Proximity #2
“I’m a Squadron Captain. I am not going to just up and fucking-”
“I’m the Second-in-Command, and if I say you’re fucking leaving, you’re leaving,” he snarls, raising himself to his full height, which gives him an inch on me, but I let my aura out, staring him down. “That’s an order.”
My eyes blaze, about to reply when I hear the same shrieking I had heard only hours ago within Sienna’s dream, that’s followed by another, and then another.
“We’re under attack!” someone shouts, and then the smell of blood hits me.
“They’re here,” Sienna murmurs.
“Both of you, suit up!” Uncle Alejandro commands before he races out the door. Sienna jumps to her feet as she rushes out of the room. I grab my Schattenblüte, clamp it on and activate my suit before pulling off my sweatpants. I reach the hallway just as Sienna exits her room.
Her glamour is still off, but now’s not the time to point that out, even if a possessive lick of fire rushes through me at the thought of others seeing her like this. The air outside is tainted with blood, the cold hitting us in the face.
There’s not one but three drakaths tearing through our men.
Mikhail braces against one near the broken barricade, his usually pristine shoes planted in blood-soaked snow, bodies strewn at his back. How fast do they kill?
Ahren clashes with another in a violent storm of power that sends cracks splintering through the frozen ground, the darkness of his power causing it to look like it is still night.
Uncle Alejandro faces the third, his eyes flashing red as he narrowly evades talons that carve trenches where he had been standing a heartbeat before.
None of them is winning, even with how fucking strong and fast they are. The drakaths are incredibly powerful, and it’s clear as fucking day that no ordinary soldier will be able to hold their own against them.
Assessing the situation, I scan the men waiting from afar to attack.
“Get the injured inside and barricade the doors!” I command.
“But-” Vasquez begins.
Brave of him, but fucking stupid.
“Trust me when I say none of you will live to see another day if you don’t obey,” I snarl, my command ringing through the air.
The rest obey, and he hesitates before nodding and racing to scan for survivors.
My heart twists when I realise there are none, and then they’re retreating inside the mess hall.
Scanning the three fighting before me, I assess the situation again. Ahren is faring best, forcing his opponent back with raw dominance, but he’s not really getting the upper hand as nothing affects the drakath.
“Help Mikhail,” I tell Sienna, already moving towards Alejandro.
“Understood!”
All three of the drakaths turn at once – towards her.
As if only now realising her presence.
The shift is immediate, predatory, as though an unspoken signal has passed between them. Their black eyes fix on Sienna, and something in their posture changes, heads tilting with a sinister wave of power that washes over me.
They speak in that jagged, guttural tongue that sounds as wrong as their very presence.
Sienna seems to be on edge.
“What did they say?” I ask, realising she understood.
“It’s her,” she replies softly.
As if that didn’t bother her, she moves to run for Mikhail. I catch her arm before she can take two steps.
“Then you protect yourself,” I say, my voice low and firm.
She pulls free. “I won’t run away.”
And then she runs straight at them.
The sky answers the surge of panic in my chest. Thunder cracks overhead as my wolf roars within me, power rising in violent response.
I drag lightning from the clouds and hurl it at the drakath she is charging towards.
The bolt strikes clean, engulfing it in white-blue fire.
When the light fades, its arm and part of its shoulder are gone, black blood spraying across the snow in a hissing arc.
It staggers, but despite its state, it still seems to survive; its flesh begins to knit together even as it straightens, smoke rising from its ruined side.
“Be careful it does not touch you!” Mikhail thunders in warning as he tosses his sword and pulls out two guns.
But out of fucking nowhere, Lieutenant Ana darts in, raising her sword. The drakath lashes out with terrifying speed. Its knife-like claws slice across her flank as she twists away, but she’s far too late. She’s wounded, even if it isn’t as deep as it could have been.
She collapses with a strangled cry, limbs locking at unnatural angles as her body begins to shudder.
Mikhail swears viciously and empties his gun into the creature’s chest. The bullets tear through it, slowing it for a fraction of a second, but the wounds seal almost as quickly as they are made.
“How did you kill one of these fuckers last time?” Uncle Alejandro asks as he rips off a limb, while I call another crack of lightning down upon the drakath he’s fighting.
“I do not know! I kept attacking until it dropped fucking dead!” Mikhail’s words are barely clear, his accent thicker than ever.
“That’s a shit fucking plan!” Uncle Alejandro growls.
“Then do you have a better plan, pup?” Mikhail snarls back.
From somewhere in the darkness ahead, Ahren chuckles. I guess no one has called Uncle Alejandro a pup in decades.
“Call me a pup again, and I’ll show you who’s the fucking pup!” Uncle Alejandro snaps back as he leaves the drakath to me and runs over to Lieutenant Ana, moving her out of the way.
Their bickering grates against the roar of battle.
I force myself to focus and look.
Really look.
Trying to find an answer. Everything and everyone has a weakness. Even the gods. Helios was proof of that.
The drakath before me moves with brutal precision, elongated limbs a blur as it races towards me. I notice that, unlike the ones that came from the cocoons, this one wears armour plates.
Why does something that can’t be killed wear armour that covers barely anything?
It makes no sense.
The armour doesn’t even cover its chest. Aren’t the vital organs the most important parts, if we assume it has a heart anyway?
We keep exchanging blows, a blur of power.
Think, Jayce…
A flicker of memory stirs in my mind, a half-remembered passage from one of the tomes. To kill immortals… I frown.
Every immortal has a weakness. Not the obvious heart. Not the lungs. Something else. Something smaller, like Helios’ divine mark.
The drakath lunges. I barely evade, feeling the rush of air cut past me, snow and ice spraying across my face. I move back just as its claws slice past my throat, missing me by a few hair breaths.
As the drakath moves, I see it.
At the base of its neck, where the armour plates overlap, seemingly innocently, I see the faintest of a shimmer pulsing there.
Is that the source of their power?
The drakath charges again, and this time I know where I’m going to hit.
Sienna, I say through the mind-link. At the base of their throat, where the armour overlaps, I think that might be their weak spot.
She’ll relay the message to Ahren. I am not sure if they understand us or not, but if they do, I’m not about to give them a heads-up to protect themselves.
The drakath before me opens its mouth in a roar that rings in my ears.
Now.
I draw a bolt of lightning from the sky, the bolt now pulsing in my hand, and I throw it, aiming right at the spot, taking the gamble.
For one excruciatingly long second, nothing happens.
Then dark smoke erupts from its neck in a violent surge. The drakath convulses, but instead of dropping dead, it lurches upwards, its claws gouging into my shoulder as it crashes into me. A sound tears from its throat as pain engulfs my body before the drakath hits the floor, dead.
Fuck!
I got careless.
The glow beneath its skin flickers wildly before it drops to the ground.
Across the field, Ahren pivots and slams his power into the same place on his opponent, just as Sienna spins like a fucking goddess and does the same.
Then both of the drakaths’ heads snap up in unison before they fall to the ground dead, staining the snow with black blood.
An odd ripple of energy pulses beneath the dead, as I feel my entire body burn up and I fall to my knees.
“Jayce!”