Matt Archer: Redemption (4 page)

“Fire escape in the alley. Tight steel cage, with a roof overhang,” Ella said. “Come on.”

They took off without a backward glance. I watched them go. “How did we not know your girlfriend could shoot?”

“Speak for yourself. I always knew Penn was a badass.” Will cocked his head to the side. “You hear that?”

A faint rumble was barely audible over the shrieks of monsters filling the air. “Yeah?”

“Air support.”

As he said it, something streaked through the sky and exploded in the big middle of the Freak-cloud. A group of monsters—parts of them anyway—dropped to the ground with the force of a derailed train car, splashing the surrounding buildings with their greenish blood and bits of gore. A severed leg crushed a pickup under its weight. Another fell on top of a policeman running across the street and smashed him flat.

I grabbed Will’s arm. “We need to get under cover!”

“I thought they were waiting until we were clear,” Will said, as we jogged toward a building with a large stone portico. “They weren’t supposed to strike if people were on the street.”

“What choice do they have?” I asked, crouching behind a statue to keep watch. “There are too many for us to take out with just the knives.”

Three more missiles flashed and more monsters plummeted to earth, crushing whatever was unfortunate enough to be underneath them.

By now, the Freaks had figured out what was going on, and part of them took off en masse, flying at something we couldn’t quite see. There was a whine and a screech of metal bending, then the smoking remains of an out of control F-16 zoomed overhead before going down in a smoke cloud somewhere in the mall.

“That’s not good,” Will said.

“No.”

Another F-16 crash landed in a ball of fire behind the Capitol building and the Freaks let out screeches of triumph. The flock, or whatever you’d call it, wheeled around and flew toward the Washington Monument.

“We need to get over there,” I told Will. “Penn! Pick off anything that flies low enough. Herd them back our direction so we can figure out how to deal with them.”

“Okay!” she yelled.

“Be careful!” Ella called.

I waved her direction, hoping she saw it, and sprinted for the mall.

“So how
are
we going to handle them?” Will asked as we ran.

“No idea,” I said, not wanting to waste breath on talking. Running in dress shoes took more effort than I was used to. “We’ll come up with something, and if we don’t, Parker, Jorge or Ramirez will.”

As we cleared the Capitol building, I skidded to a stop, and Will crashed into my back. “Back, back!”

We took cover behind some trees, because additional help had arrived and we’d stumbled into a live fire exercise.

Overhead a pair of Apache attack helicopters were firing missiles at the creatures and monster parts were raining from the sky. A wing landed two feet from the tree we were sheltered under and left a dent in the grass.

A battalion of soldiers had also swarmed the area in armored vehicles to evacuate civilians, while others were using vehicle mounted rocket and grenade launchers to tear up the monsters’ wings. Two Abrams tanks were rumbling down the lawn and sidewalks of the Mall, using their main guns to fire armor-piercing rounds into the clusters of grounded Freaks to finish them off.

“This is actually working! It took heavy artillery, but we finally have real ground support!” Will crowed as a smoking monster-head crashed into our tree, taking out branches before pitching to the ground. “General Richardson got that call out fast.”

“I think he wanted to be prepared. He probably had half the Pentagon on alert,” I said, checking to see if it was safe for us to venture out. “All five wielders in one place with a lot of opportunity for mayhem? That’s like begging for an attack.”

The smoke cleared and the tanks moved farther down the Mall, so I motioned for Will to follow me. Even if they were thinning the herd, there were still plenty of these flying nightmares dive bombing the roads and smashing cars as people tried to speed away. If they came close enough, I’d do a little knife-work.

The lawn leading to the Washington Monument was churned up, with big ruts from the Humvees and the tanks’ heavy treads. A group of three people were crouched near the Capitol’s reflecting pool at our end of the Mall. One was a man whose arm hung limp at his side, but was still struggling to help another man pick up an unconscious woman. She was bleeding from the head. As we headed their way, a big Freakasaurus swooped low and took the man with the hurt arm. Cursing, I ran faster, hoping to provide cover for the other two while Will chased the kidnapper to bring it down.

