Embers (The Wings of War Book 1) (47 page)

I was overcome with rage at that moment, and the fire came into me full force.  The lion hovered over the wolf, its razor sharp teeth poised to bite the wolf’s neck.  They were so close that I had little room for a mistake. 

I flung the fire out of my fingers at the lion.

The fire channeled into a powerful stream that hit the lion in the face.  In a burst of flame, fur and liquid, its head was gone.  The lion’s body fell onto the wolf, jerking wildly for an instant, and then blood gushed from the gaping hole.

I crawled over to Ivan as dirt and leaves clung to the blood on my wounds.  I was too stunned to feel the pain.  Using all of my strength, I tried to push lion off of the wolf.  I only managed to move the dead weight a little bit, freeing the wolf’s head and chest. 

Despair struck me when I saw the wolf’s injuries.  Ivan’s neck was open, the artery cut, and spurting bright red blood into the air.  I clamped my hands onto it and focused the power into the wound.  It was one of those injuries that Ila had said couldn’t be healed, a death injury, but I didn’t care.  I’d try anyway. 

It was like filling a large, plastic bag with water, and the water kept escaping through one tiny hole.  It was not impossible, I could feel that I was making progress, and a glint of hope began to swell inside of me
.
If I could plug the hole somehow, I could save him. 
 

Ivan’s blood mixed with my own in a sticky mess that covered both of our bodies.  Although I felt sickened and light headed, I pulled the power to me.  I let it flow into the wolf through my hands.  Minutes later I had the neck repaired, and I spread the power out to Ivan’s other injuries; the broken bones, damaged organs.  It took some time, but finally, when it was over, I collapsed beside the wolf.   

The healing had sapped me of everything, making me as weak as a newborn kitten. I reached out with my mind to contact Ila.  I’d never attempted to go this far. When I did it with Sawyer, he’d only been a few miles away.  This distance was more like six miles.  And I was so tired. 

I tried several times, but didn’t feel her.  I wasn’t sure if she’d heard my call or not.  The blood still spilled from my wounds.  I attempted to heal myself, but I didn’t have the strength to do it.  

The cuts were beginning to sting as the shock of it all started to wear off.  I feared infection was already setting in.  I was on my back staring at the leaves and branches of the trees above, my injured shoulder lightly touching the wolf.  His breathing was loud and regular.  I thought he’d be okay, but it would be a while before he woke.  I just hoped he opened his eyes before the Demons showed up. 

The sensation of pain hit me again, but not from my own wounds.  It was Sawyer’s pain.  It felt as if they were killing him, and I didn’t know what to do. Despair began to swallow me up. I was so close to him.  If I hadn’t healed Ivan, and battled with the lion, I could have rescued him. 

Sawyer’s pain eased for a moment, and I felt his presence solidly in my mind. 

Ember, you must leave here.  Go away and save yourself.  Nothing you can do to help me now.  Go back.  Go back. Please
, the voice in my mind begged.

His words had the opposite effect on me than he intended.  They filled me with a shard of hope.  He was still alive. The wrath that coursed through me filled me with flames. 

How dare they touch him!

The heat surged through my body, giving me a burst of power.  I stumbled up from the ground.  My legs were shaky, the pain still distinct in my shoulder and belly, but I was touching the fire now, and it belonged to me once again. That’s all that mattered. I couldn’t wait for Ila to come.  Sawyer’s time was running out, and she might not even have heard me. Besides, she was old, what could she do to help?  I had to go alone.  I couldn’t live without Sawyer, he’d just become part of me.  I wouldn’t lose him now.

My mind was firmly set, and I struggled up the hill, toward the fort.  I held the fire at bay.  Once I crested the rise, I stopped and rested for a few breaths, noticing that for the first time ever the sight of the wooden boards didn’t affect me.  Maybe I was too far gone to feel any of the milder sensations of fear that usually plagued me in the presence in the giant enclosure. 

