Page 82 of As Darkness Fall
“What do we do now?” I asked. We were still surrounded.
“We fight,” Aaron said fiercely. “We can take them.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s keep moving toward the edge then, shall we?”
As one, we started walking toward the edge of the field, the human bodies still lying unmoving, though now, there were large gaps between them where the demons had lain. That made it easy for us to stick together in our little circle.
“Damn,” Aaron whispered as our foes started to congregate in front of us, thickening the circle in our direction of travel. “So much for them being dumb.”
“We’re going to have to kill them, aren’t we?” I asked. “So that we can’t be tracked.”
“Yes,” Vir said. “We are. And we’re going to have to hit them hard, if we want to do that.”
“That much power will attract attention here,” Aaron said.
“I’m not sure we have a choice,” Vir countered. “But I’m open to ideas.”
Nobody spoke. They were waiting for someone else to speak. I knew it wasn’t Fred. Which meant they expectedmeto tell them what to do.
Crap.
“I don’t see any other options,” I said reluctantly. “We have to kill them all and then move. Fast.”
“You’ll need to be on all fours to keep up,” Vir said.
I snorted. “Tell that to Aaron. He’s slower than I am.”
“Fred will carry Aaron,” Vir said.
My eyebrows shot up when all Fred did was grunt an affirmative. What the hellwasFred? I’d thought he was a vampire this entire time, but vampires couldn’t keep up with wolves. Aaron had told me that back when we were leaving Shuldar. It felt like a lifetime ago now.
There was no time to stop and ask, however, because the demons were gathering for another charge. I stripped out of my bodysuit and boots, regretfully knowing that Vir didn’t have time to grab them this time.
My wolf was there in a second when I called for her, eager to come forth and fight. Pain ripped through my body as we changed, the shift happening far swifter than I’d ever experienced before outside of the Temple of Amunlea when I’d shifted in the blink of an eye and back several times over.
Our paws landed on the ground, and we shot out at the enemy, howling our battle cry while our companions did the same. We moved with speed. Our enemies were strong, but they were slow compared to us, and we were in among them and out before they could react, leaving gouged muscles and torn ligaments behind.
A power blossomed from our group of companions. For a moment, our attention was called away from the fight. The power was familiar to us. Different yet familiar. Similar to the energy we had wielded ourselves once before. Vir must be gearing up to do something big. We had never seen him use power like this before.
Briefly, the two-footed part of us wished to be able to wield that power once more. To be as strong as Vir, to better help our friends.
Something took us in the side, and we tumbled and rolled, yelping slightly as we got to our feet, feeling the warmth of hot blood spill from the pain. A tall being faced off with us, its limbs unusually long and spindly, its torso tiny. It wielded a mace in one hand and came at us with surprising speed.
We dodged the next blow, moved in, and went to tear a chunk from its leg. Instead, we came away with the entire leg, and our foe tumbled to the ground. We leaped on its back and, with a vicious shake of our jaws, tore the head from the body. Then we raced away, bowling over another spider creature, our paws crushing its abdomen as we ran on.
A monkey-frog landed near us, and we flung our body at it. The unexpected form of attack caught the demon by surprise, and it stood still as we slammed into its chest, tearing its face away with our teeth before moving on, spitting flesh and blood from our mouth.
The battle raged on around us. The golden blur in front of Vir was shredding demons with ease. Fred moved around, taking potshots with his rifle, each round dropping a demon, their heads exploding.
Aaron, meanwhile, was a berserker. He’d acquired an ax from somewhere, and he wielded it like a maniac, giant sweeping arcs that clove his foes in half, sheared limbs from bodies, and generally sent anyone who came close to him reeling away with certain death closing in after it.
The fight became a blur. Our jowls were soaked with the blood from a dozen victims. One of our legs was sore and bruised from where we’d been kicked. Blood matted the fur on our left flank from the earlier cut as it slowly closed, cutting off further fresh flow.
We weren’t sure when it happened, but at some point, there were suddenly no more enemies to fight. We were all standing, panting, each one of us exhausted from the flurry of brutal fighting.
But we’d done it.
“Run!” Vir barked, and we started off, moving as fast as we could away from the field of carnage.
