Sinister Seraphim of Mine (Overworld Chronicles Book 8) (11 page)

"Jeremiah!" Nightliss said.

Faster and stronger than most Arcanes, he still lagged behind the rest of us. Elyssa pointed to a row of pine trees, their canopy thicker than the hardwoods around us, and we dodged under their cover. Deadly spells hurled by the mages blew clods of earth into the air all around us. I dropped to a knee, magnified my sight, and swept a beam of destruction at the nearest flying carpet still a hundred yards above and behind us.

My attack struck true, blasting off the tail of the rug, sending one mage flying off with bellows of terror. The material smoked and burst into flames.

"Booyah!" I shouted, pumping a fist.

Unfortunately, the battle mages were too well-prepared for such situations. Almost as if choreographed through countless hours of practice and routine, another carpet swooped low and caught the falling mage just above the tree line while other pursuers rescued their comrade from his burning carpet as it spiraled down into the forest.

A grimace stretched my lips. I hadn't stopped the mages, but at least I'd just bought us some much-needed time. We ducked down a ridge and into an area thick with evergreens. Elyssa consulted her arcphone and led us along the slanted ground until we reached the area with the pond and the sewer entrance. From there, we angled back to where the portal opening was hopefully still waiting.

The odor of brimstone tickled my nose. I heard the shriek of a crawler the instant before a shadowy blur jetted through the trees and leapt. Fresh adrenalin flooded me. Just as the creature neared Nightliss, I managed to intercept it with a bubble of Murk. I willed the bubble to collapse and hurled it up in the air like a demonic shot put.

"I hope Joss and Otaleon didn't stumble into any of those things," I huffed as we continued running.

Before anyone could respond, a jagged bolt of green lightning splintered a nearby tree, sending it toppling across our path. Almost without thinking, I hurled a wave of destruction into its center, reducing it to ash. We ran through the smoking remains as the battle mages fired blindly through the treetops. A flock of birds burst from the trees, and I heard curses from above.

"I hope they crap on you!" I shouted.

"There it is!" Elyssa shouted, pointing toward the portal.

A tree exploded and burst into flames ahead. At first I thought it was the battle mages. Then I realized with horror it was Qualan. With one outstretched hand, he was holding the two Darklings at bay while he dragged his unconscious sister away from them. Shelton stepped through the portal, staff outstretched, and threw up a barrier to protect the boys.

The Brightling saw our group coming. He snarled. "You filth! Animals! I will burn you all for what you've done to me and my sister."

Something flashed from above me, casting my shadow in stark relief against the ground. I dove sideways, shoving Elyssa and Nightliss out of the way as a wave of searing attacks from the flying battle mages scorched the earth where we'd been standing. Jeremiah was far enough behind us to avoid the attack.

I found my feet, threw up both fists and blasted Qualan with dual waves of Brilliance and Murk. His eyes flared wide with surprise, but he managed to dodge from the path in time.

"What are you?" he yelled. "What manner of perversion are you?" He grabbed his sister from the ground and raced away through the woods.

"Get in the damned portal, you morons!" Shelton yelled at the Darkling boys who stood frozen with shock. "Now!" he roared.

The boys scooped the still unconscious noms from the ground and ran into the portal. Amid a series of deafening attacks from above, the rest of us dove through the opening. Elyssa and I crashed into one of the Darklings, sending him and his nom cargo sprawling in a heap. Jeremiah was still in the forest on the other side. An explosion rocked the ground behind him and sent him tumbling through the portal and into the mansion cellar. Shelton shouted a command and the portal winked off.

For a long moment, the only sounds in the room were of heavy breathing. The male nom groaned, stretched, and sat up, looking around with mild confusion. He laughed. "Whoa, man. Guess that party was even wilder than I remembered." His eyes locked on Elyssa who lay across his lap, her head on my chest. He looked at me and grinned. "High-five, man! We totally scored last night!"

I groaned.

Jeremiah climbed unsteadily to his feet. He was spattered with dirt like the rest of us, thanks to the battle mages, but he looked otherwise unhurt. I stood, helped Elyssa to her feet. Her cut was healing slowly, as was mine. I'd learned the hard way several times that magical injuries took much longer to heal than good old-fashioned stab wounds.

