Tome of Bill (Companion): Shining Fury (17 page)

I took one stagger step, almost fell, but then managed to turn. Somehow I wasn’t surprised to find Cynthia’s face grinning back at me. She glanced down at the scythe and raised an eyebrow. “Such a crude weapon.”

Movement registered behind me – it was the man who I’d tried and failed to disarm. I braced myself, readying to duck the killing blow no doubt headed my way.

It didn’t happen. He stepped past me, as if I were of no concern, to engage the Templar knights already racing to my aid. Cynthia’s grin grew wider still, the meaning clear – I was hers to deal with.

“To think,” she continued, looking down at her other hand which held a formidable looking handgun, “that it succeeds where other means fail.”

I wasn’t an expert, but if I had to guess I would have said a .357 at the very least, maybe a 44 caliber. Either way, my blood ran cold. Suddenly the wound in my back seemed almost unimportant.

She raised the gun at me, almost mockingly, then stopped. Maybe it was the hitched breath that caught in my chest or how my eyes widened at the sight, but the way her gaze bored into mine told me she’d noticed some reaction on my part.

“Or perhaps not as useless as we thought.” She leveled the weapon at my face, and for a moment, all I could see was the endless night that lay inside the barrel.

The scared little girl inside of me, the one who’d been happy to lead an unremarkable life beneath the radar of those she considered her betters, somehow found the strength to shove the warrior aside and become dominant. My aura faltered, a flame cut off from oxygen, and I took an unconscious step back.

It didn’t matter whether it was one step or a hundred, though. The black chasm of a barrel still yawned in front of me, and when I dared look above it, gone was Cynthia’s smiling face, replaced by Remington’s cold stare.

A thunderous report sounded, and I was certain that this time, I would not be coming back from that dark place.

* * *

Something was wrong ... or was that right? Time again appeared to slow, but this time I saw no muzzle flash, felt no pain.

Had she somehow missed?

Then time resumed its normal flow and I saw the gun waver in Cynthia’s hand, her stumble forward a step. Another blast of gunfire sounded. Cynthia’s body jerked as I realized the shot had come not from her, but from directly behind – where Kelly now stood with her own gun held out in a shooter’s stance.

She saw me staring and winked. “Just because I don’t like to use them doesn’t mean I don’t know how.”

A flash of light, the jerk of the muzzle, and an explosion of sound followed. Cynthia dropped to her knees in front of me as a third shot found its way home.

Though a part of me insisted I should be horrified to watch someone gunned down from behind, I felt only relief along with, oddly enough, a burning need to pee. The stress of the battle had finally caught up with my bladder. Icon I may be, but that didn’t make me exempt from basic bodily functions.

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. What an absurd thing to think about. We were in the middle of a battle, yet there I was wondering when I could take a restroom break.

Kelly looked confused for a moment, but then a smile began to spread across her face to match mine.

Unfortunately, my view of her was blocked before it could be fully realized. Cynthia stood up again, the look on her face less one of pain and more of someone experiencing a minor inconvenience.

What the hell?

She smiled at me. “We were told to capture you alive. The rest, however, are irrelevant to our needs. Mere fodder.” She then turned toward Kelly and raised her own gun.

The witch fired twice more, but this time Cynthia didn’t so much as even flinch. I saw her slowly put pressure on the trigger, taking her time.

No! I reached out with my power, opening myself and seeking Kelly, hoping she felt it and could sync up in time.

And then she was gone, shoved out of the way the very moment Cynthia’s gun went off.

I didn’t wait around to see what happened. I stepped in, spun, and kicked Cynthia hard in the side. It was like trying to chop down a tree trunk with only my leg. She barely budged. The only reaction she gave was a low chuckle as she aimed again.

I tracked the barrel and saw Vincent lying atop Kelly, shielding her with his body despite an ugly gunshot wound in his side. She looked merely stunned by the impact, but he was in far worse shape.

These were the true heroes. Powerless, yet still willing to stand up for what was right. How could I do any less?

