“ That,” Kane nodded, “is SWEET!”
Cross laughed. It felt good to be out of Krul. Good to be out in open air, not in the confines of the dark, not ankle deep in murk and muck, not confused if what he saw was really happening, or if days had passed since the last time he’d known what was going on. The feel of the air on his face, the roll of the breeze through his hands, the feeling of turning around and being able to see for miles in every direction…
You need to get it together, he told himself. You still have a job to do. And time is short.
They’d only spent a couple of hours gathering supplies and making repairs. It was time to get going.
Cross was about to say as much when Black called up the alarm.
“ Incoming!”
Everyone stopped, petrified. Their reverie snapped. Dark riders appeared in the distance, a cluster of forms that spread out like a bloody ink stain across the dark ground to the west. The rider’s massive mounts tore the ground open with mandibles and claws. Enormous bodies writhed and burrowed through the dark soil. They were half-a-mile away, and closing fast.
“ Vath!” Black shouted.
Ravenous zombies, intelligent enough that they banded into flocks and hunted together, rode out of the dark hills. This far west, the Vath acted as servants of the vampires, who used them to patrol the lowlands between the Ebon Cities and root out intruders.
Dull thuds sounded in the murky air as the Vath launched organic projectiles. There had to be twenty or more Vath, plus their mounts, and they’d be at the safe house inside of a couple of minutes. Even at their current distance Cross heard their gargling voices and lunatic, bloodthirsty calls. The air darkened around them as they rode, stained by the shadows that leaked from their corrupted souls.
Cross, Kane and Ramsey hauled the last of the gear into the open rear door of the airship as fast as they could. His heart was already pounding, and soon Cross’ limbs ached from running while weighed down with bags of ammunition and dried goods. The air seemed to suck the wind out of his lungs as he ran.
Black covered them from the rear, while Cross ran inside. Ramsey yelled for Ekko to start the engines. She furiously locked down the fuselage and activated the complicated network of runes that started the launch sequence. The turbines slowly lurched to life with a sound like hammers on metal.
Cross dropped the bags, snatched up the M16A2 and the vampire triple-barrel from the wall, and ran back out. He didn’t see Cole or the boy.
That can’t be good.
The airship stood on flat ground right outside of the gas station, next to a long strip of open land that gave them plenty of room to take off.
Black fired the Remington at the approaching crowd of creatures, but she was too far away to do any real damage. The Vath drew to within a quarter of a mile, near enough that Cross could make out details he’d have preferred not to.
The Vath were taller than humans. They were eyeless and ebon-colored creatures with oversized mouths filled with knife-like teeth. Their bony carapaces leaked black dust and soot that poisoned the air around them, and glowing runes covered their emaciated bodies like tattoos. Spindly fingers worked bladed weapons wrought of bone and iron. They rode enormous scarab beetles and giant wriggling black worms the size of warhorses, which they anchored themselves to with razor-wire reins and bone spurs. Their collective call sounded like the dying breath of some enormous creature, a lunatic dirge filled with warbles and gasps. Cross smelled their foul auras even from a quarter mile away — charcoal fumes and burnt skin, dry rot and animal stink.
The two lead Vathian riders held their bone staffs high. Churning dark matter formed between the rods like a banner of black dust.
Cross’ spirit folded around him and jarred his skin with raw cold. Black’s spirit waited in the air as well, ready, smoldering, powerful. The ground smoked at their touch.
Kane and Cole were right behind them with weapons drawn. Cross heard the airship shudder and lurch to life. Exhaust kicked dark dust into the air, which turned molten and hazy with heat. Arcane energies sputtered as the ship lifted a few inches off of the ground.
“ Go!” Black shouted.
Kane and Cole stepped up and slowly backed into the ship, their eyes on the approaching riders. Cross waited. The black haze of the Vath coalesced, built, doubled and redoubled its size. They were working magic, but some primal elemental force that didn’t require spirits, pure shadow energies.
Dark missiles raced towards the ship: dripping shadow projectiles, meteors of melting oil. Cross’ spirit burned his fingers as he sent her forward in a wave of corrosive daggers. The bolts of magic were blasted into liquid shards that smoked the ground where they fell.
Black released her spirit into a folding wave of sharp stones, a strip of razor rocks that twisted and turned like a flock of birds before they spun through the air in the shape of a murderous propeller. The energies hacked dark bodies apart, and they fell forward into piles of broken shell and oozing worm flesh. The earth steamed.
Inside of the airship behind them, someone screamed. Cross raced inside.
The air burned dark behind him. Looming shadows formed faces and stretched across the sky. Danica sliced through them with whips of red fire. The air was gritty, and tasted of brimstone.
Inside, Ramsey flew against the wall with a thud. It was the boy who’d thrown him.
By the time Cross reached the melee, Kane had grappled the child with one hand and held a machete in the other. The boy clawed and spat at him, growled from a mouth of shadows and desperately reached for Kane’s face with a prehensile tongue covered in barbed and dripping quills.
Cole was face-down on the floor. Ekko desperately tried to lower the floating ship so that she could help, since her gun lay just out of reach.
“ No, fly!” Cross shouted. He hefted the triple-barrel shotgun, and hesitated. There was no way he’d only hit the child if he fired, so he dropped the weapon and raced at them with his spirit wrapped around his hands.
The boy kicked Kane in the groin, doubled him over, put long fingers into the big man’s hair and rammed his head against the floor. He turned Kane over, hissed, and pressed his talons against the man’s eyes.
Cross grabbed the boy by the back of the head and immolated him. Black fire coursed out of his hands and set the child’s hair alight. He screamed, not a monstrous cry, but that of a little boy in pain. Burning flesh and blood gagged Cross. His eyes bled from the force of the magic he released. Something pushed him back. The world spun.
The boy stood over him, howling and on fire. It cursed him in some ancient and alien tongue. It looked at him with burning eyes as black as pits, and even through the dark flames Cross saw the shadow, the heart of the void that had nearly consumed him twice. Something inside of Cross turned like a blade. He felt it, surrendered to it. He let it escape.
White light shot out of his hand and consumed the shadow child, the false human husk. The Sleeper’s agent. Time slowed as the white flames tore the shadow apart, inch by inch. Even its scream moved slow, sluggish, like a dream.
He lost time.
It sees him. He feels himself shrink at the foot of the mountain. Cold flames roar around him. The flesh slides from his bones. He screams as he is eclipsed in a cloak of black fire.
“ Cross!”
The ship lurched into the air. Black was at the cargo door, which still hung open. She and Kane fired at something just outside of the vessel. The sky was black and thick. Gunfire and engine noise roared through his head.
“ Are you okay?”
Cole leaned over him. He touched her face to be sure that she was real. His head felt like it had been filled with lead. He glanced around.
Ramsey sat against the wall and nursed a bruised forehead. Ekko piloted. Black and Kane fired rifles at what he could only assume were the Vath, even as the ship ascended. The rear doors slowly sealed shut. The rush of hot wind faded, and they were left in a still and sticky air.