Chapter 39
39
S parring is different from fighting.
In sparring, learning is more important than winning. Learning how to throw a punch, learning how to take a punch. Learning how to watch an opponent’s centerline to predict their next moves, learning how to take the skills from drills and apply them to a real-life scenario. Sparring matches can last up to a few minutes, depending on the competitors’ goals, and most of all, they can be fun.
JJ always had fun sparring with his friends.
But during a fight, a real fight, the only goal is to get out alive. Most of them last less than thirty seconds, and most of them end with one opponent beaten bloody on the ground?—or worse.
And JJ can’t afford to lose this fight. He bursts in again and swings his escrima stick, aiming for Roma’s wrist. She jerks away before he can blink, shooting towards his dead side with a slash to his shoulder that draws blood. Gasping at the sudden sting, he snaps his escrima back around, going for her temple this time.
It meets the handle of her ax with the sharp crack! of wood on wood. She twists her wrist sharply, catching his stick just under the butt of her ax and trying to wrench it out of his hand.
JJ barely manages to keep his grip as he jumps away, his mind racing. He has more range with his escrima, but Roma has the business end of a blade and all the enhanced abilities of the Sanctum on her side. And she isn’t even going full power, isn’t even tapping into her spellcasting or her more lethal strikes. Either she’s holding back because of sentimentality, or??—
Or the Sanctum ordered her to bring JJ in alive.
Don’t think about that. Just get away from Roma and get back to Cass.
Another slice from Roma’s ax that breaks skin. JJ stumbles back with a hiss of pain, fumbling his escrima as blood makes his grip slippery. He only has enough time for a quick, gasping breath before she’s on him again, pressing in harder now that he’s fatigued, forcing him back to corner him against a building??—
Without warning, JJ hears the familiar sound of a rift crackling open behind him. Before he can react, Roma is suddenly blasted ten feet away, her ax flying out of her hand as she hits the pavement with a yelp.
JJ whirls around to see Ez and Obie stepping out of the rift, Obie holding Desi on his hip. Relief and confusion flood through him. “Guys, what??—??”
Immediately, Ez puts herself in front of Obie and Desi, her hands raised and glowing with power. “JJ,” she says curtly, her eyes locked on Roma. “Is this one a friend or an enemy now?”
JJ looks over at Roma, at her wide eyes and bloodless face and heartbroken expression??—
He looks away. “Enemy,” he says flatly.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Ez says, and she lights up a fireball in her palm.
Roma is back on her feet in a flash, taking off at a sprint. Ez’s strike just barely misses her as she swerves around the first corner and disappears from sight, leaving her ax behind.
“What are?—??” JJ sucks in a ragged breath, his heart still trying to beat its way out of his chest. “Thanks for saving my life and all, but?—but what are you guys doing back here?”
“Someone breached my spell work at the safe house,” Ez says, her gaze still sweeping around. “And there’s an anti-rifting zone set up around it.”
JJ’s stomach drops. “What?”
Obie’s eyes narrow. “Where’s Cass, JJ? We thought he’d be with you.”
“He’s?—?” The roaring is back in JJ’s ears. “He’s back at the house. Roma said that Bryant wanted to defect, so we were going to meet her, but it was a trick, and she sent his address to the Sanctum, and??—?”
Ez’s eyes widen. “That’s the kind of thing you lead with, lackey!” she snarls, advancing on him. “What happened? Did Gutierrez sabotage my spells to get inside? When??—??”
“Ez.” Obie’s quiet voice cuts through her questions, and she turns her glare on him. “Breathe.”
“Cass is in danger, Obie!” she hisses. “Cass is in danger, and??—?”
“And we will deal with that, Ez.” Unceremoniously, Obie deposits Desi in JJ’s arms. She buries her face in his neck, clearly sensing the tension around her even if she doesn’t quite understand it, and JJ pulls her close, tucking his chin over her hair and hugging her tightly. “How long ago did you leave Cass’s house, Jackson?”
“I?—?” JJ resists the urge to shrink back under Obie’s bottomless eyes. “I don’t know. Where’s my phone? Roma and I left around one, but I don’t know what time it is now, and??—?”
Obie snaps his gloved fingers before JJ can finish. Instantly, both JJ’s cell phone and Roma’s ax fly into his hands. “It’s 1:14,” Obie says, tapping into JJ’s phone as he drops the ax into a pocket dimension, “and you have a missed call from Cass from two minutes ago.”
JJ’s heart leaps. “So he’s okay? So he’s??—??”
Ez snatches the phone out of Obie’s hand. “If he picks up, I am going to be so pissed at him for ignoring my call earlier,” she says, and she jabs the redial button.
JJ holds his breath, his eyes locked on the screen. As long as they can warn Cass, he’ll be able to escape before the Sanctum arrives, and they can all rendezvous in a more secure location. Once they’re safe, JJ can apologize for putting him in danger, and everything will be okay.