One thing was certain. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.

Something snapped inside of me and I felt the scared little girl retreating back into the recesses of my mind where she belonged.

It was time for a different tactic.

My aura didn’t work on humans, but more and more, I began to suspect that Cynthia might be a lot of things, but human wasn’t one of them.

This time when I tried to sweep her legs out from beneath her, I allowed my aura to blaze to life, empowering the blow. There was a spark of fire when we connected, and then Cynthia was knocked ass over teakettle, the gun clattering out of her grasp.

I sprung lightly to my feet and raced to where my friends lay.

This time, there was no hesitation. I pressed my already blazing hands to Vincent’s side and let loose. He hissed in pain as the power filled him, but I held on and kept him from pulling away.

“Um, Sheila,” Kelly said breathlessly from beneath him.

“In a second. Let me concentrate.”

“I don’t think we have that long.”

I continued to let the healing power of my aura do its job, but spared a glance over my shoulder.

Cynthia was again on her feet, or I should say
its
feet. Her clothes shimmered around her before being absorbed into her body. The chocolate brown of her skin became a charcoal grey as her flesh rippled and hardened. Her tall frame began to collapse in on itself, becoming shorter and wider in stature.

Still, the grin on her face remained, widening as the teeth inside her mouth elongated into granite daggers. The last thing to change were her eyes, sinking into her head until all that remained were empty sockets glowing with an unearthly orange light.

The only part of her that remained human was her left hand, still clutching that accursed blade. The creature looked down upon me and raised the weapon over its misshapen head.

“We have grown tired of this game.
”

The Jahabich! I’d had the displeasure of facing off against them once before. I knew they were shapeshifters, but I’d been told their powers had limits. Even when in human guise they couldn’t change their teeth. It was their one tell, the one failsafe against knowing one’s friends hadn’t been replaced.

Had I heard wrong? Or had something changed? Had these creatures somehow evolved?

Unfortunately, this was a particularly poor time to be seeking answers.

My aura was useless against the weapon in the Cynthia-thing’s hand. In addition, their granite-hard bodies possessed far greater resiliency against my powers than the undead. I was quite literally caught between a rock and a hard place.

Dodging the incoming attack simply wasn’t an option, not with the two people lying helpless behind me. Vincent and Kelly had risked their lives for me. Could I do any less? For all the talk about me being the last defender of humanity, it was high time I acted like it.

The Jahabich brought down the weapon, no doubt hoping to make me choose between saving myself and my friends. I decided on the answer that had saved my butt on many a test in high school: C – all of the above. My aura flared up around me and I stepped inside the creature’s swing, grabbing hold of the weapon’s handle in an attempt to stave off the attack.

I might as well have been trying to stop a speeding car with my bare hands. Even had the wound on my back not made the slightest of movements agonizing, it would have been no contest.

Fortunately, I didn’t have only my muscles to rely on. Though the blade itself ignored my powers, the rest of the weapon appeared to be just a plain wooden shaft. Positioned as I was, my aura acted as a barrier to keep the monster from completing its swing.

The creature’s skin sparked where it touched the white glow. Its rocklike teeth gritted, although whether in pain, anger, or simply frustration I wasn’t sure.

It was a temporary solution at best, one I wasn’t going to win, especially since the creature had another arm it so far seemed disinclined to use. The chuckle that issued from its mouth a moment later confirmed it. The damn thing was humoring me.

Oh yeah? Well, we’d see who would have the last laugh.

I glanced around. Where the hell had I dropped my sword?

The thing was, I wasn’t entirely certain I
had
dropped it. Sure, it had clattered out of my hand while that skeletonized zombie was attacking me, but it had almost felt as if it had purposely torn itself from my grasp. No. That had to have been in my mind, another side effect of the fear I couldn’t seem to shake.

I felt a tingle in the back of my head and suddenly the Jahabich’s arm pushed an inch further down. The blaze of my aura faltered ever so slightly in response. I saw, but more importantly
felt
, it sputtering. What was happening?

