Crossed (15 page)

“Looking for this?” He hops onto the step by the driver’s door and dangles it in front of Jo. She tries to snatch it, but he whips it out of reach. “Ah, ah, ah. I’ve got the keys, I get to drive,” he says in a tone calibrated to enrage her.

She glares, promising his death at the earliest convenience. Then that death-glare turns into something far scarier—a sweet, sweet smile. Armand barely has time to register his eminent danger before she slams the door into his gut. He manages to grab on at the last second, so as not to fall, but that brings the keys within reach. Jo plucks them out of his hand and cranks the engine. When he looks like he might try to grab them back, she guns the engine so the beast rocks forward and he has to grab on again.

Jo: 1, Armand: 0.

“Come on, Meda!” she chirps, ignoring Armand’s profanity. She glances at an imaginary watch. “We’re going to be late!”

I climb in to the passenger side, take in her crazed expression and click my seat belt into place. Armand drops to the ground, as if to move around to my side, but Jo stops him.

“No, sit in the middle. Meda needs the window seat.” She ignores his inevitable protest by simply speaking over him, her tone as patronizing as that of a childless uncle to his toddler niece. “I don’t know demon magic, and you can’t do any magic,” she says it nastily. Graff had possessed Armand to check the extent of his magical abilities, but apparently instead of compounding, the demon and Crusader magics cancelled each other out. “Magically, I’m an impotent mule,” Armand had said it lightly, but Jo and I both know was a huge blow.

She faces forward and shifts into gear. “That means Meda’s magic is all we’ve got.” She turns and grins wolfishly at me. “Blast those bastards back to hell.” She guns the engine of the monstrous beast beneath us and it lets out a thunderous roar. The idea of what this hulking mountain of metal is going to do to our enemies fills me with glee.

Armand grinds his teeth and climbs over me to the center, and Jo can’t resist one last dig. “It’s fitting.” She casts a contemptuous eye over him. “Did you know, sitting in the middle is called ‘riding bitch.’”

Before Armand can let loose retort sitting so obviously on his lips, Jo lets out another joy-filled howl, then mashes on the gas. Armand is tossed back in his seat as we launch forward, blasting through the garage door.

Her wildness is contagious, and I grin and throw a fist in the air and howl right along with her.

We jolt out on to the gravel road, and Jo cuts sharp, rocking us to the side as she follows the service road that leads into campus. The beast probably could have taken out the pathetic brick-lattice fence, but I’m glad Jo decided not to risk it. Instead, she aims toward a double gate, the pristine white wood brilliant in the moonlight, and rolls through them with a
crack
.

We pop out behind one of the dorms—the one Zee was staying in before her leg healed enough for her to be reassigned. We can’t see the battlefield yet, only the flash of blue-white Templar magic reflected in the windows of the building ahead.

Then we burst on to the killing fields.

The Crusaders are gone, abandoning the school to be defended by the enchantments they had taken such care to cast. Demon bodies—and parts of bodies—are scattered all across the field where they stepped on magical landmines. Others are bound by crawling vines of blue magic that sprung from the ground to entangle them. The demons fight wildly, flinging magic at the vines, at the school, but there are no Crusaders left to fight.

None but one.

Chi stands at the entrance of the school, a sword in each hand, swinging wildly to beat back the demons who made it through the magical obstacle course. In his position at the top of the narrow, brick-walled stairs, he’s able to keep the number of demons who can approach him to a manageable (or at least manageable-ish) three or four.

As I watch, a small, skittish-looking female dives at him from the right while another, a big male, swings from the left. Chi manages to jump onto the brick railing behind him just in time to avoid both. He leaps again—over a sweeping hand—but another demon grabs him on the way down, jerking him off the low wall by his calf. His back slams into the railing on the way down and he disappears under a tangle of demons.

Jo apparently sees too, and leans forward as if that will somehow make the plough move faster. We’re still on the edges of the field, not close enough for me to cast any spell that could help him. All we can do is pray that Chi can keep himself alive until we get there.