"I need blood," she said in a ragged voice. She'd obviously strained her dhampyric strength to the limit.

The male nom got up, brushing off his hands. "Um, so like, uh, where are we?"

I thought about knocking him out to save the questions for later, but simply said, "Everyone follow me."

Amazingly, they did.

"Son of a ball-licking goat," Shelton grumbled as we headed upstairs to the main hallway. "I should have known your definition of a recon mission would be pissing off a bunch of enemies and blowing up the forest."

"This time it definitely wasn't my fault," I said.

Nightliss sighed. "It was mine, Harry."

Bella, Shelton's girlfriend, waited at the top of the stairs. "I called Meghan to inspect your injuries. She'll be here shortly." She made a tsking noise. "Goodness, Justin, what did you do this time?"

I groaned. "It wasn't my fault."

Shelton chuckled. "Looks like Nightliss went all Justin Slade on this mission."

"Bella, can you tend to—" I raised an eyebrow at the male nom. The female was up and about now too, although she looked extremely groggy.

"I'm Dustin," he said.

"Do you know this woman?"

He glanced at her, narrowed his eyes. "I think I saw her at the party last night, but I don't know her."

"I'm Jessica," the woman said. "What happened? Where are we?" Her eyes widened. "Where's my purse and my cell phone?"

"Tell me what you remember," I said.

Dustin shrugged. "There was a big house party I went to. Some hot chick came up to me and we got to talking, so we went upstairs to, you know." He waggled his eyebrows. "Next thing I know, I wake up in a pile of bodies next to the hottest girl I've ever seen." He smiled at Elyssa.

My girlfriend returned a cold look.

"I really, really need my cell phone back," Jessica said.

"Was the party in Atlanta?" I asked.

Dustin and Jessica looked at me with surprise.

"Nah, man, it was at Georgia Southern in Statesboro." He wrinkled his forehead. "Are we in Atlanta?"

Shelton snorted. "Not exactly, bucko."

"This isn't good," I said to Elyssa. "They're kidnapping noms from hundreds of miles away."

Joss spoke up. "They keep them in sleep spells until feeding time."

"What in the world are you people talking about?" Jessica asked. "What are noms? Who was kidnapped?"

"We have a decision to make," I said. "Have these people been exposed, or do we put them back where they belong?"

"There's no question," Elyssa said in a matter-of-fact tone. "They go back. They obviously haven't been exposed enough to require reeducation."

My high school crush, Katie Johnson, had been exposed to hellhounds, magic, and all sorts of craziness not long after my incubus puberty hit. She'd had to go to a Templar education seminar to acclimate her to the realities of the Overworld and also to inform her she could never tell other normals about its existence.

Daelissa and her minions had repeatedly crossed that particular line. Maximus had recruited high school students for a vampire army, and now the Exorcists were obviously kidnapping noms for angel food.

"You know what?" I said. "I'm sick of playing by the rules while the other side does crap like this."

"What do you suggest we do?" Elyssa asked, hands on hips.

"Someone tell me what's going on!" Jessica cried out. "And please don't tell me my cell phone is lost."

"Are we caught up in some government conspiracy?" Dustin asked. "I've always wanted to bust one of those up."

I ignored the outbursts. "Let's educate the noms." I looked at Jeremiah. "You said the normals fought with everyone else. The way things are going, we'll need strength of numbers, guns, tanks, and god knows what else to win this war."

"Tanks and guns?" Jessica said. "I think we should all coexist peacefully."

Jeremiah's lip curled into a sneer. "Look at these people." He made a backhanded motion. "They're self-absorbed, soft, and stupid; nothing like the people of my day."

"I'm not soft!" Dustin flexed his arm. "I work out, dude."

"Here comes the 'back in my day, sonny' speech," Shelton said.

Elyssa's violet eyes caught mine in a hard glare. "Justin, if you want allies, you're looking at the wrong people."

I shook my head. "Nightliss can turn them into you-know-whats. Look at Katie. She used to be just like these people."

"Are you suggesting we hold open tryouts for the you-know-whats?" Elyssa said. "That's ridiculous."

"Remember Maximus and his you-know-what army? They nearly killed us. Imagine what training could do for these people."

"What's a you-know-what?" Dustin asked.

