A bubble formed in the roof. One claw ruptured through the shingles. Crow shoved his way through and clambered into the open. He was twisted and broken, but somehow still alive. “I’m not done with you yet, little girl.” Crow freed himself and leapt through the debris to land in the yard.
Ian’s pale Summoned stood, blocking its way. The two huge things faced each other for a moment. Crow cocked his horned head to the side. He was obviously weakened, parts of his body withering and deflating as the unnatural smoke that served as Summoned’s blood was spilled. The pale Summoned was an unknown quantity. It did not move.
Flashlights and lanterns bobbed around the street. People had been drawn toward the commotion. Faye could only imagine what they were thinking as they saw the two titanic Summoned facing each other through the storm.
Crow ran toward Ian’s Summoned. They collided. The pale thing’s elephantlike feet slid back through the dirt as Crow struck furiously. Then the pale fists began to fall, striking with monotonous thunder, each one hitting like a piece of construction equipment.
The two monsters were entirely obscured as smoke poured from their wounds, but the blows could still be heard. THUD. THUD. THUD.
Faye realized the person she’d been dragging was Ian. His eyes were squeezed tight and he was grinding his teeth as he tried to control his Summoned. Suddenly, Ian screamed and every muscle in his body clenched tight.
The smoke cleared. The pale Summoned stumbled back as Crow drove his fist deep into its body. Crow ripped his hand free in a shower of flaming ink. The creature sank to the ground and began to melt into smoke. Banished.
“You idiots. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. I’m the greatest Summoner that’s ever lived. Demons don’t possess people! I possess them! You kill this body and I’ll be back tomorrow. I can’t die. I can’t be beaten!” The surviving demon was falling apart, its body withering and blowing away on the wind. It was not long for this world, but it would be enough.
Faye could barely breathe. There was no way she could Travel. Crow’s four red eyes locked onto her as he approached. The smoke solidified into massive wings, stretching from Crow’s shoulders across the entire road. He was coming to take her away. She had nothing left to fight him with. Faye found the knife Lance had made for her, drew it, and held it out in front of her. She was not going without a fight. Whisper appeared at her side. The fire in her hands was weak and sputtering. Ian seemed to be unconscious, overwhelmed by the destruction of his Summoned.
Crow stopped twenty feet away and pointed at her. His red eyes were filled with madness. Crow’s voice boomed across the town. “Sally Faye McCullum, alias Faye Vierra, poor white trash from a pigsty shack in Ada, Oklahoma, member of the illicit Grimnoir terrorist organization, by the authority granted to me by the Office of the Coordinator of Information, you are under arrest for illegal magic.” The demon cackled as he turned toward the witnesses that had gathered by the commotion. “You see this? You all see this! Let this be a lesson to anybody that crosses us!” Crow shouted at the witnesses. Faye knew that somehow being inside that Greater Summoned had driven him crazy.
A single shape tottered through the dust on the opposite side of the demon. George was battered, burned, and bleeding, but he still managed to raise his voice nearly as loud as Crow had. “Demon! I’m George Bolander, knight of the Grimnoir.” He raised his fists high into the air. “And I’m sending you back to hell!”
The air felt wrong.
Lightning flashed through the swirling dust above. The entire sky turned blue. It was almost like a smaller version of the Geo-Tel.
“What’s he doing?” Faye shouted.
“He’s using up all his Power at once, drawing on the energy of the storm.” Whisper cried. “He will surely die!”
Crow swiveled his horns and studied the sky, then looked back at George and roared, “Show me what you got, boy!”
George roared as the storm ripped the life right out of him. Blinding lightning consumed the entire sky, a hundred strikes in a second, dragged to Earth by one man’s Power. Thunder shook the whole world. A wall of white electricity descended and everyone in town screamed as it surged down to engulf them.
A hundred feet above the ground all the lightning stopped, rolling and twisting, as if held fast by the hand of God. Then it all flashed inward at once into one brilliant point directly over the demon. The arc burned their eyes for a moment, a pillar of blindness, then it struck with a concussion that took the whole town off its feet and shattered every window on the block.
It took Faye a moment to collect herself. When she came to, the wind had stopped blowing, leaving the night eerily calm. All she could see was a white streak. Gradually it turned purple and she could sort of see around it. The dust was falling from the sky and settling over them like peaceful snow. Ears ringing, she got to her feet and stumbled toward where George had been standing.
There was a deep hole scorched through the road where Crow had been. The road had been melted into tar and the sand was cooling into glass, but outside of a pinpoint circle, there was no damage. The demon was completely gone, blown into smoking ash and scattered.
George was flat on his back, arms spread wide. His eyes were open and collecting the falling dust. She landed on her knees next to him and took his head in her hands. He almost looked like he was smiling. “George?”
But her friend was dead.
The Power had torn the life right out of his body.
The ringing in her eyes began to subside. Folks were screaming, crying, praying… Somebody was banging the bell at the church and the burning wood of the boardinghouse hissed and popped.
George was dead. Another friend… Another knight… How many people had to die? Not again. Not again. Damn it, not again. Faye looked up at the sky and screamed until it hurt.
And then it started to rain.
Whisper
Chapter 11
The female half of the population of this nation are utterly powerless to strike an unjust law from the statute books. It is difficult to justify the notion that women are inferior, and thus incapable of voting rationally, when some of us can move objects with our minds, while others have displayed the constitution of ten strong men. Can you display any such feats, Your Honor? Do not tell me I am out of order! I already know you cannot, because I can read your thoughts.
Bell Farm, Virginia
The farmhouse was quieter with Jane and Lance gone. Too quiet, and that just made him restless. Sullivan poked sullenly at his breakfast and wished that he could be doing something useful, but that was difficult when you were Public Enemy Number One.
Their rings had woken them up in the middle of the night. Francis had been hysterical. Then another call had come from a young knight that none of them had met before named Whisper. She’d told them about the battle in Oklahoma. One knight killed and two injured, including Faye.
Francis had wanted to fly down there himself, but Lance had talked him down. Since the OCI had seen him talking to Faye, that meant that there was now no doubt as to his membership in the Society. Francis needed to lose his tail and go to ground before he got rolled up too. Francis hadn’t liked that at all, but the kid was smart, and knew that Lance was talking sense.
Faye’s group was on the run and heading east, but that left about thirty-plus hours of driving ahead of them. Jane had volunteered to go and meet them halfway. They could certainly use her Power. Faye had some cuts and had been scalded by demon smoke, and another knight named Ian had been burned and inhaled too much smoke. Of course, Dan wasn’t about to let his wife go do something potentially dangerous without him, and though his name had shown up in the papers, Sullivan wasn’t about to try and talk him out of going. He let Jane do that. Their Healer was hard to argue with when she set her mind to something, and she really didn’t want Dan getting arrested.