Authors: A Kirk,E
Or in this case, M.
I bumped into her belly and would have fallen if Aunt M hadn’t grabbed my arm. My eyes jerked around the room, scared. “Where’s the sheriff? Oh, no. You didn’t—”
“Shoot him? Nah. He’s just cooling his heels outside. I can distract the nit-wit police in my sleep. Guess our breakfast chat is ruined. But I won’t have him grilling my niece, so scoot out of here and take these.” She offered the tranq gun then pulled out her Taser as well.
I backed up. “Aunt M, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Don’t be afraid to use them. On anyone or any…thing.” She slapped the weapons into my palm. “Because rest assured, I’ve got the means and mental acuity to get you out of any mess you ever find yourself in. Except being dead.” She patted my shoulder.
“Thanks.” I kissed her cheek. “Love you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get lost.” She waddled to the front door and giggled like a mad woman. “I’ve got law enforcement to mess with.”
Ayden came down the hall as I tucked the gun in the back of my waistband and Taser in my pocket. He raised a brow. “Weapons?”
“It’s how she shows she cares. And at the moment, they’re safer in my hands than hers.”
Blake jogged up behind us wearing a huge grin. “You so owe me.” He held up the tracker.
“No way.” I gave him a hug, then took the small piece of equipment. “Where was it?”
“Hidden inside the light switch plate,” Blake said. “Blended with the other components, so took me longer. Harder to isolate. But I keep my awesomeness status. Hugs are good, chickadee, but come on. Big kiss. Right on the smacker. You know you want to. I saved the day. Fireboy’s going down.”
“In your dreams,” Ayden said and dragged me outside.
A light drizzle fell, dampening my sweatshirt. It was cold. Should have brought a coat.
The guys were waiting for us in Tristan’s Suburban. Ayden jumped in the third seat with Matthias, Tristan rode shotgun, and I squeezed into the second seat next to Blake and Jayden. Behind the wheel, Logan gunned the engine and raced the truck through the winding mountain roads like it was a sports car on the autobahn. Beside us the forest was a blur even without the rain starting to come down harder and pelt the glass. Logan turned on the windshield wipers. I held on tight.
“What took you so long?” Matthias slumped in the backseat. “That was too bloody close!”
“I don’t see what the big deal is.” I turned to the Aussie. “Your dad can’t tell I’m lying, so I’ll lie. Play dumb.”
“That won’t be a stretch,” Matthias muttered.
“I mean about any supernatural stuff. Like demons.”
“But
we’re
not immune,” Matthias glared. “And after you, we’re the ones he’ll come at.”
“We can’t run from your dad forever,” Ayden told him.
“Just for now,” Matthias said quietly and gazed out the window.
“Won’t matter, we’re all dying tomorrow anyway,” Tristan said. “There’s no way to find the stone in time.”
“We’ve got this one.” Blake held up the umbra stone.
“While disheartening, Tristan’s pessimism is justified,” Jayden sighed. “I’ve been reading the spiral manual.”
“Oh, give it a rest,” Ayden groaned. “No one cares about complex filtration schematics, steam systems, hidden levers that control everything.”
Jayden shot him a dirty look. “My point is, the treasure vault so effectively concealed beneath the lake, is of a large enough magnitude to make the chances of Aurora searching its entirety in time highly leveled against us.”
“Guys, I was thinking…” Pretty much all night with thoughts that kept me awake and terrified. “That maybe you should call in a Code Olympus.”
Logan nearly drove off the road.
“No way!” Ayden said.
“If it comes down to my freedom or everyone in town dying from a demonic war…” I swallowed. Took a deep breath. “I can handle a luxury cell.” Better than thousands of deaths on my conscience. “Tristan said I’d get lobster every day.”
“Until the traitor has you killed,” Ayden snapped.
“Lobster’s overrated,” Tristan mumbled.
“Not happening, babe.”
“Like I haven’t already thought of turning you in?” Matthias slid me a calculating look. “Only a million times. If I thought it made us all safer, I would, but at least for now—”
Alarm bells from the boys’ phones filled the car.
“Demons!” Tristan yelled. “They’re breeching the shiel—”
The rest of his words drowned out as my vision jerked my mind out of the car. I didn’t spiral far, but wished I had. Like a cloud of ravenous locusts, demons were on the move. And way too close. Demented creatures full of horns, wings, blades, claws, fire, spikes, blood. More than enough to fill the school gym.
Leading them all was a gorgeous blonde woman with a billowing white dress draping off her abundant curves, shapely legs peeking from thigh-high slits. Next to this supermodel stood Eros.
He caught my eye, almost as if he knew I was watching, and said to the woman. “So glad you could make it early, most exalted and beautiful one. Ahead of schedule by an entire day.”
