“Everyone, back on your feet,” Simon ordered.
Charlotte pulled away from Malcolm and dropped onto all fours, charging like an attack dog. She loped over the wreckage and launched herself across the moat of lava surrounding the marble platform where Gaios stood. Her speed took the elemental by surprise and he actually flinched as the huge savage thing hurtled at him. Charlotte slammed into the black-armored figure, knocking him back only a step. He managed to bring up his sheathed hand and jam it against her hairy throat, holding the snapping jaws away from his head.
Suddenly a jagged shaft of obsidian shot out the back of Charlotte’s neck. She stiffened. Her eyes rolled up and her claws scrabbled off Gaios’s impervious chest. The elemental lowered his arm and the werewolf slid off the long stone spike that extended from his fist. She collapsed in a heap at his feet and began to shrink back into the shape of a helpless, quivering little girl. Blood dripped from the sharp stone as it flowed back up to become the gauntlet over Gaios’s hand.
Malcolm screamed his throat raw and pulled his pistols. He ran toward the crumbled temple. The Lancasters boomed.
“Malcolm, no!” Simon shouted. He grabbed Kate as she started toward Gaios with the blood of her sister painted on her hands. “Don’t go near him!”
Kate turned on Simon, fury welling in her face like an oncoming storm. But with tremendous effort she held on to the last vestiges of her sanity in the wake of tragedy. She took a step back to his side, her hand reaching for her pistol.
“We have to work together!” he said. “Or we have no chance.”
Malcolm’s heavy shells smashed cracks in the black obsidian cuirass. Gaios was slammed onto his back. Malcolm threw both empty pistols aside as he ran and drew his dagger. He jumped over the magma, his long black coat fluttering behind him, and landed hard at the feet of the elemental. Without pause, Malcolm raised the knife over his head and let out a Gaelic war cry.
Two columns of stone rose on either side of him. When they smashed together, Malcolm was not between them. He had flipped backward, his feet landing just inches short of the bubbling lava.
Gaios rose on obsidian tendrils as they pushed him up to his feet, then retracted into his armor. He glared down at Malcolm, but suddenly a slim javelin flew toward him. It was a shaft glowing blue, Simon’s sword. The blade sank into Gaios’s shoulder as if he wore no armor. Before he could react, his head was covered in ice. A large shape moved alongside Malcolm and Hogarth drew back his war maul. The mace collided with Gaios and sent black stone flying in glittering shards. The elemental went to one knee.
“Take Charlotte!” Simon shouted at Malcolm as Hogarth swung another colossal blow against Gaios, sending him spinning.
Malcolm gathered the limp form of Charlotte in his arms. Blood seeped from a horrid gash in her neck, but she was breathing. He carried her back to where Simon and Kate waited.
Jane ran up to them. She leaned over Charlotte when he set her down and began to wrap a bandage torn from her own dress around the girl’s throat. Simon pulled Malcolm away from her. Kate loaded her crossbow, her face harsh like Medusa, her gaze never leaving the armored demigod.
The ground where Hogarth stood was upended and he tumbled away from Gaios. Carried by the weight of his mace, he slid down the marble slab and crashed to the ground some twenty yards from the elemental. A sudden blast of lava boiled up through the paving stones and enveloped his legs. Hogarth screamed.
Penny struggled toward Hogarth even though her steps were weak and labored. She grabbed his arm and started to pull. Hogarth’s weight nearly dragged her into the lava. She dug her boot heels against some wreckage and hooked her elbow under his arm. The exhausted engineer pulled the large man out of the burning pool. He collapsed onto the ground in a gasping catatonic lump, his legs black, withered, and steaming. The engineer started to stand.
“Penny!” Simon shouted, climbing back to his feet. “Get back!”
Gaios turned toward her even as he ripped Simon’s sword from his body. Stones flew off the ground and shot at her with high-pitched whistles. She raised her arms over her head, but the rocks pounded her with sick thudding sounds. Penny collapsed to the ground, unable to protect herself from being crushed to a pulp. Gratefully the barrage ceased when Nick hit Gaios with a shaft of ice, distracting the furious elemental.
Through a shower of blackened rocks and bits of pumice, Malcolm ran to Penny’s side. He inspected her unconscious figure and seemed relieved. He rummaged through her rucksack and pulled out her small sound pistol. With a quick hand on her bruised bloody face, he turned back to Gaios. Ashes were falling everywhere now, dark and dense.