"Yeah, what are you people talking about?" Jessica added, standing closer to Dustin as if for protection from weirdness.

I almost told them. Instead, I found myself looking at the pair of noms. Dustin had long hair and a slightly dopey look in his eyes, as if he'd hit the bong one too many times. Jessica was pretty, with brown hair streaked with blonde highlights, big brown deer eyes, and enough makeup and jewelry to indicate she was probably on the spoiled side. I sighed. Elyssa was right. Hell, even Jeremiah had a point. These kids wouldn't last a day in the Templars. It took a special kind of temperament for anyone to put their life on the line for a cause.

Even if Nightliss gifted them with enhanced strength and healing, it was likely neither of these two would want to spend their time training and learning to fight supernatural terrors. I wasn't wrong about recruiting noms, but these weren't the noms I was looking for.

"Throw them back," I said, giving Elyssa a slight nod.

Without hesitation, she shot Lancer darts into their necks and knocked them out cold. Nightliss caught Jessica and Elyssa caught Dustin.

"He'd be happy to know the hottest chick ever is holding him now," I said with a wink.

She made a growling noise. "I'll look up some pictures of Georgia Southern and send them back via the omniarch."

"Let's all clean up and meet in the war room in half an hour," I said. I couldn't stomach recruiting noms as cannon fodder like Daelissa and her vampire allies were doing. Unfortunately, it put us a long way from the kind of numbers we needed to survive.

Chapter 10

A sizeable group met in the war room after our short break. Meghan Andretti and Adam Nosti showed up. Meghan, an Arcane healer, checked our new Darkling companions and the rest of us for injuries and gave us salves to assist with our magical injuries. Bella and Shelton sat next to each other on the side of the room. Mom and Dad leaned against a wall, his arm around her, and her head nestled against his ribs. Ivy sat next to them, her blue eyes drinking in the excitement. I was surprised to see her still awake at this ungodly hour.

"Interesting times, son," Dad said when he saw me. "Guess I shouldn't rush off just yet. You might need me."

"Yeah, who knows? The world might end before you have to marry Kassallandra."

He chuckled. "Don't get your hopes up."

Mom's happy smiled faded a little. "At least for now we have each other."

"And I get to stay up super late!" Ivy said, stifling a yawn. "Is this what grownups do when they stay up late?"

I snorted. "I wish I was in bed right now."

"I don't." She grinned.

I looked toward the front of the room where Cinder and Nightliss were talking. "Well, guess I'd better get the party started."

Dad slapped me on the shoulder. "I'm here for you. Just let me know what you need."

"We're both here for you, Justin." Mom put her hands on my face and made me bend over so she could kiss my cheek. "We're proud of you." Her voice carried a note of distress.

"But?" I asked.

"I worry so much," she admitted.

I kissed Mom on the cheek and hugged her. "Don't worry. We got this."

"Yeah," Ivy said, eyes bright. "I can't wait to blast some baddies."

Mom and Dad both looked worried at the prospect. I laughed and mussed my little sister's hair, then approached Cinder and Nightliss.

"Hello, Justin," the golem said with a practiced smile. "It is good to see you escaped without major harm to life or limb."

"Always a plus." I jumped straight to the point. "Jeremiah told us there might be diagrams for aether pods somewhere in the Darkwater database."

"I have seen information about such devices," Cinder said. "In fact, I planned to see how practical it would be to construct one, but vital information is missing."

A hopeful look lit Nightliss's face. "We could build them? What information are you missing?"

"It would be easier to show you," Cinder said, turning to face the long table in the middle of the room. He spun an ASE. Images of documents floated in the air above the table. Cinder flicked through the files until he reached a series of diagrams resembling the aether pods. The golem traced the blueprint with a finger. "As you can see, the pods must be located above a major ley line. Aether inverters"—he indicated the Tesla coils—"inject the magical energy directly into these silver, spinning ring capacitors which create a closed magical circuit to prevent deadly clouds of aether from escaping."

"In other words, they work just like any other magical circle," I said.

Cinder nodded. "While the design appears simple, the blueprints are missing a vital element. Namely, there is a specific pattern and series of runes which must be inscribed on the rings for them to properly contain the aether at such high concentrations."