Summoner of Storms (3 page)

“Don’t be naïve.” Renée pointed at John. No,
at the bruise on the base of his neck, now fully exposed thanks to
the asshole trying to rip off his shirt. “It’s already started. How
long until the drakul’s lust for blood and power becomes
uncontrollable?”

“Hey!” Caleb exclaimed. “I don’t know who the
fuck you think you are, lady, but it’s none of your business what
two—three—whatever—consenting adults get up to in their spare
time.”

“I thought the Vigilant wanted to work with
NHEs,” John said. “Why are you afraid of Gray?”

For a moment, he didn’t think she’d answer
him. Then Renée shook her head slowly. “Because the drakul are gods
upon this earth, Mr. Starkweather. And now my daughter has
unleashed one upon us.”

* * *

John stared blankly at Renée. “What do you
mean?”

“It’s a long story, Mr. Starkweather, and not
one I’m in the mood for now,” she replied. “At the moment, we need
to secure the site and decide exactly what our next move will be.
Something
I
will determine, not my impetuous offspring.”

Tiffany gazed down at her feet, eyes narrowed
and cheeks flushed. Caleb stiffened, lip curling to reveal teeth
still human for the moment. “What, half a dozen men aren’t enough
to keep you safe from the big, scary drakul? Do you really think I
got away from Forsyth just to let you put me in a different
cage?”

Renée frowned. “What are you talking
about?”

“I can hear the engines.” Caleb nodded toward
the driveway outside. “Super vampire senses, remember? Big trucks
on a gravel road make a lot of noise.”

Renée’s eyes widened slightly. “Those don’t
belong to us.”

Caleb cocked his head, clearly listening.
“Then we’ve got a problem. Because there are several of them, and
they’re coming fast.”

“Shit!” Tiffany swore. “How did they find us?
Were you followed?”

Renée’s expression turned grim. “We’ll worry
about laying blame later. For now, break out the armaments. Snipers
upstairs. Everyone else, get ready to hold the lower floors.”

Gray manifested again in a glorious spill of
etheric energy against John’s psychic senses. Ignoring Renée, the
drakul strode for the door, coat snapping behind him. The Vigilant
in his path looked at each other nervously.

For a minute, John thought Renée might
actually order them to try to hold Gray back. Instead, she said,
“Let it through. We might as well see how useful it is.”

John wanted to run after Gray. Stand by him
to confront whatever had come for them. But he didn’t even have an
athame, let alone a gun. He could only get in the way.

Even so, it didn’t make watching Gray
disappear out the door any easier.

Some of the Vigilant made for the rear of the
house, while others hit the stairs to the upper floors. Tiffany
grabbed John’s arm and tugged him toward the back of the house.
“Come on—we’ve got ordinance.”

At least they didn’t expect him to ride this
through without a weapon. He jogged with her, trying to ignore the
bands of worry tightening around his chest. “How the hell did they
find us?”

“No idea. Pittman would pick up on a mole if
he came face-to-face with them. Unfortunately, that leaves a whole
lot of operatives out there who might have turned.” Tiffany slowed
as they reached the kitchen. The rear of the pantry stood open,
revealing a hidden room. Vigilant already darted in and out,
carrying rifles and guns of every description. The ATF would have a
field day if they ever found out about this.

Tiffany passed him a Glock and half a dozen
magazines. Although John never thought of himself as someone who
relied on a gun, he couldn’t deny the heavy weight in his hand made
him feel a little less vulnerable. He wished he had his athame, but
it was long gone, confiscated when SPECTR took him into
custody...was it just yesterday?

“Stick with me,” Tiffany ordered. He fell in
behind her, and together they hurried back to the front of the
building. The sounds of gunshots already came from the front yard,
and he sensed the flex and surge of etheric energy. Gray, of
course...but a flicker of something less powerful as well,
something he wouldn’t have expected to feel at a distance.

“Therianthropes.” How he sensed them from
inside the house he didn’t know, but he’d worry about it later.

Tiffany swore. Darting into a side room, she
ducked beneath a window looking out onto the front lawn. John took
up position beside her. His hand shook slightly from adrenaline as
he twitched back the gauzy white curtains over the window and
risked a peek outside.

