.
And a storm’s coming, Sasha thought.
With the weapons handed out, they brought the rest of their belongings down. If they had to retreat, they’d count on Sawyer, and leave behind anything he couldn’t transport.
They ate, for fuel rather than hunger, as the edginess of waiting overwhelmed everything else.
As the clock ticked toward midnight, Sasha stood.
“What is it?” Bran demanded. “What do you see?”
“Hear. I hear her calling to them. Singing to them. She’s gathering.”
“Let’s saddle up.” When Riley rose, Annika laid a hand on the dog’s head.
“Apollo. We should shut him inside, safe.”
“He’ll just bust out. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Strange, Sasha thought as they moved into positions—two by two on the verdant green lawn—that she could feel so much dread and so much relief at the same time.
The combination left little room for fear. The Fire Star was safe, beyond Nerezza’s reach, she thought. If they survived the night, they would begin the search for the next. If they didn’t, someone else would pick up the quest.
She reached out, took Bran’s hand. “Whatever happens, I’ve had more in these last two weeks than I ever had or thought to have.”
“A ghrá.” He brought her hand to his lips with a kind of steely defiance. “There’s more yet.”
“They’re coming.” She released his hand to swing her bow into position.
They’d come before in swarms, in clouds, but they came now in a tidal wave that blacked out the stars and the light of the waning moon.
And the sound of them filled the world.
Bran blasted light up, illuminating them—the sick yellow eyes and fanged teeth, the spread of razor-sharp wings. She thought it was like watching hell roll over the world. Then she shot the first bolt, and stopped thinking.
They fell like black, oily rain, screamed as they raked the air with claws that gleamed deadly in Bran’s conjured light.
Her world contracted into load, aim, shoot with the blasts of gunfire echoing, the horrid sound of steel hacking gnarled flesh, the zing of light snapping from Annika’s bracelets.
Bran set off the first vial, and in its bloom of light that greasy blood splattered.
And still more came.
She held her ground, even as a thin fog flowed over the ground and hissed like snakes, she fought back-to-back with Bran. But the fog bit at her boots, icy teeth, pushing her back.
“Stay close,” Bran shouted, and swept fire over the fog.
It screamed, and it burned.
When her quiver emptied, she used her knife, her fists, her feet to clear a path so she could grab up bloodied bolts and reload.
Another vial exploded, and again, and still more gushed from the black sky.
“It’s now.” Bran grabbed her hand, then shouted for Riley to set off the first bottle. “Hold on,” he told Sasha, and wrapped his arm firmly around her waist.
It wasn’t like flying—somehow she’d thought it would be. It was like riding a rocket, so hot, so fast, all blurred in speed.
Then she was on the promontory with him, as she’d been in dreams.
“Stay behind me, or I swear I’ll send you back.” He pulled her against him. “Whatever happens, stay behind me.” His mouth crushed down on hers in a kiss as full of heat as the flight. “I love you,” he said, then turned to call the storm.
She thought she knew. She’d dreamed it, hadn’t she? Again and again. But she hadn’t known what he could call, what he could rule, what he could risk.
Power shook the air, the ground, and the sea below as he lifted his arms.
“In this place, in this hour, I call upon all worlds of power. What you are, bring to me across the land, across the sea, to rise and rage with furious might and rid the world of this blight. Roar the thunder!”
It boomed like cannon fire.
“And with your voice rip them asunder. Hot blue flames of lightning spears.”
It tore out of the sky, electric blue and blinding.
“To burn all darkness that appears.
“Whirl wind across their flight and send them spinning into the night. Pour the rain in white-hot flood and drown them in their own black blood.”