Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4) (3 page)

Dawn. We need the light,
Tink murmured. She sounded
weary…and sad.
That poor boy. I can barely hear him, but he’s stuck in
there, and he’s frightened.

The thought of Will being fully conscious in his own mind,
trapped by a demon, made me sick with rage. “Dawn then, and we’ll fix him. What
about the Dingoes that ran? Think they’re coming back?”

Not tonight
, Tink said.
They’re far afield now,
right brother?

Yes, their signatures are very faint. They aren’t going
to return this night.

But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t return at some other
point. I’d need to keep them in mind, because I had a feeling more monsters
were waiting their turn to attack.

“Okay, we’ll stay here for the night,” I said, scouring the
blades with sand before wiping them clean on my jacket.

Not-Will strained at his leash. “I’ll kill you before dawn.”

“
Now
can I knock him unconscious?” Julie called.

Allow me,
Tink said, her voice coldly gleeful.

Before I knew what I was doing, the tip of my knife was at
Will’s throat and a tiny trickle of blood ran down from a cut just below his
Adam’s apple. His eyes rolled back in his head and his back arched. I skittered
backwards as he writhed on the ground.

“What did you
do?
” I cried.

Just wait.

A second later, not-Will sighed and collapsed. I hurried to
check his pulse, just in case Tink had accidentally killed him. It thrummed
strong and even under my fingers. He let out a snore before curling into a
ball, sound asleep.

“Huh. Well, thanks,” I said.

It’ll take a lot more than that to free him. Be prepared.

I glanced at my best friend’s prone form. Asleep, he looked
perfectly normal. “We’ll get him back, no matter what I have to do.”

The sun had turned the inside of my eyelids pink when
Captain Johnson shook me awake. “Will’s up and going on and on about drinking
our blood for breakfast. What’s the plan?”

“Good morning to you, too, sir.” I rubbed the crust of sleep
out of my eyes and sat up. I’d crashed out on a rocky piece of ground near one
of the Humvees. Despite the poor choice of bed, I’d slept like the dead.
“Plan’s simple. We pull Will into the sunlight, I cut him, he bleeds and the
blade-spirits yank the demon out of him.”

“Like they did with that lady in Canada?” he asked. I nodded
and he frowned. “But we tried that with him yesterday morning and it didn’t
work.”

“The spirits were separated from us yesterday.” I was going
to have to ask Tink about that at some point, to see if she knew how it
happened. “I think it’ll work this time.”

“You
think
,” Johnson said. He sighed. “Well, I’m
going to
hope
it works.”

He strode off, looking for Uncle Mike, while I staggered to
the latrine. My stomach gurgled pitifully when I came back to camp, but food
would have to wait. I was on a mission. Especially once I heard not-Will’s
shouts.

“You will drown in a sea of tears and blood,” he screamed.
His voice was raspy, like he’d screamed his throat raw. “Then I will find your
families and--”

“Hey, that’s enough,” I said, crossing over to him. I drew
my knife and let the early morning sun glint on the dull copper blade. “Time
for a little operation.”

His eyes went wide and he thrashed around. “No!”

He hadn’t been scared yesterday—maybe having the spirits
back online made the threat more potent. I reached for his arm and he jerked
away from me.

“I could use a hand,” I called.

Johnson and Lieutenant Lanningham hurried over. Lanningham
was the biggest guy on our team, bigger even that Johnson, and built of solid
muscle. They were joined by Lieutenant Nguyen, second in command for Will’s
wielder support team. He wasn’t the biggest guy on the team, but crazy strong
for his size. If these three couldn’t hold not-Will down for this, we were
screwed.

Johnson and Nguyen each took one of his arms and forced him
onto his back. Lanningham got the crap job of holding his legs still. Not-Will
screeched and spit and kicked like we were killing him slowly.

“Scoot him over, so he’s in the sun,” I said. We’d been
keeping him in the shade, since the sunlight seemed to burn his skin much
faster than normal.

Once not-Will was in the sunlight, he went quiet, his eyes
open wide.

He looked terrified.

“Okay, Tink, now what? I give him a little cut somewhere and
you two draw out the demon?”

She and Coach Shaw had a whispered conversation in the back
of my head, speaking in their own language. That wasn’t a good sign.

Finally, she said,
Remove the boy’s shirt and make sure
you have his knife ready.

Worried now, I sheathed my own blade and drew the
bronze-handled one. “Okay.”

It was a struggle to get his t-shirt off, and I tried not to
feel like a perv when I had to cut it free.

Once we had him ready, Johnson asked, “So what, exactly, are
we doing?”

I just shook my head, waiting for more instructions.

Tell the others to hold on to him,
Tink whispered.
With
all their strength.

