Gone (Gone #1)(132)

Enough of licking his wounds.

The battle was joined.

"Time" he said."Time to show them all*

He kicked his own front door open and marched toward the plaza, shouting, shouting, wishing he could bay at the moon like the coyotes.

He heard guns firing and pulled his pistol from his belt and uncoiled his whip hand and snapped it, loving the crack it made.

Ahead, two figures were moving away from him, also heading for the sound of battle, two figures.. One seemed impossibly small. But no, it was the other that was impossibly big. Sumo big. A shuffling, slumping, thick-limbed creature..

The two mismatched ones mcved into a pool of light cast by a street I a nip. Drake recognized the smaller one.

"Howard, you traitor," Drake shouted.

Howard stopped. The beast beside him kept walking.

"You don't want any of this, Drake," Howard warned.

Drake whipped him across the chest, tore Howard's shirt open, left a trail of blood that was black in the harsh light.

"You better be on your way to help take down Sam," Drake warned.

The rough beast stopped. It turned slowly and came back.

"What is that?" Drake demanded sharply.

"You"thebeast muttered.

"Ore?" Drake cried, half thrilled, half terrified.

"It's your fault I did it," Ore said dully.

"Get out of my way" Drake ordered. "Therms a fight. Come with me or die right now."

"He just wants some beer, Drake," Howard said placatingly, clutching the wound in his chest, hunched over in pain, but still trying to manipulate, still trying to be eleven

"God's judgment on me," Ore slurred.

"You stupid lump," Drake said, and whirled his whip hand and brought it down full force on Ore's shoulder

"AAHHH!" Ore bellowed in pain.

"Get moving, you moron" Drake ordered.

Ore got moving. But not toward the plaza.

"You want a piece of Whip Hand, freak?" Drake demanded."I'll cut you up"

Astrid felt a crushing weight on her lower back and legs. She was facedown, lying on top of Little Pete, She was stunned, but had enough presence of mind to understand thai she was stunned.

She took a deep breath.

She whispered, "Petey." She heard the sound through her bones. Her ears were ringing, muffling sound. Little Pete wasn't moving.

She tried to draw her legs up, but they wouldn't move, "Petey, Petey" she cried,

She wiped something out of her eyes, dust, dirt, sweat, and blinked io focus on her brother. She had shielded most of his body from the falling wall, but a chunk of plaster ihe size of a backpack lay on his head.

She bit back a sob. She pressed two fingers against his neck and fell a pulse. She could feel his shallow breathing, the rise and fall of his chest, beneath her.

"Help," she croaked, unsure if she was shouting or whisporing, unable lo hear for the ringing. "Someone help us. Someone help us." "Save my brother"

"Save him" she pleaded, and the plea became a prayer. "Save Sam. Save us all."

She began to recite from memory a prayer she*d heard once long ago. Her voice was faraway, someone else's voice.

"St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil." She could feel more than hear her own sobbing, a racking shudder that twisted the words in her throat.

As if in mocking answer to her plea for mercy, a shower o! glass and plaster fragments fell around her.

"May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do you, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God , ■ "

Little Pete stirred and groaned He moved his head and she could see the deep gash, pushed toward, a cleaver-mark in his head.

"... cast into Hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls"

Someone stood on the rubble above her. She twisted her neck and saw, silhouetted against the high ceiling in a sudden Hash of green lightning, a dark face.

"Amen."

"fm not exactly an angel, let alone an archangel" Dekka said in a voice Astrid could only just make out. "But I can get this stuff off you"

Caine leaped from the wreckage of the building. He had done it. He had done it.

Sam was under the tangled debris, buried. Beaten.

But Caine could scarcely enjoy the moment. The pain from the damaged left side of his body was shocking. The dangerous green-white light had tiised his shirt to his flesh and the result was beyond any agony he had ever imagined.

He staggered toward the ruined church, trying to make sense of the chaos around him. There was no more gunfire, but there were still screams and cries and snarls. And something else, a series of tiny sonic booms, the crack of a bull-whip. Below that, a bass drum keeping a random beat.

Caine stopped, stared, momentarily forgetting his pain.

On the steps of the town halt a titanic battle raged between Drake and some rough-hewn monster.

Drake cracked his whip hand and lired his pistol.

The monster lunged with clumsy blows that missed again and again as Drake danced around, whipping and whipping and yet not even backing the beast up.

The beast swung and missed Drake by inches. The stony fist slammed one of the limestone pillars in front of the town hall. The pillar cracked and almost shattered. Little stone chips flew.