Aware of all the death and maiming around him, Warren believed her. He gathered his power and struck again and again. Handling the force blasts and fireballs was second nature to him. So were the shields that he raised and lowered in an eye blink as he needed them.
One of the small winged demons darted at him. He caught sight of it from the corner of his eye, gestured at it, and saw it explode into bloody bits of flesh and scale. He didn’t try to separate the humans from the demons. If they were in a struggle together and anywhere near him, he blasted them all.
He told himself that he needed to survive no matter what, and that it wasn’t his fault he was so much more powerful than Bixby and his friends were. He also told himself he wouldn’t feel guilty, but he struggled to keep those feelings at bay.
Despite his best efforts at shielding himself, Warren became covered in gore—human as well as demon. Thankfully little of the blood was his.
As he fought and weaved among the combatants, he threaded the minds of some of the demons. They became his puppets and turned on their fellows when they failed to resist his control. Once they were in his thrall, the demons became like the zombies and fought independently of him.
Slowly, the tide of the battle turned. Sickness tightened in Warren’s stomach as he lurched over the dead at his feet. Nearly all of the humans had been killed in the assault. Some of them had broken and run, causing some of the demons to chase after them.
If it weren’t for the demons in my control, Warren realized, we’d have already been overrun.
Maintaining that control cost him, though. His head pounded from the effort, and his lungs worked like a bellows to keep flooding oxygen to his lungs. Although he focused as much as he could, double vision twisted everything before him.
An imp fired a weapon at Warren, but Warren lifted a shield into place. The ricochet speared through one of the few remaining human men. The victim dropped onto the blood-covered ground in halves. The man’s death was so sudden he didn’t have time to scream.
Warren changed the shield into a projectile in the space of a heartbeat and fired it at the demon. The energy bolt decapitated the demon. Before the creature’s body fell, Warren summoned another shield. He used both hands separately and together, channeling all his reserves.
He fought as much against impending unconsciousness as he did against the demons. He didn’t know which one of those was going to win out.
“Who are you, human?” a demon demanded as it battered at Warren’s energy shield.
Warren didn’t have the energy to answer. He felt the demon’s blows against his shield as though they struck his body. He concentrated to keep his right leg under him because it felt weak and almost buckled several times.
“Where did you get that hand?” The demon slung its rifle and reached over its broad shoulders for a double-bitted axe. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll have it from you soon enough.”
Warren’s stomach lurched at the thought of losing the hand. It had already happened twice, and there was no way he could get inured to that. The panic overwhelmed him, and he lost control of his shield for a moment. The demon’s axe slammed against the Kevlar vest Warren wore under his long coat. Although the blade didn’t cut through, the force cracked one or more of his ribs. Breathing became painful as he jerked back from the imp’s follow-up blow.
“Where are you going?” the demon taunted. “We’ve only now started to play.”
Focus! Bloody hell! Focus, or you’re a dead man! Warren tried to bring the multiple images of the imp swimming before him into one identifiable being. The task eluded him. Having no choice, he thrust his hand out and somehow managed to lock on to the axe blade with his metal hand at the last minute.
Metal grated as the keen edge slid along Warren’s palm. He tightened his grip and halted the axe. The demon yanked on the weapon and almost got it free.
“You’re stronger than you look.” The demon brought up a taloned foot and aimed the claws at Warren’s throat. “Not that it’s going to do you any good.”
Warren unleashed the power within him and channeled it through the axe into the demon. The imp locked up, talons grazing the skin of Warren’s throat.
Fear and pain filled the demon’s eyes as Warren kept feeding the raw power. The demon’s flesh turned to liquid bags that ruptured and burst. The vile smelling mess oozed from the demon’s bones in a handful of seconds, leaving only the creature’s skeleton behind. Then the bones shattered into dust.
Gasping, unable to find enough air or the strength to stay on his feet, Warren sank to his knees. His metal hand hissed and melted through the snow. He worked to keep it from touching his leg in order not to burn himself.
A handful of zombies, most of them missing limbs and one of them dragging only its upper body because its legs were missing, formed a protective circle around him. Three imps joined the circle and killed other demons that tried to get through their defenses.
“You’ve got to get up,” Lilith told him. Effortlessly, she stepped through the demons and zombies. She tugged on his metal hand and he was surprised that he actually felt it.
Warren willed himself to get up, but he didn’t have the strength. The cacophony of death screams sounded all around him. His eyes closed and he couldn’t open them again.
Terrified that Warren had at last been brought down, Naomi fought her way to him, relying heavily on one of the assault rifles she’d picked up from an unanimated corpse. Before the invasion, she hadn’t known much about weapons. She’d learned, though. Everyone had.
As she got close to Warren, the zombies and controlled demons turned to her.