The fire was with me, but my muscles were spongy, aching. I felt moistness at my nose, and I touched it with my hand.  It was blood.  My nose was dripping blood.  This worried me, but all I could do was wipe it on the only part of my arm not already covered with the stuff and continue on.   

The steps I took were achingly slow, one after the other, until I was almost to the fence. 

Then I heard the scream. 

The sound coming from Sawyer’s throat was like nothing I’d heard before, a combination of an animal and human wail.

My heart hammered, the blood pumping furiously.  I dropped any shred of barrier that was left between me and the inferno. I was no longer Ember O’Meara. I was something else, pure energy, driven by hate and purpose.  I released the fire from my body, and it spread out as if it was a wave, setting everything in its path ablaze.  The force of the surging molten wave smashed into the wall, exploding, and sending a hundred foot section of it splintering into the air.

The smoke was thick, and the flames were all around me, yet I continued to drive forward. 

When I stepped onto the remains of the fence, my feet set it on fire, and the closest trees went up in reddish-yellow blazes that crackled and hissed into the smoke.  Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I mourned the forest, but I couldn’t stop the fire now.  It was free and went where it willed.  I had no strength left to call it back to me.  It would devour the great woods, maybe even the entire mountain, but I only cried for Sawyer, my guardian. 

The smoke cleared before me, and that’s when I saw him, chained to the wooden post with logs piled up around him.  It was a scene plucked from an uncivilized time when people were persecuted by such means.  The Demons were encircling him, crouched and slinking like savage beasts, their movements not even slightly human.  With a quick count, I surmised that there were maybe ten of them—it was hard to tell with their lightning speed motions.

I watched in silent horror as the smoke pluming from the logs, ignited and a whoosh of flames climbed up Sawyers legs.  With only a second to examine him, I caught the image of his destroyed body; his face was nearly unrecognizable.

I can’t heal that…

I had had enough. 
One last time, please, power, come to me!
I stretched my arms out and called the flames to me.  They came.  They flowed together into a single stream, hurrying to my body.   The force of the energy slammed into me, knocking me to the ground, dirt and ashes breaking my fall. 

It was done.  The fire had left Sawyer, but that was all I could do.  The forest still burned all around, the reek of the smoke still permeating the air.  I struggled to keep my eyes open as slits.  I wanted to see what happened, knowing that when my eyes closed, it would be for the last time.  I’d used too much of the power, and now it was eating me up from the inside, slowly devouring me. 

The Demons quickly made their move.  A tall, lean female, who under normal circumstances would have been a gorgeous woman, and her polar opposite, a small, red haired one, converged on me, snarling. 

When they reached me, the tall one grabbed my arms, and even though my skin was burning holes into her hands, she dragged me to the other Demons with inhuman strength.   

With a battle screech, she whipped me through the air.  I did close my eyes then, waiting for the impact.  I landed with a thud and a burst of pain across my back.  But at least I was at the base of Sawyer’s pyre. I decided that if I had to be thrown somewhere, this was where I wanted to be, my last visage of stubbornness playing out.

All at once, three things happened.  I heard Sawyer in my mind cry out,
‘Oh God, Ember. No!’
and then he screamed in fury, and broke the chains that bound him.  The third thing was a giant black blur shooting by me, smashing into one of the Demons. 

The bear furiously tore the Demon limb from limb with its powerful jaws that not long ago were mere inches from my face. Body parts were flying everywhere, a spray of blood splattering the ground, me and the logs.  It was gruesome, but my belly was sound, almost giddy in fact, that the bear had come to our rescue.

Gunshots began ringing out, blasting echoes shattering the smoky air.  Lutz was near enough that I got a whiff of the muskiness of his fur before he shook his mighty head and reared up to his full height. 

Hair tingled on the back of my neck and I stopped breathing.  The bear was an awesome spectacle, so grand and brave.  But even the supernatural beast couldn’t survive so many bullets.  We were all going to die, if not by teeth or bullets, then by fire. As if to agree with me, the flames engulfed the closest building, turning it into bonfire in seconds. 

