Matt Archer: Legend (24 page)

Late in the afternoon, we found the spot Aunt Julie had
staked out for our encampment. If it weren’t for GPS, I’m not sure how we
would’ve found it—every mile had looked the same for the last two hours.

Australia was at the tail end of its summer, and the air
shimmered with heat when we finally stopped. Eager to leave the Humvee behind
for as long as possible, I hopped out and helped Greene, Dorland, and Blakeney
unload our gear from the equipment truck.

It was nightfall by the time Greene and two of Will’s new
non-coms started ringing camp with razor coil. Exhausted after a quick MRE for
dinner, I decided to pass out for the next ten hours; tomorrow we were going to
plan out our search and I needed to be rested. When I got to the tent, though,
Greene and Dorland were playing poker on one side and Blakeney was already
asleep on the bottom bunk on the other side.

“Oops,” I said. “Sorry, guys. I thought this was my rack.”

I turned to go but Greene called out, “Archer, you’re in the
right place.”

“No, I normally bunk with Will and Lieutenant, uh…
Captain
Johnson.” I picked up my duffel bag, wondering how I missed the memo about
being moved to a different tent.

“It’s not a mistake, man,” Dorland said in his quiet voice.
“You and Cruessan can’t bunk together anymore. It’s a liability; if monsters
hit a tent, and you’re both bunking there, we’re down two wielders. If that
happens, everyone here dies, and the rest of the mission is screwed.”

My duffel bag hit the ground with a thump. I couldn’t bunk
with Will? “Does the major know about this?”

“Yeah,” Dorland said, dropping a card and drawing another.
He grimaced and dropped the entire hand before saying, “It was his idea.”

I stood there for a minute trying to digest what they were
saying. Now that Will was a wielder, would that mean we couldn’t hang out
together as much? I hoped that wasn’t the case and this new rule only applied
to bunks, but I wasn’t too sure.

“Yeah, okay,” I said without enthusiasm. “I hope you three
don’t snore.”

As if he heard me, Blakeney made a noise like a rusty
chainsaw and rolled over.

Great.

* * *

The next morning, I stumbled out of the tent, blinking in
the sunshine. Turned out all three of my roomies snored and when I did finally
manage to sleep, I woke up several times with the vague feeling that something
was watching me. That was never a good sign, but the knife-spirit hadn’t piped
up with any kind of warning, so I chalked it up to paranoia.

Will had already claimed one of the nylon folding chairs in
the middle of camp and was chowing down on sausage biscuit MRE. He gave me a
half-wave when I sat next to him to eat my boxed pancakes. Even though I could
hear a few guys talking smack as they worked out nearby, the morning had a stillness
to it that I didn’t like. The wind would gust, then stop, then gust again
without doing anything to cool things down. A bead of sweat ran down my neck
into my collar and I swatted at it.

“You pick up some fleas out here?” Will asked, his mouth
full of biscuit.

“You born in a barn, or do you just like showing me your
food?”

Will gave me the finger before swallowing his bite. “They
tell you why they split us up yesterday?”

I prodded my breakfast with my fork. “Yeah. Kind of sucks,
huh? I never even thought it would be risky to keep us together, but now that I
think about it, any time I’ve been out with another wielder, they stationed us
at opposite sides of camp.”

“There’s something else,” Will said. His forehead had
wrinkled up until his eyebrows made a V. “I can’t hear my knife.”

“
Can’t
? Or are they just being quiet?” I asked.

“Mine’s never quiet,” he said. “It’s weird, man.”

We finished our breakfast in silence, with me wondering why
the spirits weren’t talking to us. Sure, Tink was pissed with me, but this
silent treatment made me uneasy. It was less like she was giving me the cold
shoulder, and more like she was…absent.

The day passed slowly. Uncle Mike and Johnson spent most of
the afternoon staring at maps and discussing routes out to the spot where the
hikers saw their “aliens.” The rest of us played cards, worked out, or invented
games to keep from going crazy. My particular favorite was seeing who could
launch an MRE container the farthest using only a spoon.

