Soulguard (26 page)

Chapter 55

              “Hello, Greg.” I answered the phone.

              “What’s the deal with this nest in Kansas?” he asked, “The Arch mage said you were the one to report it.”

              “Nest?!” I felt a pit open in my stomach, “It’s a full on invasion, Greg.”

              “What?” he asked, “We’re already on the plane and headed that way.”

              “Who is on the plane?”

              “The Elite Guards, me, Nora and a few more Mages.”

              “Didn’t he mobilize the Guard?” I asked, “He was supposed to mobilize everyone. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of frigging Demons.”

              “Dear God, you can’t be serious.”

              “As serious as it gets Greg.”

              “We’re bound for Wichita. You know if they’re already here we’ll have to go after them. We can’t just let people die.”

              “I’ll call in and see if we can’t get help. I’ll call back in a few.”

              As I hung up I had a sinking feeling. Price had finally played his cards. He was targeting my parents and the Elite Guards at the same time. I just knew this was the retribution I’d been waiting for over the last eight years. Maybe I was wrong, but I didn’t feel like I was wrong. But what sort of endgame was he after? This could destroy the world, it couldn’t just be vengeance on me. There had to be something else.

              I dialed in to the Academy. No one answered. I tried again and still no answer. I tried another number and got a response.

              “Colin?” Daphne Cavanaugh answered, “What the hell is going on? The Mages say the whole Knoxville base has gone rogue. What are you doing out there?”

              “Daph, we’re in some serious shit here,” I said, “We captured a Wraith and interrogated it. The Demons have decided we’re too dangerous to live and are massing a full out invasion. Their first force will hit Kansas in less than twelve hours.”

              “Why are they saying you’re rogue then?”

              “It’s Price, he sent the Elites alone to face hundreds of thousands of Demons. He plans to cull the Guard down by getting rid of the ones who defy him. I think he has more than that in mind but I may be seeing more than there is. He is also targeting me because of his son I think.”

              “What do you need me to do?”

              “How many Guards can you muster to send to Kansas?”

              “I have a hundred Guards but some of them are out of communication at the moment. I can bring probably seventy or so. I can’t guarantee it. We are defying orders to do it but I think my Guards will follow my lead. But we don’t have transport.”

              “I’ll get transport and call you back.”

              “You got it, I’ll get the troops ready. Good luck Colin.”

              I hung up the phone and called another number.

              “Hello,” a familiar voice answered, “What the hell have you done this time?”

              “Sam, I know you don’t know me all that well but we’re in some deep shit.”

              I told Sam Keller the whole story and he was silent for a whole minute.

              “That sorry rat bastard!” He cursed, “He’s using this to weaken the Guard, but if that many Demons run loose in Kansas, we’ll never be able to hunt em all down. He’s signing the death warrant for half of the US. I can’t guarantee the Mage support but the Guard will follow me in this for you.”

              “For me?”

              “You still don’t understand the support the Guard is willing to give you, boy. What’s the plan?”

              “I’ll call back in a moment. Start getting the troops ready and I’ll see about transport.”

              “You got it.”

              I hung up and called one more number.

              “Hello Colin, what can I do for you, Young Man?”

              “Senator Deacons, we have a serious situation and I need your help...”

***

              “I need you to get to Kirtland Air Force Base, you’ll meet a C-130 there for the flight to Wichita. We’ll meet you there and I got us some more help from Pittsburgh.”

              “Great, but we don’t have the vehicles for that.”

              “There won’t be any secrecy after today, Daph.”

              “I guess not,” She sighed, “We’ll be there.”

              “Thanks,” I said.

              “We’re Soulguard, Colin, it’s what we do.”

              I hung up the phone and dialed Sam, “I need you at the Pittsburgh international airport in an hour and a half. They’re flying a C-17 in from Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York. We’re meeting in Wichita and I hope they aren’t already here.”

              “We’ll be there,” Keller answered, “If we survive this, you know we’ll have to do something about Price, don’t you?”

              “Yeah, Price has gone too far, He’ll have to be dealt with. Lord knows how we’ll do it,” I said, “Good luck Sam and we’ll see you in Wichita.”

              I put the phone away and turned to the Guards gathered in the parking lot.

              “Men, you all know what’s happening in Kansas and we’ve been preparing to move the whole contingent out to join the battle. Some things have changed. The Archmage has chosen to send only fifty Guards and a few Mages to face this and everyone has been ordered to pay no attention to me. Word has gone out that we’ve gone rogue.”

