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CHAPTER 26

It’s really hard to hold onto the side of a vehicle racing over a shit road in a favela. We hit so many potholes I nearly bit my tongue off. I probably left finger-shaped dents in the roof rack and the bouncing was killing my calf muscles, but there was no time to slow down. If the bad guys had set up multiple ambush points, that meant there were reinforcements nearby who might be converging on our position.

The whole ambush had taken less than a minute. It had been terrifying, but I hadn’t had time to process it. Now it was sinking in that it had been a miracle I hadn’t gotten shot. I caught glimpses of a winged form shadowing us which had to be Lana. Or at least I hoped it was her, and not some other random flying monstrosity. Then we braked so suddenly that it almost yanked my arms out of my sockets, but I managed to not get tossed into the dirt.

The back door opened. “Get in.” Curtis shoved our dead trunk monkey into the street. The poor guy had bled out, so no need for him to take up space. Extrajudicial Unicorn didn’t give a shit about leave no man behind. It was pragmatic, but it definitely demonstrated that these guys didn’t screw around. Franks and I got in the back and they floored it before we had even pulled the doors closed.

The driver turned out to be Stricken. From the amount of blood all over the upholstery and the wind whistling through the huge bullet hole through the armored glass, their original driver had met the same fate as ours. Sonya had wound up in the passenger seat and was holding an old M16 which, from the amount of blood on it, the previous owner no longer needed.

After a few seconds of terror, we were all that was left of the convoy. Holy shit, that had been close. Humans could be scarier than monsters.

“Are you guys okay?” Sonya asked.

“Yeah,” I said, even as I checked myself for holes.

Franks grunted as he inspected a wound in his shoulder. Then he grossed us all out by sticking his finger deep in the gash and probing around. A moment later he fished out a chunk of shrapnel. “I’m fine.” He tossed the jagged chunk of metal on the floor. It was probably still hot. I’d have been screaming and bleeding. Franks just seemed annoyed.

“Who were those guys, Stricken? And don’t lie and say cultists. They looked way too official.”

“Well, yes and no.” He laid on the horn to warn some street urchins to get out of our way. Thankfully, they did, because I had no doubt Stricken would have run them down. “Those were Gatos Pretos. The Black Cats. They’re a death squad that sometimes works for the state, but in this case, they’re taking orders from the cultists who’ve infiltrated their leadership, and they’re going to use the Gatos to kill anyone who gets in their god’s way. Which god they’re working for, I’ve not nailed that down quite yet. But it’s kind of irrelevant since both of them would love to see all of us dead.”

I’d never heard of this death squad, but I had a nagging feeling that I knew their leader somehow. I’d not gotten that good of a look at him, but something was eating at the back of my mind. “Who is in charge of these Black Cats?”

“Don’t know. It’s not like they have a website. You’ll have to forgive me for not having unrestricted access to the entire US intelligence apparatus anymore.”

Whoever he was, that brief glimpse had set my teeth on edge. There was something familiar, but not . . .  It was like my subconscious was trying to tell me something, but it hadn’t clicked just yet.

“Sorry about your men,” Sonya said.

Stricken waved one hand dismissively. “They were local hires. Temps. I didn’t learn most of their names. Them’s the breaks.”

“Nance was in that lead car with Franks, sir,” Curtis said.

“That the other American?” Franks asked.

“Yeah. We were on the task force together.”

“He died quick,” Franks said simply.

“Shit . . . ” Curtis stared off into space, then he punched the seat.

“He was a good man,” Stricken said, though I honestly couldn’t tell if Stricken actually meant that or he was just trying to placate his remaining volunteer. After being thrown out of the government, he was probably running low on willing helpers. “We’ll make sure his sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”

One second we were speeding through a favela, and the next it was like a switch had been flipped and we were in a different world. We went around one gentle turn, a patch of trees, and just like that, the road was paved and smooth and straight. The buildings were new, tall, and clean. There was no trash or graffiti anymore. It was a jarring jump between extreme poverty and respectable prosperity. It was almost as quick as falling through the portal from Alabama. I’d heard of bad side of the tracks, but Brazil took that concept to a whole new level.

Stricken was checking the mirrors as we got onto a wide, straight, two-lane road. He even wore his sunglasses at night. “I think we’ve shaken them. I don’t see a tail.”

