Ann Aguirre - Blue Diablo

The light wasn’t enough.

Ragged arms reached for us, smoky and nebulous things that contrasted unnaturally with the chill in the air. The light hurt them as they pursued us even into the sunshine. Oddly, they seemed to be holding back, as if waiting for confirmation of their desire to suck the life out of us.

I stumbled to my feet and tried to decide what to do. Chance didn’t look sure. His nose bled, no longer a single drop but a steady stream.

“Ease up,” I begged. “He already knows we’re here.”

Grimly he shook his head. “That’s not what I’m concentrating on anymore.”

Before I could ask, things got worse.

A lightning bolt split the sky, and thunder clouds boiled up from nowhere. Eerie and unnatural, the sky beyond showed pearly gray that would ripen into blue as the day went on. We stood in the heart of unnatural night, carrion winds rising around us, and still couldn’t see our enemy.

From everywhere and nowhere, a voice boomed out. “Finish them.”

Unbound by the close confines of the hangar, the specters spread into a writhing wall before us. Through their shifting mass we saw movement—the stiff, pale forms of dead women lumbered toward us. Not even the twilight of the rising storm could hide their pallor and wounds, the charged shimmering air making the scene even more surreal.

Jesus, that wasn’t even fair. With the murder of one human being, the warlock could create two enemies: their transformed spirits and their dead flesh. I slanted a quick look at Chance, who had taken a position at my back.

Somehow I managed to smile as I said, “Seems like overkill, doesn’t it?”

“I guess we pissed him off with our persistence. Lion, thorn in paw.”

Chance and I had been backed into more than a few tight spots, but this qualified as the worst. I recognized the chill creeping over me as the wave of shadows crept closer. Overhead, the sky boiled with unnatural clouds. We needed light, but I didn’t think I could count on a stray sunbeam, especially when Kel had called the one in the cemetery.

Where the hell was he anyway?

Then the entire upper story of the house exploded, smoking splinters and glass glittering through the darkened air as fire burst the windows. The impact sent me face-first into the dirt.

The shadows hesitated, no longer bound to their purpose. Beyond them, the corpses showed the same undirected confusion, shambling steps taking them away from us. Some drifted toward the back of the house, now licking with flame. I heard the screams of Kel’s combat with the warlock, but I couldn’t think about him. Other shadows stalked us still: dead things affronted by the heat and vitality of the living.

Screw it. I wouldn’t go out quietly.

I’d practiced last night. Press down with my thumb and slide the pin out, then let fly. I’d done it once already, against the hangar wall. With fingers gone numb, I pulled the pin on a grenade and pitched it at the advancing shades. The explosion roared in my ears, threw dirt, and did nothing to the shadows. Except make them recoil.

“Heat,” I called to Chance. “They’re afraid of fire. We should head for the house!”

His look said I’d gone insane. But I’d lived through conflagrations that killed other people, and these things couldn’t take heat or light. When Clayton Mann lit his own lair on fire and I fell three stories, I’d proved I could survive my worst fear. I could do it again.

I spun and staggered toward the burning building. I wasn’t sure how I felt when he followed me without another word. It did something crazy to my insides.

I could hardly make myself move, already chilled and sluggish. Deadly frost whispered at my heels as I made for the porch. At this point I felt like I might be seeking the least objectionable way to die.

All around us, the storm roared with insane fury. The warlock wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long with so many factors draining his strength. That was assuming Kel didn’t slaughter him outright, incinerate him in holy fire.

Pure heat roared over me as I coiled myself under the windowsill. Chance tried to wrap himself around me, but the closest shadow snatched at my arm instead. A wave of blackness washed over me like an oil spill.

It wanted me. Maybe they recognized my taste now. And I couldn’t fight back this time. Nowhere to run. The fire wasn’t enough. Too slow, not quite hot enough.

And I’m so cold...

Funny, I thought as I began to fade. I always figured I’d burn.

“No!” Chance shouted, but his voice sounded as if it came through a long tunnel or maybe out through a pipe organ.

As I blacked out, I dreamed I saw Kel locked in terrible battle with a dark figure wreathed in unholy tendrils of smoke. God’s Hand carried a slim silver knife, the blade flashing too bright in the heavy air. Kel muttered, “Go with God,” as the warlock raised both arms. I wanted to flinch, fearing the outcome.

But I was so very cold...

The next thing I knew, the whole world lit up with blue-white fire. A terrible crack split the porch overhead, and Chance shielded me as charred wood fell. The air smelled charged, different than the smoky plume rising from the ruined house.

Thunder boomed, shook the very ground we crouched upon. Lightning. Only Chance could’ve made that happen. A thousand and one probabilities... He spins the coin a hundred times and comes up tails every time.

“Oh, God, Corine... your lips are blue.”

Three times now, I’d nearly been taken by shadows. And three was a weighty number. Fire had saved me, just as it claimed my mother’s life. I didn’t understand, but the meanings would come later.

“I’m all right,” I managed to say through chattering teeth. “We should see how bad it is out there.”

The sounds of fighting had either ceased or were overwhelmed by the burning house and the raging tempest. Chaos raged around us, energies snapping like broken electrical wires. Chance reached for me, the back of his hands crisscrossed with new scratches and ash, and I let him tug me to my feet.

Huge raindrops spattered us, rousing a hiss from the burning house behind us. The black storm gathered power as if fueled by its master’s fury. Howling wind lashed us, made it difficult for me to keep my balance. Chance put an arm around me as hail pelted us.

Together, we rounded the house, staying well out of back draft range. The open plain assumed a nightmare hue, stinking of death and decay. His flesh golems staggered toward us, no longer lacking direction.

Which meant God’s Hand had failed.

I could hardly wrap my mind around it. We’d survived only by virtue of Chance’s luck and my strange relationship with fire. Flames had stolen my mother and nearly slain me in Tuscaloosa, and I suffered its kiss anytime I used my gift. Maybe that meant something, but I didn’t possess the leisure for self-analysis.

Behind the house, we found him.

Kel lay still as death, covered in more blood than I had ever seen. Once I would have screamed like a maniac, but we still had to deal with the master’s meat puppets.

And when the dark one showed himself, it wouldn’t be good.

Animated corpses closed in from all sides of the smoldering farmhouse. With his power depleted, doubtless the warlock hoped to wear us down. If only we could find the bastard, end this once and for all—but his mindless children would rend Kel limb from limb if we left him where he’d fallen.

We stood back-to-back once more, ready to make our last stand. Chance slung the automatic rifle from his back, removed the safety. His gun sparked as he fired into oozing zombie flesh. A young girl, beautiful in life, jerked as pieces of her shoulder and arm went flying. Still they came.