When the sun finally went down, the air got chilly and I
wandered into my tent for the night. Blakeney had sprawled out on his bunk to
watch a movie on his iPad. Dorland and Greene were still outside. Tired and
bored, I said good-night to Blakeney and climbed up onto my bunk. Uncle Mike said
we would take our first run out into the desert at dawn; tomorrow would be a
hard day and I knew I needed to sleep. It wasn’t hard to drift off, and I
dreamed about Ella.

A few hours later, I startled awake. My heart raced like I’d
been running a 5k in bed and sweat had soaked my t-shirt. Shivering in the cool
desert air, I wrapped my blanket tighter around my shoulders, wondering if I
was getting sick, or if something else was wrong.

That’s when the screaming started.

A cry of agony, wrenched from someone’s throat, rang through
camp. The sound made the hairs on my scalp prickle and I grabbed my knife even
as I rolled off my bunk. I shoved my feet into my boots and ran outside. A
body—one of Will’s guys—lay in the path, his limbs splayed at awkward angles
like he’d been thrown from a car. I didn’t have to take a closer look to know
his neck was broken.

The dead soldier had been one of the three guys on guard
duty. I turned to check the perimeter of camp. A second body—one of the other
guards—lay crumpled just outside the razor-coil barrier.

We’d been breached.

More screams rang out. I edged into the center of camp and
saw that something huge had shredded a hole in the side of the support staff’s
tent and was plowing through it, carrying…

I closed my eyes. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about
what it’s carrying. Just kill the damn thing before it does that to anyone
else.

“Will!” I shouted, stalking across camp, hoping if I made
enough noise, the thing would decide to tangle with me instead of the others.
“Need some backup, man!”

“Already here.” Will slipped from the shadows.

All around us, the camp was in complete pandemonium. Uncle
Mike was barking orders, dressed in an untucked t-shirt, a pair of camo pants
and unlaced boots, and guys poured out of their racks, sleep-drunk and
disoriented.

“What is it?” Will asked, sounding grim.

“Too dark to see.”

The monster hadn’t abandoned the tent; from what I could
tell, it had killed the guys in there and was waiting for us to come to it. All
I could see was a hunched, giant shadow with tufts of fur…or maybe those were
feathers standing up on its shoulders.

“What we dealing with?” Lanningham asked in a raspy voice.
In just his pants and a tank that strained across his massive shoulders, he
looked—and sounded—like a sleep-deprived Vin Diesel.

“Two guards confirmed dead,” I said. “Not sure how many are
in that tent, but at least two of them are dead, too.”

“You sure?” Lanningham asked.

I shuddered, thinking about what I saw. “Positive, sir.”

“Nobody alive in the tent then.” Lanningham swore. “What do
you need to take this thing out?”

“I think we only have one option. Flush and rush,” I
muttered, and glanced at Will.

“Just like old times,” he said, lifting his knife.

I turned to Lanningham. “Could we try shooting at it? I
don’t think bullets will work, but maybe it’ll get pissed and come out so we
have room to fight.”

When he went to tell the guys to fire at the tent, I
muttered, “Tink, probably a good idea to spin me up now.”

Nothing.

“Okay, I’ll stop calling you Tink…we need some help.
Please?”

Not a peep. In fact, my knife wasn’t vibrating or glowing or
showing any indication it knew monsters were on the prowl. Will was whispering
to his knife-spirit, too. From the look on his face, I gathered his wasn’t
talking, either.

This wasn’t a case of Tink pouting in a corner. She wouldn’t
abandon me like this, no matter how mad she was.

I looked over at Uncle Mike to tell them to hold up so we
could figure this out…just as Lanningham lit a floodlight. Blakeney immediately
opened fire on the tent with the M240 mounted on the back of one of the
Humvees. The monster screeched, a sound to rival a flock of angry bats, and the
tent shuddered as it clawed its way out.

“Dude, I think we’re in for it now,” Will said. “What is
that thing? Are those
quills
on its back?”

The monster cleared the tent and stumbled into the light.
Standing upright, the creature resembled a giant, brown porcupine, with razor
sharp spines jutting out of its body. Those quills were a good six inches long
and it paws ended in cruel, hooked claws. The whole thing was a walking
pincushion, ready to stab anyone who got too close.

