Sunburst (Starbright Series) (22 page)

             
I gasped, but said nothing. How could I?

             
“And your Seth is next. It’s only a matter of time. And then what will you do? How will you save the world then?”

             
I didn’t respond,
I couldn’t
. I had to prioritize my attack and compartmentalize my feelings. If I went with what I truly wanted, I would fly across the space between us and claw Aliah’s eyes out with my bare hands. But, I had to get back to Jupiter and Serena and especially Nate.

             
My fingers brushed my belt, but Seth’s grip was so tight that this was not an easy feat. Using the flexibility of a ninja, I slipped out my butterfly knife and flipped it open. Seeing I had a weapon, Seth lifted one arm to grab for it. I took that moment to jab it into his forearm right at his elbow. I drug it across his flesh, filleting it open so that blood and muscle spilled out. His useless arm dropped from my side. I let the momentum take me. I dropped down, desperate to get away from Seth and Aliah.

             
I heard them pursuing me, but Seth had not even let out a cry of pain. Aliah was shouting something obscene and threatening at me, but I was diving for the cabin. The whole sky was filled with Shadows now, in what looked like a black force field from above. They were solid in their awning over the cabin. And they were relentless. I could make out just one burning Light and it had to be Serena’s. There weren’t any other options.

             
“Come here,” Seth shouted as he grabbed a hold of my torso again.

             
I flipped around and used my knife on him, jabbing it into his side and puncturing some major organ. He immediately went limp and I shoved him off me.

             
Now at this moment I couldn’t take time to deliberate. I had one choice and that was to trust that Aliah wanted Seth alive. Seth was struggling to remain in air, but he was losing a lot of blood and I didn’t stick around to watch.

             
It was the hardest thing I had ever done, but I took off again, without looking back. Aliah let out a string of aggressive obscenities in my direction, but I ignored them all and shot through the wall of Shadows, feeling every burn and pain straight to my bones. My friends were in trouble and not even Seth could keep me from them.

Chapter Eighteen

I landed on my feet and
was swept into battle before I felt the ground underneath me. I only had my switchblade with me but my swords were somewhere on the ground. I just had to find them.

I was disoriented and emotionally destroyed, but I had to fight. I had to find a way out of this for us.

I didn’t know if it was possible… there was just so much Darkness.

Serena was completely surrounded. I couldn’t even see her body or form, just h
er Light. Then came the sound of her swords slashing away at her enemies.

Jupiter was somewhere with her
, too, but I couldn’t make out either him or Nate. I assumed one of them was protecting Nate, but it was impossible to tell. Serena’s Light was too dangerous and hot for Jupiter to function near, but too many sounds of death and gore made it difficult to really be able to pinpoint anything.

My dagger
flew around me, but it wasn’t enough. I burned bright, as bright as I could before Jupiter wouldn’t stand a chance anymore. He had to get out of here. And he needed to take Nate with him. We had more of a chance if we could remove our weakest links.

And if I could find my swords.

Shadows were cutting at my arms whenever I swiped at them, and my bag of tricks with the small blade only went so deep. They were everywhere. Swarming, cutting, slicing, destroying.

This was Hell. This was it.

And I saw no way out.

I tried to cry out to Serena or Jupiter, but it was almost impossible to make coherent sound come out of my mouth. I was fatigued and on the verge of losing control of my Light. Usually
this was a containable force inside of me that I occasionally lost control of in small amounts when I wasn’t paying attention. Currently, it was a living, fire-breathing dragon inside of me, desperate to protect myself. But if I let my Light out it would destroy Jupiter and the surrounding forest.

Not that I cared a ton about the trees over my own life, but something as unexplainable as heat that just disintegrates everything around it, is not easily explained to the human world. And my job wasn’t to confuse them and raise questions, my job was to protect them.

“Jupiter!” Serena’s voice cut above all the other sounds of battle. Then words came from her mouth in a different language that I didn’t understand. Her instructions were rapid and commanding. I didn’t speak the old language, but I was almost positive her commands were the same as my thoughts.

