The lightning tore through the demons, arcing from the first five it hit to seven behind them and three behind those. Flesh charred and fell from splintered bone. Dead demons collapsed in pieces.
“Set the zombies on them!” a man screamed. “Have the zombies attack!”
The zombies knelt in front of the trees and formed an undead barrier between the humans and the approaching demons. Naomi knew that Warren had learned a lot of military strategy from the games he’d played before the invasion. He’d learned more since.
Naomi felt sudden heat push across her as Warren stepped forward. He didn’t set the zombies on the attack or respond to the demands of the men around him.
Holding his hands, one flesh and blood and the other gleaming metal, away from his body, Warren formed a triangle of his thumbs and his forefingers. Then he blew his breath over his hands.
Flames shot out of the triangle formed by Warren’s hands. The swirling fireball plopped down in the middle of the imps and exploded.
THIRTEEN
Drenched in fiery masses, the advancing demon line crumbled just as the villagers poured another volley into them.
“Reload!” Bixby yelled. “Ready! Take aim!”
In the end, though, Naomi felt certain only a matter of time remained before the demons routed them. Too many demons stood before them. They swarmed again, driven by their dark master. Their weapons blazed once more. Caught by one of the blasts, Desmond stumbled back with half his head gone. He dropped to his knees and boiling blood hissed against the white snow.
Naomi summoned her power again and unleashed another lightning blast. This one drained her, and she knew she wouldn’t have the reserves to do anything like that again for a short time. By then the demons would be upon them. She knelt and claimed Desmond’s weapon and spare cartridges.
As the demons closed on them, the zombies lurched awkwardly to their feet. The undead battled the demons without any skill, using strength and near invulnerability because they stopped fighting only when they suffered damage to their heads or spines. The wave of demons washed up against the zombies like an incoming tide striking reefs.
For a moment, the zombies held the line. Bixby and the other villagers battled fiercely, only giving ground when their lives were certainly forfeit if they didn’t. Explosions of gunfire—single shot as well as auto-fire—punctuated the night.
Demons blew apart as the poison-tipped bullets weakened their flesh. But they came through the line of zombies bearing grotesque trophies.
Holding a pistol in one hand, an imp swung a zombie’s head at Naomi with the other. With the shotgun set firmly at her shoulder, Naomi pulled the trigger. The recoil drove her back a half step and bruised her shoulder, but the shotgun slug burst against the swinging zombie skull and splattered over the demon. Instantly, the imp’s skin caught fire. But the demon kept coming.
Desperately, Naomi swung the empty shotgun like a club and battered the imp aside. One of Bixby’s men fired a round through the imp’s head and killed it.
The man grinned at Naomi for just a moment, obviously pleased with himself, and started to say, “You gotta look out once you’ve fired—”
Then his words died stillborn in his throat as one of the small, flying demons landed on his shoulder and chomped on his neck. Panicked, the man screamed shrilly and yanked the demon from his throat. A chunk of flesh came away as well. Blood fountained from the neck wound as the man tried to throw the creature away. It bit one of his fingers and held on.
Another man shot the demon with a shotgun, but he ended up blowing the man’s hand off as well. The blood, demon guts, and human flesh blew over Naomi. Some of the poison splattered on her as well. Her skin tingled and burned, but she didn’t have time to worry that the poison might kill her because another imp swung a knife at her eyes.
Naomi blocked with the shotgun and stepped back. Warren joined her, suddenly appearing at her side. He gestured at the imp, and it froze as though its joints suddenly locked. Wrenching violently, baying out in fear and pain, the demon exploded.
Naomi didn’t bother trying to thank Warren. He wouldn’t have heard her. And it wouldn’t have mattered. He’d saved her because it suited him. The effort hadn’t come through any kindness.
She fumbled with the shotgun and managed to get it open. Holding one of the fat cartridges tightly, she shoved it into the barrel and closed the breech. When she pulled the shotgun up to her bruised shoulder, she fired immediately. A new wave of pain tore through her arm, but she made herself break open the shotgun again.
“There are too many!” Warren called to Lilith. If anyone else on the battlefield heard him, they showed no signs of it.
The imps ranged deeply within the forest now, and they laid waste to the humans. They lost numbers as well, but they tried to kill everything before them.
Warren felt their bloodlust. It screamed and twisted through him as it found a resonance within him. He didn’t know if his own feelings came naturally, or if Lilith somehow influenced him. Over the past few days, she’d gotten stronger.
But so had he.
“You can’t run,” Lilith said as she walked among the imps and remained untouched.
Warren believed some of the demons felt Lilith among them. They shied away from her at times. When she’d walked the earth all those millennia ago, when the human race struggled through infancy, demons like the imps had bowed down to her and recognized her as their cruel mistress. All the stories Warren had read of her agreed on that.
Some trace of her power must have clung to her astral self. Warren only wished that she could fight their enemies as well.
“If you try to run,” Lilith went on, “the imps will track