Now that Stricken was deprived of his mercenary army, Franks must have recalculated his previous cooperation because he pulled his Glock and stuck it against the back of our host’s head.

Curtis reached for his handgun, but Franks’ other hand shot out and grabbed Curtis’ wrist. The poor guy winced as Franks twisted. He was so damned strong that he could have snapped every bone if he felt like it, but he refrained. His attention was on the jackass in the driver’s seat.

“I should’ve seen this horrible betrayal coming,” Stricken said. “Oh, wait. I did. Relax, Franks. I needed the private army on hand until you cooled off enough to be rational. You’ve been briefed on what the MCB knows about this situation, so you know it’s serious enough you can’t risk me being wrong. I’m the key to stopping this, and you obviously get that, otherwise the contents of my head would already be all over the windshield.”

Franks said, “You killed Strayhorn.”

I didn’t even know who that was, but the way Franks said it, Strayhorn had obviously been somebody important to him.

Stricken took a deep breath. “Indirectly. And I know you’ll make me pay for that eventually.” For being a former danger guy turned desk jockey, Stricken still had ice water in his veins, because I’ve had Franks point guns at me, and there’s never any doubt that he’s willing to pull the trigger. “But we both know what Dwayne Myers would tell you if he was here right now.”

“I can’t ask ’cause you killed him too.”

Stricken suddenly shouted, “Bullshit, Franks. You know what he’d say. You know damned good and well Myers would tell you the mission has to come first. I know about how your status has changed. You can’t just shrug off that many innocent lives being lost like it’s no big deal anymore. This is the era of the more sensitive, kinder and gentler Agent Franks. You have to do the right thing now.”

I had no idea what any of that meant either, but we were doing eighty and climbing. If Franks shot our driver, we were hosed.

Sonya was thinking the same thing. “Don’t do it, Franks. You’ll kill us all.”

“Maybe you should have him pull over, then shoot him,” I suggested as I buckled my seat belt.

“I’d be fine,” Franks said, and that was probably true.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Stricken said, and it was obvious from the way he said it that he wasn’t talking about a car accident. “If you’re gonna do it, fucking do it. None of you have a second to waste. I die, you can try to stop this without me, but by the time you figure out what you need to do, it’ll be too late, and all the bloodshed and carnage and suffering that result will be on your head. Yours alone, Franks. How’s that going to go over with the big man upstairs, throwing away all those innocent lives just because you wouldn’t master your pride just long enough to work with me? I wouldn’t want that on my soul.”

I doubted Stricken had a soul, because he’d probably already sold it to the highest bidder. I wasn’t sure if Franks had come equipped from the factory with one either, but as Stricken said all that stuff, Franks just frowned even harder. His beady eyes got even squintier. For a second I thought for sure Stricken was going to die.

Except Franks slowly lowered the Glock. He let it linger on Stricken’s spine, as if still tempted to put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life instead, but then Franks put the pistol back in the holster. He let go of Curtis, who snatched his battered arm away, wrist already covered in spreading bruises.

“I’m still gonna kill you.”

“I’d expect nothing less! Alright, with that uncomfortable real talk out of the way, Franks is now officially on the team too. Fantastic. Finally.” Even though he’d been a few ounces of trigger pull away from death, Stricken got right back on track. “Our destination is only a few miles away. The VIPs will be there promptly at sunrise. I know it’s a terrible time for a big powwow, but the sun thing is symbolic with them. Be on your best behavior. They’ll probably have some muffins and OJ or something but don’t eat or drink anything they offer.”

“What?” Sonya was shocked. She might have been hyperventilating. “We’re still having a meeting? We just got blown up! Franks has a hole in him. We’re all covered in blood! Like ten dudes just died right in front of us and you’re talking about breakfast etiquette?”

“You want to end up beholden to them over some gift obligation, that’s fine with me, but do it on your own time,” Stricken said. “Of course we’re still going. We’re on the clock. And if you want that thing out of you before it kills you—and yes, there’s a clock on that too—then you’d better shut up and pay attention.”

I had to remember that Sonya was relatively new to all this and probably freaking out. “It’s going to be fine.” I used my calming voice. It was the same one I used on Ray when he got mad that I wouldn’t let him put something disgusting he found on the ground in his mouth. “Just relax and breathe.”

