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.Bullets cracked their shells, and their corpses littered the road.But there were so many.So many.And among them, a thing unlike any Sophie had ever seen.A lone figure, a dervish, shifting and changing.Swordsman, tiger, mist, wolf, raven, samurai.Kuromaku.Stray bullets struck him but wounded him not at all.Commander Henning raised the automatic rifle and took aim.“He’s on our side!” Father Jack roared, and he lunged forward.Henning cracked the butt of the weapon across the priest’s face and Father Jack fell backward, out of the Jeep.He struck his head on the pavement and was still.It was insane.The Commander was diverting his attention from the creatures that threatened to overwhelm his men to focus on Kuromaku.He barely looked at Sophie as he raised the weapon again.There was no thought in what she did next.Sophie leaped down from the Jeep and raced toward the line of soldiers from behind.They were firing indiscriminately now, and as she approached them, it felt as though her eardrums would burst.Then she had reached them and she shoved through a narrow space between two dark-clad soldiers and ran past them.Out into the street.The Whispers were all hissing, their tendril-tongues darting in front of their blank skull-shells as bullets tore them apart.But not all of them were dying.Some of them were close by and they started for her instantly, sensing her, tendrils pointing toward her as though to a magnet.They swarmed.Thick mucous rain pelted her.The wind buffeted her.Sophie raced toward the demons, peering through the storm and the Whispers for Kuromaku.In the midst of the intersection she stopped, threw back her head, and screamed.“Kuromaku! They’re going to kill you! Find cover!”Much of the gunfire had silenced.Staccato bursts echoed across buildings off to her right and out over the gorge to her left.Behind her there were only short ripples of fire.The Whispers closed in around her.They slowed, as if to savor her.She could hear the clack of their carapaces; there were so many of them around her that they blocked out that putrid orange light.Then Kuromaku was there.His sword whickered through the air and he hacked two of the demons to pieces, spattering her with ichor thick as the hellish rain.The others turned to defend themselves and he lashed into them.“No!” she cried.“Find cover! Find cover!”But Kuromaku did not listen.She ought to have known he would not.He had vowed to protect her and he was going to do precisely that.In trying to save Kuromaku, she had slowed him down, made him a better target.Sophie spun and stared back at the Jeep, saw Commander Henning take aim.Fresh gunfire ripped through the air, echoes dancing around the intersection.Bullets tore the ground.Kuromaku was hit in the shoulder, blood splashing from the wound, and he staggered.She saw the confusion in his eyes even as he slashed the katana out again, decapitating another Whisper.Sophie shouted again for him to take cover, beckoning him toward her.Blinking in surprise, shaking his head as if disoriented, Kuromaku staggered toward her.Another bullet grazed his left leg and he spun in toward her, spinning the blade, clearing a circle around them.Sophie grabbed him and pulled herself close so that her own body was a shield between Kuromaku and Commander Henning’s bullets.If the soldiers were willing to kill her to get to him.oh, Lord, please help us, she thought.“Those bullets,” she said, “can they kill you? The Commander thinks they can.”Kuromaku’s features were grim, his eyes narrow and dark.“He’s right.”“Get us out of here, then! Without Antoinette and her boy, we can fly! Carry me.Please, Kuromaku, let’s go!”“I cannot,” he replied as the wind howled around them.“That is what the bullets do.The chemical in them, it takes away my power to change.”Sophie stared at him, lips parted in horror.Fresh tears slid down her face, and the Whispers began to close in.19The storm raged, churning the sky above the southern half of the city of Ronda.The wind was hot, and seeded with pure malice [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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