The first demon we come across is too distracted fighting off a magical vine to notice us at first.

“
Allabutesque es que talla
,” I mutter, clearing our path of Crusader protections so we don’t accidentally explode. The sudden disappearance of the magical vines holding him in place confuses the demon in front of us. By the time he notices us bearing down on him, there’s only the briefest moment for his shock to register before he becomes a flesh and bone road bump.

“Shield, Meda! Shield!” Jo screams, as we jolt into the heart of the battlefield. I’m already on it and whip it into place just in time. An explosion of fire smacks into the shield, making the brilliant blue bubble of protective magic suddenly appear. Another spell hits us just as we bump over another demon. I look up, straining to hold the spell, trying to find Chi. I don’t see him among the tangle of fighting bodies on the stairs. I look at Jo, frantic, but there’s not much we can do. Casting any kind of spell to help him would mean dropping our shield, which is not an option. Demonic spells hammer it mercilessly, exploding against the brilliant blue bubble in a ceaseless bombardment. As it is, I won’t be able to hold it forever. Already I feel my magical stores depleting. We have to get to him and we have to get out of here.

Then our plough jags to a stop.

“Go, Jo, go!” I screech. The demons who had run away from our death-mobile moments before are now racing back, realizing we’re stuck.

“You don’t think I’m trying?” she screams, not taking her attention off the dials of the dashboard. The plough whistles and whines, and there’s a crunching sound as it rocks in place. She shifts gears, hauling back and forth, then suddenly we shoot back into motion, just as the first demons reaches us. She gives me a relieved grin. “Demon, stuck in the wheel.”

Armand reaches over and pulls a lever, lowering the plough blade attached the front of the vehicle. He jolts to the side as we go over a bump, the turns a knob with a twist of his wrist. The plough blade rotates forty-five degrees to the right, shunting the demons to the side. We only bounce over the unfortunate few.

When we reach the stairs, the demons waiting their turn to attack Chi scream and try to dive out of the way, but they are packed too tight. We plough—literally—into them in what seems like an explosion of blood and screams

Chi, who had managed at some point to get back to his feet, stares at us, his eyes wide in shock. Jo doesn’t stop, but drives past the stairs, whipping around to the side of the stairs. We only wait a breath before Chi’s blood-covered form leaps over the side and lands on the hood with a thump. Jo wrenches the plough into reverse, and Chi slides backwards, catching himself from falling completely off by bracing his feet on the back of the lowered plough blade. Behind him, demons rain down, trying to make it onto the plough, but Jo’s too fast. Jo wheels us around, backing over demons with a wild abandon, then flips the plough into drive.

“Back the way we came, Jo,” I grunt out, straining to keep the shield in place under the demons’ barrage. I already cleared that way of Crusader protections and can’t drop the shield long enough to clear another route. I don’t think I’d have the magical strength left to cast the undo spell even if I
did
drop the shield. It’s all I can do to keep our protections up. I’m holding onto my power by my psychic fingernails.

Jo doesn’t argue and turns the plough again, bouncing back out the way we came. We pass through the broken door, and I just can’t hold it anymore. I don’t know whether I release the shield then black out, or my black out releases the shield.

In any case, the result is the same.

By the time I come to, we’d arrived at our old standby—a cheap motel specializing in anonymity and suspicious stains. The battered plough had been abandoned at the entrance to a rabbit hole and our hotel was less than a mile from the passageway’s exit. Not ideal, but there wasn’t much they could do while I was unconscious, and anyway, we don’t plan to stay long. Chi had the sense to toss on a bug-out bag while the Crusaders were evacuating so we at least had some cash and the basics.