“Listen to him, kid. Collect yourself. I didn’t have a chance to talk about this earlier, but we need to put on a united front during the briefing. If they don’t get on board, this mission is scratched before it even starts.”

“If that happens, there’s no reason not to kill you.” Franks almost sounded hopeful.

“True . . . and guilt-free too,” Stricken said slowly. Apparently, he hadn’t thought through every angle. “So let’s not screw this up, team.”

“We need details on the meet,” I said. “Who with and why?”

“The why first. We need something, oh, the best way to think of it is an all-access visitor’s pass but to another dimension. This altercation between the factions has spilled onto Earth, but it didn’t start here. It’s in a connected realm. There’s an intersection between several worlds out in that jungle.”

“Far beneath an ancient pyramid, where some horrible creature from the Old Ones lurks,” I said, thinking of the ancient memories I’d been shown of where Lord Machado had been cursed.

“Sort of.” Stricken didn’t get surprised often. He clearly didn’t like the feeling. “How—”

“On the clock, remember?” It felt good to not let the man who seemingly knew everything not know a secret, but I’m petty like that. “Keep talking.”

“That’s not the crossing, but it’s near where an Old One has been slumbering. The war between the factions has gotten that thing stirred up. Its nasty behavior is what your Catholic buddies have been fighting. That intersection is getting mighty crowded and some weird shit is going down in that jungle. But stopping those things doesn’t fix the underlying problem. It’s just slapping a patch on a leaky tire. If the Vatican had gotten the Ward like they wanted, they’d only be able to use it on this side of the veil. It’s the other side that’s the real problem, and mere regular humans can’t get in there without an invite. We can fight a holding pattern on this side, but that’s it. Eventually one of the factions will win on the other, but when they do, it is going to rip a permanent festering sore in our world.”

“Coslow told me a few million casualties, conservatively speaking.”

“Is that all? Harold’s getting optimistic in his old age. If we’re going to stop that from happening, we have to be able to cross over into the other world where the battle’s actively raging, and we can’t do that without the landlord’s permission. They’re super picky about keeping out the riffraff and too proud to let any regular dirty humans help them. That’s the why. The who is a Fey queen.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sonya said.

“Don’t worry. Not the one your dad annoyed. Totally different branch of the species. This royal family is less about the fine-print legalese and more about the honor and glory . . . Come to think of it, probably a totally different dimension of origin. I don’t know. Their family trees get really confusing. They used to be worshipped as gods up and down the Western Hemisphere; Incas, Xingu, Olmecs, Aztecs, all the way up to the Eskimos, and everything in between, this was their turf. Different creatures appeared in different forms to different tribes and they’re remembered by a bunch of different names. Only they’re not nearly as strong as they used to be. Amazing what a lack of worshippers and human sacrifices will do for your magic. But they still think of themselves as gods. They call themselves the Court of Feathers. Since these Fey look at mankind as their inferiors, only specific offices or bloodlines make the cut to get in. I’d be happy to let the stuck-up pricks get crushed by the Old Ones, but that leaves Earth with a vulnerable flank.”

“What’s that mean?” Sonya sked.

“It means that until we stop this, there’s going to be a hole in the jungle endlessly barfing up terrible creatures and evil spirits into our world,” I said, thinking of the City of Monsters.

“That’s part of it,” Stricken said. “Our contact with those dark realms is relatively limited right now. The spirit worlds inhabited by the Fey are between us and them. This would remove that layer of separation. The Fey, though dangerous and often malicious, are relatively harmless in comparison. Think of it as having the worst neighbors ever. The Fey are like having a meth lab next door, but they keep to themselves and don’t blow up often. In comparison the Old Ones getting a toehold would be like living next to the Chernobyl radioactive toxic waste dump with a never-ending, giant, tire fire and them tossing used AIDS needles over the fence all day for our kids to play with. Having them would really lower the old property values.”

This week kept getting worse. The last time I’d dealt with the Fey I’d gotten chased across the Nightmare Realm and ended up in a duel. “If these are the kind that want a musical challenge, you should’ve got my brother instead of me.”

“We’re already past that phase of the negotiations. I’ve got this all figured out. The groundwork is laid. Let me do the talking. In fact, as far as they’re concerned, I’m humanity’s sole official representative, and if I wasn’t around, somebody else would have to start over from scratch. Years of work wasted.” Stricken looked in the rearview at Franks. “This is a perfect example why Coslow was willing to cut me a deal. You need me.”

