“If the council has been mesmerized, I can heal them,” concluded Qwan. “But the brain is delicate; I need direct contact.”
“No time for that,” said Holly, loosing another burst. “Artemis, have you got anything?”
Artemis had his hand on his stomach. “I really need to use a bathroom. A second ago I was fine. But now . . .”
Holly really wished her wings were operational. If she could just get a bird’s-eye view on the targets, it would be much easier.
“Bathroom, Artemis? Is this really the time?”
One demon made it past the laser bursts. Close enough to smell. Holly ducked under his swinging mace, kicking him in the chest. The air left his lungs in a whoof, and the demon went down gasping for breath.
“I need the bathroom, and your Neutrino is having barely any effect. Time is speeding up. We’re in a surge.” Artemis grabbed Holly’s shoulder, causing a burst to sail off high and wide.
“I need to get to the bomb. It could explode at any moment.”
Holly shrugged him off. “Safety tip, Artemis. Don’t jiggle me when I’m firing. Qwan, can you buy us some time?”
“Time,” said Qwan, smiling. “You know, it’s ironic that we need time because . . .”
Holly ground her teeth. Why did she always have to end up with the intellectuals?
No1 had been equal parts terrified and thoughtful during the attack. Terrified for the obvious reasons: dismemberment, painful death, etc. But he was thoughtful also. He was a warlock. There must be something he could do. Before he left the island, he would have been stunned into inactivity by the suddenness and ferocity of this attack. Now it wasn’t even the worst thing he’d faced. Those security Mud Men in the chateau. The big ones with the suits and fire sticks, guns. No1 could see them in his head, clear as if they were here.
Instead of allowing the sparks to roam on instinct, I marshal them into a recognizable form.
No1 concentrated on the human figures in his memory, wrapping them with magic, bringing them forth. He felt them solidifying as though the blood in his forehead were freezing. When the pressure became too much for his forehead, he expelled it into reality, conjuring up ghostly images of a dozen human mercenaries, blasting away with automatic weapons. It was a spectacular sight. Even Abbot reared back. The rest more than reared back, they turned and ran.
“Nice, Qwan. Good thinking,” said Artemis.
Qwan was puzzled. “You can read my thoughts? Oh, you mean the soldiers. That was not me. No1 is a very powerful little warlock. In ten years he could move this island on his own.”
Abbot was left standing ten paces from the group with his sword in his hand and a hailstorm of blue bullets cascading around him. In fairness to the pride leader, he stood his ground, facing certain death the demon way: with a sword in his hand and a snarl on his face.
Qwan shook his head. “Just look at that. It’s that kind of idiocy that got us into trouble in the first place.”
Abbot had some experience with magic, and he soon realized that these new humans and their missiles were mere illusions.
“Come back, you fools,” he shouted after his soldiers. “They can’t hurt you.”
Artemis tapped Holly’s shoulder. “Sorry to jiggle you again, but we need to get back to the bomb. All of us. And if possible, lure Abbot down there, too.”
Holly put several bursts into Abbot’s chest to buy them a couple of minutes. The pride leader flew backward, as though a giant had pounded his chest with a mallet.
“Okay. Let’s go. Artemis, you go ahead, I’ll hold them off from the rear.”
They scrambled back into the crater, skidding on their heels through the ash crust. They made faster progress on the way down, but it was just as treacherous. It was hardest for Holly because she was moving backward, ready to take a potshot at anyone who poked so much as a hair over the crater rim.
It was a scene from a five-year-old’s nightmare. Acrid smells that burned the eyes and throat, a surface that sucked at the feet, a red sky, and the sound of breath and heartbeats. Not to mention the constant fear that the demons were coming.
Things were about to get worse. The release of Qwan’s displaced magical energy had accelerated the deterioration of the time spell, and it was on the point of collapsing entirely. Unfortunately, this would happen in reverse order, starting on Hybras. Artemis knew this, but he hadn’t had a spare second to run any calculations. Soon, he guessed, it would happen soon. And who could tell when soon was during a time surge.
