“Bugs.”
Evie did a shivery little dance. “Oh, my God, we’re buried alive in bugs!
I hate
bugs, especially roaches. And stinkbugs. They crackle when they walk. Yuck!”
Crackle when they walk? No time to think about that one. Addy was too worried about Brand.
She rushed to the edge of the shield, frantic to see what was happening. “I can’t see. I can’t see Brand.”
Frustrated, she smacked her hand against the shield, her fear and anger fueling the blow. She felt a pulling sensation. Her palm burned. The shield crackled and flared, bright blue and then white. The curtain of bugs slid to the ground in a smoking heap. The once green park was covered in a thick carpet of dead bugs.
“You got ’em, Addy.” Evie jumped up and down with excitement. “You got ’em!”
Addy barely heard her. Her attention was focused on the two warriors. They stood back to back. The inmates surrounded them in a loose circle. Grinning, three of the men dropped the heads they carried. Bones cracked and skin and clothing split as the demons inside them took full control. A convict’s head and jaw elongated grotesquely. His enormous, gaping mouth bristled with a double row of sharp teeth. Flesh tore with a wet, meaty sound as a row of steely red spikes sprang from the man’s hunched back. His arms and legs grew into long, leathery limbs that ended in cruel claws. A second man took the form of a gigantic wolf with six legs and three heads with vice-like, slavering jaws. The third man stretched and grew into a ten-foot ogre with one eye in the middle of his bulging forehead, and a wide, drooling mouth. A
naked
ten-foot ogre with skin like tanned hide and feet like concrete blocks. And a gi-normous ogre-size hairy arse. Eww.
With a guttural roar, the ogre pulled up a flowering pear tree by the roots and swung it at Brand and Ansgar. They ducked, avoiding the blow with ease.
Brand straightened. “Hear me, djegrali.”
His deep voice rang around the square. He sounded calm and unafraid, like a man who had things under control.
As if.
Not if Cerberus the three-headed wolf or Mr. Hairy Butt Cheeks or the guy that looked like somebody had mated the monster from
Aliens
with a horny toad had anything to say about it.
“Return with me and my brother peaceably,” he said, “and you will be banished to the Pit. Fight and we will destroy you.”
He held out his left hand, palm side up. A small, curved bottle with a stoppered top appeared in his hand.
Was he serious? He was threatening a Cyclops with a
perfume bottle
? The three convicts still in human form jeered and beat on their drums.
Brand shrugged and closed his hand. The bottle disappeared.
The ogre opened his slack, lipless mouth and bellowed. The sound was deafening, a hundred rampaging elephants trumpeting their rage at once. He lurched forward, swinging his makeshift club like an enormous mace. One blow from that club and Brand and Ansgar would be smashed to bits.
“Mine,” Ansgar said as cool as you please.
Stepping forward, he fitted an arrow into his bow and fired in one smooth motion. The arrow whistled through the air and skewered the ogre in his one eye. The ogre bawled like an injured calf and crashed to the ground. The mountainous, fleshy body trembled in gelatinous waves, and the ogre disappeared. In the monster’s place a dead convict lay on the ground, a shining silver arrow between his eyes. Something dark oozed out of the corpse and pooled on the ground. A despairing wail rose from the puddle. The hair on Addy’s arms and neck stood on end at the eerie sound. The liquid patch of darkness solidified and cracked, then shattered into dust that was caught and blown asunder by a sudden rush of wind.
After that, things seemed to happen at once. Howling with rage, the gigantic wolf and the lizard monster attacked. Addy saw Brand’s sword flash in a flaming arc and heard the sharp twang of arrows as Ansgar fired his bow. A wolfen head hit the ground, jaws snapping. Arrows bounced off the lizard monster’s leathery skin.
“Aim for the throat, Ansgar,” Brand shouted, stabbing one of two remaining wolf heads in the neck. The huge animal shuddered and snarled, snapping at Brand as the wounded head sagged. Brand dove under the wolf, stabbing it deep in the belly. It gave a gurgling cry and collapsed. Brand rolled free and sprang to his feet, chopping off the third and last head with a swinging blow. The wolf vanished, leaving in its place a dead convict with a severed head and a deep slash across his abdomen.