A pair of troop transports sat on the lawn,
behind the assortment of sedans and other vehicles belonging to the
Vigilant. Men and women dressed in fatigues jumped out of the
transport, some of them with distorted faces, the demons in them
strong enough to bring on obvious physical changes. All were too
fast, too strong, for non-possessed humans.

And all closed with the slim figure striding
to meet them.

John’s heart stuttered at the sight. Tiffany
hissed in frustration. “It’s full speed ahead with that fucker,
isn’t it?” she muttered. “At least walking right into friendly fire
won’t kill him.”

Maybe, but there were too many possessed even
for Gray to take on. The drakul didn’t seem particularly concerned,
however.

Gray turned back to the house. “John!” he
shouted, like the boom of thunder. “May these be killed?”

John threw the window open and aimed his gun
at the possessed soldiers. “Yes!” he shouted. He risked a shot, but
the creatures already closed in on Gray, and he didn’t want to hit
the drakul instead. “Kill them!”

Gray smiled.

Then he spun and charged straight at the
oncoming therianthropes.

Their ranks shattered even before he reached
them. A handful broke off and fled in the opposite direction in
blind panic, the NHEs inside them sensing the presence of a much
bigger predator. Others hesitated, or tried to go around Gray,
snarling in fear and fury.

Gray went for the ones stupid or brave enough
to come for him. They collided in a swirl of black leather and
mottled fatigues, buzz-cuts and flying hair.

“Wake up, Starkweather!” Tiffany snapped.
“Pick a fucking target and shoot!”

Shit, he had to stop worrying about Gray and
get his act together. He aimed at one of the therianthropes which
had avoided Gray and now made for the front door. Silver-jacketed
lead impacted with its shoulder, blood pouring from the great
artery as it went down. The crack of gunfire came from the rear of
the house; some of the possessed soldiers had circled around to try
their defenses from all directions.

Sighting carefully, he fired at another
soldier rushing toward the house, her mouth distorted by a forest
of teeth, her eyes the fractured amber of a lycanthrope. And
ignored the voice screaming in his head she might still have been
saved. Her forty days weren’t up. In a circle with candles and
athame, he could have torn the NHE out of her.

But not in the middle of a damn battlefield.
Still, it didn’t quiet the innermost voice, which cried out when
she crumpled, shredded by a hail of bullets from his gun and three
others.

This was all Forsyth’s fault. For treating
people like things, for not caring who or what he hurt. For
corrupting SPECTR and putting John in this position in the first
place.

Goddess. She could have been saved.

The tang of blood clogged his nostrils. He
took a deep breath and spat to one side.

“Damn it, Starkweather! Your boy is in
trouble,” Tiffany said.

His attention snapped to the fore, adrenaline
flooding his veins. The therianthropes attacked Gray en masse, a
pile of snapping teeth and rending claws. Gray went to the ground,
buried underneath camo-clad bodies.

John surged to his feet. He needed to get to
Gray, to save him before the possessed tore him into too many
pieces for even a drakul to put back together.

Tiffany grabbed his arm. “Are you crazy?
You’ll get killed!”

Bodies flew away from Gray like debris from a
blast radius, propelled by Caleb’s telekinesis. They smashed into
the ground and the side of the nearest transport, the snap of bone
and crunch of teeth audible even at a distance. Several let out
barks of agony, and one slumped to the ground, its head at a
strange angle to its body.

Gray surged to his feet, covered in blood. He
clutched a drained therianthrope in one hand like an empty beer
can. Casting it aside, he—no, Caleb—smashed back three other
possessed soldiers.

John’s mouth went dry with a mixture of
relief and awe. Even in this scene of death and terror, there was
something almost beautiful about the way Gray and Caleb worked
together, switching off so fast they seemed more a single,
unstoppable force than separate entities.

Bodies littered the lawn. Between the
Vigilant’s firepower and Gray, they’d significantly whittled down
the assault team. Goddess, they might actually make it out of this
without any casualties on their side.

With a roar of engines, a gunship appeared
just over the tree line.

