Destroyer of Worlds (12 page)

“
Um, yeah,” John said, stepping over
the guard’s body and making sure he still had his Glock. “Later
would probably be better.”

* * *

John loves him.

It is wonderful in a way Gray did not know
something could be wonderful: huge and all-encompassing. And
frightening, because he doesn’t understand what it means, exactly,
or what is expected of him. Does John wish him to converse—about
demons, perhaps, and how to hunt them, which is something he
knows—or is that Caleb’s purview? Is he allowed to kiss John again,
or should he wait until asked, or—

“
Could you possibly worry a
bit more about the people trying to kill us?”

Which is, yes, annoying. The Vigilant’s
distraction had worked, drawing most of the guards to the assault
on the far side of the compound. Some had come running back when
Caleb set off the mines and Gray tore through the spirit wards,
however. They had not stopped him, and he had found the building
the Vigilant said held cells. It had been full of foolish mortals
with guns, which of course meant a great deal of screaming and
death.

And John said he loved Gray, and Gray didn’t
know how to react at first, until Caleb said to kiss John, and—

“
Focus!”

More mortals have responded to the shrieking
alarms. Does Forsyth not care if his minions live or die?

It does not matter.

Gray tears the automatic rifle from the hands
of one, breaking her fingers. Another lunges at him, firing, and
the bullets pound into his body. The kevlar lining of the coat
deflects some, but the rest rip through his torso, hot lead and
searing agony. Gray strikes out, claws raking across forehead, eye,
and cheek, laying all open to bone and nerve. The narrow hall
smells of blood, hot and fresh, and his stomach growls with hunger
even though no demons are present.

“
How much farther to the entrance?”
John asks.

“
Not far. Did they bring you in another
way?” A shorter way, perhaps?

Something flickers across John’s
features, which Gray cannot quite parse.
“No. I didn’t
pay as much attention as I should have,” John says, his voice stiff
and flat. “Didn’t exactly seem like escape would be an
option.”

Had he believed they would not come for
him?

“
He thought I’d
died.”

“
I would not have let Caleb die,” Grays
says, and though it is meant as a statement of fact, John flinches.
He has said something wrong, but what? A little tendril of fear
curls through him, because there is too much he doesn’t understand,
even after forty days in a living body, even with all the
washed-out memories of his previous hosts.

“
Christ, just get us away
from here, and we’ll work it out, okay?”

Gray leads the way past the dead and dying
guards, around the corner—then stops.

A mortal stands in the hall, his face white
with terror. The smell of human fear mingles with stale cigarette
smoke. Unlike the others, he is not dressed in body armor, but a
suit and coat. He holds a gun in his hand, but it hangs limply by
his side.

Rage boils through Caleb: betrayal and fury,
and it resonates with Gray’s own anger. But it is John who speaks
the traitor’s name.

“
Sean.”

* * *

For an instant, John stood transfixed, the
sight of Sean like a stake through a vampire’s heart, pinning him
in place. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel
anything but rage and betrayal.

Sean turned and ran, shoes squeaking on the
flooring.

Something snapped inside John at the sight.
With an inarticulate shout of rage, he gave chase. Sean had a head
start, but John was in better shape. He almost closed on his former
friend, when the entrance to the building opened up ahead of
them.

The door lay to one side, torn clean off its
hinges. Alarms screamed, both from the violated door and the
courtyard outside. The chemical reek of smoke grenades drifted
inside, combined with the revolting tang of burning plastic. Sean
vanished through the opening, and John followed him.

It was chaos. Billows of smoke obscured the
bright floodlights, making even nearby shapes difficult to make
out. Running combatants disappeared and reappeared through the
smoke, and the rev and roar of engines cut through the sounds of
gunfire and screams.

What the hell? All of this to rescue him?

Guilt snagged at his chest, but he didn’t
have time for it. Hell, if anyone should feel bad about this
carnage, it was Sean.

Sean had disappeared into the murk, but John
wouldn’t give up easily. He’d promised to kill the bastard, and he
meant to keep that promise.

