Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
My doubts didn’t last, though. I had a plan, and I was determined to execute it. I scanned the park, noting where every monster was. Zaqiel with the children, Sarq by the railing with Shem, Tumiel by the swings with the bound sword laid at his side.
He’d taken it off. Yes! Movement in the field beyond caught my eye, but when I looked it was just long grass swaying in the breeze. Not much of a breeze, though. Unease snaked up my spine.
Javier sauntered over and whispered, “It’s about to go down. Be ready.”
Shit. “Okay.”
He wandered off toward Bastian and Jamie, who were standing face to face. Their voices were low at first but then Bastian shoved Jamie in the chest.
Jamie staggered back. “Fuck you.” He shoved Bastian, who laughed derisively, prompting Jamie to take a swing at him.
Every eye was on them now, including the monsters. Tumiel rose, his expression concerned.
As Javier jumped into the fray, inflaming the fake fight, Tumiel started walking toward them, leaving the sword behind.
Shem also closed in on them, his eyes twin slits of fury.
“Quiet!” he hissed. “Be quiet.”
This was my chance. The sword was on the ground. Unattended. I took a deep breath and made a dash for it.
My fingers had barely brushed the fabric when there was a whoosh of air and the bundle was whipped away.
My heart shot into my mouth. I looked up at Zaqiel expecting rage, but his expression was filled with sadness.
Behind me Bastian and Jamie were still yelling at each other. I straightened, shoulders slumping beneath the weight of my failure.
“Enough!” Shem grabbed Bastian and Jamie by the backs of their shirts and threw them in opposite directions.
Silence reigned as his gaze zeroed in on me, then flicked to Zaqiel and the sword, then back to me. His lip curled, rage filling his electric-blue eyes. Terror flooded my limbs with the need to flee.
I took one step back and Shem launched himself at me. My scream stuck in my throat, but Bastian’s and Jamie’s bellows made up for that. I threw up my arms to protect myself, as if that would do any good, and waited for the bite of his fingers.
It never came.
Instead an eerie squeal blasted the back of my neck with heat. The flap of Shem’s leathery wings followed as he flew over my head. I dropped my arms and spun to find him grappling with…something.
“Rue!” Javier grabbed my arm and yanked me away from the scene, while Tumiel and Sarq rushed to Shem’s aid.
The thing, the new monster, was a serpent thing, with a huge triangular head, wide mouth, and slanted eyes.
It had to be eight feet long, its body at least two feet wide, and from the way Shem was being whipped about, the thing was strong.
Shem yelled something in a different language. Sarq reached him first and buried claws into the thing’s neck, slashing in an outward motion and taking chunks of flesh out of it.
The snake monster screamed, still caught in Shem’s grip. Headlocked, tail thrashing.
Tumiel slashed at it too.
Inky blood spattered his crimson skin.
Again and again our monsters slashed until the serpent monster was still.
Shem released the creature and backed away from it, chest heaving from exertion.
Movement drew my eye over the fence. The grass was rippling. Oh, God. “Watch out!” I pointed at the spot just as another serpent monster burst out of the grass and leapt over the fence right at the children.
They screamed, tiny bodies frozen in terror.
Zaqiel dropped the sword and rushed toward them in a blur, scooping them off their feet and out of the serpent’s trajectory a moment before it hit the roundabout.
It twisted and made for the next nearest target—Matthew and his troublemaker buddy, Pat.
Matthew let out a shrill shriek as his friend shoved him at the beast and dove out of the way. The wet crunch of bone and sinew was too loud, then Matthew’s bottom half hit the grass with a thud.
Someone screamed.
Everyone fucking screamed.
I think I might have screamed too.
Shem rushed at the beast as another hit the park from the east. Screeches tore the air.
Jamie bellowed at everyone to get down. I stood frozen, watching our monsters fight the serpents.
The fluid motion, the sure strikes, the raw, animalistic power.
It was horrifying, beautiful, and fucking mesmerizing.
Zaqiel zipped up and down the length of the third serpent, opening its flank in his wake while Sarq leapt on top of it, stabbing deep with his lethal claws. The beast wailed and flopped to the ground, dead.
Shem grappled with the final one, muscles bulging as he held the thing in a headlock. Its tail whipped forward.
A scream lodged in my throat because it was going to hit a huddle of people, but Tumiel appeared, blocking the strike with his body, protecting my people, taking the blow with an oomph, and holding on to that tail to stop it from doing any more damage.
A loud crack cut through the chaos.
The sound of a neck breaking.
The serpent in Shem’s grip went limp.
Dead.
He dropped it and stood, chest heaving from exertion for long, aching seconds, before his electric-blue eyes lifted to meet mine.
A snarl curled his lips.
“Shem…” Tumiel placed a hand on his shoulder. “We should leave before more come.”
Shem shook him off, his attention resolutely on me. “You did this.” He strode toward me, and Bastian and Jamie moved to block his path. “Get out of my way,” Shem growled.
Zaqiel zoomed toward us, and in the next instant Bastian and Jamie were on the ground.
“Stay down,” Sarq ordered them.
“It was your plan that did this,” Shem said to me. “Cause a distraction and take the sword. Look what your distraction did.” He jabbed a finger toward what remained of Matthew.
I looked away, nausea clawing at my belly. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t care. You want to break our deal, is that it? You want these people to die?”
Murmurs of fear filled the air.
Shit. “No. No, I don’t want that.”
He moved fast and grabbed my nape, hauling me forward so he could peer down at me with a sneer.
“You do something like that again and I’ll forget all morality.
I’ll forget the deal, and I’ll kill your people myself, and you…
You’ll serve your purpose whether you like it or not.
” He released me abruptly. “Move. Now. We have three hours until sunset and we don’t want to be out in the open when the moon comes up. ”
Everyone trooped out of the park, shaken and silent, but there was no ignoring the barbed looks thrown my way.
They agreed with Shem.
They blamed me.
And in that moment, so did I.