Franks made a noncommittal angry noise.

“There was no way I could sign Coslow’s deal, by the way. I’m no slave. I’m tired of putting in the work so that somebody squeamish can appear in my chain of command, hesitate, and ruin everything. I’m going to save mankind from itself whether it wants me to or not. Bunch of fucking ingrates.”

“You talk a lot of smack for somebody who has to kidnap people to be his coworkers,” Sonya said.

“The old friends’ list has taken some hits.” Stricken laughed. “Okay, our destination is just ahead. Not the tall buildings, the grove on the other side of them. That’s the site of one of their old shrines. Hopefully, I’ll have a minute to clean up first.” He wiped one bloody hand on the seat distastefully. “The rest of you I pitched as warriors, so it’s okay for you to be scruffy. These Fey aren’t the snooty kind. They’re more on the primal side. Blood-soaked and crazed actually works for them. Lana should catch up shortly, but she and Curtis aren’t high enough status so they won’t be allowed inside, which offends my egalitarian sensibilities, but it is what it is.”

“I’m truly fine with that, sir,” Curtis said, as he tried to rub the feeling back into his arm. “Y’all have fun with the crazy space monsters.”

I had my own resources, so I’d ask Julie to have our people look into what we knew about this Court of Feathers, so I wouldn’t have to count on Stricken’s devious interpretations of events. I got my phone out. We’d gotten interrupted earlier so I’d not seen her response to my last question.

The Drek vanished. He’s still alive.

That meant tomorrow night was going to suck. “Bad news, everybody.”

“Silas Carver,” Stricken muttered.

“Yeah.” Except Stricken hadn’t said that like he was guessing. I looked up from my phone to see the glowing figure standing in the middle of the road a few hundred yards ahead of us. “Oh, hell.”

The Drekavac had found us.

Man-sized, he was back in the big black coat and hat, with cutlass in hand. The absence of fog meant that whatever evil energy he had left was all gathered in that final body.

And we had no idea how much power that was.

“We don’t have time for this.” Stricken looked to the east. The horizon was taking on some color. It was nearly sunrise. “If we’re late, the queen will take offense. No invite to the other side.”

“Run him down,” Franks said.

Stricken didn’t hesitate. He gunned it. “Hang on.”

Hopefully fast traveling to a different hemisphere had used up some more of the Drekavac’s remaining strength, but he was walking right down the center line toward us as other cars swerved to miss him, and he didn’t seem to care about getting hit. He was a monster on a mission.

I watched our speedometer climb. Stricken’s spindly hands were on the wheel, gleefully turning our armored vehicle into a guided missile. “Should have taken my job offer, Silas.”

The monster stopped and lifted his sword. The stance was different, but the attitude was like a baseball player ready to swing at a fastball. The air crackled with malevolent energy. He wanted us to hit him.

“It’s a trap!” I shouted, too late, as our grill rushed to meet him.

The Drekavac threw his sword as he sidestepped.

A lot of things happened really fast.

The sword sheared right through our windshield. I saw it spinning, burning blue and spitting sparks through the center of our ride. The air was filled with flying glass and then big blobs of blood.

Stricken still managed to clip the Drekavac with our front fender, and it must have massed far more than it looked, because it was like hitting a wall. The body crumpled. The frame bent. And we were spinning out of control on screaming, smoking tires.

We hit the edge of the road and flipped.

Up was down, then down was up, and back again, as my body got yanked against the belt and slammed against the door. Limbs were flailing. Mine and everybody else’s. Franks hadn’t been buckled it and he collided with me, and then got flung against the roof.

We stopped.

Metal was creaking. The engine was making a ticking noise. I was dangling upside down. Tasting blood. Didn’t think it was mine.

Everything hurt. Head hurt. Body hurt. Thinking hurt. I couldn’t stop blinking. My throat was constricted and there was a lot of pressure in my chest, but I could breathe.

The threat was still out there. Have to assess. Have to act.

The ghost sword had spun right through the center of the cab. Curtis had been sitting in the middle of the back seat. The bottom half of his torso was still buckled in. His top half had landed below me. Sonya was ahead of me, also buckled in and hanging limp, unconscious. Stricken was . . . gone? The driver’s seat was empty. The headrest had been sheared clean off by the sword.

