But it did its job.
No matter how flailing my moves were, the blade still sliced through flesh and landed killing blows. And that was the most important thing.
I felt Jupiter move behind me in an effort to pick up Nate. And I protected them as best as I could.
There were so many factors working against us that my anxiety only sky rocketed, despite the weapon I now had.
First, Jupiter could fly, but he wasn’t supernaturally strong. He was in shape, but not superman and Nate was heavy. Nate was a warrior, all muscle, tall, thick and currently dead weight. And on top of it all, I wondered how Jupiter would even hold him because his wound was in his stomach and I imagined Jupiter needed to hoist him over his shoulder
Plus, the Shadows incessantly attacking didn’t do anything to make the situation easier.
While Jupiter struggled behind me, I covered myself in the black, sticky ooze of the Shadows felled by my blade. I was relentless, if not a little clumsy and brutal while pushing past the exhaustion and pain. My arms were trembling by now, my legs numb. My vision was almost completely obscured by goo and blood and sweat.
The hard truth was- we were losing.
Serena’s Light was so bright I could feel her heat on my skin, and I desperately wanted to match her intensity. But there was no way I could without seriously injuring Jupiter or even Nate whose full abilities were not at his fingertips.
I somehow heard Nate behind me over the gory sounds of battle. The sound was memorable in the macabre and traumatizing kind of way. He was struggling to breathe as blood curdled in his lungs. It was the ugliest sound I had ever heard, the ragged intake of breath and then hissing outtake. I heard the liquid in his windpipe and lungs with every breath.
The sound twisted my heart and urged me to fight harder, be stronger, kill faster.
But there was no dent to be made in this constant stream of Shadows. And the only reason we weren’t completely overtaken was the little damage our Light did. Also, because the Shadows were solid, organic beings, they couldn’t converge on us at once- in some messed up, stupid way, they had to wait their turn.
“This isn’t working!” I finally screamed at Serena.
She said nothing right away but her Light pressed against the limitations of this world as she pushed it further out. Jupiter screamed in agony behind me- a sound that would also carry over into my nightmares. I heard a thump and an “oof” of air being released. I glanced back for just a moment to find that Jupiter had blacked out, and through my special night vision I could see his skin blistering and red, his clothes melting away.
My clothes were starting to melt now too and I was positive even Serena’s leathers had to be close, if not completely disintegrated.
“Jupiter passed out, Serena!” I yelled desperately. “Your Light is too bright!”
She screamed out a battle cry of frustration but pulled her brightness back barely and continued fighting. And still the Shadows kept coming. And now that both Nate and Jupiter were incapacitated behind me, I couldn’t hold off the Darkness for much longer. Nate might survive… but Jupiter would die.
Unless I did something now, Jupiter would die.
Our only option was retreat.
But how would we get out of here?
“Serena, you have to take them! Find a church, go back to the farm, find some place to hide!”
“No!” she screamed back. “I cannot leave you!”
“You have to! They will die if you don’t!” Each word came with the price of a deeper exhaustion and impossible breathlessness. But I had to explain. “I can’t lift them. I’m not strong enough to carry them both back. And you’re faster than me. If you don’t take them we all die. Serena…. you…. have…. to go!”
Each of my words was punctuated with a swing of the sword. Shadows were relatively simple to kill; stab them in the chest/heart region and they died. But there were so many of them that it was never ending. And I was feeling the effects of their bone-chilling evil in every blood vessel and atom in my body.
“Just so you know,” Serena bellowed. “I’ll follow you’re plan, but I do not like it!”
I smiled, despite myself. “Then go! Get out of here!”
She fought her way over to me. We both had to dim our Lights even further when she got close enough to where the true meat of it- that which was closest to our bodies- touched. We were even stronger together, which was normally a good thing, but not with Jupiter hanging out behind us face down in the dirt.
“I don’t even know if I can get out of here,” she panted.
“Just get them and go. I’ll cover you the best that I can. You have to get Jupiter out of here, though or I’ll start him on fire.”
“It’s annoying that he’s not one of us,” She grunted.
And then before I could say anything else or give some kind of heartfelt goodbye speech, she dropped one of her swords at my feet, tucked the other one into the sheath at her side and scooped Nate over her shoulder and then Jupiter.
Out of the corner of my eye I watched her totter to the left. Her Light would make her stronger but she couldn’t use it while she was holding Jupiter. I lunged in front of her, determined to block as many of the Shadows as I could and she struggled to take off.
She was carrying the weight of two full grown men with maybe twenty percent of her ability aiding her.
“Just use it,” I screamed over the sound of gore and shrieking around us. “We’re all dead if you stay. He has a better chance if you get him out of here. Just dim-out as soon as you can.”
“You’re right, Starling,” Serena shouted back. “When did you get so smart?”
I grinned at her, but then I got Shadow blood in my mouth so I wiped my lips against my shoulder, which was actually covered with more goo. Bleh.
She didn’t say goodbye this time either, just lit up, stood up straighter and then burst through the cover of Shadows like the biggest, brightest firework. She exploded upwards. I allowed myself to watch until she reached the brightest atmosphere that Jupiter could stand and then dimmed to a tolerable level for Jupiter.
I didn’t know where they were going but I truly hoped there was a sacred building around. The movies had gotten that part right about all things evil. If a place was sacred or blessed than they could not enter. That was trickier than it seemed.
Not every church or religious building had been blessed, so you had to pick them out carefully. And not every blessed building was an obviously religious place. Like my home.
That Seth had stayed at just the other night.
Which meant he wasn’t entirely evil.
At least not yet.
Focus.
When I felt Serena was a safe enough distance away I paused with my sword at my side and let my Light burn. My clothes wouldn’t completely burn away, but they would melt to my body. It was painful, but necessary, just like the Light.
And I chose not to worry about those small details right now. I just enjoyed the Light. Every part of me became swallowed up in the brilliance and purity of my golden essence shooting from every part of me. My body tingled with the heat, my hair lifted off my shoulders, moving in some supernatural way that kept it out of my face and I was nothing but a bright, burning ball of pure, raw Light.
I wasn’t even close to burning as bright as I could, especially if I was off planet but the shrieking around me increased to a deafening roar and the structure- all those pieces and parts that weren’t part of the hallucination caught fire.
Now it wasn’t just my Light, but the flames licking at anything they could reach, spreading out beyond the cabin and to the surrounding forest.