Riverwatch

Chapter Forty-one: Illusions

Katelynn and Sam were nowhere in sight.

The room was empty, except for the Nightshade.

Damon stared at it, taking in the details. It seemed larger than before, but that could have been a result of his fear.

The beast caught his gaze and stared back.

Damon could see the cold gleam of intelligence and hatred shining forth from those yellow eyes.

The room spun for a moment, and Damon swayed dizzily in response, his grip instinctively tightening on his weapon lest he lose it. He briskly shook his head, trying to shake off the feeling, and then looked across the room to assure himself of the beast’s position.

To his horror, two other Nightshades had joined the first.

As he watched, the beasts began to spread out around him, moving swiftly in an attempt to cut off his retreat.

Damon glanced swiftly around, trying to keep all of them in sight at the same time, aware that if they rushed him, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. He couldn’t cover all sides, and when he turned to deal with one, another would try to close in on him from behind.

Where the hell are Sam and Katelynn? he thought. They’d come in only seconds before him, and he hadn’t hesitated when he’d heard Katelynn’s cry. Could the beasts have taken them so swiftly?

Yet, there were no bodies, no blood. Except for Katelynn’s cry, there hadn’t even been sounds of a struggle.

So where in hell were they?

One of the beasts took a step forward, forcing Damon to turn toward it to cover the threat, and behind him he heard an answering scrape of claws on stone as another of the creatures took that opportunity to advance a little closer to his back.

Damon swiftly turned to face this new threat, his heart hammering wildly. Other than the door through which he’d entered, now guarded by one of the beasts, the only other way out was directly opposite him on the other side of the room.

Unfortunately, he’d have to go through three of the beasts to reach it.

A thought struck him. Could Sam and Katelynn have already gone through the other door?

Damon estimated the distance from where he stood to the door to be about thirty feet. Maybe they had already passed through the other door before the Nightshades had decided to show themselves, and Katelynn’s cry had not been cut off by an attack but rather by the slamming of the heavy wooden door as it swung shut behind them.

Movement to his left forced him to spin in that direction and he was forced to put the others out of his mind.

As he twisted around, doing what he could to keep them all in sight, Damon considered rushing the beast behind him and getting back out onto the rooftop, then just as quickly dismissed the idea. He would be leaving the others completely at the mercy of these beasts, and he wasn’t about to abandon them if there was even a chance that they were still alive.

His decision meant he was going to have to not only hold the creatures at bay but also destroy them somehow in the process.

He just wished he knew how.

Katelynn didn’t understand what was happening.

When she and Sam had entered the room and found the Nightshade waiting for them, she’d let out a not altogether involuntary cry of surprise, which had served to bring Damon rushing into the room behind them.

From there, everything stopped making sense.

Damon had stepped into the room, gotten maybe ten feet past the door, and had frozen in place, staring at the beast in what appeared to be dread fascination. Expecting him to start shooting, she and Sam had moved off to Damon’s right, out of the line of fire.

Damon had done nothing.

He’d simply stood there, staring, his mouth open in astonishment.

This had gone on for a moment or two when Katelynn decided she had to do something.

So far, the Nightshade had ignored the two of them, its attention transfixed on Damon. Katelynn thought it had recognized the pistol in Damon’s hands as a weapon, and had decided that he was the obvious, immediate threat. While Sam was armed, nothing he carried could be immediately identified as such, and Katelynn’s hands were empty.

It seemed the beast had written them off for the time being.

She called out to Damon, trying to get his attention off the beast, which obviously had some sort of hold over him.

Damon either did not hear her, or chose not to acknowledge that he had.

Sam added his voice to her’s, and although the creature flicked its ears in their direction it did not move or shift its gaze from Damon’s form.

Katelynn broke from Sam’s side and headed into the center of the room, not yet knowing exactly what she intended to do but knowing she had to do something.

Damon must have caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned in her direction.

And pointed his pistol directly at her.

Damon caught motion out of the corner of his eye and turned to the right to meet this new threat. One of the smaller Nightshades that had up until now kept against the wall was coming toward him. He didn’t want any of these things anywhere near striking distance. Despite this one’s small size, there was still no question that its claws were as razor sharp as the others.

Damon took a step or two backward to widen the distance between them, keeping his target squarely in his sights.

Katelynn stopped in mid-stride, one foot still raised in the air, as she saw Damon raise his pistol and point it in her direction. This close, the barrel of the gun seemed impossibly wide, and she could almost believe she could look down its length to see the bullet inside.

From the glazed look in Damon’s eyes, Katelynn knew he was not seeing her. His lack of response to her earlier cries suddenly made sense as she realized he was seeing something else, some phantom in his mind that the Nightshade must have conjured forth. That Damon perceived her as a threat was not in doubt; the hand holding the pistol on her didn’t waver an inch. Katelynn slowly put her foot down, and tried to decide what to do.

She looked up, tearing her gaze away from the gun, and searched Damon’s face for any sign of recognition.

There wasn’t any.

She saw only hatred and fear.

In that moment, things went from bad to worse.

