"Hurry!" Rustbelt shouted over his shoulder as they ran. He stumbled, over-balanced and went rolling down the slope of the dune. Michael and Bubbles slid through the sand behind him.
The Djinn took another step and was within arm's reach of Fortune's group. Shadows played around him even in the brilliant sunlight, as if he were surrounded by unseen figures; he loomed over them like a god. Sekhmet was slapped down in midleap; Kate's stones went careening away; Sobek was down, bleeding from a head wound; a puff of breath from the Djinn banished the wasps. The giant reached toward Lohengrin, ready to pluck him from the sand. "Deus Volt!" they heard the German ace cry, and Lohengrin's sword slashed at the hand that curled around himtwo massive fingers fell like tree trunks to the sand. The Djinn roared, and the sound drowned out everything else. His other hand came down and struck Lohengrin open-handed. The ace went flying, slamming hard into a disabled tank.
The glow of ghost steel faded. Where there'd been a warrior drawn from myths and legends, a pudgy blond boy now sprawled, unconscious.
"Fuck." Michael spat out the word along with a mouthful of sand. They'd reached the bottom of the dune. Bubbles was helping Rusty to his feet. "Hit me!" she shouted at him, at Michael. "Hit me now!"
Ahead, Kate and Sekhmet were the only two still standing. Kate reached into her bag of stones; Sekhmet roared defiance. The followers of the Living Gods were fleeing the confrontation, while the Djinn's elite guard spread out around the giant once more. Between Michael and Kate, there was little but open sand. "Come on," Michael said, as Rusty slammed a fisted hand into Bubbles's stomach. "We gotta get there."
They ran. As they did, Sekhmet roared once more, the sound louder even than the Djinn's laughter. Fortune bounded in one leap toward the Djinn; Michael saw Kate shout at him"No!"and desperately begin to fling stones. The Djinn stood calmly. Shadows pulsed; his figure shimmered. Kate's stones slid harmlessly through and past the Djinn.
And Fortune: the lioness of Sekhmet leapt toward the Djinn, and he rushed forward to embrace the Living God. He was too slow this time. Sekhmet twisted in midair, slipping past his maimed hand. She slashed at his bearded face with her claws, ripping a quartet of bloody lines down his cheeks. Strips of flesh curled back from the wounds. The flames from her mouth set his beard afire.
The Djinn pulled her from his face as more flesh tore. He held Sekhmet in one hand; his fingers tightening around her body. The lioness screamed, an awful shrill of torment. The flames gushing from her mouth went to smoke as he threw her hard to the ground.
The lioness fell, but it was Fortune, naked and unprotected, who lay crumpled on the sand. The Djinn crouched and picked him up again, a smile twisting under his dark beard, his cheek bloodied and torn. As he held him tendrils of smoky vapor began to curl from the scarab imbedded in Fortune's forehead toward the Djinn, wreathing around his body and sinking into his flesh. Fortune screamed in his hands, wordless and horrible. Kate, weeping, flung stones.
Michael, Rustbelt, and Bubbles were fifty yards away. It might as well have been as many miles. Rustbelt bellowed; the Djinn glanced in their direction. Michael felt as helpless as he had the night he'd seen Kate and Fortune on the television set in Rome. As helpless as he'd felt during the first challenge when none of them knew how to work together, as outmatched as he'd been when Golden Boy tossed him aside as if he were a child.
"If the Djinn touches you, you are lost. He will slay you and drink your powers."
But if they didn't have to touch him at all . . .
"I'm pretending it's the Djinn's head. . . ."
Michael blinked, fighting the despair flowing from the Djinn. He tore away the remnants of the Kevlar from his chest. "Rusty, you gotta go after that fuckermake him pay attention to you somehow, just don't let him touch you; Bubbles, can you keep him distracted, too, maybe put him off balance, the way you did Golden Boy?"
"And what are you gonna do?" Bubbles asked.
"Play," Michael answered. Grimacing as aching muscles protested, he began to tap on his body with his open hands, playing on himself as if he were a set of living congassoftly at first, then louder and harder. The sound welled out from him, unfocused, echoing from the ruins of houses along the road and the ramparts of the High Dam. The Djinn turned, noticing him as his dark eyes narrowed. Michael tightened the throats of his neck, forcing the sound of the drumming into a narrow pattern, all of it aimed toward the Djinn. The Djinn grimaced as waves of percussion hammered at him. He seemed to stagger a step backward, but that was all. The wispy shadows continued to flow darkly from the screaming Fortune toward him . . .
. . . as Rustbelt charged blindly at him; as Kate redoubled her efforts; as Klaus shook his head groggily and rose, clad again in Lohengrin's ghost steel. They were not going to be enough, Michael knew. The shadows faded and Fortune's screams fell to whimpers as the Djinn laughed.
. . . a torrent of bubbles broke over the Djinn, crashing down on him, the impact sending his guards tumbling, as well as Rustbelt and Lohengrin. Michael struck his body harder than he ever had, as he forced his multiple throats to close even more tightly so that his own skull ached with the soundhe forced his vocal cords to contract yet further, as he imagined the bones of the Djinn's skull vibrating and shaking, rattling in the fleshy envelope that held them and slamming the brain against its bone prison, again and again and again.
The Djinn screamed a shrill, high cry. He dropped Fortune's body and clapped his hands over his ears; thick, bright blood poured from his nose and mouth. He sank to his knees. Shadows whirled chaotically around him, a hundred smoky figures of those he'd consumed. Michael continued to drum, to pound at the man with sonic fists. The Djinn wailed. His head shivered, a frantic quivering that rendered his features blurred and unfocused. Blood gushed from his mouth and into his dark beard. The violent motions of his head sent droplets splattering everywhere.
His eyes rolled back. The shadows around the Djinn fled. He collapsed, a stricken tower, crushing his guards beneath him.
The fear that had held them all evaporated in the same moment. The guards, those still standing, gaped at their stricken commandernow just a man laying on the sand, swaddled in yards of cloth that no longer fit his entirely normal stature. A breath later, they fled, pursued by the Living Gods' followers, who had turned with a desperate hope rising in them.
Kate was staring at the fallen Djinn. Then her gaze moved to Michael, his hands now down at his side. In his mind, he saw the way she would smile, how the realization would dawn on her face, how she would run desperately and gratefully to him.
She did run. She sprinted to Fortune and sank down alongside him, cradling him in her arms as they gathered around her: Lohengrin, Bubbles, Rustbelt. Several of Hive's wasps quivered on Lohengrin's shoulder. "He's really hurt," Kate said, her voice breaking slightly. "Help me. Help me get him away from here."
Lohengrin moved, kneeling to help her pick up the moaning, half-conscious Fortune. "No," Michael called to the ace. His throat openings ached and the words grated. "I'll get him for her."
He lifted Fortune in his many arms. With Kate alongside him, stroking Fortune's bloodied hair and crooning encouragement, he walked from the battlefield with the rest of the injured, his own great wound invisible.
Dark of the Moon
Melinda M. Snodgrass
SOMEWHERE OFF TO HER right gunfire erupted.
Anywhere else in the world people would flee that sound, but here in Baghdad it was just one theme in the symphony of celebration. The sharp chattering of a machine gun set a high-pitched counterpoint to the deep bass booms of rockets. A shower of golden sparks hung in the night sky, and edged the needle-like spires of minarets like a benediction. The sparks seemed to fall in slow motion. The light from the fireworks briefly lit the faces of the crowd. Men whirled and danced. Tears glinted on their cheeks, and their mouths stretched wide as they chanted for their Caliph.