Franks had landed in back. My shaken brain processed this from the noise as Franks crawled out the broken rear window. Of course he was the first to move.

I tried to get my seat belt unbuckled, which was when I realized that I was bleeding. The blood was dripping toward the roof, not squirting. So, minor cuts, no severed arteries. File that in the to-deal-with-later pile. I didn’t know where Cazador had ended up.

When I got the buckle released, I awkwardly dropped, but I used my other hand to brace myself and not break my neck. Curtis’ remains were below me, a hot sticky mess. My bullet-resistant window had popped out during the roll, and though the door was deformed, there was still room for me to squeeze through. I started crawling outside.

Franks was already standing there, because of course he was. Franks was indestructible. Except then I realized that he was missing his right arm. Okay. Almost indestructible.

He’d been hit by the flying sword, so sharp and moving at such a combined velocity that it had cut right through his MCB armor, flesh, and bone. And from the angle, it hadn’t just removed his arm near the armpit, but it had cut deep into his chest too.

Franks looked down at the giant laceration, and then at his stump, and frowned. “Hmmm . . . ”

“You okay?” I gasped.

“Lung collapsing. Primary heart badly damaged. I’m three minutes from being combat ineffective.”

Oh shit. It took a lot to render Franks combat ineffective. For him that meant he would pass out, unable to do much, until his MCB handlers could do major surgery, transplant some organs, graft on some new limbs, and then weld it all together through his mystical elixir of life. But better him than me because if the blade had been angled the other way, I’d have died instantly.

Wobbling to my feet, I looked around. No sign of the Drekavac. No sign of Stricken either. Maybe he’d been tossed free when we rolled? I couldn’t remember if he’d been buckled in or not. I went to Sonya’s door.

“Sonya, can you hear me?” No answer. “Sonya!”

She coughed. “I’m alive.”

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are bones sticking out or you’re squirting blood?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Then you’ll be fine,” I lied, because internal bleeding was a bitch. I squatted in so I could see her. Her door was more crushed than mine, and the front roof was caved in, but she was skinny and could probably wiggle out. “Can you move?”

“Working on it.” There was a thump as she got her seat belt unbuckled. “I didn’t sign up for this shit, Opie.”

“You kinda did.”

Then Stricken walked around the crumpled front of the truck, holding the shotgun he’d threatened Franks with in one hand and making a big show of dusting himself off with the other. Somehow, that son of a bitch was in one piece. I didn’t think there was even a scratch on him. But the way the top of his seat had gotten sheared off by the Drekavac’s sword, he should’ve been decapitated. How’d he do that?

“That didn’t go the way I hoped,” Stricken said as he took in the debris-strewn field we’d landed in. “Okay, we can still salvage this. Let’s go.”

I helped drag Sonya through the broken glass and into the dirt; then we lay there, breathing hard.

“Sorry, team. Clock’s ticking. We’re going to be late. Who’s up for a jog? That’s the path right there.” I think he might have actually been trying to make himself sound chipper. “Let’s go. Chop, chop. The sun’s about to rise. We can’t be late.”

We were a sorry-looking bunch. I didn’t know about running. Franks would probably just bleed out faster with exertion. Sonya actually didn’t look too shaken, but that was probably because being half kodama was a real lifesaver. I was wrecked.

“Damn it,” Stricken shouted. “I didn’t spend all these resources and do all this planning and gather you mopes for this mission just to have you punk out now. I need at least one Chosen and a Ward Stone to present to the queen or this mission is aborted! You want to save lives, Pitt, get up. You want your ten million bucks, Sonya, you’ve got to earn it.”

“Ten million?”

Sonya was still lying next to me. “Contract renegotiation.”

So that’s why Stricken had wanted Sonya to ride with him. Bribery. “That song sucked.”

“Still gonna buy a whole lot of trees.”

“Incoming,” Franks warned.

Silas Carver had survived the collision and was stumbling across the field toward us, coat tattered, and leaking tears of flame from his torn-open face. It was clear that the impact had really damaged him. The Drekavac was nearly dead, but an even nearly dead hellish creature like him could still destroy us, especially with our biggest badass Franks running on fumes.

