Chapter 13 #3
Unlike the transportation circle’s obelisk of glowing light, River’s instantaneous teleportation carried little theatrical effect.
Aside from the world warping and twisting out of focus around her in a dizzying spiral, they simply appeared in a new location.
Her surroundings clarified anew to reveal a manicured square with a statue in the center.
The lawn shifted as if she’d spent a minute spinning in circles. River steadied her and gave an apologetic smile.
“I’m okay now,” Emma assured her. “Harrison, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Where’s this church?”
“A few blocks up from your position. I’m hiding on the roof.”
“We’re on our way.”
Emma kicked out of her heels, mirrored by River. Then they ran.
Harrison swooped down across their path a block away and led them to a structure built from white stone. Magical light flashed behind the beautiful stained-glass windows, and a leaden weight sank in Emma’s stomach.
They hesitated in front of a short, three-step stoop while Harrison landed on the wrought iron rail. “What should we do?” he asked without shifting from his animal form.
“The power radiating from this place is immense,” River whispered.
Even without magic, the mystical aura fluttered across Emma’s perception.
It danced over her skin like static electricity and sent ripples of apprehension dancing through her gut.
“Harrison, go help the others. Get them here as soon as possible. I hope I’m wrong, but I think we’re going to need everyone here. We’ll try to stall as long as we can.”
Half a dozen hunters swept into the narrow alley through the opening gate to meet their doom.
How the hell did they have access to the mechanism securing the gate? Then he knew how. The decoy bomb had been a trap after all.
“Split!” Adrian barked out to the shifters. “They want us here so they can pick us off!” If that was the plan, it would have gone off without a hitch if only vampires had been inside the narrow parking strip. The hunters might have even mowed him and Emma down.
Without time to worry about how the hunters executed their plan, he tossed off his coat and drew his shotgun as Zacarias tore his shirt over his head.
Thomas didn’t bother to undress. His instantaneous shift shredded his clothes, and bits of cotton fluttered to the ground while his immense wolven body hurtled down the alley.
If bullets struck him, he gave no reaction.
With speed equal to any vampire, Zacarias leapt in his panther form atop the nearby vehicle then cleared a massive distance. He collided with a hunter in military-grade tactical gear and took him down to the ground.
The hunters must have been desperate, because there were still civilians lingering in the area who had nothing to do with the fight. Innocents were bound to be harmed by stray bullets.
Fuck. He sprinted forward, an armed blur clothed in black.
Jumping ahead of Zacarias, he leveled his shotgun toward the incoming forces at the same time Thomas took another to the ground.
Ballistic armor may have saved the werewolf’s opponent from a mauling, but it became useless when Thomas snapped the mercenary’s face between his jaws and crushed his head.
Adrian didn’t have time to wince. He flipped into the thick of the group and weaved to the side as a rifle shot missed him by a narrow margin. “Sniper on the roof! Zac, handle it!”
The jaguar’s roar reverberated across the brick walls surrounding them.
The dumpster quaked beneath his weight, and then he scrambled up the wall onto a balcony with feline grace, disappearing over the edge of the building moments later.
Shots echoed above them, accompanied by startled screams and desperate shouts.
“Thomas, sweep to the right. I’ll take this side.”
The wolf’s charcoal gray head swung around toward him. Blood stained his muzzle, and his eyes blazed with fury. He nodded once then bolted.
They had to make a stand, because if they didn’t, the hunters would overtake the vampires inside the Chateau and swarm over River and Emma with their impossible, seemingly endless ranks. The tight and narrow single-lane roads and close quarters didn’t afford them the room to maneuver.
Harrison’s voice ended the silence over their communication line.
“Bigot Gandalf and Joe entered a church on Chartres Street ten minutes ago and they still haven’t come out.
They must be doing a hell of a lotta hocus pocus because there’s a light show going on right now like y’all wouldn’t believe. ”
As bullets whipped past him, Adrian listened to River speak next. Leylines and magical rituals? Out of his league.
Shit! He glanced left and right, then ducked down again when a bullet narrowly missed his head. “We’re pinned down outside the party. They have us surrounded on all sides.”