              There were exclamations and the whole group seemed to erupt in fury. I saw the red of rage rolling across the crowd.

              “I think you all know as well as I do why he targets us with these accusations. But I am going to Kansas anyway. I kill Demons and that’s where the Demons are. Damn the Archmage and his Council of boot lickers. Hundreds of thousands of lives will be lost if we can’t stop what’s coming there. I won’t order anyone to join me but you all are welcome. There will be no repercussions or hard feelings if you choose to follow orders and stay out of it.”

              “I think I speak for all of us, Sir,” Jacobs stepped forward, “We’ll follow wherever you lead and if you want to go to Kansas then by God, we go to Kansas!”

              A hundred voices roared approval and I felt an overwhelming sense of pride in my Guards. Not one chose to stay behind.

              “Then get your gear, we’re heading for the airport. A National Guard C-130 will meet us in less than an hour.”

              “Sir, we don’t have enough vehicles to take everyone,” Ramirez said.

              “We’ll take it at a run. There’s not gonna be any more secrecy after this. Hundreds of thousands of frigging Demons are gonna be hard to hide. Today we go public.”

              It only took a few minutes to ready everyone. I turned to find Sandy and Randy Quincy standing behind me. Body armor looked completely wrong on the two.

              “I need you here guys,” I said, “I need you to contact anyone you can and get more reinforcements down there if it’s possible. You both look ridiculous in all that body armor anyway.”

              “We’re ready to fight, Sir.” Randy answered. I could see the fear in his aura, he was terrified, as was his sister. But they would both join me if I let them. I felt a large lump in my throat as I looked at them. Why do they have so much loyalty to me? I’ll never understand how people can be so dedicated to me, and I know it was dedication to me. I’m a frigging Soullord, I can see it inside them.

              “You two are amazing. Now go find me some more reinforcements.”

              “Yes Sir,” They both headed back inside.

              “You bring out the crazy in everyone, boss,” Rictor said from right behind me.

              “It seems so, Ric,” I said softly. Then I turned to the Guards.

              “All right!” I yelled, “Fall in! We’re heading straight to the interstate and to the Airport at high speed! Let’s go!”

              I leaped forward as the world slowed, my Guards right on my tail. We sprang over cars and anything else that got in our way. In moments we were on I-40 and we picked up speed. I’m not sure how many wrecks we caused. It’s not every day you see a hundred men and women running down the interstate at ninety miles per hour. Luckily it was rush hour and the cars weren’t moving very fast. We leaped over the lines of cars entering from the side ramps and in minutes we were turning down Alcoa highway.

              Several minutes later, I enhanced my vision as the Airport came into view. I picked out the Military craft and pointed. We slowed a bit, veered to the right and off of the road and shot straight for the aircraft. There were several National Guardsmen at the rear of the plane. Two were completely surprised by our arrival at seventy miles per hour. One, a young man wasn’t surprised but awe rolled through his aura.

              I stopped in front of him, “You must be the General’s kid. Tell him we really appreciate his help. A lot of lives are depending on us.”

              I saw a little bit of frustration from the comment and a memory of several people calling him the General’s kid and laughed.

              “Big shoes to fill, eh?,” I turned and Ric was already loading everyone up, “Try being the son of Kelvin Demonkiller. And tell your father that there’ll be more groups needing transport if things go right.”

              “Yes Sir,” he said, “My father told me what you’re doing and good luck.”

              “Thanks, we’ll need all the luck we can get.”

              As I stepped on the ramp I heard the small blonde woman’s voice, “Is that a freaking sword on his back, Brisco?”

              “I believe it was,” the other National Guardsman answered, “Did you see their eyes? Those guys have been in some serious shit.”

              The ramp closed and I didn’t hear any more from them. I headed forward toward the cockpit. As I passed the guy at the controls for the door I saw he was nervous and confused. Our equipment probably looks strange to guys who use guns as primary weapons.

              “They told us you would give a destination when you got here,” the pilot said as I entered the cockpit.

              “Wichita, Kansas. How long a flight will that be you think?”

              “About five hours, man.”

              “Thanks,” I said and headed back to where Ric was sitting.

              “Five hours or so,” I said, “Daphne should be there by then but Keller will be a bit later. He’s a couple of hundred miles or so farther away than we are. He’s got a faster plane though, I may be wrong.”

              “That will give us some time to go over your open ground tactics with Daph. You sure you can make a shield that big?”