“Tenacious bastard. You can see why I wanted to recruit him,” Stricken said. “We don’t have time to fight. We run, he catches us, we’re all late. I only need to present one Chosen to the queen. So which one of you two badasses is going to do the heroic gesture and slow him down while the rest of us save the world?”

“I will,” Franks said without hesitation.

It wasn’t like I went through any sort of complicated decision-making process trying to get myself killed, but I got up, said “Bullshit,” and shoved Franks. He stumbled and nearly fell over. Considering what a beast he normally was, that was telling. Normally, Franks would’ve seen that coming, and then body-slammed me through the planet for making the attempt. The gesture was rude, but we didn’t have time to argue about how he was missing an arm and had a big hole in his heart. Carver would probably kill Franks and then come after us anyway. “See?”

“That settles it,” Stricken snapped. “Here.” He tossed his shotgun over and I reflexively caught it. “Everybody else follow me.”

Franks gave me an angry glare for the shove, but then his expression softened because he knew I was right. Currently, right this second, he was toast. Patch him up, and he’d be far more valuable out there than I would be. With him, it was always mission first. Franks gave me a respectful nod.

That was probably one of the biggest compliments Franks had probably ever paid to anybody. If I hadn’t been concussed and scared to death, I probably would’ve gotten choked up.

Franks limped after Stricken. Sonya had reached into the wreck and retrieved the sword that Milo had given her. She looked up at me, wide-eyed, afraid but trying not to show it, as she realized I was about to sacrifice myself to save them and a bunch of strangers. “What do I do?”

“Stick with Franks.”

“No, I mean—”

“Just do what your dad would’ve done.” I put one hand on her shoulder. “I’ll catch up.”

“Sure you will,” Stricken shouted. “Move your ass, Sonya.”

“Thanks.” Then she ran after them.

The Drekavac was less than fifty yards away and coming over to murder my ass. Stricken’s shotgun was a Beretta 1301 with the shiny marine finish. I chamber-checked. Loaded. It had a sidesaddle full of slugs too. I shouldered it and put the front sight on the monster. If this final body was operating at the levels Gutterres and I had faced on the first night, what I had here should be enough to kill him. If it was like any of the later levels we’d just seen at the compound . . . I was doomed.

Here goes nothing.

I fired. The first slug nailed him in the chest. Fire squirted out the hole. The Drekavac didn’t even wobble.

He started to run. I tried to slow him down by aiming low and putting a slug into one of his legs. It took a chunk out of it. He tripped but sprang right back up. The neurotoxin designed to fry Franks did nothing to Silas Carver’s alien anatomy. His cold-fire-pumping heart didn’t care about poison. I went high and shot him in the head. It blew a fist-sized hole out the back of his metallic skull. The Drekavac kept coming. I kept shooting.

He could have materialized a gun and shot me back. The fact that he didn’t gave me some hope. Silas Carver was running on empty. All he had left was this angry husk and a desire for revenge.

The shogun went dry. I reloaded a single round from the sidesaddle and nailed him again. I got another shot off like that before he was on me.

I saw the punch coming and just barely got out of the way. The next one I wasn’t so lucky and he tagged me in the shoulder. Flailing back, Carver was on me in an instant. I hit him with the shotgun butt across the teeth. He lurched to the side and I used that moment to pluck the last shell from the sidesaddle and shove it into the open port. Driving the muzzle into his gut, I shoved him against the flipped truck, dropped the bolt, and fired. Fiery bits flew everywhere. The heavy slug ripped right through him, ricocheted off the armored plate, and back through his chest. The deformed projectile still had the energy to fly past my ear at lethal velocity.

Good thing it didn’t hit me, because if that jellyfish toxin could put down Franks, it would probably make me shrivel up and die on contact.

Carver hoisted me up by the armor and then hurled me back. I hit the grass hard, but reflexively rolled so that I could draw my sidearm . . . which was still in Alabama. Shit.

The Drekavac kicked me in the stomach hard enough to lift me into the air. I came back down on my face.

“My quarrel was not with you, Hunter. You should have let me fulfill my duty.” Carver grabbed me by the drag strap on the back of my armor, effortlessly lifted all three hundred pounds of me off the ground and tossed me through the air. I bounced off one of the tires and landed in the dirt. “It was a simple contract. Retrieve the item and punish the thief. The Hubertian shackled my gift and the Hunters wounded me, delivering me into the hands of that vile manipulator, Stricken. For this you will pay.”

