Chapter 17
“This is fucking epic,” Mace shouted as the military Rigid Hull Inflatable boat plowed through waves on its way to the coordinates Kynan had given them after talking with Stryke’s assistant. “We’ve never done a water mission before.”
“I’ve never even seen an aquatic demon,” Scotty yelled back over the roar of the engine. Her flaming red hair, pulled back into a tight braid, whipped in the wind as she kept a watchful eye on the vast expanse of water all around them. “This is gonna be cool!”
Mace looked over at Blade, whose calm expression didn’t match the turmoil writhing in his dark eyes. Blade had always been the most reserved of the three of them, the voice of reason, the one who liked a plan, when Mace and Scotty preferred to rush into a situation and rely on instinct instead. He was rock-steady, reliable, the guy who pulled you out of the trouble you got yourself into.
It took a lot to rile Blade, but he hadn’t been the same since the first contact with Stryke a few hours ago. The contact had left him as tense as Mace had ever seen him.
Kynan had managed to arrange transport to a U.S. Naval warship with a helipad just two miles from the target, but it had taken time to acquire the gear, the platform schematics, and have a briefing before sending the three of them on this mission, and Blade was probably a lot more jittery on the inside than he appeared.
Normally, Mace enjoyed a good family drama, but he didn’t dare ask what was going through Blade’s head. His relationship with Stryke was a sensitive subject, and BFFs with Blade or not, Stryke was one topic Mace avoided like a super-spreader spiny hellrat plague. Especially since Mace’s relationship with his biological brother, Talon, was shaky at best—and a subject best left alone.
“Holy shit,” Scotty breathed. “Look at that.”
Mace peered through the darkness, his natural night vision giving him a clear view of the sight up ahead. And yeah, holy shit.
He’d expected to see an oil platform and maybe some fog. What he hadn’t expected was what appeared to be a solid wall of writhing, boiling darkness. And were those… faces in it? Screaming, tortured faces. And tentacles. Claws.
“I’ve seen some scary shit in my life,” Scotty said, her pale face seeming even paler as she stared at the phenomenon, “but that…is terrifying .” A sword appeared in her hand, and Mace doubted she even realized she’d summoned it.
“Let’s just hope this contraption of Stryke’s works.” Blade held up a device that resembled a blowhorn with a trigger that, once pulled, would blast a wave of Heavenly energy to displace evil energy.
The technician who’d shown them how to use it had said it didn’t work on solid demons, but it should dispel or repel malevolent souls, invisible demons, and demonic weather events—whatever those were.
Mace hoped the fog they were closing in on counted.
“Get it ready,” Mace said as he slowed the boat. “That scientist dude said to activate it within fifty yards.”
“We’re about there.” Blade made his way to the front of the boat and held the device in front of him. “Damn, that shit is creepy.”
“Ready,” Scotty said, her gaze flicking between the fog and her comms as she measured the distance. “Ready…almost…now!”
Blade pulled the trigger. At first, nothing happened. But as they approached the writhing, twisting dark cloud, a hole formed, widening and deepening. By the time they reached the anomaly, a boat the size of a small yacht could have fit through the tunnel it formed.
“I can see the platform ahead,” Scotty shouted over the shrieks and bloodcurdling growls coming from all around them.
“Keep that trigger pulled, man,” Mace said. “We don’t want—”
Scotty screamed, and as Mace wheeled to her, she slammed backward over the edge of the boat, a spiny tentacle wrapped around her waist.
“ Scotty !” Mace bolted to the edge where she’d gone over. “Scotty!”
“Help—” She disappeared, blood bubbling up all around her.
Terrified in a way he’d never been, Mace made a desperate lunge. His fingers slipped against hers, and she went under.
No !
Her hand thrust upward, and he grabbed it hard with both hands. He wasn’t letting her go this time. No way.
He yanked with all his strength, and she breached the surface, sputtering and coughing, her eyes wide with terror.
Blade dove across the boat and grabbed her other hand. “We got you!”
Some sort of fishy thing with a million teeth and no eyes burst out of the water and fastened onto Mace’s forearm. Pain screamed from his fingertips to his shoulder, but he kept hold of Scotty as he and Blade struggled to haul her onto the boat.
The moment she was lying on the deck, blood spilling from deep, ragged gashes that exposed tendon and bone—and maybe an organ or two—Blade buried a seven-inch blade in the demon’s skull. It hissed, releasing Mace’s arm before slithering back into the sea.
The mist closed in. “Blade! The fog! Shit!”
“I know, I know!” He snatched up the device from where he’d dropped it and swept it in a circle, forcing the heavy mist into retreat. “Can you drive?”
Mace didn’t want to leave Scotty, but they needed to get to the safety of the rig, and they needed to do it fast. She was losing a lot of blood. She might be immortal, but that didn’t mean she was unkillable. Under the right circumstances, everything died.
His left arm screaming with pain and practically useless, he scrambled over to the controls just as a set of clawed hands reached over the stern. Glowing red eyes and a gaping maw full of fangs popped up on the port side. That was enough dawdling.
He gunned the engine and took them toward the platform at top speed. Unable to hang on, the demons dropped off the boat, but shit, how many of those fuckers were there in these waters?