Ansgar smiled as he battled his monster. And he was
singing
. He danced between the monster’s clawed limbs on nimble feet, a strapping, flaxen-haired, six-and-a-half-foot Viking god, Fred Astaire doing the quick step with a nightmarish Ginger Rogers. He sang as he dodged the thing’s biting jaws, belting out a song in a language Addy did not recognize. Evie giggled. Oh, boy. Ansgar’s singing made girlfriend giddy even at a distance. On the bright side, his yodeling seemed to annoy the monster, even cause it pain. The creature opened its toothy maw with a roar of protest. Ansgar stopped singing and fired a swift volley of arrows down the monster’s throat. The thing stiffened and crashed to the ground. A moment later it disappeared. A man lay on the ground, half a dozen arrows sticking out of his neck.
Dark sludge leaked out of the dead men’s bodies and stained the ground, hardened and cracked. The wraiths shrieked, turned to dust, and blew away.
“Look, Addy.” Evie pointed to the three corpses on the ground. She sounded a little woozy from the aftereffects of Ansgar’s singing, but otherwise okay.
The bodies of the men collapsed and folded in on themselves, like deflated balloons, leaving a big clump of loose skin on the ground. The skin dissolved and melted away.
“Gross,” Addy said. “What happened?”
Evie came over to take a closer look. “I don’t know. It’s like the demons used them all up.”
“Maybe so. Something sure happened to them.”
The three demons still in human form shouted something in a foul, guttural language.
Evie clutched Addy’s arm. “What are they saying?”
“I don’t know, but I got a feeling it’s not good.”
The earth shook in response to the demons’ call and vomited out a horde of mud critters. Roughly the size of a hub cap and clam shaped, the demons’ soldiers were all mouth, with row upon row of serrated teeth. They clattered across the park on slender, birdlike legs, consuming all within their path like an army of hungry Pac-Men gobbling up pac-dots.
The gobblers swarmed over Brand and Ansgar, and the warriors disappeared.
Chapter Thirty-five
B
rand and Ansgar shook off the nasty little gobblers like a couple of big dogs shaking water from their fur. Their clothes were in shreds, and dozens of vicious bite marks marred their powerful bodies. Brand held out his hand, and there was a blinding flash of light. When Addy’s vision cleared, she saw the warriors standing on top of a big mound of dead gobblers. Their wounds had healed—score another one for the miraculous Dalvahni constitution. Their tattered jeans and shirts were gone and they were once more clad in their leather clothing. What, did they have a secret cosmic Rubbermaid compartment where they kept their warrior duds?
To her relief, they seemed to be holding their own in the fight. Brand swept his sword back and forth, cleaving mud critters left and right. Ansgar fired his arrows with the rapidity of a well-oiled machine gun, his movements a blur. Addy felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe things were going to be okay. Brand and Ansgar were professionals. She was worried for nothing. Fighting demons and creatures of darkness was their job, something they were
created
to do. They had to be good at it to have survived this long, right?
Her relief was short-lived. The demon-men shouted something harsh, and the earth belched out a second wave of gobblers. The insatiable creatures darted toward Brand and Ansgar like a crazed army of sandpipers wearing clamshell hats with teeth.
“There are too many of them,” Addy cried. “They can’t stop them all. Oh, my God, they’re going to be eaten alive.” She flung her body against the shield, pounding it with her fists. “Brand.
Brand.
”
Terror streaked through her, and a surge of energy that started at the soles of her feet, moved up her legs and torso, and burst from her fingertips in a brilliant flash of light. The shield exploded in a shower of sparks, and she pitched forward onto her knees. Shaken, she scrambled to her feet. Crap, she’d broken the shield. How the heck did she do that? Brand was not going to be a happy camper.
“Addy?” Evie stared at her open mouthed. “You busted the shield.”
“I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”
They both turned at the sound of hoofbeats from the north. Whooping at the top of his lungs, Shep galloped over the hill on Sildhjort’s back, a makeshift club in one hand. He swung it back and forth like a polo mallet, scattering gobblers left and right, an avenging angel wearing faded jeans and a Polo shirt. Sildhjort’s antlers shone with sapphire light, like a ship’s mast ablaze with Saint Elmo’s fire. He lowered his shining white head. Blue light spread out from his antlers in waves, pulverizing the mud gobblers. Dust and grit rose up in a choking cloud.
Enraged at the destruction of their rapacious army, the demons attacked Brand and Ansgar. Earth and sky groaned beneath their assault. The demons clouted the warriors with lightning. Brand and Ansgar caught the bolts and flung them back. It was like watching an epic battle, the Titans against the young gods of Olympus or the Frost Giants at war with the Aesir. But the demons were outgunned and outclassed, Addy soon realized with a dawning sense of awe. The demons called forth fire and the Dalvahni doused it with rain. Wind howled, and Brand and Ansgar swept it aside. The demons rained down a hailstorm of black ice daggers, and Brand and Ansgar ground them to powder.
