EJ
Racing from his sister, EJ reached for Delta Mode again.Too soon. Burnout imminent. He backed into Theta and left Delta in standby, folded and static.
He slid across the ice, into a drift of snow as tall as his shoulders. He demanded into comms, “Who’s watching Walter?”
“Boots,” Grizz said sharply.
“Get her some backup. Palillos on the way.”
“You’re not shooting Boots,” Grizz said, her voice low, unyielding as stone. He heard the sound of running feet, Grizz trying to beat him to Walter.
EJ didn’t reply, skirting Peg, listening for broken music. There was nothing. Just a human male with augmented cyborg limbs. Peg was not possessed. EJ passed Villetti on the way in, the man running almost as fast as he was in the dense, icy snow. Villetti was okay too. No demons.
“Location?” he demanded of Grizz.
Over comms, he heard the clash of steel and three gunshots.
“Walter’s apartment. Get your ass up here,” Grizz shouted.
The hallway was empty. Elevator on the seventh floor. He stopped, breathing deeply. Drew on his own magic. Pulled it to him, singing, ringing, like gonging taffy, sweet and rich but stretched so thin. So tired. His magic was as drained as his soul.
He wrapped what was left of it around him like a tattered cloak, encasing Delta Mode in it. Folded, waiting.
All his amulets were drained and empty. His own magic was all but gone.
Desperate, EJ unfolded Delta Mode partway. There was little left of the brain wave patterns but what was still there, he settled within his mind, knowing he was too tired to use it properly and was possibly damaging himself. Delta brain waves were alluring, promising the gift forever, until it killed the user, like a horse being run to death. And then sleep, forever sleep, the sleep of death. In the war, he’d seen a witch use Delta Mode until she died, simply fell over in the midst of battle.
He stood upright. Pulling open the stairway door, EJ ran up, taking the stairs two at a time, breathing more heavily than usual. As he ran, his legs grew stronger, his treads firmer. By the third floor, he was taking the stairs three at a time. This was…
The coven. A ley line he hadn’t known about. Raw power just beneath this building. Angie and his tie to her. Was she feeding him the power from the ley line? Or was he still tied to it? Or…was he stealing his sister’s life force?
He stopped the flow of power. Exhaustion weighed him down, but he’d gained enough energy to feel stronger. Delta Mode pulled it in and unfolded a bit more. The holes in the brain wave patterns filled in with neural activity instead of emptiness. EJ drew a weapon and racked back the slide. Demon round. One. Only one left. One chance to stop a demon that had gotten by them. He readied another weapon in his offhand. Mag full. Useless against a possessed vampire.
He burst into the fifth-floor hallway.
Before he even thought, he fired three shots with his offhand weapon. Only after he released the trigger did he consciously know,stranger.Encom. Enemy combatant. Human.
EJ leaped over the dead body and rammed a shoulder at Walter’s apartment door. It wasn’t latched. It banged open.
The music of demons and vampires clashed.
He saw everything at once.
Two upright unknown humanoids. Backs to the door. One turning to him.
Walter. Lying on the floor, a stake in his belly.
Facing the doorway, Boots and Grizz stood over Walter. Straddling him. Legs to either side of his body.
Their vampire was vamped out. His hands were moving in spastic jerks as he tried to grab the stake in his belly.
Shouldn’t be happening. Shouldn’t be able to move.Should be more than undead, paralyzed, unconscious.
Their two guards had weapons out. Firing. At the doorway. At the enemy. And at him.
EJ dropped, threw his body into a horizontal fall, directly at the unknown people, their backs to the door. Leveling out in midair, a foot from the floor. Bowled into them at their knees. Took them down. As they fell, he somersaulted and rammed a fresh stake into Walter’s belly. Hard. It disappeared into his flesh. Walter stopped moving. Undead.
No sound of demons.