Blakeney fired shot after shot at it, but it didn’t slow
down. Guys scattered, running for cover.

“Cease fire!” I yelled.

When the barrage stopped, Will and I chased after the
monster. We’d closed half the distance when it stopped and spun around. I
grabbed Will’s arm and we skidded to a halt as it roared right in our faces.
Will got his knife up in time to counter the giant arm that swung over our
heads. Johnson and Mike were behind us, herding everyone together; I needed
them to get clear so we’d have room to fight.

“Major!” I yelled. “Send everyone back to—”

A howl echoed behind us and the beast in front of us
answered. Then it got down on all fours, puffing up its body so its quills
stuck out in every direction, and
laughed
. I’d heard rusted fence gates
that sounded less grating than this thing chuckling—and it scared the hell out
of me.

Two more howls rang out, coming from different locations
just outside the floodlight’s reach.

Will stood tense, staring Porcupine-man down. “You brought
some friends to this party, huh?” He held up his knife. “Well, so did I.”

Without waiting for me, he leapt at the monster. It rose up
and they crashed to the ground in a pile. I couldn’t tell if Will had been
impaled on its quills or not, but with the way they were thrashing around, I
had no clean way to jump in the middle.

A man screamed and I whirled around. Two new quill monsters
had arrived, and one had slammed Greene into one of the Humvees with the back
of its arm. When it pulled its arm free, Greene gave me a look of pained
surprise, then collapsed with a dozen holes punctured through his chest.

Pissed, I ran at the new monsters, begging Tink to show up,
but all I heard were spectral crickets. She was nowhere to be found.

Fine, I’d do this myself.

Both monsters had turned to face me with their arms out.
Feinting right, I cut left and dropped to my knees. The beasts didn’t have
quills on their bellies, so that’s where I aimed. I slashed the first one open
at the pelvis and rolled away before it fell on top of me. The second one
dived, but I kept rolling until I got my feet under me and stood. It turned,
staying on all fours, and scuttled toward me. From this angle, the monster was
all quills and no weak spot, so I jumped up onto the Humvee’s hood. Muffled
grunts came from the other side of camp where Will was wrestling with his
monster, and gunfire started to my left. Uncle Mike shouted a command. Soon
after, I heard the deep thump of a grenade being fired.

Without much time to come up with something smarter, I
counted to three and leapt at the monster just as the grenade exploded in the
air outside of camp.

Like I hoped, it jumped up onto two legs looking startled
when it heard the explosion, giving me the opening I needed. I slammed my knife
into its heart. We handed hard and the blade was driven further into its chest.
The beast spasmed once then went limp. I lay sprawled on top of its belly,
gasping for air like a beached fish. I’d gotten the wind knocked out of my
lungs when we fell and now I was forced to pull in breaths of sewer-flavored
monster stink.

Another grenade burst on the east side of camp, and the last
creature snarled somewhere in the dark. I struggled to get up, but my head spun
and I collapsed on top of the dead monster again. It’s quills poked into my
legs. Luckily, someone gripped my shoulders and hauled me to my feet.

I limped to the Humvee to prop myself up and gave Will a
jerky nod. “Right on time, like usual.”

He had scratches all over his face and arms, and his clothes
were shredded. Still, he stood tall. “I got your back, man.”

“I guess you killed yours, too.”

“Took too long, but yeah.” Will prodded my dead monster with
his boot. “What’d you do to this one, hammer it with a pile driver?”

I looked at the body; its quills had been driven into the
dirt from the force of our fall. “Yeah. Except I was the pile driver.”

“Damn, that had to hurt.” He glanced toward the pack of
soldiers firing ordinance into the dark. “Doesn’t sound like the grenades are
doing much other than making that thing mad. Think you’re up for one more?”

I took a few steps to see; I was a little wobbly but I could
shake that off. “Let’s go.”

Will and I stalked through the wreckage that used to be
camp, eying the perimeter in case more Porcupines-of-Death were lurking in the
dark. Nothing jumped from the shadows to shout boo or rip our heads from our
shoulders, and we met up with Uncle Mike without any issues.

“We’ve been trying to keep this one busy for you,” Mike
said, pointing to a dark shadow moving amongst the shadows of scrub-brush on
the plain. The moon wasn’t out, and the thing was pretty hard to see, even with
the floodlight glaring in the background.