From where she stood, Katelynn watched in horror as the doorway behind Damon suddenly filled with a human form. One side of the man’s face was a devastated ruin, the left eye mangled beyond recognition from the bullet that had torn through that side of his face. Blood flowed freely from the wound, mixing with the steady flow that poured out of a similar wound in the man’s upper chest. Despite the injuries, his stance was firm, his smile grim, and in his hands he held the English long sword.

In the next instant, Hudson Blake extended the sword directly before him and charged at Damon!

Damon saw the beast’s gaze flick past his shoulder and knew in that instant that he’d been trapped. Determined to at least cause some damage before dying, Damon ignored the motion behind him for a second, just long enough to squeeze off a shot at the creature in front of him.

A sharp, cold numbness pierced his back as he pulled the trigger. He watched as the beast before him was thrown backward by the force of the shot, but knew instinctively that he hadn’t hit it in any particularly vital area, the attack from behind having spoiled his aim.

Then a nova-hot blaze of pain surged up from his stomach and caused him to glance down in shock, only to discover half a foot of cold steel protruding from an area just left of his navel. Blood pumped from the wound in a surging, crimson tide and Damon knew his time had just run out.

So be it.

At least he’d take some of them with him.

His gaze fell on the form on the floor in front of him, and he blinked his eyes in shocked disbelief. That wave of chestnut hair, that long limbed form was unmistakable, and in a corner of his pain-filled mind Damon found himself wondering how he could ever have mistaken Katelynn for a Nightshade. Whoever was wielding the sword chose that moment to yank it violently from his body. He dimly heard the clatter of his gun striking the floor in front of him, and Damon felt the world around him spin as he slipped into a darkness deeper than night.

Katelynn found herself lying on her stomach, gazing at the floor in dazed bewilderment. She was aware of a sharp pain radiating up from her leg, reminding her of what had just occurred. Blake’s attack had spoiled Damon’s aim, so she had taken the bullet in the leg instead of the chest. The force of the blow had knocked her off her feet.

She lifted her head and looked around, discovering that Damon’s gun lay just inches from her. Damon himself lay crumbled on the floor a few feet away, a brilliant crimson stain spreading across the floor around him.

Blake was raising his weapon for another strike, looking more than anything as if he intended to cleave Damon’s head from his body with that one, simple stroke.

It only took an instant for all of this to register in Katelynn’s mind.

Then she reacted.

As Blake advanced the last few steps and raised his sword high over his head, Katelynn lunged out and grasped Damon’s pistol.

Blake started the downstroke of his sword.

As if in slow motion, Katelynn watched the sword cutting through the air, watched as her own arm raised the weapon and pointed it in Blake’s direction.

She had just a fleeting instant to pray and then she pulled the trigger.

The shot took Blake high in the chest for the second time that night, throwing him backward several feet. The sword spun through the air, off to one side.

Katelynn barely noticed.

She was too busy pulling the barrel down in line with Blake and firing again.

And again.

The second shot opened a red wound in his stomach.

The third flung him violently backward off his feet to lie unmoving on the floor.

She inched forward, keeping the gun on him, until she was close enough to see that he was no longer breathing.

Satisfied the son of a bitch wasn’t going to get up again, she turned her attention to the wound in her leg. It was bleeding freely, but not heavily, and she clamped her hand tightly to it while using the other to strip off her belt. She wrapped the belt around her leg just above the wound and cinched it tight. The pain was intense, but she was relieved to see that the wound wasn’t spraying blood the way it might have been had the bullet struck a major artery.

She glanced around for Sam, but didn’t see him or the Nightshade any longer. She then turned her attention to Damon alone.

He hadn’t moved since he’d fallen.

When she dragged herself over to him, she discovered he was alive but unconscious. From the amount of blood staining the floor, however, he might not stay that way for long.

Katelynn stripped off her sodden sweatshirt and was wadding it up to use as a compress when Damon opened his eyes.

"Katelynn," he gurgled, blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth.

That wasn’t a good sign, she knew.

"Easy, Sheriff. It’s okay." She rolled him onto his side and pressed the sweatshirt against the wound in his back where it quickly became saturated with blood.

She rolled him face-up, his weight causing the sweatshirt to become a makeshift compress on the wound.

Her actions had sent pain flaring up her leg, and she was forced to stop a moment in an effort to fight off the gray haze that was threatening to overwhelm her.

Once she had her equilibrium back, she tore the bottom half of her shirt free and pressed it against the wound on Damon’s stomach. It, too, was instantly soaked with blood, but it would have to do. She had nothing else to stop the bleeding. The Sheriff’s hand moved to hold the bandage in place, causing Katelynn to look up at his face. His eyes were open but free of pain; he was obviously in shock. He maintained enough control, however, to nod toward the door behind her.

"Sam went on alone," he choked out.

Fear seized Katelynn’s heart in its stony grip.

Damon indicated the radio on his belt with a feeble motion. "Call for back-up. Then follow Sam." He appeared to want to say more, but choked on his own blood and had to turn away to cough it free. That motion alone exhausted him. He slumped back down, barely conscious.