Frustrated and furious, the demons loosed their wrath on Sid and Shep, hurling molten balls of flame at them. Sid snorted, his breath steaming from his nostrils in enormous white puffs. The vapor struck the demons’ burning orbs, and they spun across the park. One of the fireballs took out the Conecuh Sausage stand, and another one rolled into Shep’s coffin car. The car burst into flames and exploded in a shower of parts.
“My car! That was my
car,
you son-of-a-bitch.” Swinging his mallet, Shep jumped off Sildhjort’s back and charged the nearest demon-man.
“Shep, no!” Addy shrieked.
The demon lifted his hand in a negligent manner, blasting Shep with a burst of energy. He flew through the air like a rag doll and landed hard on the ground, rolling to his side with a groan. Grinning in triumph, the demon stalked toward him.
Oh, God, Shep was in big trouble. Frantic, Addy looked around for something,
anything,
to use as a weapon. The park had been cleaned for the festival. Not so much as a stick lying around. The demon was almost on top of Shep. Time, she was out of time. She spied an aluminum pole on the ground amid the shambles of the sausage stand. She beckoned. The pole flew through the air and into her hand.
“Addy?”
She hefted the pole like a lance. “Stay put, Evie.”
“Addy, I know that look. You’re fixin’ to do something stupid.”
Addy took off at a run. Grinning, the demon raised his hand to finish Shep.
“Adara,
no,
” she heard Brand shout.
She rammed the demon with the aluminum pole. He reeled back.
She stood between Shep and the demon. With shaking arms, she raised the pole. “Leave my brother alone.”
The demon straightened with an evil leer. “Hello, Addy.”
A cold shiver of recognition slithered down her spine. Brain-numbing fear slammed through her, and the aluminum pole slipped from her grasp. That voice . . . that horrible, raspy voice. It was Mr. Nasty, alive and in the flesh. He said he was coming for her, and he was here.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t think; watched helplessly as he raised his hand to strike her.
Lightning danced from his fingertips. “Time to die, pretty girl.”
She heard Brand’s shout of alarm as the demon drew back his arm and flung a ball of flame at her. Too fast, she thought, watching the comet streak toward her like a miniature sun. It was coming too fast. She was going to die and never see Brand again. Grief flashed through her, agonizing and sharp, and then she was flung aside. The flaming comet slammed into the ground a few feet away from her, pelting her with rocks and dirt. Bruised and shaken, she rolled to her feet. Sildhjort stood over Shep. The stag lowered his head and charged, catching the screaming demon-man on his antlers. With an angry snort, Sildhjort flung the demon to the ground and stamped it beneath his sharp hooves, crushing the human vessel into a bleeding, unrecognizable thing. A thin stream of black smoke puffed out of the body and wafted away.
Sildhjort tossed his head and cantered out of the park. Addy staggered toward Shep. Before she could reach him, strong arms caught her in a crushing embrace.
“Damn you, Adara.” Brand hugged her close. “Of all the foolish, hardheaded females . . .” Tremors racked his big body. Holding her away from him, he gave her a little shake. “I thought you were dead. I saw the demon raise his hand to strike you. I died a thousand deaths in that moment, knowing I could not reach you in time.”
He jerked her back into his arms as though he could not bear to let her go. And that was fine with Addy. She didn’t want to let him go, either. She buried her face against his hard chest, soaking up his glorious strength and the warmth of his arms around her. The salty odor of sweat and the spicy, masculine scent that was all Brand tickled her senses. He was alive. Oh, God, he was alive, and so was she.
And Mr. Nasty was dead.
“I was scared for you, too.” She ran her hands down his hard muscled back to assure herself he was all right. “It was awful.”
“Scared? Scared is too paltry a word to describe what I felt when I saw the djegrali raise his hand against you.” His arms tightened around her. “Why did you not do as you were told and stay where it was safe?”
“The shield broke.”
“Broke?” His brow creased in a black scowl. “Ansgar and I bound that shield with our blood. Such a thing is not possible. The djegrali could not break that spell.”
Oops, someone had their masculinity bound up in a certain little shield spell. Time to change the subject. “What happened to the other demons?”
“Ansgar slew one with his arrows. The last one surrendered and is in our custody.”