“Is that the last one?” Will asked. “Because I’m wondering
if this is just round one.”

“We haven’t seen any more,” Mike said. He turned to Johnson.
“Captain, any additional visuals?”

“No, sir,” Johnson said. He rubbed his eyes. “This is the
only one. We ready to send the wielders out there to kill it for us?”

“Only solution we have at this point,” Uncle Mike answered.
“Matt, think you can sneak out there and flank it if Will runs toward it as a
diversion?”

“Great,” Will muttered, “I’m bait again.”

“Not this time,” I said. “I’m faster—I’ll take it on the run.
You just make sure you’re in position, okay?”

Before I even finished the sentence, Will had disappeared
into the shadows. Well, okay, he was ready.

Mike shook his head. “This whole night has been such a
cluster.”

“You’re telling me,” I said. “Those things caught our guards
completely unaware. From now on, I’m sleeping in my boots, like a gunfighter,
because that’s what I am now.”

I took a few breaths, getting ready to run. With Will out
there, we couldn’t fire any ordinance, and I worried the creature would wonder
why the barrage had suddenly stopped and start exploring. “Okay, I’m going. If
we can’t kill it, haul ass to the Humvees and take off—you can’t stop this
thing without us.”

Gripping my knife and sending a silent plea to Tink, I let
out a war whoop and barreled into the shadows toward the monster. Once I left
the bit of light from camp, it took my eyes a moment to adjust, but I didn’t
miss the giant shadow form rising onto its back feet with its stubby arms
outstretched to grab me and tear me to bits.

Another shadow broke free of the bushes behind it so I
dropped to my hip and slid into the creature’s legs. Quills cut into my thigh
and hip, but I ignored the pain and stabbed at its shins. When I opened a good
gash in its calf, it swiped at me with its claws, tearing the skin above my
right eyebrow. Blood ran into my eye and, half-blind, I thrust the blade at it
again but missed. The monster grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked me off
the ground, shaking me like a rag doll so that my teeth chattered together.

There was a weird thump, then the creature tensed and
dropped me. I barely had time to crawl away before it teetered over and landed
in a heap. Will stood over the dead monster.

“Thanks, man,” I said, prodding at my eyebrow. It stung
something fierce and jagged edges of flesh surrounded the wound. Yeah, that
would make a beautiful scar to add to the collection.

Will gave me a hand up then headed back toward camp. “Let’s
get back. I don’t like how exposed we are out here.”

We limped back to Uncle Mike, who sent for Klimmett. “You
two need about fifty stitches between you and probably a round of antibiotic
shots. Go; we’ll clean up and I’ll come find you later.”

It was a few hours before dawn by the time Klimmett finished
sewing us up. I had stitches in my right eyebrow, the meaty part of my left
shoulder, the front of my right thigh and in both calves. Will needed even
more, to close all the holes where the quills had torn through his skin. While
Klimmett wrapped everything in bandages, Johnson came in to tell us we’d lost
another guy in the chaos, dropping our team from nineteen to thirteen. I’d lost
Greene. Will had lost a new guy I didn’t know, but he looked pretty gut punched
about it. We’d also lost both our communication specialists, one of our drivers.
and Klimmett’s assistant medic.

“Bad night,” I muttered. “Tink, where are you?”

No answer. I glanced over at Will, who looked completely
miserable with cuts and bruises all over his face and a haunted look in his
eyes. I decided not to ask him if his spirit had come back online; I could tell
by his expression that he was barely hanging on. He’d been on operations where
we had casualties, but this was the first time we’d lost guys on his watch as a
wielder. I decided not to tell him it didn’t get any easier, that you just got
numb to it while you had work to do and that you raged later, when you could do
it alone.

A few minutes later, the “whump, whump, whump” of helicopter
blades broke through the silence of the desert. Uncle Mike stuck his head
inside the tent. “Julie called earlier this evening to tell us she had news and
that she was flying back. The monsters tore apart all our communications
equipment, down to the last sat-phone, so I couldn’t warn her about the attack.
It’s like they knew what to go for and wanted us cut off.”