He took off in the direction he’d last seen
Sean, angling toward what seemed to be the front of the compound.
The gunfire was heaviest here, and a burning truck added to the
smoke and general chaos. The wind shifted, and he caught a brief
glimpse of the mangled ruins of the main gate beneath what remained
of the truck’s wheels. Beyond waited another transport, this one
still in a single piece. Men and women fired from cover around
it.

There—he glimpsed Sean’s familiar tan coat,
disappearing behind a smoldering Humvee. Taking cover, or just
hiding, John didn’t know and didn’t care.

He ran for the vehicle. Either Sean heard him
coming, or just knew he’d catch up eventually, because when John
came around the corner, he found a gun pointed shakily at his
face.

* * *

Gray bursts into the courtyard a few feet
behind John. As John vanishes into the smoke, a group of RD guards
spots him and moves to either give chase or gun him down. Neither
of which is an acceptable outcome.

Gray is on them before they know he’s there.
One goes down instantly, fragile and easily broken, weaker even
than a ghoul. It disturbs him, because John is like this:
vulnerable and mortal. The others turn, and he prepares to fight
them, when a distinct signal sounds over the speakers hanging above
the courtyard. The guards react instantly, running from Gray and
the chaos of the battle.

“
What the hell?”

Perhaps they realize they have lost?

Whatever is happening, the men and women with
SPECTR logos on their helmets and bullet-proof vests retreat en
masse from the courtyard. At least, those able to do so. A woman
lies on her side not far from him, clutching her wounded leg and
swearing furiously, frantically. A ring of panicked white circles
her irises, but she is not looking at Gray, instead staring in the
direction of one of the towers. At her own side.

“
Something’s
wrong.”

Another alarm sounds, this one
different from the others.
“More like a
tornado warning siren.”
Its shriek stabs at Gray’s
sensitive ears. Beneath the din, however, he hears something else,
like a great door opening.

Then he smells them. Demons.

Many demons.

Something lurches through the smoke, moving
uncertainly on two legs, although it seems made for four. The
delicious aroma of wet fur and old blood hangs around it, and he
sees its elongated head, like the parody of a wolf, the razor nails
tipping its fingers.

Around its neck is a heavy collar, with wires
protruding here and there, their other ends anchored in flesh.
Blinking lights flash, red and green.

Two more lurch up, followed by a third,
loping on all fours. They see Gray, freezing into place, their
maddened eyes glowing in his sight. They fear him, they wish to
flee—

The lights all flash red.

The werewolves jerk in unison. The one in
front throws back its head and lets out an ululating howl, before
charging at him.

The hunting howl of a lycanthrope cut
unexpectedly across the courtyard, freezing John’s blood. Sean’s
eyes went wide, and he glanced past John for just an instant.

It was long enough. John punched him with all
the strength he had. Sean staggered back, gun dropping for a
second, no longer pointed at John’s face.

John knocked the weapon from Sean’s hand.
“John, wait—”

“
I’ve already heard what you’ve got to
say,” John snarled savagely. He hit Sean again, sending him
sprawling to the ground.

Rage poured through John, white-hot and
brutal. Sean had welcomed him to SPECTR—or at least, to the
state-run school for paranormals—from the very first day. Had
pretended to be his friend, smiling and laughing, making John feel
at home. Setting him up with dates when they were in the Academy,
or listening to his tales of woe when yet another guy turned out
not to be Mr. Right—or even Mr. Right Now.

Years of in-jokes and watching each other’s
backs, and for what? It had all been a lie.

He straddled Sean’s body and hit him, again
and again, blind with fury. Sean cried out, tried to fight back,
but John didn’t cease the rain of blows. “You lied!” he
screamed.

“
I didn’t!
John—listen—please!”

But he didn’t want to listen. Didn’t want to
hear any more lies.

He stopped hitting Sean and staggered to his
feet. Sean lay with a bloody bruised face, his breath wheezing
through his broken nose. “John…”

“
Shut up,” John said. He pulled the
Glock from his waistband and aimed it at Sean’s head.

