Out of the Black - Lee Doty [176]
They both knew that Ashok had already lost this fight, but Ashok kept pounding away on the thing's face anyway... his big goal right now was making sure the bite marks that would eventually cover his corpse had as many gaps as possible.
Then there was a pulse of some kind- maybe a sound, but he would never be sure- and the grinning, laughing thing convulsed once, like it had been hit by a defibrillator and went limp on top of him.
Alex's eyes were still on Rae when the world seemed to turn inside out.
Alex managed to keep his head enough to follow Kaspari's advice. He managed to check his reflexes and didn't leap into the Loom. As bad as this explosion was here, it was probably a couple orders of magnitude worse in the currents of the Underworld.
The explosion seemed to twist them, and everything else, inside out and backwards. Alex never lost consciousness, but the brownout ended with him on his face perhaps a meter ahead of where he'd been, bleeding from mouth and nose. Groggy but resolute, he struggled to his feet.
He and Rae had been blown forward, landing among the first wave of demons. Rae was pressing to her hands and knees, but none of the demons moved more than random twitching.
While he and Rae had been blown away from Kaspari, the demons seemed to have been sucked in closer. All of the demons were laid out like a fallen forest after a volcanic eruption. They were all aligned, bodies radiating away with heads pointing toward Kaspari. Whatever he'd done, it looked like it had worked.
In the middle distance, Anne stood holding her sword like a samurai after a great battle. Spattered with a new coat of wet blood, she looked like she was very ready to hit the showers. She surveyed the sea of bodies, searching. Ping was nowhere in sight.
Then she moved. Alex doubted he would ever get used to just how suddenly or how fast she could move. There was no perceptible acceleration or deceleration. One second she was standing still, the next she was standing still somewhere else, and his eye was left w tracer-like impression of motion between the two points.
About five meters from her initial position, she threw aside two fallen bodies. The first landed about three meters to the right. The second hit the ceiling above her, then fell back, forcing her to dodge away, covering her head with her arms.
She reached down and helped Ping to his feet. He was shaky and bloody, though there was no way to tell how much of the blood was his own. His face was puffy, his nose clearly broken. He smiled somewhat self-consciously as Anne supported him on unsteady feet. He stowed his sword and focused on standing.
Then Ping seemed to notice Alex and the others and he began to struggle toward them. Anne compensated and began to help him over the bodies.
"Babe..." Rae said, "Look."
Alex turned to see what she meant. She was staring at Kaspari. He was unmoved, still sitting cross-legged. Now though, he looked as if he were about to explode from internal pressure. His face was hard with struggle. His teeth bared, his muscles taut, he shook with the strain of his labor. Veins stood out on arms and his forehead, sweat dampened his face and head. Though he was still avoiding the Loom, Alex could feel the immense powers at play down in the plumbing for this part of the real world. The roiling power tugged at him from the center, an itch-tingle through both flesh and mind.
Though Issak had cautioned him not to, Alex needed to at least try to help. In the new silence that covered the garage he sank to the ground, crossed his legs and closed his eyes.
"What'cha doin?" Rae asked in her 'you're doing something stupid and need to stop Right Now' voice.
Alex smiled without opening