A little shiver shook me right down to my toes. When had
monsters started caring about our equipment? I’d thought the carnage was the
point, but what if there was more to it?

Uncle Mike caught my eye. “I hate to ask, but could one of
you cover us when Julie’s team lands? I don’t think there’s anything out there
now, but we don’t need two ambushes in one night.”

I stood quickly; Will needed more time to recover from battle
shock and I was less injured. “I’m on it.”

Will shot me a “don’t pity me, you rat bastard” look and
pushed himself upright. “You need us both.”

We pulled on our boots and followed Uncle Mike, Lanningham,
Blakeney and Johnson to the edge of camp. Dorland was a dark shadow on top of
the Humvee with the mounted grenade launcher, and Lieutenant Nguyen nodded at
us from the firing seat of the other Humvee. The M-240 attached to the roof was
pointed toward the area Mike had ordered cleared as a landing pad earlier in
the day.

The thumping of the rotors grew louder. The helicopter
passed overhead and set down, stirring up a dust cloud. Mike led us behind the
equipment truck and had us take cover behind it, motioning for Lanningham and
Blakeney to check for hostiles. They disappeared into the darkness, rifles at
the ready. Despite the chill in the air, the back of my neck and my torso
started to sweat. My pulse sped up, too. I closed my eyes, trying to decide if
this was a warning, or just nerves.

Then Will groaned. My eyes popped open; Will had his arms
wrapped around his middle and his jaw muscles were clenched tight.

“Man, you okay?” I asked.

He staggered away from us on wobbling legs without answering
me. Uncle Mike shot me a tense look and I trotted over to his side and put a
hand on Will’s back. “What’s wrong? You need a medic?”

“Get…away…from…me.”

The voice wasn’t Will’s. It was deep, raw, clawing its way
out his throat—definitely not something of this world. He moaned and stumbled a
few more steps before sinking to his knees with both hands pressed to the sides
of his head.

“We need a medic! Someone get Klimmett!” Moving slow, I
eased up next to Will and knelt. “It’s going to be okay. Just breathe.”

Will turned his face toward me. His mouth was twisted in a
wicked smirk and his eyes…oh, crap.

His eyes glowed jade green.

I scrambled away from him like a crab and Will laughed, a
scratchy, ugly sound. Before I got my footing, Will launched himself at me,
tackling me around the middle and slamming us to the ground.

My head hit the earth hard, and Will followed up with a
Herculean punch to the jaw. Not enough to knock me out, but enough for me to
see all the stars in the universe dancing around Will’s sneering face. People
started shouting, and I heard Aunt Julie in the mix, telling people to surround
us. While I fought to wiggle myself free, Will straddled my chest, pinning my
arms, and drew his knife.

The sound of safeties being disengaged from weapons filled
the air.

“I can kill him before the first bullet clears,” not-Will
said. “Then you’ll be down
two
wielders.”

“Hold fire,” Uncle Mike said somewhere behind me. “What do
you want?”

Not-Will laughed again. “Everything. Nothing. This one’s
blood. Take your pick.”

“Will,” I rasped. I could barely breathe; he was sitting on
my ribs with all his weight. “Fight it off.”

The knife wavered a moment and the green light in his eyes
dimmed. Then Will’s head jerked back. He let out a jackal’s howl before
slamming the knife into the ground right next to my head.

His eyes glowed brighter than before. “I will kill you,” he
whispered, leaning over me like some pervert. “I’ll taste your blood and laugh
as they cry over your dead body.”

“What the hell, dude? ‘Taste your blood?’ Getting possessed
was bad enough,” I said, wriggling to get free without luck. “But did you have
to get shoved over by a demon with a thing for melodrama?”

Will blinked and for another moment, his eyes were dark.
“Why am I—”

I kicked hard and threw him off of me before pulling his
knife from the dirt and shoving it in my belt; it’d be better for both blades to
be out of play because things were precarious enough. We were ringed by a
circle of Green Berets, all of them pointing weapons at us. Aunt Julie had her
sidearm trained on Will; at this range, I doubted she would miss. Uncle Mike
was the only one unarmed, and he stood just inside the circle, tense and ready
to give the order to cut Will down. I couldn’t let that happen. It’s what the
other side wanted—to kill Will. I was just collateral damage.

