place.
He’d had a hard time killing the Mage in Honduras where they’d been ambushed because the bastard was a shape-shifting Phantom Elemental with powers equal to Shay’s. Only these Elementals had unleashed spells from the forbidden book of spells and learned to call the darkness, trebling their powers.
Two clicks on his radio. Everyone was in place.
He readied his weapon as the woman shimmered, a sinister black glow pulsing off her body like a dark force field. She was no longer anything remotely human, her eyes yellowed and bulging, a skeleton stretched over flesh, the Death Mask now visible even to Shay.
Talons emerged from her fingertips,
“Now,” Shay yelled, aiming his assault rifle.
Bursting out of their cover, the SEALs opened fire. Moira flung streaks of black energy at the rounds, turning the bullets into dust.
“Juice it up,” he yelled to the others, the code they used to resort to their powers.
Tossing aside his weapon, Shay began flinging energy bolts in a steady stream. But Moira opened her arms wide and the white light shriveled, turning into darkness as it made contact with her skin. She was absorbing his powers, siphoning them like a vacuum.
Now he understood with terrible clarity why his people were terrified of Dark Lords. They didn’t fear the darkness inside Arcanes, but the darkness inside themselves turning them into a creature that could not be destroyed.
Enraged, he lifted his hands to the sky, calling forth the elements. Dark thunderheads swirled above. Shay culled down the lightning.
He flung a bolt directly at Moira, who staggered backward.
Sully teleported across the grounds and tackled her. There was a sickening crack as Moira’s body dropped like a flour sack.
“Target down,” Sully said into his mic.
But even as he spoke, Moira stood, her neck at an impossible angle. She straightened her head, turned and hit Sully with a power burst, sending him flying backward into a tree. His teammate’s skull hit hard, and Sully dropped down, unconscious.
Darkness gathered in the air, a foulness that made it difficult to breathe.
“Fall back, everyone but Shay,” Dakota yelled into the radio. “Shay, everything you’ve got at her!”
Shay pulled every ounce of power from the thunderclouds, feeling the sizzle and crack of electricity invade his body. He forced the power to his hands and directed light streams into the Dark Lord. Blood streamed from Moira’s lips.
Screaming, she flung currents of dark magick, but her aim was erratic. One hit the house and shattered a wall. Another exploded a maple tree. Powerless to move under the constant barrage of white light, the Dark Lord kept firing her powers outward.
Shay kept up the constant pounding of his powers into the woman, feeding his magick. He felt his energy drain. He couldn’t keep it up.
They would all die here. As Moira staggered backward, temporarily incapacitated, he retreated to cover inside, trying to regroup his powers.
Kelly ran to his side. “You need me, Sam. You need us.”
He wanted to shout at her to get back, but the answer to the Dark Lord’s destruction came in a clear flash of memory.
Teamwork. She held up his pendant. “Merge your powers with mine through the triskele. Alone, we’re strong enough, but together...”
“We’re practically invincible,” he finished.
Like the SEALs, working as one unit. He and Kelly were their own unique team. They could fight this. Sam laced his fingers between hers and squeezed.
“You with me on this, Denning?”
She smiled. “All the way, Shaymore.”
Still, they needed more. They needed...everyone.
“Jammer, J.T., Dakota, Dallas, Renegade,” he shouted into his mic. “Use your powers and let’s destroy this bitch for good!”
They rushed outside. Jammer directed water from a nearby cistern, sending it spiraling at Moira’s mouth with the power of a fire hose. As she fought this new threat, J.T. used his telekinesis to hurl nearby rocks the size of bowling balls at her head. Stunned, Shay watched the Dark Lord’s skull collapse and then regenerate.
“More,” he yelled. “Keep it coming!”
The dark streams of magick were weaker now. J.T. sent a boulder the size of a Ford pickup truck into Moira. She collapsed but then rolled the boulder off her torso. The three Draicon wolves shifted and rushed the Dark Lord, snarling and tearing into her. A vicious black liquid oozed from several jagged wounds. Shay looked at Kelly.
“Let’s fry her.”
In unison, they fired a bolt of white energy, searing the screaming Dark Lord. She began to morph into a shapeless mass. And then Moira flung out one last stream of dark power. The energy sailed into Kelly’s chest, searing her flesh, sending her screaming backward.
Shay kept firing, knowing Kelly needed him but also knowing he must finish this. Then the Dark Lord finally burst apart, black blood splattering the nearby trees.
Only her head remained intact, white bone against black dusty ground.
Shay ran to Kelly. She lay gasping for breath. Her rib cage rose and fell too rapidly.
She was dying.
Over by the tree, Renegade administered to the injured Sully, helping him to his feet. The big SEAL rubbed his head as if he had a helluva headache.
Dakota propped up Kelly’s feet to keep the blood flow to her head.
Shay ripped apart Kelly’s shirt and stared at the blood pumping out of the chest wound. Using her shirt, he tried to stanch the flow.
“What’s her blood type?” Dallas asked, kneeling beside Kelly. Dallas was the team’s medical corpsman. He fished a packet out of his vest and ripped it open.
“O positive.” He stared helplessly at Kelly. “I know, because I took her to the hospital years ago when she got hurt.”
“Jammer, get your ass over here. I need a donor, now!”
He quickly swabbed Jammer’s arm and slid the needle into it. His teammate lay on the ground, his head turned toward Kelly. “Hey there, little Arcane. You start perking up now, hear?”
Blood flowed from Jammer into Kelly. But her face remained pale and still, her eyes closed. After a few minutes, Dallas pulled out the makeshift IV.
“No use draining him anymore,” he said quietly.
“I can take it,” Jammer protested. “Dallas, get that needle back in me.”
But Dallas shook his head, dark eyes filled with regret.
Hearing a screech of tires, Shay glanced up as Admiral Keegan Byrne, dressed in civilian attire, slid out of a black limo. Dark shades covering his eyes, Stephen, their vampire friend and military asset, assumed the classic military position by the car.
“Damn. It’s all over.” The admiral scowled at Stephen. “I told you to drive faster when we found Rogers had left D.C.”
Stephen gave a laconic shrug. “I warned you to let me stop at the drive-through for a quick snack. I can’t move fast when I’m low on reserves. That blonde looked quite delish.”
“Sir?” Dakota’s gulp was audible. “We, uh... How...”
For the first time, the Draicon werewolf was at a loss for words.
Byrne smiled. “You pigheaded adrenaline junkies didn’t think I expected you to obey an order to hide when this was going down, did you? Pity. I never took you for thumb-sucking sissies who quiver behind their momma’s skirts.”