I put the blade between my teeth, murmuring a quick instruction to Tink to keep it from cutting me. She snorted and said,
Just this once, because it doesn’t belong in your mouth. The knife is not a chew toy.

“What-eh-er,” I said around the blade, then knelt at the woman’s side and scooped her up. The man with her was merely banged up, so I jerked my head toward the back end of the Capitol building and started jogging, not waiting to see if he followed.

The woman groaned and coughed. A trickle of blood ran down the side of her mouth. As soon as we got to the rescue team waiting at the edge of the building, I spit out the knife and asked the man, “Was she dropped?”

“Yeah. One of those, um, pterodactyls picked her up and threw her. It came after her again, but a rocket caught it in the side.” He looked out over the lawn. “Harry got clipped in the arm.”

I knew he was searching for his friend, but unless Will was really lucky, Harry was long gone. I turned to the paramedics. “Internal bleeding, fell from a height.”

As I started back out to help Will, the man called, “Thank you, Archer!”

I didn’t pause, but I did stumble a little. The man knew who I was. Oh, God, this whole thing was probably happening live on CNN right now.

To my right, a little kid started wailing.

I spun around, horrified to see a four-year-old boy crying with his fingers in his mouth. His mother was dead on the grass next to him. They were fifty yards away and there was a monster coming in from his two o’clock.

I sprinted toward him, knowing deep in my gut I was going to be too late, when a slight figure stepped out of the trees and bent to pick up the little boy. Her brown pigtails swayed as she hefted him onto her hip.

Oh, my God. Why was she out here? Why was she
here
?

“No!” I screamed. “Mamie, move!”

She turned to face me, her expression made of stone. She cradled the child in her arms and turned to face the monster.

She was about to die, and I couldn’t stop it.

Chapter Four

The creature swooped down as I ran. I prepared to throw the knife, praying for a miracle. Mamie cocked her head and held out a hand. The ground trembled under my feet, then the monster pulled up suddenly, squawking like it was afraid of what it saw. With a high-pitched screech, it wheeled around and flew away.

A miracle, right when I needed one. But what happened?

I drew even with Mamie. “Thank God you’re okay. I can’t believe it flew away like that. And why aren’t you in the bunker? If you ditched Brent, he’s probably going crazy.”

She didn’t face me right away, but I knew something was off by her tone when she said, “You need me out here.”

Her voice was ice cold and the set of her shoulders told me she wasn’t the least bit afraid. Then she turned around.

“Whoa,” I said, taking a step back. It was all I could do to keep from dropping my knife.

Mamie’s eyes were glowing, like mine did during an eclipse. Except hers were bright blue. And scary. She looked like something out of a
Marvel
comic.

“Uh, sis, the earthquake just now. Was that you?”

She raised an eyebrow, like she was daring me to ask how she did it. “Yes.”

I let out a low whistle. Her shamanic powers weren’t something I’d accepted too well. Not yet, anyway, and this new display of power blew my doors off, leaving them crumpled on the ground.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “So, um, it’s dangerous out here. Maybe you should take your new friend to the bunker before one of the monsters comes at you again.”

“They won’t hurt me,” she said. “They don’t dare.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked, scanning the sky for threats. “They’re pretty bent on killing humans.”

She gave me a wry smile, before kissing the little boy on the side of his head. “Trevor and I are going to find him some help.

I noticed she didn’t answer the question, but now wasn’t the time to pry. “Did he tell you his name?”

“Didn’t have to.” She pressed her check to his and he snuggled closer to her. “He’s hungry, tired and going into shock. After I drop him off, I’ll search for the rest. There are eight children out here with dead parents. I need to find them before it’s too late. Brent’s safer where he is. I don’t need him—Mom does.”

It was obvious that she didn’t need me, either. Unnerved, I said, “I’ll just go back to work then.”

“Do. And be careful.”

“You, too.”

The nod she gave was regal and nonchalant. Like being in a park full of dead people and monstrous creatures wasn’t a big deal. I hoped she knew what she was doing. I knew what it was like to be filled with magic and the pain it caused when the power drained away. She might be in shaman Super-Mamie mode now, but she’d crash later. Hopefully not while she was in the park.