              “I won’t be carrying it by myself,” I said, “I’m pretty sure it’ll work, I just don’t know how far we’ll actually get into em with it. We’ll just have to see.”

              “I just love your experiments, Boss.”

              “Don’t we all,” I heard Prada’s voice.

              Then Jacobs started singing Rocketman and I shook my head, “I’ll never live that down.”

              I sat down and leaned my head back. As my eyes closed I heard Ramirez, “At least we don’t have to listen to that racket all the way there.”

              “You’d rather listen to this loud assed plane?” Jacobs asked.

              “As a matter of fact, yeah.”

Chapter 56

              “Holy shit,” Jacobs said, “You guys feel that?”

              “It’s still an hour away from us,” I said as I opened my Inner eye to look for it.

              “That thing must be huge,” Holsey said.

              “I can’t believe you kept the pink hair,” Lewis said to Holsey.

              “Why not? He’s still bald,” Holsey said, pointing at Jacobs.

              I started feeling the rage building inside of me.

              “Starting to get that look in his eyes again,” Prada said, “The killing starts soon after.”

              The Demon portal was so strong, I was having a hard time beating down the rage. I jerked as Ric squeezed my shoulder but it helped. They know what I deal with every time we fight Demons and they help when they can. It really means a great deal to me that they care as much as they do.

              I spent the next hour struggling with the Demon inside me. I was ready to get off the plane as soon as it stopped.

              “They’re both here, Boss,” Ric said, “but I don’t see the Elites.”

              I had a sneaky suspicion where they were. One of the first priorities would have been to get the attention of the Demon army so the innocents could run.

              I met Daphne and Sam as I got off the plane, “We don’t have time for practice so I’ll tell you what I have in mind.”

              I looked at Keller with a question on my lips.

              “It’s your show, kid,” he said, “just tell me where you want me.”

              “Daphne, I want you on the right flank and Rictor on the left. I want twenty Guards on each side and stack the others in a chevron formation right behind them. When I raise the shield we’ll all be pushing it.”

              “What shield?”

              “You’ll know it when you see it. When I raise it, pull your ranks up against it and get as many in on the push as you can.”

              She nodded even though she wasn’t clear on what the shield was yet.

              “Sam, I need you in the center doing Mage things. You see anything bigger than a soldier you burn it down.”

              I turned to the two hundred and fifty six Guards forming up.

              “I can’t thank you enough,” My amplified voice boomed across the airstrip, “my brothers and sisters.”

              I pointed to the horde of news helicopters heading north, “The world will be watching and the whole Guard will be judged by the actions we take today. We’ll do the Guard proud. And if we walk the road to Paradise today, it will be paved with
thousands
of Demon Souls!”

              The Guard roared. One of the pilots from our plane stepped off the plane, “Who the hell are you guys?”

              “Who are we?” my voice boomed.

              “Soulguard!” two hundred and fifty nine voices replied in unison.

              “North at a run!”

              I surged forward as the world slowed and the Guard fell in behind me. We were at a small airport to the north of Wichita and we headed straight north. The area was flat and we didn’t bother with a road. We ripped across the plain at close to eighty miles per hour.

              The evil feeling of Demons grew closer and closer and there was a huge darkness ahead of us. We had covered ten miles when I felt a Pull like I’d never felt before. It was huge and the horizon lit up in the distance.

              “What the hell was that?” I heard a Guard ask. I was afraid I knew what the answer to that question was and I felt a sinking feeling.

              Minutes later we were near enough to see the horde of Demons on the other side of a small township. People were fleeing south and we angled to the side and charged straight through the town, toward the Demons.

              I could see a white glow out in the center of that horde. There were a lot of Demons trying to get to them but there was a massive wave of them heading for the town.

              All the way here I had been weaving a shield and it stretched across the front of our formation. It was shaped like a razor sharp arrow head and it rested against the shields of the Guards in our chevron formation.

              “Shields up!”

              Every Guard turned on their personal shield. I opened the portal on the arrowhead and it flared to life. Every Guard who could get to it moved into the shield to push.

              I looked at the horde in front of us and the rage was boiling out of me. In the center was a huge Demon with an ugly purplish black glow around it.

              “See that big bitch in the middle?!” my voice boomed.

              “Hell yeah!”

              “That’s the target! And I want it’s head! Full speed!”

              With another roar the Guards poured on the speed.

