Faye moved through the house, popping in and out as quick as her head map could determine it was safe. Crow followed her, swinging madly with fingers that had turned into black sickle claws. She continued to Travel in, striking and stabbing wildly, then getting out at the last second. The knife was slick with demon’s ink. Her eyes and lungs stung. The house was wreathed in flames. Five jumps. Six jumps. Crow was still right behind. Seven. Eight. Nine.
She was getting tired. Her Power was flickering.
Crow followed her into the living room. He picked up one of the couches and hurled it at her. She barely had time to move before it shattered the window and flew into the night. The wind came howling in and brought the choking dust with it. Faye’s head map screamed danger everywhere. Grit struck her in the eyes. The dust particles were too big to Travel in! Upstairs!
The demon lifted his hands to his four eyes as the dust blinded him as well. Desperate, Faye leapt and landed at his feet. Shoes had been replaced with enormous goat’s hooves. Lifting the knife, Faye screamed, and then drove the knife down as hard as she could through the hoof, pinning it to the floor. Crow emitted a horrific shriek and lifted his other foot to smash her through the boards, but Faye was already gone.
She hit the carpet on the second floor landing. The dust was billowing up the stairs, chasing her. Soon there would be nowhere safe for her to Travel. The neighboring houses were in range, but she wasn’t about to abandon her friends. Below, Crow continued his demonic roar. Whisper was at the top of the stairs, moving her hands back and forth, gathering the fire roaring through the first floor together into another solid ball. The violent wind whipped her black hair around her head in a halo. George appeared, shoving a heavy dresser in front of Whisper to serve as a last-ditch barricade. Ian was sitting on the floor, looking calm as could be.
“What’re you doing?”
Ian barely opened one eye a crack. “Calling in reinforcements.”
“Poop.” Faye checked her head map. The old lady was still sound asleep in her room. Faye couldn’t just let some nice grandma get burned to death. This was going to take too much Power, but she had to do it. Faye popped into her room, took the woman by her arm, then picked a spot that seemed nice two houses down.
Faye appeared in the living room of a very surprised family. They had all been watching out their window the exploding, electrical light show coming from the flaming boardinghouse, and they screamed when they saw her. “Hey! Take care of her, would ya?” The father had been stuffing shells from a cardboard box into an old pump shotgun, but he yelped and dropped it when she scared him near to death. “Mind if I borrow this? Thanks!” Faye grabbed the shotgun and the box of buckshot, concentrated, and Traveled back.
She picked the furthest room from the stairs and barely beat the flooding dust. It stung her skin, but a moment later and it would have been inside her skin. Faye loaded the old Winchester the rest of the way as she walked down the hall. Her eyes were watering and she could barely breathe as poison smoke burned her lungs.
Crow was on fire and rumbling up the stairs. Whisper was continually whipping flames into the demon, over and over, her robe torn open and snapping in the wind around her. “Burn, demon!” The only reason they could breathe at all was that Whisper’s magical skill was so great that she was causing the smoke to be funneled away from them. The black air coming from Crow’s wounds was darker than the natural smoke roiling around him.
Faye leaned around Whisper, shouldered the shotgun and let Crow have it right in the face. The buckshot messed him up far worse than the pistol bullets. It kicked her good as she fed him four more rounds, but then the Winchester was empty and she was fumbling to reload from the box. Whisper fell back, Power exhausted, and George took her place.
Lightning crackled between his fingers. His eyes were pools of flashing blue. All of Faye’s hair stood up. “This place is coming down. Get them outside, Faye. Now!”
“You can’t stop him by yourself,” she cried.
“Do it!”
Faye did as she was told. With Whisper’s Power done, the smoke and dust was too much to bear. She couldn’t breathe. Her head was spinning. She fell and the shotgun shells spilled down the carpet. The entire house shook and groaned as beams snapped. Faye crawled for the next room; she could at least breathe a little on the floor. She could feel Whisper behind her but couldn’t see anything. She crashed into something soft. Ian. He seemed to be in a daze as she pulled him along.
The three of them fell into the bedroom.
“George?” Whisper asked.
There was an awful roar behind them and the crash of thunder. Blue light flickered through the smoke.
“Reinforcements?” Faye asked.
Ian was coughing. “On the way.”
Faye made it to the window. It wouldn’t open. Of course, everything was caulked shut because of the storm. She used the shotgun butt to smash the glass out. There were shingles below them. “Get outside!” Whisper went through the window and disappeared into the dust. She turned back and ran into Ian. “I’m going back for George.”
“Can you Travel him?”
“Can’t. Dust.”
“You’ll die!” he shouted.
“Probably.” She started to push past, but Ian suddenly threw his weight against her. “Wait! Ian, no!” The next thing she knew he had used his weight advantage to shove her to the window, then he hoisted her up and through. Faye rolled outside and landed on her shoulder on the shingles. Ian was visible for one last moment in the blue light above, a look of determination on his face, and then he was gone. “No!”
“Faye!” Whisper called. Faye looked down to see Whisper standing in the yard. It wasn’t too far to jump. The entire house shook violently and more timbers burst. Sparks swam past her as Faye kicked her legs over the edge and let herself drop. Whisper tried to catch her but they both ended up hitting the dirt hard. “Come on. Hurry.” Whisper grabbed her by the hand and pulled her along.
They made it out into the road. Crow’s demonic wail could be heard even over the wind. Behind them the house rumbled as half of it collapsed. Faye screamed in frustration. George and Ian were going to die and there was nothing she could do.
“What is that?” Whisper pointed at something gigantic moving through the fire. At first Faye thought that it was Crow, but unless he had changed even more drastically than before, this was something entirely different. The thing glowed with a calm pale light, but then it disappeared behind the flaming timbers. “It cannot be.”
“What?”
Whisper grabbed her hand and held it tight.
The pale light reappeared, this time coming through the front door. It had the red eyes of a Summoned, and was just as fearsome as Crow or the Bull King, only different, and Faye knew that this was what they spoke of when they said that a Summoned could appear as an angel.
It was eight feet tall and broad. Except for four small eyes, its features were formless and soft. Its hands were simple and far too large. Its torso was disproportionately bigger than its stubby legs. It was carrying a burden in each hand. One of them coughed.
Ian and George! Faye squealed with delight.
The mighty Summoned dropped the knights at the edge of the yard, then turned back toward the flames just as the house fell down with a awful crash. A cyclone of fiery debris was sucked up into the sky. Faye ran up, grabbed the first body and started dragging him away. She couldn’t even tell who it was because he was so filthy with soot.
The roof of the boardinghouse hit the ground last, coming to rest almost perfectly level as if the house had merely sunk evenly into the ground below. Faye felt a twinge of hope. Surely, Crow couldn’t have survived that. No matter how great of a demon he was, that had to have-