Curious, she lifted her head to take a look. A dead convict lay on the ground, his body pierced by a dozen or more silver arrows from Ansgar’s bow. Something black drained out of the corpse, hardened, and turned to powder. The empty body collapsed and melted away.
The last convict sat on the ground, head and shoulders bowed, his hands and feet bound with sturdy rope. He rocked back and forth, mumbling to himself. Addy didn’t bother to ask where the rope came from. She probably wouldn’t like the answer, anyway. Ansgar stood over the prisoner, his icy, detached demeanor back in place, a poster child for the giant frozen hemorrhoid.
She eyed the hostage with unease. “Suppose he gets loose? That rope won’t hold him for long.”
“The demon has relinquished its human receptacle. We have the djegrali in custody.”
She took a quick glance around the park. “Oh, yeah? Where you keeping him, your shirt pocket?”
“I do not have a shirt pocket. At any rate, such a mode of transport would be highly inefficient. The djegrali is over there.”
Brand pointed. On the ground beside the mumbling man was the delicate glass container Brand had earlier when he gave the demons his “stop in the name of the law” speech.
“You’re kidding. You got a demon in a wussy little perfume bottle?”
“It is not a perfume bottle, Adara. It is a djevel flaskke, a special container that holds the djegrali.”
“Oh, yeah, a devil flask. I knew that.”
Shep grunted in pain and sat up, his expression dazed. “What happened?”
Addy slipped out of Brand’s arms and hurried to his side. Poor Shep. He had two black eyes, a split lip, and a busted nose. And those were the injuries she could see.
She knelt beside him and put her hand on his forehead. “Take it easy, Shep. That was a nasty wallop you took. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have a concussion.”
He gave her a groggy look. “Real slobberknocker, huh? Are we winning?”
“Yep.”
“Good. That’s real good. My head hurts, Coach. But I can still play. Put me back in. I wanna whup some Wildcat ass.”
Good grief. Shep thought she was Coach Latham and he was back in high school playing for the Blue Devils again.
A shadow fell over them, and a pair of booted feet appeared at her elbow.
“Adara, where is Evangeline?” Ansgar asked.
She flapped a hand in the direction of the sweet gum tree. “Over there.”
He moved off, and she returned her attention to Shep, who was pale and sweating.
Ansgar reappeared a moment later. “I do not see her.”
Ansgar’s grim tone sent a frisson of uneasiness through her. She jumped to her feet. “You’re benched, Corwin,” she told Shep sternly.
“Aw, Coach, I wanna play.”
She hurried after Brand and Ansgar. They looked all around the tree. Evie was gone. A low, tortured groan sent chills up and down her spine.
“There!” Addy pointed to the steps that led from the park down to the river.
Evie wavered at the top of the stairs and staggered back down again, an expression of stark terror in her eyes. Her movements were jerky and strained, as though she was no longer in control of her own body.
“Evangeline,” Ansgar shouted, breaking into a run.
Evie struggled up the steps once more, panting like she’d run a marathon. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Evie!” Addy cried, lunging for her friend.
Brand pulled her back.
“Let me go!” Addy struggled to break free of his grasp. “Something’s wrong with Evie.”
“You cannot help her, Adara,” Brand said. “The djegrali has taken her.”
“No, that’s not possible! You told me they were all dead.”
“I was wrong. The human that Sildhjort slew, did you see anything rise from the body?”
“Oh, my God,” Addy whispered. Sick with horror, she saw it all again. Sid’s hooves crushing the convict’s body to a bloody pulp, the curling wisp of smoke rising from the smashed and bleeding husk and wafting away.
Evie was possessed, and it was all Addy’s fault. She broke the shield and left Evie alone. It was all her fault.
“Ansgar, please,” Evie pleaded, reaching out to the blond warrior. Claw marks marred the porcelain skin on her cheeks and neck. “I can’t stand it. It burns. Help me. I can’t fight it much longer. Don’t let it take me.”
Ansgar stood silently in front of her, his face an icy mask.
Fury gripped Addy. How could he be so cold when Evie was in agony?
“What’s the matter with you?” she screamed. “Help her.”
“She should not have left the shield,” Ansgar said, his words toneless and without emotion. “She was safe there.”
“That was
my
fault.” Addy flung herself at Ansgar, but Brand held her back. “I broke the shield. I thought you
cared
about Evie. But you don’t care about anybody, you heartless bastard.”
“Adara,” Brand said. “You do not understand.”