Will picked himself up, eyes glowing green yet again, and
barreled at me. I didn’t bother to draw my knife, because in his current state,
I’d probably kill him even if I didn’t want to. I dodged to one side and dived
for his knees, flipping him over my back. He hit the ground with a thud and
snarled—actually snarled like a rabid dog—but rolled away from me. Before I
closed the distance between us, he popped to his feet.

And grabbed Uncle Mike by the throat.

Aunt Julie took a step forward, her pistol aimed at Will’s
head. Her finger was taut on the trigger.

“No! Don’t fire!” I jumped in between them, making sure no
one had a clean shot. “Hey, carjacker—it’s me you want. Let the man go and
dance with me instead.”

Will threw Uncle Mike to the ground with the force of a
concussion grenade and I heard something crack. Will turned to face me. “I was
done with him anyway.”

The soldiers were tightening in on us as Klimmett and
Lanningham dragged Uncle Mike out of the circle. I had no idea how badly he’d
been hurt, but Aunt Julie would watch over him, and I wasn’t going to lose Will,
not now.

“This isn’t you. Hear me, Will? This isn’t you.”

Will cocked his head to one side. “I could make them do it,
you know.”

I circled to keep him facing me. “Do what?”

“Kill us both.”

I put a hand on my knife’s handle. “Not tonight, you won’t.”

He rushed me again and this time I wasn’t fast enough to
dodge him. We went down in a tangle of limbs, each of us wrestling for
dominance. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the soldiers moving back
like they were giving us more room to fight. I managed to roll on top of Will
and forced one of his hands down. I was reaching to grab the other arm when he
reared up and head-butted me. My nose crunched under the blow and pain exploded
in my head. I got thrown onto my back and I tensed up, waiting for him to land
on me, but someone fired a warning shot. At least, I hoped it was just a
warning—I couldn’t pry my eyes open to check.

Then Will laughed his grating laugh. Okay, demon boy was
still alive and kicking. Wiping blood from my upper lip, I staggered upright.
Opening my eyes hurt like hell—they were already swelling up.

“That was uncool, man. When you’re back to normal, I’m
punching you in the head.”

Will, a blurry figure in camo, was pacing back and forth. He
was waiting for me to engage…why didn’t he finish me off? Was Will fighting
against whatever held him in thrall? Maybe I could knock the demon loose and
give Will a chance if I tossed him a big enough trigger. Something that would
remind Will of his purpose out here.

“So,” I said, squinting my eyes to see him better, “Remember
that time in the woods when you and I made our first kill?”

“I’ll make your last kill,” not-Will said.

“Yeah, yeah, we heard that one already.” I circled to the
left, and Will circled with me. “Do you remember how it went down?”

“Don’t be tedious,” he said.

Oh, definitely possessed—Will would never say “tedious” in
any sentence. All around us, the team kept Will in their sights. If this
worked, they wouldn’t have to shoot…and God help me if they did. My palms were
slick as I fumbled in the pocket of my BDU jacket and Will hissed, his body
coiled like he was about to jump. My fingers brushed against the St.
Christopher medal and I hoped the grace Ella had given me would hold long
enough for me to pull this off.

Keeping my voice from shaking took a lot of effort, but I
said, “Sounds like you need a reminder. That first hunt went a little something
like this!”

I yanked my LED flashlight—the good luck charm from our
first solo hunt—out of my pocket and shined the blue light directly into his
eyes. Will cried out and staggered backwards. Keeping the flashlight trained on
his face, I forced him down and straddled his back. “Lanningham! Come sit on
his legs. Blakeney, I need rope—” Will bucked like a wild mustang, and I was
not in the mood for a rodeo. “Or, frak, bring me some towing cables.”

Lanningham came to help me pin Will. He thrashed beneath us
and for a moment I wondered if his unearthly strength would be enough to toss
four hundred pounds of guy off his back, but he stayed down until Blakeney
showed up with the cable. I felt bad about hogtying my best friend with his
arms behind his back, but he
did
break my nose. After we sat him up,
Will spit and shouted curses in a guttural language.