“Am I early? Human time so bores me. Besides, surprises are a better way to assure you are helping instead of sabotaging me,” said the woman who — let’s take a wild leap here and call this sex bomb, Aphrodite. Then she seemed to point directly at me as she spoke to the demons. “Get me the girl. The rest I want dead.”
My mind reeled back into the car. Matthias was yelling.
“Then tell me how much time we have!”
“None!” I screamed and grabbed Logan’s shoulder. “Stop! Turn aroun—”
Demons rammed the car.
With a violent screech of metal, the vehicle took a vicious impact. The driver’s front end suffered the brunt sending the back end careening right, wheels sliding on wet asphalt. My head flew left, ready to crack through the window. Blake crushed me to his chest, enveloping me like my personal air bag, a cocoon of safety.
We took another hit and gravity disappeared. The car flipped into the air, plummeting off the road. The world spun and blurred as we spiraled out of control, somehow both whiplash-fast and in slow motion. Glass twinkled. Shards pelted and sliced. The car crunched, cracked, squealed, groaned, and rocked to a stop on four wheels. Maybe three. Because the SUV wobbled like a table missing a leg then teetered and
thunked
on its side.
A warped silence. Muted sound. My pounding heartbeat echoed against the ringing in my ears. Muffled shouts. Hissing. Groaning. Screaming getting closer. Everything out of focus. I smelled gas, pine, oil, and…blood.
I blinked. Wiped dirt and chips of glass from my eyes. I saw Logan cut his seatbelt with a slice of compressed air and reach for a bloody Tristan. Red blossomed all over Ayden and Matthias as they shook Jayden who dangled limp.
“Blake?” I pushed at the big guy collapsed on top of me. Blood oozed from the back of his head.
Logan flung a hand and the roof of the car exploded off with a scream of air. It gave us literal breathing room, and a heck of a view. Demons swarmed down the hill and through the trees like an army of maniacal red ants.
I unbuckled and crunched onto shattered glass. Ignoring the pain riddled over my body, I tried to stand as the other conscious Hex Boys crawled out of the car. The world wobbled. I used the car for support and reached in for Blake.
But another vision hit. I stumbled sideways, slid along crumpled metal as my mind lurched out of my body, spearing through the forest in staccato jerks, like a film stuttering on its reel. Disorienting. I felt nauseous.
In one final jerk, I stopped in front of a tree. An ordinary tree. Not a demon. Maybe the crash had broken my powers.
The bark from the ordinary tree suddenly wasn’t so ordinary. It stretched. It bulged. As if the tree was covered in a plastic membrane and something was stuck inside, trying to get out.
A twig burst from the surface, growing longer, thicker, then shaped into a slender, sinewy arm. On the end, fingers formed, then a thumb, a palm, until finally, an entire hand opened and flexed. It reached around to the front of the tree, grabbed the malleable membrane surface, and pulled.
A body stepped out.
Bark split and crackled off the human form and revealed smooth olive skin and a face filled with beautiful angles and a savage dignity. Dark tattoos lassoed across her body in ancient-looking tribal swirls, thickest around her arms. Judging from the crown of antlers atop her raven hair, I’d bet the tattered, barely-there dress that clung to her lean, muscled form was the hide of an actual deer. Her eyes glittered silver, like the full moon on a dark, cloudless night.
My vision stuttered again, started to reel back, but paused when the woman knelt and threw her hands into the ground. I mean
into
the ground. Buried up to her forearms like the hard, rock-filled mountain soil was putty. Around her, the earth crumbled as claws burst up through the surface, tearing and slashing until a pack of feral, wolfish dogs had wrenched themselves from the depths.
The almost-hellhounds circled the woman with deference, snarling, yipping, and snapping their excitement. Blood-tipped teeth gleamed. Silver eyes glowed. Antlers, honed sharp as blades, sprouted down their spine and covered their tails, one happy wag slicing a tree in half.
The woman extended one arm and a thick tattoo came to life, sliding down the length, slithering over her skin like a serpent. It reached her palm and uncoiled into the air to form a bow. Her other hand drew back the string as another tattoo slithered off her fingertip into an arrow. She raised the weapon and aimed.
Artemis. Had to be. The Goddess of the Hunt had arrived.
She whistled once. The dogs paused to look at her.
“Fetch,” she said, and let the arrow fly.
My vision snapped back. Too fast. I gave into the dizziness and dropped. A shadow loomed over me. I looked up. Screamed. A puss-oozing, near skinless demon with bleeding eyes howled with rage and lifted the kind of sword that would take my head off in one swipe.
The demon swung. Metal glinted.