And after she recovered, we needed to have a long,
long
talk.

The roar of artillery rang in the distance. Time to go. I took off in the direction Will had gone earlier. “Tink, I need a boost, but don’t make me crazy-town. I don’t want people to see me like that. It might scare them.”

I’ll do what I can, but if it’s a choice between killing dark brothers—or saving your life—and protecting your ego, we’re going into killer mode.

“Deal,” I said. The booms from the rockets and the tanks were growing fainter as they drove the Freaks toward the Potomac. Bodies, both monster and human, were sprawled across the mall lawn, turning a normally awesome place into a thing I’d have nightmares about for years to come.

“You know what?” I said, enraged at the number of dead civilians around me. “Spin me all the way up. Turn me loose.”

Now you’re talking
, Tink said, her voice tinged with gleeful menace.
Keep running. I’ll make it quick.

True to her word, she slammed power into my chest while I ran and my feet sped up without my direction. The magic burned such that I thought I might be glowing, but it didn’t hurt, not this time. I was too pissed to hurt.

Up ahead, a Freak had landed. It bent to peck at one of the bodies—that of a woman with dark red hair. In an instant, her face became Ella’s and I closed the remaining distance in three giant bounds before leaping on its back.

Startled, the monster took flight, me hanging on for the ride. It banked hard to the right, then to the left, in an effort to sling me off, but I gripped it around the neck in a spot it couldn’t reach. When it dived low, heading for a row of trees, I slashed at its wings. The Freak lost altitude and crashed hard.

“Thought you’d flay me with the branches, huh?” I growled. “Guess you didn’t realize you’d grabbed the wrong guy.”

I slit its throat with a savage slash and rolled off, looking for my next target.

I found a news camera instead. A shaking reporter, holding it on his shoulder, trained the lens on me. Worse, a red light on the top of the camera was blinking.

“Are we live?” I barked.

The man nodded.

“You get all that just now?”

He nodded again. “What’s your name?”

“You’ve got to be joking.” I cursed under my breath, pissed to even be in this situation. Needing to get back to the fight and tired of the bullshit, I stepped closer to the camera. “My name is Matt Archer. My team has been working under cover for more than four years to keep you safe. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some monsters to kill.”

Chapter Five

I ran through the mall with inhuman speed, fueled by a rage that kept growing. The reflecting pool between the Washington and Lincoln Memorials was red and choked with carnage. A cry of anger flew from my mouth—and the voice was Tink’s.

Dazed civilians stared as I passed, but I didn’t slow down to check on them. I was out for blood, and we’d have it.

Sounds of battle came from my left, so I bore south, crossing Independence and entering West Potomac Park. Here, soldiers and wielders fought side by side against a dozen Freaks. Ramirez directed an ordnance team in bombarding two monsters with grenades, trying to time the strikes well enough to damage their wings and bring them down so he could take them out with his blade. His right hand man, Master Sergeant Murphy, called out positions, while watching Ramirez’s back. He looked up as I ran by and gave me a grim nod.

Since they had things well in hand, I plowed further in. Will and Parker were up against a pack of three, dancing as beaks clacked together just inches from their heads. The ground here was soft, churned up by boots and talons, and Parker was having a hard time keeping his footing. He twisted too fast to slash at one of the Freak’s necks, and slipped.

My heart shot into my throat, thinking he was done for, but he rolled away right before the thing slammed a talon into his chest. I closed in while the other wielders had them preoccupied and ran right up the back of the nearest monster. Two hard slashes and the Freak crumpled underneath me. I jumped off, landing in a crouch behind Will. The monster he was fighting swung out a wing and flung me away. I tumbled a good fifteen feet before slamming down hard on my back. Gasping for air, I crawled back to my feet as Will slashed the thing across the breast bone. He was showered in dark green blood, but the Freak collapsed. Parker finished his off a split-second later.

At the other end of the park, a tank boomed and another Freak rained down in pieces. Assuming there weren’t more of them somewhere, we were finally making real progress. Only eight left.