              The arrowhead slammed into the horde of Demons with an explosive crash and Demon parts and Demon blood exploded in every direction. We didn’t even slow down for several moments. We plowed through nearly half the distance from the outer edge to the Demonmage before our formation was bogging down.

              “Diamond formation!” my voice boomed.

              The Guard fell into a formation with twenty guards per side of a diamond. The rest formed a second diamond inside and a third inside of that one. Sam Keller was in the middle looking for Wraiths. I dropped the arrowhead and drew my swords which flamed to life.

              “Let’s dance!”

              My Guards had formed the outer diamond and most of them had been practicing the Dance of Blades with me. The world slowed and the Dance began. My swords blurred and Demons died. To my left Rictor’s swords took life after life and his soul was filled with glee.

              I love Marines.

              To my right, Andrea Prada danced and Demons died.

              “Wraith inbound! Three o’clock!”

              I heard Sam cut loose with his fireballer. The Wraith exploded before reaching the Guards. We cut our way ever further toward the Demonmage.

              “Switch!” my voice boomed and the Rednecks stepped smoothly back while the next rank of Guards stepped up. Daphne Cavanaugh stepped into the point position as I stepped back.

              “Wraith 3 o’clock!”

              “Wraith 9 o’clock!”

              “Wraith 1 o’clock!”

              Just as those voices rang out, the Demonmage erupted with ugly purplish black fireballs. I quickly formed a flat shield and placed it in front of the first fireball. It slammed into the shield and drove me backward ten feet. The next one I angled the shield so it just deflected the fireball right into a tightly packed group of Demons.

              They were incinerated. The fireballs kept coming and each was on a different trajectory so I had to concentrate on deflecting them all.

              As this was going on, Sam unloaded into the first Wraith at 1 o’clock. It exploded after three fireballs slammed into it. He turned and opened fire into the Wraith at 3 o’clock. The other one slammed through the lines and aimed straight at Sam’s back.

              It was mere feet from Sam when out of nowhere, Jacobs hit the thing high on the back, wrapping an arm around its throat. He hit it so fast it drove the Wraith toward the left and it missed Sam by inches. It roared and reached back to rake its claws up Jacobs’ back ripping long gashes into the man. His shield blunted a bit of the force and kept the claws from killing him outright. He reached to his belt and drew a dagger which lit with Soulfire. Then he raked it across the Wraiths right eye.

              It roared and began spinning, trying to get ahold of Jacobs. Finally it grabbed his left leg and snatched Jacobs from behind it. It raised the Guard to look at who had been on its back and opened its mouth to mangle him with its huge teeth.

              Jacobs armed plunged into its mouth and he slammed the flaming dagger through the roof of its mouth, right into its brain. It slammed its jaws closed, severing Jacobs’ arm, just below the elbow and it spasmed, ripping his left leg off below the knee.

              Jacobs cartwheeled outward toward the Demon horde to fall limply to the ground. Soldier Demons charged the downed Guard, but Holsey, of all people stepped across him and began holding the horde back. In seconds, Ramirez joined him, while several guards I hadn’t met pulled Jacobs inside the formation.

              All of this I saw afterwards through the memories of several Guards. It took all my concentration to block the fireballs flying toward us. If they had been aimed at me, it would have been easier, but the fireballs were flying toward all different points in our formation. Then we reached the point where I was in range of the bastard.

              I opened the portals on six disk launchers and pushed the shields up high above the heads of my Guards. Then I Pulled hard and all six launchers sent fiery disks flashing toward one point. Straight at the chest of the Demonmage.

              Each of my launchers fires two disks per second and there were six. The disks began slamming into the thing’s shield and it stepped backward with each strike. It took five seconds before the first disk penetrated the shield and slammed into its chest. It screamed as disk after disk ripped it to shreds.

              Then I slammed my triple shield out to cover the rest of my men and opened the portals. The few Demons inside the shield were dealt with quite quickly.

              There was a massive roar from every Demon on the field and they all turned toward us.

              “That got their attention, Boss!” Prada yelled.

              “Damn straight!” another Guard yelled as the Demons charged and slammed into my shield.

              That’s when I turned to find Sam Keller bent over Jacobs pushing life-force into the man.

              “That crazy son of a bitch killed a Wraith!” Holsey was hovering behind Sam. I watched the memories flashing across auras and shook my head in wonder.

              “You know, if he lives through this he’ll be insufferable,” Prada said beside me.

              “It’ll be worth it,” I said, “Get some people to help him, we need to close ranks with the Elites. They’ve been hammered for over an hour.”