I continued to fight, but I was losing. My Light
burned bright but soon enough the Shadows were braving exposure to slash at my arms and neck
. I needed my swords
.

Jupiter shouted back something in the same language and then I heard the intensity of the battle increase. Jupiter was fighting to get to Nate and pick him up. I moved toward the sound as quic
kly as the Shadows would let me, which wasn’t very fast since I had to take the time to kill everything in my path.

I finally found Jupiter, still fighting, still trying to cover Nate. There was no way he could fight off the Shadows and deal with a fading Nate. It was asking too much of his multitasking skills.

“I’ll fend them off, but you have to get him out of here,” I grunted through a breathless, raspy voice I didn’t even recognize. Pain so deep and searing, felt to the marrow of my bones, cascaded over me; I felt like I was bleeding from every pore.

“Where is your weapon?” Jupiter panted back.

“Somewhere on the floor,” I admitted, waiting for his scolding.

But it never came. Instead he said, “I’m going to give you my sword, but then I will have nothing. Cover me until I can get Nate out of here.”

“Alright,” I heaved on a determined breath.

“Stella,” his voice was grave and eerily calm. “
Get out of this alive.”

I smiled d
espite myself but didn’t answer; I couldn’t spare the strength. All at once the hilt of Jupiter’s long, heavy sword was pushed into my hand and I went to work. This weapon was so different than mine. Where my blades were light and thin, this one was extremely weighty and thick. The tip came to a V-point and the hilt required me to hold it with two hands.

I adjusted it to a comfortable position while still swinging it around, but truthfully I felt out of control with this foreign
thing. It was so much bigger than anything I had held and even though my muscles were well developed after hours and hours of practice, I was still swinging it around wildly and without any kind of obvious skill or precision.

But it did its job.

No matter how flailing my moves were, the blade still sliced through flesh and landed killing blows. And that was the most important thing.

I felt Jupiter move behind me in an effort to pick up Nate. And I protected them as best as I could.

There were so many factors working against us that my anxiety only sky rocketed, despite the weapon I now had.

First, Jupiter could fly, but he wasn’t supernaturally strong. He was in shape, but not superman and Nate was
heavy
. Nate was a warrior, all muscle, tall, thick and currently dead weight. And on top of it all, I wondered how Jupiter would even hold him because his wound was in his stomach and I imagined Jupiter needed to hoist him over his shoulder

             
Plus, the Shadows incessantly attacking didn’t do anything to make the situation easier.

             
While Jupiter struggled behind me, I covered myself in the black, sticky ooze of the Shadows felled by my blade. I was relentless, if not a little clumsy and brutal while pushing past the exhaustion and pain. My arms were trembling by now, my legs numb. My vision was almost completely obscured by goo and blood and sweat.

             
The hard truth was- we were losing.

             
Serena’s Light was so bright I could feel her heat on my skin, and I desperately wanted to match her intensity. But there was no way I could without seriously injuring Jupiter or even Nate whose full abilities were not at his fingertips.

             
I somehow heard Nate behind me over the gory sounds of battle. The sound was memorable in the macabre and traumatizing kind of way. He was struggling to breathe as blood curdled in his lungs. It was the ugliest sound I had ever heard, the ragged intake of breath and then hissing outtake. I heard the liquid in his windpipe and lungs with every breath.

             
The sound twisted my heart and urged me to fight harder, be stronger,
kill faster
.

             
But there was no dent to be made in this constant stream of Shadows. And the only reason we weren’t completely overtaken was the little damage our Light did. Also, because the Shadows were solid, organic beings, they couldn’t converge on us at once- in some messed up, stupid way, they had to wait their turn.

             
“This isn’t working!” I finally screamed at Serena.

             
She said nothing right away but her Light pressed against the limitations of this world as she pushed it further out. Jupiter screamed in agony behind me- a sound that would also carry over into my nightmares. I heard a thump and an “oof” of air being released. I glanced back for just a moment to find that Jupiter had blacked out, and through my special night vision I could see his skin blistering and red, his clothes melting away.

             
My clothes were starting to melt now too and I was positive even Serena’s leathers had to be close, if not completely disintegrated.