That didn’t sound good. “Uh, Tink says to hold on tight.”

Johnson raised an eyebrow, but clamped his hands around Will’s
left arm. Nguyen did the same with the right, and Lanningham hugged his legs in
a boa-constrictor grip.

Camp had gotten really quiet. I knew everyone was standing
behind us, watching. Not like this wasn’t already uncomfortable enough—we had
to have fifteen more witnesses. Uncle Mike knelt next to me, looking concerned.
Yeah, we needed to get on with this.

 “Tink, what next?” I asked.

Be strong,
she said.

Before I could ask why that was a requirement, Coach Shaw
added,
Stab him in the right shoulder, just above the collarbone. It’ll have
to be a deep cut—

I nearly dropped the knife. “
Stab
him?”

Shocked gasps and murmurs came from the crowd behind us.

The demon has latched on too well. To expel it, we have
to pierce his body all the way through.

My hands started to shake. He wanted me to stab a hole in my
best friend. “Tink, tell me this isn’t right. Please.”

That’s why I said be strong,
she said quietly.
This
isn’t easy for us either. We’ll feel his pain as the demon is expelled.

I wasn’t so sure they’d feel it the same way Will would, and
I hesitated. He picked that moment to spit in Uncle Mike’s face. “I’ll crack
your skull and make your woman watch.”

Aunt Julie’s growl convinced me we’d waited long enough.

I gripped the knife tight. “Hold him completely still.”

The men leaned on not-Will, forcing him flat.

I raised the knife…

…and stabbed him through the shoulder.

The second I did it, the knife’s handle heated up in my
hand, but I couldn’t pry my fingers loose. Tink and Coach Shaw were singing in
my head and my body went rigid and numb as their power coursed through me, into
the blade, and into Will.

With a screech that shattered the air, he spasmed and
convulsed as black mist—a seething, living shadow—exuded from his mouth, nose
and ears. I watched in shock as his skin blistered around the blade driven
through his shoulder muscle.

“Good God,” Klimmett, our team medic, whispered behind me.

“No, man,” Dorland said to my left. “God’s got no place in
this.”

I still couldn’t unwrap my fingers from the knife’s handle
and the spirits’ song was setting my teeth on edge. Pain lanced up my arm into
my neck. “I can’t keep this up much longer. Please, Tink. Whatever we’re doing
here, we need to hurry it up.”

I said be strong,
she snapped, sounding like she was
at the end of her endurance too.
I have all I can handle here. We need your
help.

That made me feel like a whiny jerk. I could do this. For
Will.

I squeezed my eyes shut, wondering if I’d start weeping
blood like a freak. The murmurs from the crowd grew more excited and a few guys
gasped. My eyes flew open. The shadow pouring out of Will had coalesced into a
dark form. It hovered over us like an acid rain cloud as he writhed and
groaned.

“Hang on,” I whispered to him. “This is the worst of it. You
can do this.”

“What
is
that thing?” Aunt Julie asked.

I glanced at the shadow. It was pulling itself together and
slowly becoming the source of all my nightmares—a smeared form that might have
been human once—the Shadow Man. The pain in my head intensified and I was so
sick to my stomach, it was all I could do not to vomit.

“Tink,” I rasped. “We gotta finish this. The Shadow Man is
here.”

It’s not him,
Coach Shaw said.
Just his
reflection. Almost there.

As he said it, the shadow drifted high enough to reach sunlight,
and the early morning rays shot rose-colored holes through the dark cloud. It
screeched, the sound echoing from Will’s own mouth. With a wild convulsion, he
choked out the last of the black mist, went limp, and passed out.

The shadow, now pierced in a dozen spots by the sun, drew
together, then burst apart in a shower of sparks. Without warning, my hand
twitched, then yanked upward, pulling the blade free from Will’s shoulder. He
groaned, but didn’t come to.

I fell backwards, landing on my butt and someone caught me
before I smashed my head on the ground.

“I got you,” Dad said. “You okay?”

I wiped the sweat off my forehead with a shaking hand.
“Don’t worry about me. How’s Will?”

Johnson looked over, nodding. “His pulse is slowing down and
he’s breathing easier. We need to clean up his shoulder, though.”

“Guess I paid him back for the broken nose,” I said. No one
bothered laughing at the gallows humor. We were too damn tired for anything to
be funny. “Do I have time for a nap? That wore me out.”

“Yes,” Uncle Mike said. “How bad was it?”

“Pretty bad,” I said. “But it’ll be worth it if Will’s back
to normal when he wakes up.”

Mike nodded. “You did good. Really—catching on that we
needed to roll out last night, fighting off those Dingoes, then doing this today?
You saved all of us, Matt. I’m proud of you.”

“I am, too,” Dad said. “I still don’t understand everything,
but good work, son.”

