Page 60 of Helsing: Demon Slayer
How else, Spratek?
Since their harmonic signatures were keyed to one another, their timing naturally synced in moments such as these. They moved toward the car as one, each pulling open a door at the same moment. András, whose fists radiated a deadly heat, held no weapon. Beta raised the Disrupter as soon as she swung the door wide. Edvard brought his conventional Czech Scorpion EVO semi-automatic carbine up to his shoulder.
The response that met them shocked Beta. And she wasn’t easily shocked.
Helsing’s body sagged like a marionette with its strings cut, his breath ragged and shallow as the seatbelt held him roughly upright and inside the small car.Across from him, the blonde rose up with a hoarse cry, lifting a handgun in both hands and aiming at first Beta and then András. She kept the gun trained on András while looking back and forth between the two stunnedElioudwarfighters.
“Stay back or I’ll shoot!” Her eyes burned with a raw, unyielding determination, whether from rage or survival instinct, Beta couldn’t tell.Given that her hands didn’t shake, Beta suspected that this woman—Olivia’s younger sister—had lost any nerves at the prospect of firing the weapon somewhere along the journey here. Either that or defending Ryan meant more to her than her own preservation.
That is very interesting, Beta thought to herself.
“I guess we should have gone to comms to alert them we’d arrived,” said András aloud, letting his hands cool as they drifted to his side. His flare retreated until it only limned him.
“Where would the fun be in that?” asked Beta, lowering her Disrupter in its sling on her chest and dimming her own internal light. Ignoring Dianne, who’d shifted at the move, she reached out to touch Helsing’s shoulder. “Wake up, Demon Slayer,” she said softly, running gentle harmonics over him before slipping them into a support mesh around him. His tactical gear responded with a faint glow.
“What–What are you doing to him?” asked Dianne, a desperate thread now making her voice tremble. Her own gossamer robe also began to glow, further confirming the fact that she and Ryan were tethered harmonically. While Dianne’s garment had been keyed for defense againstdaemonicattack, they’d already been surprised by her ability to communicate with the ops center. This—this was something much different, but now wasn’t the time to untangle it.
Beta didn’t respond. Instead, she focused on Ryan, feeding him some of her energy. She ran hot, like a banked harmonic furnace. Normally, her tactical gear just siphoned off her fiery energy and saved it in power banks, but now she willingly gave a massive boost to the unconscious former Ranger. It wasn’t the same as medical intervention, but it would sustain him for the long road ahead.
“How did you hold off thedaemons?” she asked as András came around to help her free Ryan from the seatbelt and pull him from the car. When Dianne, who’d dropped the Glock she held down to her waist and watched, her mouth opening and closing, didn’t respond, Beta looked at her. “It is clear that Ryan did not have the strength to do it.”
Dianne looked between Beta and András before settling on Beta, who held her gaze while András took over checking Ryan, now sitting disoriented and blinking under András’s careful probing, on the ground next to the Opel.
Dianne inhaled, squared her shoulders, and lifted her trembling chin. “I kept saying the exorcism prayer along with Aerie Actual. It made them very, very angry. I thought I was going to be suffocated. But I just kept thinking it over and over. And then they were gone. You showed up not long afterwards.”
Beta, eyes narrowing, nodded. Dianne reminded her so much of Olivia, the operative who’d been instrumental in leading her out of the shadows and into the light with her strong moral compass and compassion. Because of Olivia, she’d eventually confronted her own personaldaemonsand conquered them, leading to love, the kind that onlyElohimcould bestow. Beta considered Olivia more than a friend. She was a sister of the heart.
“Can you walk or would you prefer that Giant carry you?” she asked Dianne, lifting her chin toward her husband, who now pulled Ryan to his feet. She let her enhanced vision scan the pitch-black around them. Something waited just beyond IR range. “We must get moving ASAP.”
Dianne shot a wide-eyed glance at András. “No, I can walk.” A minute later she was following them back to the Defender, Beta walking behind her. Edvard remained on watch, constantly surveying the limited area revealed by his helmet light.
As they reached the Defender, the air shifted—stale, sour, heavy with intent. Beta’s skin prickled as a faint rustle broke the silence, coming closer. Too close.
That’s when the now-feral humans attacked.
The tac light’s strobe popped up and begin pulsing 5000 lumens in a defensive circle around their perimeter, fifteen meters out. Beta’s battle senses clarified, slowing down the sensory input until she’d counted the numbers of attackers.
Fifteen, all males. Two or three hesitated, but the rest seemed undeterred by the bright light.
“Incoming!” yelled Edvard, who to his credit didn’t lose his focus at this encounter with desperate people maddened by the loss of light in their world.
As Beta ran to join him, leaving Dianne to mount the step into the SUV alone, the young lieutenant squared his stance toward the closest oncoming attackers and depressed the button on his tactical vest that activated the blinding mode on the tac light. Erratic bursts of 10,000-lumen light arced into their eyes, causing the men directly in front of him to stumble and fall, stunned.
Beta fully flared, her own radiance more diffuse but equally intense. She raised the Disrupter, set on the lowest setting ideal for convulsing the human nervous system, and tagged five more attackers in quick succession. A moment later, András joined the melee, having secured Ryan in the Defender’s backseat with a med kit filled with bandages and morphine.
It was a short, fierce fight, but the humans never stood a chance. They were also armed only with fists, pipes, and crowbars. While Beta and Edvard engaged three of the remaining seven between them, András handled the final four, his massive hands steaming in the cool night air as he threw his opponents ten meters in every direction. The air reeked of sweat and desperation, mingling with the tang of ozone from the harmonic bolts. Shadows moved erratically within the strobe’s pulsing light, their lunges wild and primal.
One of the men managed to launch himself onto Edvard’s back as the young warfighter traded punches with a second man, having dropped the carbine in favor of hand-to-hand combat. The final attacker closed on Beta before she could aim the Disrupter. Instead, she smacked the stock into his jaw, drawing him up short. A moment later, she’d brought him to the ground, choking him out from the rear with the Disrupter’s stock. Then she went to Edvard’s aid, blasting the man from his back with a well-aimed harmonic bolt.
The whole event lasted less than three minutes.
“Time to bug out,” said András, his face shiny within the reduced glow of his harmonics. His shoulders moved as he breathed in, but he was far from panting.
Edvard recovered the tac light and its tripod, which had been knocked over in the chaos while András kept watch for any further incursions. Beta jogged back to the Defender and got in only to see Dianne watching her, the whites of her eyes prominent in her pale face. Sixty seconds later, the male warriors had joined them in the vehicle, and then Edvard had them back on the highway heading south through Shkodër.
“Next time, give me a weapon,” said Ryan. His voice sounded hoarse with pain. Beta felt it buzz through his signature like a frayed wire—sharp, stinging, and unstable. “If I’m conscious, I can shoot.”
Dianne turned to him. “Like hell you can. You’re as weak as a kitten. Stop trying to be a damn hero—no one’s impressed when a corpse saves the day.”