Everything will be okay, and??—
The call connects. “The person you are trying to reach is not available. Please? ? —?”
All the blood rushes from JJ’s head at once. “But?—but he always picks up his phone. He??—?”
“Cass would never ignore calls from both of you.” Obie’s shoulders are stiff and his voice is grim. “The Sanctum must be there already. And, without rifts, they’ll already be gone by the time we get there.”
Bile rises in JJ’s throat. “No. No, they can’t??—?”
They can’t take Cass away from JJ. They can’t take Cass away from him and Ez and Obie and Desi and??—
“We can still save him,” JJ says, and he tightens his grip on Desi before taking off at a sprint.
Cass’s front door explodes inward, flying off its hinges with the shriek of splintering wood and tearing metal. The back door shatters at the exact same moment, glass crackling to the floor as hunters in black tactical gear flood in from every direction. At least two dozen adversaries, no rifting away, no escape routes??—
Cass will have to fight his way out.
Luckily for him, though, he’s never backed down from a fight. As far as he’s concerned, they’re in here with him.
Snarling, Cass transforms into his true form and lunges for the nearest hunter, opening his muzzle wide to bite through her ballistic helmet. Metal and bone crunch under his fangs as she falls to the floor with a shriek, and he dives for the next hunter, closing his jaws around the man’s leg and bodily flinging him through the window.
Much as he’d love to leave a trail of bodies in his wake, a demon massacring nearly thirty hunters?—even if provoked?—is grounds for a war. His best option is a tactical retreat. He rams one hunter out of the way, rips his claws through the belly of another, bounds for the gaping back door??—
All at once, there’s a blur of motion in his peripheral vision. He doesn’t move fast enough to dodge the arrow, and it buries itself in his side with the sear of corrosion burns. Growling, Cass whips his head around to grab it in his teeth, to rip it out before it can eat through his flesh??—
White-hot agony explodes behind his eyes. His anguished howl twists into a scream as the pain forces him back to his human fa?ade, and he collapses on his side, jaw locking shut and limbs jerking uncontrollably.
That isn’t an arrow imbued with a corrosion spell. That’s an arrow that can shoot a corrosion spell through his body.
That could actually kill him.
Abruptly, the pain decreases?—not gone completely, but just manageable enough that he can think. Gasping for breath, he raises one arm to defend himself, tries to drag himself backward??—
“Well, this was anticlimactic,” one of the hunters says, strolling towards him. She’s maintaining a glowing ball of sickly purple magic above her hand?—a control spell, Cass realizes with a jolt, to modulate the arrow’s corrosion. “I expected more from the great Cassius Chin. Didn’t you nearly decimate both sides in the Battle of Saratoga? And blatantly start World War I with only minimal assistance? Frankly, I’m disappointed.”
There’s a quiver of arrows on her back and a bow held loosely in her other hand. And, even with the tactical helmet, Cass would recognize the final member of Strike Team Kappa anywhere. “Bryant Nehemiah,” he rasps. “But you?—you told Roma that??—?”
Horror slams into him.
Roma tricked JJ. She tricked all of them. She conned her way into Cass’s house, gave the Sanctum his address, separated him from JJ??—
“JJ,” Cass whispers.
Bryant pulls off her helmet, her jaw set in a grim line. “Don’t worry. Roma’s taking good care of him. You might even get put in adjacent cells?—at least, until we undo whatever you did to him.” She nods at the hunters next to her. “Find the kid, too.”
Panic jolts through Cass as the strike force storms down the hall, doubtlessly headed for Desi’s room. She might be safe with Ez and Obie right now, but the fact that the Sanctum is still looking for her is a bad sign. “What’s your game?” he manages, trying to look more confident than he feels?—a difficult feat when he’s currently naked, wounded, and defenseless on the floor. “Why does the Sanctum want JJ back so badly?”
“Not sure. Council’s orders.” She leans forward, eyes narrowed. “But I want my friend back. Oh, and speaking of which?—?” The purple orb suddenly swells larger, and Cass throws back his head and screams as the corrosion claws through him. “That’s for taking him away from us.”
Her words barely make sense in Cass’s ears, his entire brain consumed by the caustic pain. The spell splinters through his veins, digs into his bones, scrapes over all the most vulnerable parts of him, on and on for what feels like centuries??—
He almost doesn’t hear the new voice from the hallway. “No sign of the kid, Nehemiah.”
The pain simmers down again. “Where’s the wyvern, Chin?”
Cass’s laugh sounds raw in his own ears. “On another continent. Not sure which one. Good luck.”
Bryant’s jaw twitches. She turns to the hunter next to her. “Bring the van around for transport. Two out of three isn’t a bad day’s work, and Jackson and Chin are the highest priorities, anyway. Let’s head home.”
This time, the control sphere blazes to twice its original size, and this time, Cass barely has enough breath left in his lungs to scream before everything goes black.