Artemis realized that it was more than a guess. He knew the collapse of the tunnel was imminent. He could feel it. He was in touch with magic now. He was part of it, and it was part of him.
Artemis pulled Qwan’s arm around his shoulder, urging him forward.
“Quickly. We need to hurry.”
The old warlock nodded. “You feel it? Chaos in the air. Look at No1.”
Artemis glanced behind. No1 was on their heels, but his brow was furrowed with pain and he knuckled his forehead.
“He’s sensitive,” gasped Qwan. “Puberty.”
Suddenly human puberty didn’t seem so bad.
Holly was in trouble. Her years of training and experience hadn’t prepared her for the moment when she would be retreating into a volcano, guarding a human and two members of a supposedly extinct species during a time surge.
The surge was playing havoc with her bodily functions, but it was also having an effect on her gunfire. She was laying down a covering fire on the ridge, but a cluster of blasts disappeared in midair.
Where do those shots go? Holly wondered briefly. Into the past?
Groups of ghost images fizzled into existence for a brief moment, giving the illusion that there were twice as many demons as there had been. Added to this, she was suddenly struck with hunger cramps, and she could swear her fingernails were growing.
Abbot’s demons came fast, and not in a tight group as Holly had hoped. They had ranged themselves along the rim, and came over the top in a coordinated wave. It was a fearsome sight, dozens of warriors bounding over the lip, their markings glowing in the red light, teeth bared, horns quivering, and bloodcurdling battle cries echoing around the crater walls. This was not like fighting trolls. Trolls had some basic smarts, but these demons were organized and battle-ready. Already they knew to spread out and avoid the laser bursts.
Holly picked out the pride leader.
Hello there, Abbot, she thought. Whatever happens here, you’re going home with a headache.
She loosed three bolts at him. Two disappeared, but one connected, sending Abbot tumbling into the dirt.
Holly did her best, widening the spread as much as possible, setting the trigger on automatic. If she’d had her full combat pack, then there wouldn’t have been a problem. A few flash grenades at the right moment would have stunned the entire wave of demons, and a pulse assault rifle could have held them back for a few hundred years if necessary. As it was, she had one handgun, no backup, and a time surge gobbling half her rays. It seemed an impossible task to slow down Abbot and his goons long enough for Artemis to reach the bomb. And even if she did manage it, what then?
The demons kept coming, bent low and bobbing. They loosed bolts from their crossbows on the run, none of which were affected by the surge. Of course they wouldn’t be. The rays from her Neutrino were calibrated to have a short life once they made contact with air; they would dissipate after five seconds unless specifically reset to hold together for longer.
Thankfully the bolts were falling short, but not as short as they had been a few moments earlier. Time was running out, in more ways than one.
A group of daredevil imps made it past Holly’s arc of fire. Their method of travel was foolhardy and suicidal. Only idiot luck saved them from crushed skulls. Using a hide shield as a sled, three of them skidded down the crater’s inner slope, being tossed hither and thither by rocks and changes in gradient.
One second they were fifty yards away, and the ne
xt, Holly could smell the sweat glistening on their brow plates. Holly swung her gun barrel toward them, but it was too late, she could never make it. And even if she did, the others would use the distraction to make ground.
The imps were leering at her. Lips pulled back over sharp pointed teeth. One was especially agitated and had some kind of slime flowing from his pores.
The imps seemed to hang suspended in the air for the longest time, and then something happened. The air pulsed, and reality momentarily split into colored pixels like a faulty computer screen. Holly felt sick to her stomach, and the imps winked out of existence, taking a six foot diameter tube of the crater with them.
Holly fell back from the hole, which collapsed in on itself.
No1 fell to his knees and threw up.
“Magic,” he gasped. “Breaking down. The lure of Earth is stronger than silver now. No one is safe.”
Artemis and Qwan were in slightly better shape, but only slightly.
“I am older and have more control over my empathy,” said Qwan.“That’s why I didn’t throw up.”And having said that, he threw up.