Katelynn didn’t think he would make it until help arrived.

She took the radio from his belt and pressed the switch. "Hello? Hello? This is Katelynn Riley. The Sheriff has been stabbed and needs medical help. We’re at the University, in Keating Hall."

Questioning voices came back over the air, but Katelynn ignored them. She didn’t have time to answer any of their questions; Sam could be dying now as well. She had to try to help him. Taking up Damon’s gun, she left him lying there on the floor and started making her way toward the door.

Inch by painful inch, she closed in on her destination.

Sam had been as confused by Damon’s actions as Katelynn, but he’d kept his eyes firmly on the Nightshade and was in a position to see the beast back toward the door on the far side of the room at the moment of Hudson Blake’s arrival. It was as if the two were working in tandem and the beast had just left the unpleasant duty to his subordinate.

After all they’d been through, the Nightshade’s dismissal only served to send Sam’s anger past the boiling point.

He knew Katelynn and Damon were in trouble, knew that if he didn’t do something to help them they probably wouldn’t survive, but he also knew he could not let the beast escape. This time, he chose to act.

He shoved one hand into the pack he was carrying. One part of his mind flashed on the utter insanity involved in attacking a beast of such bloodthirsty savagery with nothing more powerful than glass jars filled with a mixture of gasoline and powdered soap flakes, while the other cocked his arm and hurled the jar at Moloch’s rapidly retreating form.

Sam’s aim was true.

The jar struck Moloch on the wide expanse of his right wing as he was turning away through the door on the other side of the room. The glass broke under the impact, spraying the beast with the gelatinous mixture within.

Sam already had another jar in hand when the beast stopped and turned its attention back in his direction.

Sam immediately threw the second jar, then watched in dismay, as it smashed harmlessly against the stone arch of the doorway and the beast disappeared from sight.

Without taking time to think, Sam took off after the Nightshade. He’d crossed the room and was reaching for the door when his ears were filled with the explosive echoes of a gunshot. A sharp cry of pain followed immediately thereafter.

Sam knew the author of that cry.

Katelynn.

For just a moment, he almost stopped. Almost looked back to see what had happened, to discern what had caused his friend to cry out in pain. But Moloch had disappeared through the door ahead of him, and Sam knew that if he didn’t catch up with the beast they very well might lose him.

He couldn’t allow that to happen.

"God forgive me," he whispered in anguish as he pushed his way through the door without stopping, never once looking back.

Stepping through the door, Sam found himself in the room that formed the base of the clock tower. The walls rose high into the darkness, where somewhere up above the clock and bellworks had once hung. They were long gone now, he knew, victims of the ravages of time and lack of money. The stone walls had been designed with great archways to provide access to the roof proper and to let the sound of the bells free of the chamber. From where he stood Sam could see through several of these arches.

Moloch was nowhere in sight.

The room itself was fairly large. Sam estimated it to be around fifty feet square. Moloch could not have crossed it that quickly.

Which meant he had to have gone upward.

As the thought occurred to him a warm breeze danced across his skin, and Sam’s response was near instantaneous.

With reflexes boosted high with fear-induced adrenaline, Sam threw himself diagonally forward, slamming his body violently into the stone flooring underfoot, his right arm outstretched in an effort to protect the mason jar clutched in that hand. Seconds later the Nightshade’s deadly talons raked the air where he’d been standing milliseconds before.

Giving forth a loud piercing cry, the beast disappeared into the darkness.

Sam scrambled to his feet, using his other hand to pull the roadside flare from his pocket.

The Nightshade will try again, he thought, and this time I’ll be ready.

The attack came only seconds later.

This time Sam knew what was coming, and heard the shrill whistle in the air as Moloch’s body dropped from high above.

Sam waited, his body tense with anticipation.

Now he could see the dark form above, growing larger with each passing second as the distance between them lessened.

Still, he waited.

Sam could imagine those claws, stretched out, ready to sink into his skin. Instead of running, he simply raised his arms closer to one another and triggered the flare he held in his left hand.

Then he thrust its burning end into the open mouth of the mason jar he held in his hand.

The mixture inside ignited lightning-quick and flames shot up out of the jar’s mouth.

Cocking his arm, knowing death was only scant feet away, Sam heaved the bottle with all his might directly at the beast.

The bottle struck the Nightshade in the middle of its chest, shattering the glass and spreading the burning mixture across its flesh.

Screaming in surprise and pain, the beast was diverted from its attack, crashing clumsily into the stone floor.

Sam yanked the last bottle from his pack.

The creature was less than six feet away. Its hide was awash in flame, the mixture sticking to its skin and igniting what was left from Sam’s first attack. It screamed again in rage and pain, and then slowly began to climb to its feet.

"Die, damn you! Die!" Sam screamed.

Using the flare as an igniter again, he threw the last bottle.

His luck held, the bottle struck the beast across the side of the head and it collapsed, its body now covered with a raging fire.

Sam heard a cry behind him, and turned to see Katelynn crawling through the doorway. He rushed to her side but before he could ask her what had happened to her and Damon, Katelynn pointed over his shoulder and gasped, "Look!"