Page 35 of Try As I Smite
A boom echoed off the mountain peaks in the darkness, followed by a red flashing glow and several screams. Another boom, and something dark whisked past her in the darkness, sending a spiderweb of shivers over her skin.
Demon.
A huge blast from the direction of the crater practically shook the mountain under her feet and her vision blacked again only to come back so fast, she would’ve wondered if she’d blinked if she wasn’t looking at a different scene. Still in the wooded mountains surrounding the area where the Syndicate’s headquarters had once stood, she stared at the bald side of a mountain.
This area was worse than the last.
Bodies littered the boulders and ledges of the mountain, strewn about like tissue paper after a child’s birthday party, limp and lifeless. Only, as she watched, darkness appeared to leak from each like liquid smoke dripping out of every orifice and pooling on the ground before reshaping and reforming. Another hundred demons at least.
“Merciful heavens,” she whispered.
Horror clawed at her insides like a trapped feral cat, and she could do nothing. Impotent in this scene. Unable to help even if she were not in a vision. Damn her oath.
With another flash, she appeared in the bottom of the crater. Whatever had blown this had to have been massive because she stood at least a hundred feet below the top. As though the explosion not only took out the structure but disintegrated the giant flat-topped mountain of pure granite the structure had been built upon. The area was glittering. Not from the firefly-like sparks, which still popped up all over the place. Now, the sky was lit by a strand of lightning stretched overhead, but frozen there, blinding to look at directly, casting a blueish flickering glow over everything.
Just enough to see Alasdair—the future Alasdair—facing off against a legion of demons, some inhabiting bodies of witches and warlocks. His people. Some still in shadow form. Black eyes flashed at him in the spitting, hissing light of the electric bolt she had no doubt he’d put in the sky.
“Teleport,” she whispered. Urging him with her entire being to get out of there. Forget horror—fear clawed her raw from the inside out. “Get out of there.”
She was practically rocking as she willed him to listen, despite knowing he couldn’t hear or see her.
But he didn’t leave. Of course he didn’t. This was Alasdair.
Something—she wasn’t sure what—caught his attention and he lifted his gaze up, way up. She turned her head, following his eyeline. Over the lip of the crater, a pair of red glowing eyes appeared, seeming to hover in the blackness, beyond the reach of the lightning bolt. Only after staring hard did a faint outline make itself clearer.
Hellhound.
Then another set of eyes, and another.
Three hellhounds.
Seven hells. These demons weren’t fucking around. Even her mother knew better than to mess with those dogs. Unpredictable and able to kill with one bite, injecting poison into their victim that slowly ate them from the inside out.
Suddenly, one shadow broke from the others and sprinted toward him so fast it blurred with the speed. Without a word, Alasdair reached into the sky and formed a glowing energy orb, purple and brilliant. The demon backpedaled but not fast enough. Hurling the orb, Alasdair smashed it into the shadow, which disintegrated on the spot.
Then another came at him, smashed the same way. And another, and another, until the hoard overwhelmed him, and he went down under a pile of shadow demons, his face a mask of determination even as he disappeared from her view.
Everything inside her body cried out, convulsed with emotions she hadn’t allowed herself to access in ages. For Alasdair.
Delilah took jerking steps forward, desperate to dig him out from under, an impotent fury joining the fear. These fuckers—no matter if she carried their blood in her veins—dared to touch him.
A glow penetrated through the nooks and crannies of the pile of bodies and then burst outward, an explosion that sent every demon flying, leaving Alasdair standing by himself. Not for long, as they regrouped and came back at him. With a whispered spell, he drew more electricity from his body, stretching it out into a whip. Grasping one end, he flicked it at one, then another. Then he spun it so fast, it blurred, like the propeller of a plane. Turning in place, he took out every shadow demon that came at him.
Why weren’t they using the hellhounds or the demon-possessed bodies yet?
Almost as soon as she had the thought, all three massive black dogs charged down the embankment of the crater with deep, scratchy howls that put the fear of the hells into her.
“Alasdair!” she screamed. Not that his future self could hear her.
Even so, he jerked his head up, tracked the hounds, and then muttered another spell. His body lifted into the air, wind whipping around his form as he gained the pinnacle. He lifted a hand and a bolt of electricity shot from the sky to his body, as though he were a lightning rod. Then he dropped to the ground and punched that charged fist into the rock.
A blinding flash of light followed immediately by a sizzling boom, and even Delilah’s ears in her protected vision reacted with ringing. After several shakes of her head, her vision and hearing cleared only to find the shadow demons and all three hellhounds now piles of ash at Alasdair’s feet.
A shout of challenge rose up from the possessed, a rumble of sound, like a storm over the ocean. In a wall of movement, they rushed him. Only, he didn’t use the lightning now. Not against his people. Kill the demon, kill the human it inhabited. She knew that he’d learned that the hard way with his father.
Choices and consequences. Stepping-stones to this moment. Even without witnessing the aftermath again today, a lesson he wasn’t likely to ever forget.
At first, spell after spell tumbled from his lips, clearly doing his best to take them out with other means. Some dropped to the ground in a deep sleep, some flew away or disappeared, some froze in place as though bound by an invisible force.