             
“Jupiter passed out, Serena!” I yelled desperately. “Your Light is too bright!”

             
She screamed out a battle cry of frustration but pulled her brightness back barely and continued fighting. And still the Shadows kept coming. And now that both Nate and Jupiter were incapacitated behind me, I couldn’t hold off the Darkness for much longer. Nate might survive… but Jupiter would die.

             
Unless I did something now, Jupiter would die.

             
Our only option was retreat.

             
But how would we get out of here?

             
“Serena, you have to take them! Find a church, go back to the farm, find some place to hide!”

             
“No!” she screamed back. “I cannot leave you!”

             
“You have to! They will die if you don’t!” Each word came with the price of a deeper exhaustion and impossible breathlessness. But I had to explain. “I can’t lift them. I’m not strong enough to carry them both back. And you’re faster than me. If you don’t take them we all die. Serena…. you…. have…. to go!”

             
Each of my words was punctuated with a swing of the sword. Shadows were relatively simple to kill; stab them in the chest/heart region and they died. But there were so many of them that it was never ending. And I was feeling the effects of their bone-chilling evil in every blood vessel and atom in my body.

             
“Just so you know,” Serena bellowed. “I’ll follow you’re plan, but I do not like it!”

             
I smiled, despite myself. “Then go! Get out of here!”

             
She fought her way over to me. We both had to dim our Lights even further when she got close enough to where the true meat of it- that which was closest to our bodies- touched. We were even stronger together, which was normally a good thing, but not with Jupiter hanging out behind us face down in the dirt.

             
“I don’t even know if I can get out of here,” she panted.

             
“Just get them and go. I’ll cover you the best that I can. You have to get Jupiter out of here, though or I’ll start him on fire.”

             
“It’s annoying that he’s not one of us,” She grunted.

             
And then before I could say anything else or give some kind of heartfelt goodbye speech, she dropped one of her swords at my feet, tucked the other one into the sheath at her side and scooped Nate over her shoulder and then Jupiter.

             
Out of the corner of my eye I watched her totter to the left. Her Light would make her stronger but she couldn’t use it while she was holding Jupiter. I lunged in front of her, determined to block as many of the Shadows as I could and she struggled to take off.

             
She was carrying the weight of two full grown men with maybe twenty percent of her ability aiding her.

             
“Just use it,” I screamed over the sound of gore and shrieking around us. “We’re all dead if you stay. He has a better chance if you get him out of here. Just dim-out as soon as you can.”

             
“You’re right, Starling,” Serena shouted back. “When did you get so smart?”

             
I grinned at her, but then I got Shadow blood in my mouth so I wiped my lips against my shoulder, which was actually covered with more goo. Bleh.

             
She didn’t say goodbye this time either, just lit up, stood up straighter and then burst through the cover of Shadows like the biggest, brightest firework. She exploded upwards. I allowed myself to watch until she reached the brightest atmosphere that Jupiter could stand and then dimmed to a tolerable level for Jupiter.

             
I didn’t know where they were going but I truly hoped there was a sacred building around. The movies had gotten that part right about all things evil. If a place was sacred or blessed than they could not enter. That was trickier than it seemed.

             
Not every church or religious building had been blessed, so you had to pick them out carefully. And not every blessed building was an obviously religious place. Like my home.

             
That Seth had stayed at just the other night.

             
Which meant he wasn’t entirely evil.

             
At least not yet.

             
Focus.  

             
When I felt Serena was a safe enough distance away I paused with my sword at my side and let my Light burn. My clothes wouldn’t completely burn away, but they would melt to my body. It was painful, but necessary, just like the Light.

             
And I chose not to worry about those small details right now. I just enjoyed the Light. Every part of me became swallowed up in the brilliance and purity of my golden essence shooting from every part of me. My body tingled with the heat, my hair lifted off my shoulders, moving in some supernatural way that kept it out of my face and I was nothing but a bright, burning ball of pure, raw Light.

             
I wasn’t even close to burning as bright as I could, especially if I was off planet but the shrieking around me increased to a deafening roar and the structure- all those pieces and parts that weren’t part of the hallucination caught fire.