“
Holy shit it’s a fucking attack
helicopter!”

Gray drops the latest demon, its body already
sagging into decay, the surge of power and ecstasy from its blood
still ringing along his nerves. The gunship roars toward the safe
house, yet another of these machines mortals have invented solely
to vex him.

There comes a burst of light and smoke, the
gunship launching the rockets mounted on its sides. They scream
through the air, agonizingly loud against his sensitive hearing.
Before he can even blink, the rockets bury themselves in the
vulnerable wood of the old plantation house. Fire blooms, part of
the building collapsing.

John is inside.

He breaks for the house, Caleb’s distress
twining with his own. John cannot be hurt, he cannot. Not this
soon, not after they have just begun to understand one another.

Figures flee the house, through doors and
windows and new openings torn by the collapse. The other mortal,
Tiffany, scrambles through an open window, and John is behind her.
Gray stumbles, his knees suddenly, strangely weak at the sight.

The helicopter opens fire with its machine
guns, strafing those fleeing the ruin.

No. This is not to be allowed. John must be
protected.

Gray adjusts his trajectory and runs faster,
toward the part of the safe house still standing. He leaps, claws
sinking into wood, scrambling up through clouds of noxious smoke.
People within are screaming, the sound pulling on his nerves
unpleasantly. He must put a stop to this.

He pauses for just an instant, at the highest
point he can reach. The gunship turns its flank to him, hovering
for a moment while it targets those fleeing the back of the house.
So he leaps.

The leap is fueled by Caleb’s TK, both of
them united in this. They describe an arc through the clear air,
and for a moment he thinks it will not be enough, they will not
quite reach—

His claws sink into the metallic skin of the
helicopter, sliding across it before catching. The machine swings
wildly, balance disrupted by his sudden impact, and he hears shouts
from within.

“
Fuck! We’re barely hanging on
here!”

True, and he doesn’t wish to fall. He sinks
his claws in deeper and begins to peel back the metal skin. Rivets
pop, and the shouts inside grow more insistent.

A bullet smashes into his hip, nearly
knocking them free. Hot agony and shattered bone, and he sees one
of the RD soldiers leaning out the side of the helicopter,
preparing to fire again.

Most annoying.

The helicopter jinks and dives, trying to
shake him off. For a moment, all his weight depends from his claws,
and several rip free in a blaze of pain. But he cannot let go; he
cannot let this infernal machine kill John.

Drawing back one arm, he punches the metal
plate, tearing it off. He hooks his arms into the opening he’s
created for a more secure hold.

“
Forget that—those cables look important!
Rip them loose!”

He shrugs and does as Caleb suggests.
Instantly, a hideous whine comes from somewhere in the machine. The
helicopter lurches, one of the rotors freezing. The soldier
shooting at them falls from his perch with a scream.

The ground is coming closer with disturbing
speed.

“
Shit! Jump! Jump!”

* * *

The gunship struck just within the
surrounding woods, impact shaking the ground beneath John’s feet.
Orange flames stretched their fingers toward the sky. Groans and
pops came from the pines nearest the burning helicopter, sap
boiling beneath the bark in the intense heat.

Gray, Caleb, please no.
John had taken
refuge under one of the transports when the gunship began to strafe
everyone fleeing the house. He’d last glimpsed Gray clinging to the
side of the helicopter, before it vanished into the trees. Gray
could survive a broken neck, a bullet to the head, but a raging
inferno?

John left the concealment of the transport.
Whether or not any possessed soldiers remained to try and kill him,
he didn’t know. Didn’t care. Right now he could only run, as hard
as he could, as if reaching the crash site fast enough would
somehow change fate.

A dark shape stepped out of the woods, cast
into silhouette by the burning gunship. Gray’s hair writhed around
his shoulders, and his coat flared out behind him, the orange light
catching on the silver buckles of his boots. Everything looked
intact and uncharred; he’d doubtless leapt clear before the
crash.

John must have flown the last few feet
between them, because suddenly his arms wrapped around Gray and his
face pressed into one leather-clad shoulder. The coat smelled of
cordite and pine resin.