Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

Chaos erupted. It was the only way Ruth could describe it from where she was seated. She had insisted on coming along, the cadre of black non-descript SUVs summoned by Drake’s command being her prime mode of transport – along with Rick’s bizarre request for a truck. Sandy, Andrew and Angel had been taken in the first, the second was filled with what she now knew to be their armed team; and she, an insistent Louise and Drake were driven in the back.

They screeched to a halt outside the warehouse – the three rushing to join Rick inside the warehouse – now with a giant bloody hole in the wall. Drake herself stepped out, her men readying rifles of a type she was pretty sure were not even on the official markets yet. She wondered again just how deep and influential their new allies were – and whether even more smoke and mirrors were afoot.

She couldn’t hear much, even through the open window. She gathered there was some bickering back and forth. She could, however, see very well. Vetis and Atlas stood on the balcony, looking down. The four lieutenants and their small army gathered in a roughhewn semi-circle around her people. She saw the crackle of power in their hands and knew instantly what Rick simultaneously realised – and knew instinctively the danger they were in.

A battle erupted swiftly and within seconds she could see none of them in the tangle of people and powers. Flashes of fire and bursts of electricity, the sounds came through of metal and stone, shouts and screams of pain.

She did see some who were not fighting, they had prepared a different task. The Airs, the ones who were able to do like Andrew began to appear and disappear almost randomly – each time grabbing something. A case, a box each which upon their return would not be present. They were evacuating, pulling out – and taking all their stuff with them.

She went to yell something to Drake through the open window but before she got the chance a familiar face appeared in the middle of her squad. The four men startled, shocked as a twenty-year-old woman, her face glowing with anger and thrilled-through with adrenaline appeared in their midst. Her hands disappeared into the skulls of the two on either side and with cold-blooded darkness, she yanked forward. Whatever she had grabbed severed something instantly and the two collapsed into lifeless heaps.

Drake rose her gun but when Ruth saw the small red dot on her daughter’s body she shrieked,

“No!”

The distraction was enough, Mary disappeared in a cloud of smog, appearing behind the kneeling man on her far left. He’d been in the process of turning his weapon on her, now his target was gone. She appeared behind him, her hand slipping over his and depressing the trigger. The other hand went deep into his back.

The gun fired, jerking wildly out of control in his dying hands. A slew of bullets wildly sprayed, some slammed into the car, knocking Ruth around and shattering glass. Two slammed into the unprotected face of the fourth and final member of the MOO squad. Drake went down, her shot going wild, she collapsed in a heap beside the car.

Mary pulled back and in the deafening silence following the eruption Ruth head the sickening wet crack of the man’s back. She was faced with it now, the monster she had a hand in creating. She felt herself go mad, her control going.

Beside her, Louise screamed.

Then the sweet and innocent face she’d kissed goodnight too few times appeared in the car next to her, grinning in a hauntingly familiar and utterly alien way. Her bloodied hand lay over Ruth’s own as she whispered,

“Hey, mum, let’s go.”

Her vision went black, she felt a deep tug at her navel as though her entire being was rapidly pulled through her bellybutton. Then Ruth was gone.

* * *

The battle was fierce and fast with people coming at them from all sides. Angel did the only thing he could do, he swept into the air and straight for the man he’d hoped to meet again. His bizarre negative.

He landed firm on the metal gantry, the dark angel waiting patiently with his easy grin.

“Well, hello,” the dark angel greeted, “Pleased to meet you.”

“Who are you?”

“Why are you people always so bothered about names?” he queried.

“Okay, who am I?”

“Well isn’t that the million-pound question,” he answered cryptically. “And really why should you be asking me? Should you not know this yourself? Do we not all choose who we are?”

“Tell me!” Angel yelled, feeling uncharacteristic anger and lack of control building up inside of him.

“Hmmm…no.”

He felt the man appear behind him, smelt the cloying sick smoke instantly. He knew an attack was coming so swung a blow behind him that connected with nothing. The man, or the woman – the battle was surprisingly gender-inclusive – had already disappeared. He lost his balance, the distraction had worked. The dark angel rushed from behind him and tackled him to the ground.