* * *

Gray braces himself as the werewolves charge.
The wounded soldier screams and fires at them, until she has no
more bullets. Two of the pack fall on her, snarling and ripping,
and her screams turn into a horrible gurgle, quickly ended.

“
Christ, they left her to
die! Her own side turned those things loose knowing any of their
people still out here would get killed!”

The lead werewolf slams into him, a thing of
madness and hate, its claws scoring long gouges in his leather
coat. Gray grapples with it, grabbing its muzzle, claws sinking
deep to force its head back. The collar is in the way for a throat
bite, but there are other veins and arteries, if not as
conveniently located. He manages to capture one lashing arm,
jerking it up and sinking teeth deep into the meaty part near the
shoulder, ripping aside flesh to get to the pulsing artery
beneath.

Warmth and ecstasy flood him, wounds healing
as the demon’s blood-borne energy pours into him. He tosses aside
the empty husk, decaying already in his hands, and looks for
more.

“
The collars. Forsyth has to
be using them for control. Try pulling one off.”

Two more werewolves run at him. He ignores
one, letting its teeth latch onto his shoulder from behind, the
heavy coat foiling most of the bite. The second he makes a grab
for, claws catching under the heavy collar. He gives a hard
pull—

And its head comes off, the force needed to
break the collar too great for its body to withstand.

“
Oh. Oops.”

Gray drops the head in favor of catching some
of the fountaining blood from the neck stump in his mouth. No sense
in letting it go to waste. Then he deals with the werewolf still
trying to chew through his coat.

They come and they come, demons loosed from
their underground prison: werewolves and succubi and ghouls. Caleb
uses his TK to clear a space to fight, hurling demons back to give
Gray a moment to feed.

And feed he does. Again and again and
again.

It is a glut, a feast, a banquet, far beyond
anything he has ever experienced. Pleasure sings along every nerve,
exquisite and intense, building on itself in a manner almost
sexual. As every demon falls, he grows faster, stronger, the
surfeit of energy so great now his wounds heal instantly.

They cannot stop him.

A storm of bullets comes from somewhere
above, automatic fire tearing through him. It catches the demons as
well, Forsyth clearly not caring if his slaves are cut down if it
means stopping Gray. Fury rolls through Gray, fueled by Caleb’s
sense of the injustice of it all. With a thunderous roar, Gray
turns to face the guards shooting at him.

And unleashes lightning upon them.

* * *

John stared down at Sean’s bloody face, his
finger on the trigger of the Glock. It would just take one little
squeeze, and…

“
Starkweather!”

Tiffany?

But yes, it was Tiffany yelling at him
through the blowing smoke. Tiffany with the symbol of a moth on her
helmet and vest. The world threatened to slip sideways beneath his
feet. Did he ever really know any of the people he’d worked with,
day in and day out? Or had his entire life consisted of nothing but
a series of lies and illusions?

“
Come on!” she shouted. “They’ve
released the demons! Get your ass in the truck! We have to fall
back!”

Sean’s face froze in a mask of fear. “John,
please,” he whispered. “Don’t do this.”

“
Damn it, shoot him and come on! I’m
not getting my people slaughtered by NHEs!”

He firmed his grip on the Glock. He had to do
this. Had to shoot Sean and leave, just like Sean shot Caleb and
left his body behind.

Had to.

“
Fuck,” he said, and lowered the
gun.

Lightning exploded through the courtyard, a
blinding flash followed by a titanic roar of thunder.

The blast knocked John off his feet. For a
moment, he didn’t understand what had happened. Most of the lights
went out, plunging the courtyard into shadow. The sky overhead,
what little he could make out through the smoke, seemed clear. And
indeed, the smoke rolled away as well, driven by a wind scented
with incense and rain.

Rolling onto his side, he saw a smoldering
lump of metal which might have once been a gun emplacement.
Electricity arced throughout the compound, and balls of Saint
Elmo’s fire glowed bright blue on vehicle antennas and the points
of shrapnel. Wind tore through the compound, flinging grit into the
air.