Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(39)

A Guardian had come through the Veil, and Raven had lured it away. This was what I’d seen the end of when I’d arrived to save Pamela.

Raven didn’t look at me. “The Veil.”

Shazer spun in midair, his wings beating to keep us in place. I saw the edge of his eyes, the way they rolled as they landed on the beast drawing closer and closer.

“This is the Guardian that came out after her,” Raven said, confirming my own thoughts. “I locked it in an oubliette and thought I’d be able to keep it there.”

A good plan maybe, but obviously the Guardian was stronger than he’d realized.

“Your tactic didn’t work, Raven. Let’s try another.” I drew a breath and wove my fingers through Shazer’s mane. “Can you lose that thing?”

Shazer bobbed his head. “You bet your sweet ass I can.”

“Hang on,” I said.

“I can handle this,” Raven bit out, but the words were lost as the demon dog beast picked up speed, and yet the world slowed around us. The creature’s maw opened and a multitude of tongues shot out of its mouth, reaching for us. Shazer tucked his wings and twisted his body. Peta dug her claws into my leather vest. “Shit, this is going to bring up a juicy hairball.”

I tucked my head down tightly to help keep from being a pull on Shazer. But even so, I knew something was wrong. Raven was no longer behind me.

“Hold up!”

“Too late!” Shazer called back as we raced toward the surface of the gently rolling ocean, the waves growing louder as we drew closer.

At the last second, and I mean the very last second, he pulled up by snapping his wings out to their full spread. He groaned and I could almost feel the strain against his muscles and tendons, could feel his body working to keep us from slamming into the water that would not be soft like a cloud but more like solid cement.

“There!” Peta cried out. “We can land there!”

My eyes watered from the rush of wind as I tried to see what she was looking at.

A ship. A human battleship, to be clear.

Another look around and the Deep came into view. We were in the middle of the war zone between the Undines and the humans.

How was I not surprised?

I looked behind us into the air. The demon beast was coming at us, even though Raven was tangling with it. The flashes of color around them showed me how much power he was using. His strength wasn’t enough to kill this demon.

If the demon would come at me, though, I could stop it. I was sure. I’d killed my share of demons at the Battle of the Veil. There was nothing stopping me from doing it again.

Assuming this Guardian was like the other demons.

Raven knew how to kill demons, too. Which meant this one behind us was no ordinary beast.

Worm shit and green sticks, this journey was sliding into bad territory dangerously fast.

“Do it, Shazer. Take us to the humans.”

I spoke the words and my skin crawled with fear and uncertainty. The humans were warring not only with the Undines, but with their own kind as well. Talan had shown me and I believed him because I’d seen the chaos of the world myself growing with each passing year.

But we had no choice. Right now, I needed Raven still at my side to train me, and I needed to have my feet under me so I could deal with that beast he and Pamela had unleashed on the world.

And I knew I could deal with it.

That certainty in myself was never in question.

“Here we go.” Shazer swept us away from the waves with a few powerful thrusts of his wings. We were headed straight toward the landing deck of the human battleship, their eyes and guns trained on us as we drew closer.

This was about to get interesting.





CHAPTER 16



Shazer’s wing tips grazed the edges of the landing pad on the battleship and I was off his back in a flash. The wide eyes of the men on the ship were all I could see at first and I knew I had to get them out of the way. “Back off, all of you. There is a rather large beast that’s going to land. I don’t want interference and I don’t need any of you getting killed by accident.”

I stretched my arms and hands out and wiggled my fingers, feeling for the earth far below the ship. My connection to the ground even this far away was good, and I pulled on the sand buried in the ocean floor leagues below. As far as I knew, I was the only elemental who could do things like this, pull on my power from such a distance from it. A good thing, too, because I had a feeling I was needing everything in me to face this big-ass demon.

“What the ever-loving fuck do you think you’re doing on my ship?” The booming voice of what had to be the captain, or general, I suppose, echoed across to me. But I kept my back to the human and my eyes on the demon that swept toward us and sucked in a sharp breath.

Raven lay limp in its claws and the thing was going to fly right by us.

I couldn’t let that happen. I did the only thing I could think of.

“Demon, I challenge you!” I roared the words, amplifying them with Spirit.

The demon slowed and turned to face me. “Elemental.”

I gave it a mocking bow. “Do you accept the challenge?”

In answer, it roared, adjusted its flight path and headed straight for me.

I lifted a hand and pointed at the creature closing in on us as I spoke over my shoulder. “I’m going to kill that. And then I’m going to leave, and you’re going to let me.”