Out of the Black - Lee Doty [153]
"Wha?" Miranda stammered, blinking dust from her eyes.
Still swaying, Elena grabbed her assault gun and wobbled up the last few stairs. "Come on!"
***
Of course, the big woman with the all-blood makeover moved first, but Alex wasn't far behind.
He was already in the Loom strengthening his Obscuring, so he had a speed advantage over Ping and Rae. When the doors opened into the elevator whose last stop had obviously been the more fiery pits of hell, he'd quickly picked up the Cast he'd last used on the Savant in the OR. Its pattern was still constituted, so it was just a matter of redirecting power from the Obscuring to activate it.
Ping was in mid shout. He was either yelling 'down', or perhaps 'doubt' or 'dowry'. It would be a bit more time before Alex could be sure. The big lady was already moving toward the elevator, hostile intentions out for all to see. Ping's pistols were halfway out already... man, he was fast! Rae's hands had left the gurney she'd been pushing and were in the process of finding their proper places on her fletcher. She was entering a crouch and moving to the right to get a better shot around Ping.
With a shock, Alex realized that the demons were also in mid-draw. Each had a pistol; most looked like Rae's work pistol, but a couple had more expensive looking weapons. They were fast too... faster than Ping and Rae, but not faster than Dek- not faster than the woman who now wielded his power. No matter though... in a few hundred milliseconds they'd all be grinning demonic barbeque.
The Cast was in place. The energy focused, leapt out toward the targets packed into the elevator. But then something went very wrong.
Even before the energy touched the demons, the power grew unruly and the weave began to strain, then fray at the edges. Alex tried to compensate, but his weapon dissolved when it touched the first target. The Underworld seemed to contort and the air filled with light and explosive fury.
Alex was surprised he was still conscious. He did his best to defend himself from the backlash that came next. The explosion tore his weave apart, tore his Obscuring away; crashed over him like a tsunami. He was in the air, stretched tight on the swell of power with only the simplest shield sputtering around him. It took all his focus to cling to the Loom, to keep his hastily-erected shield working.
Then he had an idea. It was a rather desperate and foolish idea, but as he flew through the air with Rae and the others about to be exposed to a lot of hot demon lead, he felt both desperate and foolish.
He embellished the patterns in the interior folds of his shield extending them into a replica of his first extemporaneous Cast. He packed the Warping close around him inside his faltering shield.
Then he dropped the shield, or more accurately, he let the storm around him rip it away. His Warping burned brilliant in the avalanche of power, then exploded outward. Then it was gone and Alex was defenseless before the onslaught. The speed of the Loom was gone. He struck the wall on the other side of the hall about a meter up. The sound of crushing destruction filled his ears. A blinding light stole his vision.
***
"Down!" Ping shouted. He was done with his draw before the word was out.
Then his guns exploded, or he thought they did. What he initially attributed to near-fatal misfire was actually something else- less fatal, but weirder. The world seemed to end for an instant, leaving him off-balance, but tranquil in a bright and pleasant place. Into this peace, flashes of some disturbing thing that could perhaps be called 'reality' intruded. There were flashes of rushing bodies, a quickly approaching floor, falling dust, flickering light. This all seemed familiar.
Yeah, reality.
He