Perhaps I’d been wrong after all. Maybe an Icon
could
lose their powers along with their faith in themselves. Perhaps it was just a slower process, like a tire leaking air. Perhaps it was fate finally rejecting me.

“Get out of the way!”

Perhaps I was an idiot who should have realized that tingle was vaguely familiar. My power wasn’t fading, it was being redirected. I’d opened myself up to Kelly barely a minute earlier and hadn’t consciously shut the door since.

Thank goodness!

I let go of the weapon’s shaft and dove to the side, hoping I was right.

Rolling with the move, I came up just in time to see the Jahabich step forward to complete its swing, only for its arm to be blown apart by a surge of sickly yellow energy.

Kelly was still on the ground, cradling Vincent. Her free hand, however, was outstretched and glowing with power.

The creature’s weapon landed right in front of me, missing my toes by a couple of inches at most.

Kelly was shaking from the effort, no doubt the base incompatibility of our powers taking its toll. I didn’t know if she had another blast like that in her, but I didn’t doubt she’d try.

My job was to make sure she was given the chance.

I grabbed hold of the cursed weapon and swung it at the Jahabich. My aim was true and I hit the mark dead on, right in the side of its misshapen head. Alas, the end result was little more than the blade shattering into pieces. However, it did draw the monster’s attention away from my friends and back toward me.

Unfortunately, Cynthia wasn’t the only one whose attention I’d caught. The two others, until now preoccupied by the Templar, turned in my direction and dropped their disguises. Once back in their rocklike forms, it became obvious they’d been toying with us. The Templars’ weapons clanged harmlessly off their skin, having no effect at all.

“Worry about the undead. We’ve got these,” I shouted to the knights, putting more bravado into my voice than was probably warranted.

“Oh yeah, piece of cake,” Kelly gasped. She had managed to scramble shakily back to her feet, standing protectively before the still-unconscious Vincent. Though I hadn’t been given enough time to finish healing him, I was pleased to see I’d at least managed to staunch the bleeding. Now to worry about the rest of us.

These creatures were dangerous, but they weren’t invincible. We could take them if only we could get a little momentum on our side. For the last several legs of this battle, we’d been on the defensive. That needed to change.

But how?

Almost as if in answer to an unsaid prayer, a flash of light coalesced near the rear of our formation, next to where Veronica still lay. It shone brightly for a moment, nearly at the level of my aura, and then faded away to reveal Meg.

“It’s about fucking time,” Kelly muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.

* * *

Meg’s reappearance provided just the distraction we needed. One of the other two Jahabich stopped to decide between us and this new threat. Kelly took advantage of its indecision to fire off another yellowish beam. It was a glancing blow, but enough to knock the creature off its feet.

There came another slight tingle in my head, and I knew the connection between us had just been severed. It’s hard to explain except to say that once again, I felt alone in my skin.

The yellowish glow around Kelly dissipated and a familiar purple dome of energy appeared over her and Vincent.

She grinned weakly at me. “Hope you don’t mind, but Meg’s vintage is a bit more to my tastes.”

I spared her a smile then, seeing she was safe for the moment, turned and sprinted for where I remembered dropping my sword. My power entirely my own again, I focused it on sealing the gash in my back as its healing glow washed over me.

There! Thankfully, it hadn’t gotten buried under the rubble. The blade began to glow as I reached for it, but then I hesitated. What if I’d been right about it rejecting me earlier? The white glow around the weapon began to diminish, seeming to confirm my fear.

Or perhaps I was overthinking things – projecting human emotion upon an inanimate object. It was a silly and stupid thing to do, especially in the middle of a battle. I bent to one knee, the thought of rejection still echoing in my mind, and grabbed hold of the sword.

For a moment, at least.

My hand had just started to close around the grip when the weapon began to vibrate in my grasp, quickly reaching an intensity that was impossible to ignore – like trying to hold an angry rattlesnake. I watched in horror as the weapon seemed to physically leap from my palm and clatter back to the ground where it once again became still.