He beat his wings but it did nothing to stop a rain of uppercut blows to his kidneys that momentarily stunned him. He felt lifted, lithe hands grabbing by the stumps of his wings and thrusting him at the railing. His shoulder thundered painfully into the railing but thankfully his head was spared.

The same hands grabbed around his throat and dragged him to his feet, pushing his precariously, his back against the railing, over into thin air. He was brought face to face with the dark angel, his black eyes like pools of coal – the dead eyes of a shark.

“You are so pathetic it’s almost funny,” he hissed at him, “You think I owe you answers? I’m afraid there’s only one thing I will bring you. That is death.”

That was it, he was gone. He felt pushed over the edge, past the tipping point and into the world of gravity. His wings didn’t even have time to work, other than to break his fall. He landed hard, feet below and on strangely soft material – which would turn out to be a person. He could see the man in black staring down at him, the easy grin returning.

He said no more. A man of air appeared beside him, placed one hand on his shoulder and the two of them disappeared like a magician’s trick.

Strangely enough, it got worse from there.

* * *

It was true, they were completely outnumbered. Rick knew the moment it started, as they were rushed by the hordes. Not by all of them, he would see the Airheads disappearing and re-appearing, bugging out with their gear no doubt. It wouldn’t matter for long.

Sandy, her fists balls of flaming fire, launched into action. Andrew, ever the acrobat, disappeared and attacked from behind. Rick found himself bull-rushed instead by the metal giant Cyvus and wondering how long it would take him to rust. He dived beneath the brute’s charge and found himself at the black booted feet of Stacey, wary now of her crackling electricity after the last time he’d forgotten about his own element’s conductive properties.

“Did you know I’ve been doing some kickboxing?” he asked her. She brought a fist down but he had already rolled away. He leapt to his feet, spun around and found himself facing down a rather shaky looking man whose hands were pouring with water. He sympathised, “Yeah, I know our element can suck, I can’t even do the whole ‘you wet yourself’ joke on you. Still…”

He took care of the man with a thump, allowing him to slump back onto a pile of packing. One of the boxes had broken so Rick found himself a nice makeshift wooden bat and launched back into helping out the others. An angry-looking woman with hands of rock rushed at him but he swung his bat into her knee at just the right angle to cause her to fall forward, landing on her hands and knees. She provided a nice springboard for him to step on, leaping into the air and bringing the bat down with a resounding thunk on the head of a distracted Lotus.

It was utter chaos of bodies, of people around clambering and struggling to even know who was who – what side was what in the fray. He saw a flash of red-gold, gleaming brightly in the fluorescent lights high above. And then he landed.

When Atlas struck the ground, the whole world went sideways. From the epicentre everyone and everything was swept back, landing in tangled heaps as only walls and boxes managed to stop their travel. Rick found himself landing hard on cold concrete, tangled in the legs of some random stranger and finding it hard to make a joke.

He looked back in the direction of Atlas, who smiled briefly before a minion appeared beside him. With a nod of assent, he touched the shoulder of his god and the two disappeared.

Rick’s next look was up, into the face of the fella he’d ended up tangled with. He was young, confused and starting to smoke.

“Oh no you bloody don’t.”

He leapt for the young man, grabbing him in a bear hug at the instant of transport. He learned quickly what Andrew felt every time he did his disappearing act. The world disappeared, everything was monumentally black. He was dragged forward, feeling as though he was shrinking and growing infinitely bigger at the same time. There was a sense of weightlessness, infinity, yet being drawn.

Then suddenly there was gravity, there was blinding light and biting cold. They landed hard, tumbling downwards, spinning like they were in some giant freezing tumble dryer. They stopped the lad underneath, Rick clinging desperately on top. Before he could sense anything, take anything else in, he leant back and thumped the guy hard enough to knock him out cold.

When he finally stopped to look up he realised what he was sitting on, what his suit was now covered in. Other than the grunt he’d just teleport-jacked, he was sitting in a tundra of fresh white snow.

“What the f-“