I had about given up any hope, and was trying desperately to stay conscious a little while longer when the throbbing pain suddenly left my body, and darkness began to pepper my mind. 

When the blackness was almost complete, I felt the light brush of his skin.

Sawyer had made his way to me, and that knowledge jump-started my brain, opening my eyes to a razor sharp view of the world around me.  Just as his hand was about to grasp mine, a dark haired Demon grabbed him, hauling my guardian away from me. 

Where Sawyer found the power, I don’t know, but he did, slamming his own weight into his assailant, the two hitting the ground together. 

The world was utter chaos.  Screaming, cursing, gun blasts, all joining the crackle of fire in the air.  The bear fell to the ground, and the Demons converged on the mighty creature, climbing over its jerking body as if they were ravenous ants. 

I turned away—I couldn’t watch them biting him
.

I looked back at Sawyer.  He was motionless on the ground.  The Demon who had attacked him was walking straight for me.  There was an ugly leer on his face.

“So Watcher, did you think you could come to our own territory and defeat us?”  He screamed at me in a strong British accent.  Then he laughed, an appalling noise coming from his pale lips. 

I was numb.  Sawyer was dead.  Nothing mattered anymore.  I couldn’t move if I wanted to.  It was over, life was over, and I didn’t even care.  At least now I wouldn’t have to worry about the end of the world or my place in trying to stop it. 

I tried to draw some of the power, just enough to engulf me in flames before the Demon reached me, but it wasn’t there.  I wasn’t strong enough to wield it and it left me alone, in renewed pain with a breaking heart.  Tears began to roll down my face again, this time in frustration.

The Demon was almost upon me when there was suddenly a body between us. The newcomer’s head was covered with thick, black hair and was turned away from me.  There was a huge shotgun in his hands that he pulled back and raised it to his eye.   

The gun went off and kicked back very close to me. The explosion momentarily silenced the world to my ears, and I pressed my eyes shut for a second.  I opened them just in time to see the Demon that had killed Sawyer get knocked backwards from the impact that hit him squarely between the eyes. 

The Demon hit the ground and didn’t move again.  But there were other Demons, and they kept coming. 

I pressed myself lower as a bullet grazed my back, and another hit my leg.  My savior kept shooting, aiming at the Demons and finding his mark most of the time, but they continued advancing as if the bullets didn’t bother them at all.  They hooted and hollered all kinds of vile things as they neared. 

The stranger suddenly turned his swarthy face to me, winked, and in almost the same motion, slung the gun over his shoulder and lifted me into his arms. I instantly realized I didn’t fear this Demon, but I didn’t want him to take me from Sawyer either.  I feebly attempted to struggle.  My limbs wouldn’t respond.  He just held me tighter and ran faster.  I could hear the other Demons coming after us, and I closed my eyes. The nasty, noisy bunch could be tracked on hearing alone—no need for eyes or supernatural powers. 

The stranger ran with me, skirting the fire and going deeper into the woods.  Finally he stopped, gently placing me on the ground behind the trunk of a giant Poplar tree.  He pulled a gun from his waistband and started shooting again, using the tree as a shield.  The Demons pulled up, ducking behind the trees, shooting back. Their movements were the same as the bullets whizzing around. I didn’t know how my rescuer was managing to target any of them. 

“Pretty Watcher, if you have any magic left in you, now would be the time to use it.”  He glanced down at me speculatively.

“I’m sorry. I’m finished.”

“I once knew a watcher to shake the earth. Do you not have a little earth shaking in you?”  He said it in a humorous way and I instantly liked him. 

“I haven’t learned that yet.”

“Pity.”

The incoming shots were frighteningly close.  The Demons would be on us in seconds.

Through the dizziness and smoke, I suddenly saw something moving down the hillside that renewed my faith in God, and gave me hope.