Waves crashed against the massive metal support beams as they approached. Things were looking up. Scotty’s father said that aquatic demons generally avoided the violent action of the waves against rocks and piers. Dude had been fighting demons for thousands of years and knew his shit. Ares knew his shit so well that he ran a battle academy of sorts, and all three of them had spent countless hours training with him—twice a week since the day they learned to tie their shoes.
We must prepare for the Apocalypse.
The guy said that all the time. Constantly.
“My species has a five-hundred-year lifespan,” Mace had once argued. Because, yeah, he wanted to be a badass. But Ares took fighting lessons to the extreme. Even Mace’s biological father, Wraith, who lived to fight and was proficient in every fighting discipline, thought Ares was a little too obsessed. “We won’t be around when Satan’s prison sentence is up in…what, nine hundred and fifty-something years?”
“Do you want to survive to your full lifespan?” Ares had growled. “Yes? Then train.”
Right now, Mace was glad he’d been pushed into being the best he could be. No, he didn’t have Scotty’s immortality or her ability to summon weapons, but he was stronger and faster than any human, he healed quickly, and he’d been honed into a lethal weapon by not just Ares but all the Horsemen, Wraith, and even a couple of angels.
Thanks for being a pain in my ass, Ares .
“Ky said the dock will be on the south side,” Blade shouted back.
“I see it.” He steered the craft up alongside the dock.
Shade tossed a rope and leaped onto the structure. While he tied up, Mace shut down the craft and scooped Scotty into his arms. She was barely conscious, but she flopped her arm around his neck and clung tightly.
Tentacled and clawed things, and things with no eyes or skin, reached for them as they ran toward the stairs. The metal steps vibrated as they took them two at a time to the upper levels.
“There!” Blade pointed at a door. “The forward operating center.”
They ran over to it. Locked.
Blade pounded on it, and almost immediately, a muffled “Who is it?” could be heard.
“Stryke called us. We’re from DART!”
The door whipped open, and a tall, blond guy greeted them. “Thank the gods. Come in. Sorry about the lock. Demons.”
Mace only half-heard as he shoved past the guy and lowered Scotty onto the floor. Blade was right there next to him, and before Scotty was even fully laid out, Blade’s arm lit up like a torch as his healing power surged into his fingertips and then into Scotty’s body.
Mace fired up his gift and powered it into her too. Blade could repair her torn vessels and sliced muscle, while Mace could control her pain and tweak her body so it would produce red blood cells at an accelerated rate.
“This is pretty bad,” Blade murmured.
“Nah,” she moaned, already looking better. “You guys have healed me from worse.”
“Like that time you got jumped by six Nightlash demons, and they tried to peel you like a grape?”
She snorted. “Yeah. Like that.”
That had been a clusterfuck. But this was worse. Blade knew it too. The intensity in his expression, the worry in his eyes…it said a lot. Mace knew the guy well enough to know that, right now, he was regretting not spending more time with their Uncle Eidolon. Blade had chosen to hone his fighting skills rather than his healing ones, and times like this made him kick himself for that choice.
Blade reached over and took Scotty’s hand in his, giving it a comforting squeeze. She flashed him a grateful smile.
And right then, for the first time in Mace’s life, he felt the stirrings of jealousy.
Shocked and irritated beyond belief, he stimulated her pituitary gland and sent a rush of pain-relieving endorphins through her. She rewarded him with a grin, and his jealousy melted away. It was stupid to be jealous of Blade. They’d sworn a blood oath long ago that neither of them would ever hook up with Scotty. Not ever, under any circumstances. She was a friend. Their best friend. And no way would any of them fuck up their friendship.
“You guys are both so awesome,” she said, almost drowsily.
“We are,” Mace agreed, grinning down at her.
She swatted at him, but he easily caught her wrist. “Nice try, Princess,” he said, using the nickname they’d used to annoy her when they were kids. Her father liked to say she’d been a tomboy from the cradle, and being called a princess was the ultimate insult.
“I take back what I said about you being awesome.”
“But I’m still awesome, right?” Blade asked, cracking a smile for the first time since the contact with Stryke. It was a sign that he felt better about Scotty’s injuries.
“For now,” she said. “Until you do something stupid.”
“I give him an hour,” Mace said.
Blade shot him a give-me-a-break look. “I give you five minutes.”
The door swung open, and Stryke and Cyan burst inside. Blade’s smile slid off his face like butter off a hot knife.
Stryke nudged Cyan toward the holographic images hanging near a couple of destroyed windows, his intimate, gentle touch so discreet Mace would have missed it if he’d blinked.
He’s fucking her .
Interesting. Also, what the hell? She’d brushed off Mace’s flirtations for years, but she was doing Stryke?
Wait, it actually made sense. They were both Type-A brainiacs. They probably solved math equations as foreplay. Really, Mace had dodged a bullet.
“Finally,” Stryke said, sounding relieved. He looked them over and then quickly scanned the room. “Where’s the equipment I asked for?”
The shadows flickering in Blade’s eyes grew agitated as he shoved to his feet. Uh-oh. Mace and Scotty exchanged shit’s-gonna-start-up glances.
“Oh, hey, hi, Stryke,” Blade said, sarcasm and anger dripping from every word. “I must have missed your thank you. Also, yeah, we’re all okay, except Scotty was almost disemboweled and dismembered while coming to save your sorry ass, but thanks for fucking asking.”
Mace wasn’t sure if he should cringe or laugh. This would either be the worst or the best assignment ever.