Drawing my kukri, I slashed at him. He dodged aside, and then backhanded me across the face. It knocked me to my knees. Then he kicked me in the chest and launched me back into the wreck.

Desperate, dizzy, and out of breath, I looked toward the horizon, but the sun wasn’t up yet.

He knew what I was searching for. “You expect the day to save you? In moments, this form shall return to dust, sparing your allies for a time. Only I will vow that I will reverse the Hubertian’s rite, regain all my lives, and come for them when they least expect it. Every last transgressor will pay with their lives. The thief, the Hubertians, the Hunters, the plotter—all of them will die. As for you, there is more than enough darkness left to end your wretched existence.”

I’d bought them time. They’d make the meeting. Stricken would do his thing, persuade the Fey, and mankind would have a chance to strike a blow against the other factions. I’d accomplished my goal.

“Why do you laugh?” Silas Carver asked, confused. “Is this another trick?”

“Job satisfaction.” Struggling back to my feet, I wiped the blood from my lips. “Let’s do this.”

I swung for his head. The monster blocked the blade with his forearm. If that had been a mortal human arm it would be lying in the grass, but all my heavy blade did was take a sparking chunk out of it. Backing up, I raised my kukri and delivered a downward strike with all my might. It hit so hard the impact vibrated through my bones. It only took a chip out of the side of his neck.

He was far tougher than when Gutterres had decapitated him, and that was after walking off being hit by an armored car.

His fist nailed me like a high-speed iceberg.

When I tried to slash him again, he caught my arm and flipped me onto my back. This last form was still crazy strong. He was regular Franks strong. Driving his knee against my throat to pin me, he twisted my arm, grinding it in the socket. I roared in pain. He was going to rip my arm off with his bare hands. He was going to pluck all my limbs off one by one like a malicious kid torturing a bug.

“Assei!”

Suddenly, the freezing grip released and the pressure on my joint was gone. The Drekavac lurched away, spraying fire from one ruined eye socket.

Sonya had come back.

With her father’s sword in both hands, she waded into the monster, striking over and over. Flaming bits flew off the Drekavac with each hit.

I hurt so bad that moving seemed mentally impossible, but I told my brain to shut up and got back to my feet. Sonya was swinging that sword so fast and with such wild abandon that it was like a steel weed whacker. She’d probably slice me by accident, so I flanked around to hit the Drekavac from the other side.

The two of us hacked madly at the monster as he desperately tried to intercept most of our blows with his arms. I took some fingers off. Sonya sliced a chunk of his face. But then Carver drove his shoulder into me, trying to get away from her, and it was like getting trampled by a bull. I went down and caught a freezing boot to the head that left me stunned.

Silas Carver was being driven back as Sonya kept wildly hacking at him. She wasn’t some mystical sword master. It was clear she didn’t know what she was doing. There was nothing smooth about it, except she was just supernaturally fast, terrified, and she was really motivated.

Except ultimately, she was just a kid, and Silas Carver had been killing people for centuries. The instant Sonya overextended herself, the Drekavac surged, and clotheslined her so hard that it probably caused an earthquake back in her family’s spirit realm.

“Damnable mortals,” Carver spat. He didn’t even breathe but it was almost like he was winded. He’d been torn to pieces, nothing but a tangle of broken wires, bleeding mass and spitting fire. He lurched toward Sonya, until he stood over her helpless form. He lifted one fist to crush her head. “Worst contract ever.”

I tackled him.

We hit the ground with me on top. I struggled up just enough to get a good angle, and then slammed the kukri through his face, planting it deep into both eye sockets. The steel sank in about an inch. Not good enough.

I left my blade planted in him, stood up, and stomped on the spine of the kukri, and I kept on stomping as the monster twitched and jerked, head wires popping, until I’d driven the steel all the way through and cut the top of his head off.

Silas Carver twitched a few times, and then he was still . . .  Liquid fire poured out as the contents of his skull emptied, creating a puddle of ectoplasmic mud. The body slowly began to crumble into ash. I checked the east. It was getting bright, but no sliver of sun quite yet. Thirteen and done. We’d defeated him before dawn. He was done forever.

I spit on the disintegrating corpse.



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