A brief expression of annoyance crossed Mike’s face. It was
quick, but I caught it—he always pinched his lips together when he was
irritated with someone. He didn’t seem to like Dad calling me “son” any more
than I did.

“Major, permission to be horizontal for a while.”

“Granted,” he said, giving me a faint, wry smile. “I’ll
speak with Officer Archer about our visit to the coven while you rest.”

I stood. My legs wobbled but I didn’t take Dad’s offered
hand to steady myself. No, I was going to walk away from here under my own
power, especially since everyone else was still standing in a semi-circle
around us, watching and waiting. “Give me two hours, then I’ll check in.”

With that, I turned my back on the team and strode toward my
sleeping bag with my chin up and back straight. The act almost killed me. As
soon as I was out of sight, I crawled into my sleeping bag, shivering like crazy
despite the heat. I’d picked a spot in the shade, but realized I needed some
light, the same as Will. I stuck out my right hand, the one that had stabbed my
best friend, so that my fingers were in the sun. Only then could I relax enough
to sleep.

* * *

I woke up around lunchtime. My BDUs had pasted themselves to
my sweaty skin and I smelled like the zoo on a summer day. It took me a minute
to remember where I was. In my dreams I’d been swimming in a clear blue sea
with Ella. She’d laughed and splashed my face when I tried to grab her. I’d
been inches away from reaching her when the sky went dark and the water became
icy cold. A wave the size of a grocery store rose tall above us, ready to crash
down on our heads. I’d jolted awake just before it crested.

“Better than my sister screaming,” I mumbled. “But not by
much.”

You still dream of Mamie trapped in the dark?
Tink
asked.

“Yeah. About once a week now.” I sat up slowly, groaning as
my joints creaked and whined, but my hurt ankle barely twinged. She must’ve
worked on it while I slept. “You’ve been busy.”

Tink snorted.
We’re heading into the enemy’s den soon. I
can’t let you attempt that while damaged.

“Damaged? That sounds so…robotic.” Standing up took some
real effort but I made it without toppling over. “I’m going to check in.”

The red sand of the Outback sifted over my boots and a stiff
breeze blew as I walked to the lone tent standing. That would be HQ
and
the medic’s tent now…and that’s where they’d have Will. I needed to see that he
was okay. So he broke my nose; that wasn’t his fault. I
stabbed
him—on
purpose. Was he going to be pissed with me?

Lanningham was standing watch outside HQ and nodded when he
saw me coming. “You look better.”

“I feel better.” I glanced at the tent. “He come around yet?”

The lieutenant’s expression was guarded. “Yes.”

“Everything okay?”

He barely shook his head and that told me enough—something
was very wrong. Had we hurt Will somehow when we freed him? I took a deep
breath and pulled the tent flap open. It was dim inside after the noonday sun,
but Mike looked up from his makeshift desk of two crates and a camp chair and
waved me through. “Cruessan, you have a visitor.”

I closed the flap and took my time refastening it, not sure
I could look Will in the eye.

“Who is it?” Will asked.

Startled, I turned to find him sitting up on a cot, looking
right at me. He was shirtless, and I could see the ropy scar in his shoulder
from where I stabbed him. As I suspected, the wound looked cauterized, probably
from the heat of the blade. The good news? Will’s eyes were dark again, and the
person staring at me was absolutely
him
. No sign of the demon.

“Who came in?” he asked again.

My hope, dashed against the rocks of a horrible truth, died.
Will wasn’t staring at me—he was just
staring
.

Will was blind

“It’s me,” I said. My voice rasped around the lump forming
in my throat. Oh, God, had I blinded my best friend?

He nodded. “Guess you can tell I’m still a little messed
up.”

“Yeah.” I looked at Mike. He frowned sadly at me. No, I
couldn’t accept it. We had to fix this. We
had
to. “Tink? What’s going
on?”

Give us a moment.

“Anything?” Will asked, his voice full of hope…and
desperation.

“Not yet, but they’re checking it out.”

“They?”

“Um, yeah. I had to take your knife from you that first night.
You, uh, tried to kill me with it. And broke my nose in the process.”

“And dislocated my shoulder,” Uncle Mike added. “Among other
things.”

Will looked down at his hands, even though he couldn’t see
them. “That demon made a real mess, huh? I’m…I’m really sorry.”

 “It wasn’t your fault,” Mike answered. “But, do you
have any idea how it got inside your head in the first place?”

He was quiet a long moment. “Pain. That’s all I remember. We
were standing by the landing pad, waiting for the helicopter to come in. I was
fine one second, then the next…I’d climbed onto a flat rock to see better and
it was like my skull was being crushed. After that I had flashes of pain, but
nothing else until I woke up in here.”