never been. No, they weren’t coming early, they just had someone who could put out the fire.
“Call Norm,” one of the recruits called.
“Esri!” another yelled.
Chaos erupted as dark forms leaped from the fountain. Harrison’s pulse began to pound as a dozen short archers in gray slaves’ robes began firing arrows in every direction. Marceils. Just as Larsen had foreseen.
“Stay down!” Jack’s voice rang over the park.
Harrison ducked behind the car he was using as a shield. Moments later, the taller Esri began to leap out of the gate dressed in dark hooded cloaks that all but hid their extreme paleness. The Sitheen had hoped the fire would turn the invasion into a standoff. Now it was clear they were in for a full-scale battle.
Gunshots rang through the park as a couple of the humans attempted to take down the Marceils. The immortal slaves wouldn’t stay down, but a gunshot seemed to take minutes for them to heal, rather than seconds, as it did the Esri.
Arrows clacked and thudded against car windows as if the Marceil didn’t realize they wouldn’t go through. And why should they? They didn’t have cars in Esria. Harrison doubted they even had glass.
Esri leaped out of the fountain, one after another, taking off at a dead run into the night. Harrison grabbed his flamethrower and shield and ran for the nearest invader. Hiding from the arrows might be the smartest move, but if he wanted to save his world, hiding wasn’t an option.
The plan was to set as many of the bastards on fire as they could. Fire wouldn’t kill them unless someone sang the death chant, but it should immobilize them for a good fifteen minutes or more. Long enough to hog-tie them and pull them into a waiting refrigerator truck tricked out with layers of iron and holly to dampen their magic. Hopefully. What they’d do with them after that, they’d yet to decide, but they’d prefer to take them prisoner rather than kill them outright, if possible.
Harrison ran for an Esri fleeing in his direction as arrows whizzed by him. One arrow struck Harrison in the helmet, another hit his shield, but neither slowed him down. It was clear these archers’ abilities were a far cry from Tarrys’s. Either that or they fought the compulsion to fire upon the humans. Unlike humans, an enslaved Marceil maintained full awareness of what he was being forced to do. Most, he suspected, had no desire to kill them.
He cut off the fleeing Esri and fired the flamethrower. Like magic, fire instantly engulfed the cloaked invader, his white-as-snow face taking on a mask of pain and fear. No doubt he expected to hear the death chant and explode into a million lights.
“Today’s your lucky day,” Harrison muttered, and left him for the hog-tying crew.
One down.
He saw another catch fire across the park. And another.
“Protect Jack!” Kade’s deep voice carried to him.
Harrison saw the problem at once. Eight Esri weren’t fleeing. Instead, they were going after Kade and Jack, the two with the death marks.
The humans might be trying to avoid killing the invaders. The Esri weren’t about to return the favor.
Kade ran for the Esri surrounding Jack, grabbing them, one at a time, and flinging them forty or fifty feet, as if they weighed nothing. Two recruits ran to set fire to the thrown Esri before they got up again. But though Kade fought to keep them away from Jack, the Esri weren’t stupid. When Kade’s hands were full flinging one of their hapless comrades, others raced past him, avoiding the giant half-blood until three had Jack surrounded. Jack fought back, his flamethrower engaged, but while he might set one or two of the bastards on fire before they touched him, he was unlikely to get all three.
Harrison ran for him, pulse pounding, the cold wind whipping at his face. He was almost there. Jack managed to set one of his attackers on fire, but as the Esri yelled with pain, an arrow struck Jack in the thigh. The cop went down.
Harrison and Kade reached him at the same moment, each diving for an Esri to knock him away before he could touch Jack and destroy him, each taking one to the ground. Unlike Jack and Kade, Harrison had no death mark and was in no danger of being killed from a touch.
Harrison’s Esri was big for his race, but no Esri without a healthy dose of human blood was muscular. While this one put up a halfway decent fight, his effort wasn’t enough. Harrison grabbed the Bic lighter out of his pocket, flicked it and shoved the flame into the bastard’s neck. As he leaped up and back, the Esri burst into flame.
“Harrison.”
Jack’s voice, tight with pain and something else, had him whirling around.
The other Esri who’d been trying to reach Jack was encased in fire. But so, too, was Kade. If anyone whispered the death chant, all those trapped in flame would die instantly.
Kade’s face was a mask of pain even though the fire that encased him was different than the others, sparkling unnaturally. Mystic fire. But like the other, it had him trapped but good.
“The Esri…” Kade groaned. “One of the ones who got away. Was King Rith. I recognized him…too late. He’s going after the stones.”
Hell. But they had a bigger problem at the moment. Keeping Kade alive.
A quick look around told Harrison the only Esri still nearby were those encased in flame. “Tell me what to do, Kade.”
“Don’t sing the death chant.”
Harrison grunted. Who knew Esri had a sense of humor? “I figured as much. Something a little more helpful?”
“The mystic fire will go out on its own in a couple of hours if no one activates it. But any Esri can find me. They can find any of us with death marks. They’ll be hunting us.”
“Then we’ve got to get you out of here.” Harrison started barking out orders to the nearby Sitheen. “Get Myrtle, Larsen and Autumn.” Myrtle was an unnaturally gifted healer and Jack needed her. And both Jack and Kade needed their women right now. “Brad, get the police van over here and six cops. Strong ones.”
They might tie and drag the other Esri into a waiting truck, but Kade was one of their own now.
“How many did we catch?” Jack asked.
“Ten or eleven,” Harrison replied. “But just as many escaped.”
“Hell.”
Larsen and Autumn ran toward them, Aunt Myrtle following at a far slower pace.
Autumn stared in horror at Kade. “You’re going to die.”
“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Harrison said behind her. “We’re going to load him into a closed police van and drive him out of the city until the flame dissipates.”
The redhead’s gaze swung to Harrison. “I’m going with him.”
“We’re both going with him.” If the Esri followed, they’d be in for another fight.
Autumn stepped closer to Kade, her eyes throbbing with misery. “Can I touch you? Will I catch fire?”
