Empath (The Secret Hotel #1)

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. I tried to move forward, but maybe my feet were too heavy, or maybe it was Hayden's hand of steel keeping me from uselessly throwing myself into the fray.

This wouldn't be rest for Sky. This would be endless. This would be hell. The need to scream almost had me bawling.

And then, from the darkness, Liv's voice pierced through the overwhelming silence.

"Fire!"

Five beams of sunlight cut through the oil, bright enough to torch my watery retinas, blinding me, hot white light against opaque darkness. The campfire was nothing more than a child's nightlight compared to these.

Holes splattered through the monster's distorted silhouette, first five, then six after Elle snagged her gun and the bulb flashed on. The monster dissolved, unwinding into streams of oil again, then diving into the earth. Vanishing.

The UV guns flickered.

Flickered again.

Then went dead.

Sludgy bodies shot from the earth like geysers around the team behind us. One for each of them. Manny already had his iron batons in hand, and Jazz had her iron knuckles, and Simon and Liv split off to gain better supporting roles. Simon detached a pencil-thick hose from his crisscrossing belts, and I hadn't even realized he'd had a tank of water attached to him until he filled the air with mist. The wind carried the smell of sage.

Liv went right to work on setting up a circle with salt, but Abe took off away from the action, a long rifle braced against his shoulder.

"Hayden!"

Elle's voice snapped both of us around. A figure loomed behind us, deformed arms reaching for our faces. Hayden reacted first, dropping a palm-sized panel from his coat that hit the ground and ignited in blinding sunlight. The figure reeled with a scream that sounded like a hundred people had swallowed glass, and then Hayden lunged for it. His ringed fingers plunged into the oily face. The figure dissolved and splattered across the earth.

But when Hayden's arm recoiled, both of us looked at his hand just before the light bomb shut off.

His fingers were slathered in real, dripping oil, right down to his knuckles.

He twisted to the others. "Don't let them touch you!"

Instinctively my hands lifted, even if they were still full. "Do—Do you still have fingers." It was supposed to be a question, but it didn't come out that way.

His hand instantly jerked away from me, like he was holding a prize out of my reach. "It's okay. Don't worry, it's fine, it's okay, it's—" He staggered. His arms pinwheeled, shock crossing his face before he looked down. So did I.

Sludge had formed under our feet, streams of black that could have passed for water in the darkness. But this wasn't water at all, because when he tried to get his shoe to budge, his arms pinwheeled again.

"The oil from the top of the hill," Elle called out, "it's moving down."

It wasn't just moving down. The streams were moving at a very specific angle for the others, even if it meant defying physics. And all the splatters from their weapons slicing the figures, or the water melting them, or the salt searing them, formed puddles on the ground that steadily clawed toward everyone's dancing feet.