I dove sideways, pulling the taser from my pocket. Too close to shoot, I jammed it directly onto the monster’s slimy leg. There was a wet sizzle. A horrible stench. The creature paused mid-swing. Go me! But after a brief moment where I was sprayed by a furious, head-shaking, spittle-flying growl, the blade continued its deadly arc aimed for my neck.
I scrambled for cover. Saw my backpack on the ground. Had a hand on it. Was going to use it to block the attack—because nylon was so robust against steel— when there was a sudden
pfft-thunk
, and the woman’s arrow buried right between the demon’s eyes.
The monster staggered for a moment, looking confused. Then its head exploded. Brain and bone splattered against the car before the hellion burst into a mist and tornadoed into the ground, its sword toppling harmlessly at my feet.
I leaned my back against a wheel. Was Artemis helping me?
Pfft-twang
. An arrow sliced my bicep and buried into the wheel’s hubcap. Ouch! Blood trickled from the thin, shallow gash.
Nope. She was hunting me.
The ground trembled. I looked down at my blood splashed on the dirt.
It boiled.
In the distance, seen through what had now become a light snow flurry, Aphrodite’s demons thundered down the hill in a bloodthirsty wave of malevolence. Ayden screamed my name. The earth in front of the barbaric pack exploded like a spewing volcano as Fido burst from the ground. Dirt and rock showered down. Her fierce screech brought my hands to my ears and literally blasted a few demons to bits, as if a bomb had detonated in their bellies.
With merciless ferocity, she scooped mouthfuls of grotesque fiends and squashed them with one crunch, slicing others in two with her pinchers. Some jumped upon her, fangs tearing at fur, while others whizzed past and continued right for us.
A wall of flames erupted in front of the demon mass. Some vaporized when they hit it, but the rest halted and backed away with inhuman cries of fury. A break for us. Until winged beasts flew down from above.
Logan and Ayden began shooting. Matthias pulled an unconscious Tristan out of the car, yelled something and pointed back at the Suburban, then joined the fight, lashing his shadow whips at the airborne threats. A few demons made a break through the fire wall, running towards us in flames. The guys took them down, but there were more on the way. Too many.
And more closing in from both sides, unbeknownst to the boys, who hadn’t seen Artemis’s hellhounds yet. All converging here. All coming for me.
Still gripped in my hand, the backpack started rattling, moving like something was alive. I dropped it. Watched it buck and bounce.
“Oh!” I said as realization dawned. I unzipped the backpack. Flint’s metal spikeballs flew out and hovered around me like alien spaceships. “Uh…” I pointed at the demons flying above. “Attack!”
I’d like to say they were obeying my command, but the little slashers were already on the move before I got out the second syllable. Their spikes poked out and
whirred
into chainsaw-level action. Flames lit up on the ends and the spinning spheres sailed into the air, shredding through demons with ease.
Helpful, yes. But not enough for this growing crowd of hellacious groupies.
I ran to the truck, shaking Blake. “Wake up!”
He moaned and blinked. Then mumbled, “Hey, babe, I need mouth to mouth.” His lips puckered.
I kissed him. Short and sweet, because…I don’t know!
“Babe!” He jolted awake. “Not cool. Fireboy would
not
approve!”
“Get moving. They need you!” I shouted.
Battle axes morphed into Blake’s hands before his first foot hit the ground, and before the second foot hit, he’d thrown them. One into the skull of a demon on the other side of Ayden’s fire wall, and the other blade slicing the head off something diving from the air toward Matthias. Blake waved his arms. More battles axes appeared in his hands, the earth split wide along the line of demons, trees uprooted, boulders flew, and…
That Hexy Knight was in full warrior mode. I turned toward Tristan as he staggered to his feet and pulled out Jayden who started to speak in big words I couldn’t understand. So I knew he was all right.
I inhaled a strong smell of gasoline just as Tristan yelled, “Ayden, it’s gonna blow!”
Ayden turned and slashed his arms through the air just as the Suburban exploded in a bright, thundering
kaboom!
I dove for cover, expecting heat and a wave of pressure, but neither came. Instead, the flames gathered in a massive fireball and careened up into the air, taking out a dozen demons flying above. As it dropped, Logan shot an arrow into it, and the orb brightened to sun-blazing levels. It hit the ground and rolled along the massive meadow, leveling demons in its path.
Coughing against the smoke, I ran to Matthias’s side. He growled, “Get your power working!”
I opened and closed my hands. Nothing. “I can’t. Yet.”
“Typical.” His whip snapped out and cut a demon in two. “Then stay out of the way!”
“I’ve got a plan!”
“Not interested.” Both whips wrapped around a demon’s neck and the head popped off.
“It puts me in mortal danger.”
Matthias’s eyes slid my way. “I’m listening.”