After a brief hesitation that made him imagine Emma’s crinkled brow and frowning face, she replied, “Thanks to River, the bomb inside has been neutralized. She and I can head to the church now that the Ramsey’s have things under control here.”
“Emma, it’s too dangerous to go alone,” he argued.
“No more than letting him free that fallen angel. We’re going.”
Against his nature, Adrian relented. He closed his eyes, dragged in a deep breath through his nostrils, and prepared to fight. The sooner they put the hunters down, the quicker he could rush to Emma’s side. “Good luck.”
“Be safe,” Emma replied.
He hated the idea of her going up against the wizard and the fallen angel with nothing but a witch at her side—a demigoddess, he reminded himself.
A second wave rushed them. One man came in blasting Dragon’s Breath rounds, prompting Adrian to somersault back from the flames.
Growling, he ducked to the side and waited out the next blast before charging his opponent and grabbing the shotgun.
Disarming the mercenary happened in the blink of an eye, granting Adrian a precious second to spin around behind him, jam the shotgun muzzle into his back, and pull the trigger, releasing an inferno into his enemy’s spine.
Blood glistened against Thomas’s thick pelt from the occasional lucky hit.
Adrian fared no better—but the armor beneath his shirt provided the protection he needed from a hunter lurking behind a parked car with a stake-loaded crossbow.
The bolt struck with enough force to bruise, but it was better than the alternative.
The wood shattered upon impact and clattered to the ground, a few splinters caught in his shirt.
He dropped the empty shotgun and punched a hole in a hunter’s face with his .
357 as Zacarias dove from the roof onto a rifle-wielding sniper.
Another man shrieked from an adjacent rooftop and a quick glance showed the hunter under attack from the biggest fucking raven Adrian had ever seen.
Harrison wasn’t as meek and little as he’d presumed, merely smaller than the hulking wolf and jaguar he accompanied.
All the time they fought, there was radio silence from the women.
Where the hell were the local police? By now, someone had to have phoned in a report about a gunfight in the French Quarters, but the bigger question was whether the local police were on the take, in cahoots with the hunters, or getting their asses kicked by Mardi Gras patrol.
“Emma, tell me what’s happening.” He wiped an arm across his brow, sweat dripping into his eyes.
Static answered him.
“Emma!” Adrian yelled. He couldn’t hear her, but he could feel and sense her terror, her panic, and the pulse of battle-pumping adrenaline through her body.
“What’s happening?” Zac asked after taking his human form. He crouched down with Adrian beside the parked car, unharmed despite a healing bullet wound through the arm. In a few hours, it wouldn’t be anything more than a smear of dried blood at the entry and exit points.
“I’ve lost contact with the ladies. I have no idea what’s going on.”
Emma hadn’t stepped inside a church in decades, always terrified she’d discover an ounce of truth in the legends. When she crossed the threshold, she found as welcoming a presence as any family home where she’d received an invitation to enter.
At the end of a long red carpet, Josh prayed before an ornate altar with his back to them. Its ivory surface shone orange, lit by a dozen candles beneath the carved image of Jesus Christ with his welcoming arms spread.
“You’re too late, demon!” Joe yelled. “You can’t stop him now, and the angel Sariel will smite you down and send you back to hell.”
Light exploded from the altar. River raised a magical shield before the shockwave could reach them, but both women still stumbled back from a force worse than a concussion grenade. Emma staggered and struck her hip against a pew.
Expectations and reality collided. Instead of a demon, Emma encountered beauty incarnate, the most magnificent and terrifying creature she’d ever seen.
Sariel stood tall and radiant, easily above seven feet, with a wingspan double that if not more.
Her skin shone like burnished bronze and her eyes blazed brighter than molten metal.
She had no horns, no demon’s claws, and no forked tongue or spaded tail.
The barefoot fallen angel wore a strapless white dress to her ankles, belted across the middle with a gold chain, twinkling with jewels of every color.
Three pairs of wings glistened behind her, and each of the feathers reflected the candlelight.
She held a sword in one hand, its length no less than five feet from hilt to blade tip, and angelic writing—what Emma assumed to be angelic writing—glowed against the celestial steel.
The men beside the altar stared with undisguised reverence on their faces, although Josh leaned against it for balance. Performing the ritual must have taken everything out of him. His knees buckled when he took a step away from it.