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Baer grinned at him. “Or a flamethrower.”
Yes, a flamethrower would be nice. Bad for the surrounding trees, but the feeling he was getting from them already had him thinking they were willing to sacrifice themselves if it meant that the pestilents were gone.
“How many doors?” Clay asked, getting them back on track.
“Two,” Baer replied. He shifted his shoulders, rolling them as if he were trying to loosen muscles. “Front and rear.”
“I’ll take the front. You’ve got the other.” He looked over at Grey, and the Soul Weaver grimaced.
“I guess I’ll take the east side of the house. See what kind of fire I can start before they find me.” On Grey’s back was a heavy canvas pack loaded with squeeze bottles of whatever flammable liquids they could get their hands on. Not the safest arrangement, but they were working with what they had access to.
“Let’s do this,” Clay growled, shoving to his bare feet. He stepped out of the tree line and walked down the gravel driveway toward the house. Out of the corner of his eye, he could make out a shifting of the shadows through the trees as Grey and Baer made their way toward the house in secret.
The gravel bit into the soles of his feet, but the discomfort was small and distant in comparison to the power that was flowing up through his body. He needed to be wrapped in all of it, to have the energy of the earth surging through him. It was a part of him, defined him. And he no longer needed to control it.
He and the power were of the same mind, same goal. They moved as one.
At the front of the house was a scattering of six different cars of a wide variety of makes and models. Something to help them get around to their targets and blend in with the crowds. Lights blazed through the windows on the ground floor, but darkness reigned above. It looked as if Baer’s reconnaissance was correct. If there were pestilents on the upper floors, they were likely sleeping. The farmhouse was a barracks, a place to house all the pestilents who moved into the area from wherever the rift between worlds stood.
When he was standing a few yards away from the wooden stairs leading up to the front porch, Clay lifted his open hands out to his sides. The powers swirled up through his body, and the little entity in his chest reached out with him, ready to do his bidding with an almost wicked glee.
“Shake the earth,” Clay growled. “Wake them from their beds. Put them on their knees in front of me.”
Beneath Clay’s feet, the ground trembled. The shaking grew steadily in intensity. Clay could hear shouts from the pestilents inside the house and the breaking of glass. Leaves rasped in the trees and smaller limbs broke, sending bits of debris to the ground.
Only a minute passed before the front door was thrown open and pestilents started pouring out of the building, armed with guns and knives. Surprise was clear on their faces as they found Clay standing outside their door.
“Bring me Cor!” he bellowed. The shaking of the earth increased, but Clay stood firm, his body locked to the earth beneath his feet.
The pestilents spoke among each other for a couple of seconds; then one of them darted back into the house. A breeze stirred, carrying with it the stench of the rotting creatures in front of him. He almost felt pity for them. Their home was dying around them, and they were willing to sacrifice their own lives to come to the inhospitable place in hopes of saving their own world.
What Clay couldn’t forgive was that they were so willing to sacrifice everyone on Earth as well to save their own. There would be no trading one life for another. The pestilents should have found another way.
There was a bit of shoving at the front door, and Cor stepped out. The air around him shimmered even more. Maybe it was his age or his own powers. Maybe it was the amount of times he’d bounced between Earth and his world. All it meant to Clay was that the creature did not belong here.
Clay dropped his hands to his sides, and the earthquake stopped. The silence that settled over the area felt almost deafening. “This is your last chance. Leave Earth. Never return.”
Cor laughed, an ugly sound that scratched the insides of Clay’s ears. “If only you knew how many last chances you’ve given me over the years.”
Clay gritted his teeth, hating that there was even the slightest chance that Cor might have known him in past lives. He’d give anything for even a glimpse of some of that past knowledge, but it was never going to happen. He was going to defeat Cor and all the pestilents in this life.