As the cleanest, Armand is making a clothes-and-food run while the rest of us wash off demonic visceral fluid. Chi and Jo called dibs on the two showers first, so by the time I come out of the bathroom, the two of them are standing together at the doorway between the adjoining rooms we rented, dressed in nothing but towels and, in Chi’s case, bandages, while we wait for Armand to return with clean clothes. Jo leans into Chi, and he bends over her, their faces close enough to leave no doubt as to what I’ve stumbled upon. I debate a nice, loud cough then remember I’ve never really honored other people’s privacy and eavesdrop instead. The cough is always an option if things get too graphic—I’m a snoop, not a perv.

“Oh, come on, Chi, this might be our only chance,” she purrs. Jo
purrs
. Yech.

“But it’s not, Jo. We’ll have plenty of time.”

“Chi, we could die tomorrow.” When this doesn’t move him, she makes an exasperated noise and shakes her head. “And I’m not going where you’re going. Not anymore.”

“You will, Jo.” It sounds like a decree. “We’ll fix this.”

She gives up on the seduction and laughs. “How can you possibly think that? How can you be so blindly heroic? So stupidly, blindly heroic?” She waves her hands. “Look around—we’re losing. We’ve been losing. And we’re about to do the most dangerous thing we’ve ever done—and really, given the last year, that’s really saying something.” Then she gives him a sultry smile, her tone almost apologetic, and runs her hand over his chest. “We might as well make the most of the time we have left.”

He doesn’t bite and he doesn’t get angry. Instead he slides his hand into hers and holds it between them, regarding it solemnly. He runs his thumb over her fingers, and doesn’t say anything for a long moment. When he finally does speak, his tone is thoughtful but almost offhand. I’m not deceived. What he’s saying is so important that he hides behind casualness.

“I know you think I’m naïve. Even when you were more . . . you. Even though you didn’t say so.” He smiles a little. “Well, didn’t say so
much
.” He meets her eyes. “But I do believe that we will fix this. I believe it because I have to. Because my life, my future, doesn’t make sense without you in it.” There’s a soft, small smile. The kind I should never see but I can’t look away. “It’s not blind heroism, Jo. It’s the opposite: it’s self-preservation.” Then he kisses her slack mouth and nudges her out the door before closing it gently in her face.

She doesn’t move for a long moment. When she turns, she jumps, startled by my presence. She tries to glare, but her eyes are too wide. “Idiot,” she tosses at the closed door before dropping onto the bed next to me.

She exhales. “He can’t come with us, you know.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, running the scrap of a hand towel through my despicably blonde hair.

“I can disguise you and Armand once we’re in hell, because you’re Halflings. As long as no one touches you, we should be fine.” She waves at his closed door. “I can’t do anything with him. If anyone recognizes him . . .” she trails off, not really needing to explain.

“There’s no way he’ll stay behind.”

She gives me a slant-eyed look. “He will if we knock him unconscious and stash him in a closet somewhere.”

“He’d starve to death.”

She rolls her eyes at my deliberate obtuseness. “Just until we’re on the other side, obviously. He can’t follow without a demon, remember? That was kinda the whole point of this whole thing.” She waves at herself.

“Well, if you think it’s for the best.” I shrug. Chi’s a good fighter, but if things go well, there shouldn’t be any fighting. Plus, I kinda like him alive, and I’m unsure of his ability to pretend to be evil.

Jo’s tone turns wheedling. “Well, you see,
I
swore not to attack him . . .” She stretches out her still-scarred arms. “So you’ll need to do it.”

Ah. “Er, Jo, I can’t.”

She sits up stiffly. “Can’t or won’t?”

“No, seriously,
can’t
.”

Her eyes stay narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘can’t’?”

“Well, I, ah, kinda promised I wouldn’t knock him senseless for his own good.”

“Seriously?” Jo is too bewildered at first to be angry. I nod sheepishly.

“But it was just a promise, not a
promise
-promise.” She waves at her arms hopefully.

I shake my head. “I gave my word. Some of us don’t get to use the old I-sold-my-soul-to-the-devil excuse.”

She sighs in disgust, then brightens for a second. “I don’t suppose Armand . . .?”

“Gee, for you?”

“Good point.” She sighs again.