~~Author's Note~~
Sorry this action scene is taking so long. It's really been dragging! But it's building up to something pretty big, and a lot of details needed to be explored; they'll be relevant later. Give it a couple more chapters and we'll be back to the world of Dolareido.
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~~Damien~~
He didn't have to say anything. The moment he curled his finger against the small hole in the soot, and opened the barrier, the crows above began to squawk, caw, and attack. Damien worked quickly, spreading the soot apart until one, two, three feet of open earth awaited him. Thankfully, the amber circle was rendered completely useless by being broken, but the soot apparently still worked as a barrier from either direction, as his fingers attested; it blocked all matter from both sides, but when his fingers touched the powder itself from the inside of the invisible wall, it gave way. He had to make sure the break was wide.
The crows, who had hidden in the forest, hiding their numbers in the shadow and sinister wood, unleashed the swarm. The legion descended upon Damien, and flew through the break in the barrier over his head. Made sense; they wouldn't be able to see the black powder way high up in the sky, with branches and darkness hiding it. But it did mean he had to plant himself flat to the ground and ledge of the ditch, covering his head with his hands, as the birds flew through the hole, shrieking and squawking.
The four hunters lifted their heads, eyes wide, surprised, and maybe a little afraid. But the fear disappeared under reflexes, training, and Lord only knew how many years of hate and loathing. The one with the flamethrower unleashed Hell, and Damien had to throw himself back and away into the forest again, disappearing behind trees as fire lit up the hole in the barrier he'd made. Feathers went up in flames, and the smell of burned flesh filled Damien's nostrils. Bullets ripped up the ground, shredding the hole Damien had made, and again the Mekhet found himself hiding as the hail of gunfire continued until dozens, hundreds of bullets were crashing against the bark around him.
He peeked his head out, and watched. Wrapped in his Cloak of Night, the hunters wouldn't be able to see him. Except, Jeremiah, Angela, and Elen had proven they were quite capable of handling paranormal threats. Perhaps they could see him, if he got too close, thanks to their tattoo symbols, or maybe the necklaces and bracelets they wore. The four hunters were as likely a threat, but they were distracted, all four sets of eyes locked onto the ditch Clara had dug, and burying it in metal and fire.
Angela, Elen, and Jeremiah, on the other hand, did not break from their task. Now they stood within a new circle, one Angela was finishing drawing with what looked like chalk. Amber. That blasted amber line again. But it seemed like they didn't have anymore of the black soot anymore; powerful stuff, absurdly powerful, and thank the Lord he didn't have to deal with anymore of it. The amber line wouldn't block a bullet.
He looked to Jack, and shivered at the sight of the kid. Auspex showed the same thing as before, that the boy's aura had exploded into something massive, angry, violent, and bloodthirsty. It was a rage Damien could not begin to understand, could not put into context, and could not appreciate. It was the rage of a psychopath, of a broken mind that didn't think like a normal person.
No, it was the rage of the Beast, the sheer animal aggression and desire for violence that existed within him, and all Kindred. Except, only a draugr was so consumed with a need to destroy, and even then, draugr were mindless, stupid animals. Jack was unleashing the worst his Beast had to offer, and one of the most powerful creatures Damien had ever seen, the gargoyle Horror, was getting destroyed by it.
It was a strange sight, to see the small boy physically punch something with enough force to break steel. He didn't have the mass to anchor the force into the ground, and it launched him back, or in this case, down. Down gave the kid a better anchor, and the driving upward force the blood-coated man sank into the gargoyle's chest was so strong, it fell backward again, landing with a resounding crash. There was a dent in its chest.
And Jack, wearing his crimson armor, laughed the entire time.
Damien forced his eyes back to the hunters. Jack was busy with the gargoyle, Triss was wrecked, Clara was beyond wrecked, and Othello was out of commission. If the branch that skewered him had been any bigger, Damien would have feared for his second life. A small stroke of luck that it wasn't. A huge stroke of misfortune, that Damien was now on his own, and without his sword.
Elen drew symbols in the air with her knife, and the symbols stuck. As if she was cutting into the fabric of reality itself and making it bleed, her glowing red knife left burning blood-red lines in the night air. They burned, but not with fire. They burned the way flesh did, when it was sick and inflamed, when it was infected, or when it'd had time to fight against the damage of a wound. A dull, pulsing red that had no business glowing in the dark, but it did.
Angela came in close to Jeremiah, and hugged an arm around the man's waist. She kissed the man's cheek, like a daughter might a father, and looked down at the book in the old man's hands as he opened it once again. Pain. Sadness. Worry. The host of emotions the old man carried, and shared with the woman next to him, were immense and uncountable. The trials those two must have faced to look at each other that way, was almost enough for Damien to sympathize for them. They were friends, together until the end.
Damien did not like humanizing them, but there it was. Next to Jack, or the thing currently controlling Jack, Jeremiah and Angela looked like reasonable people, driven and determined. Only Elen continued to seem the monster.
The crows died by the hundreds. When one hunter stopped to reload, another started shooting, a seamless and unending stream of destruction. They had the magazines of their fallen hunters, and a small hole to cover. There was no getting in there.
The black powder seemed to block incoming matter high and low, which meant that now that the line was broken, he could get in from above where he'd broken it, from high above if necessary. The crows were figuring that out as well, and slowly expanding the height of their incoming swarm as they learned where the hole was. Some still hit the invisible barrier, and when a bird flies into essentially unbreakable glass at high speeds, it's a death sentence. But the crows couldn't be slow either, not with the four hunters unloading bullet after bullet, and waves of flame.
Damien looked up and down the invisible hole through the barrier, and anchored his weight onto the balls of his feet and his fingertips. The crows were showing him the path, all he had to do was jump with them, or over them. He could jump pretty damn high, ten, twenty, maybe thirty feet high if he had the time to prepare his vitae. And he did have that time, the crows were providing it, them and the demon curse who was simultaneously controlling them, while fighting a titan.
A quick glance down, a check of his pistol, the magazine, the safety, and he was off. He put every bit of strength into the jump, poured vitae into his legs until he felt his hunger rise, and he did the same for his Cloak, masking himself as best he could. This was what Daniel had been trying to teach him, multitasking, how to use Obfuscate while going on the offensive in combination with Celerity. A juggling act, and a demanding one, like juggling cement blocks.
He flew through the air, pulled his legs and arms in, and sailed between the walls of the invisible barrier. Impressively, he'd managed to get above the crows, too. Not so impressively, was how his high jump meant he had a hell of a drop to make. And, most unfortunately, it became obvious as he went through the barrier and into clearing, that the hunters had set up a trap.
He fell not too far from where the four hunters stood within the newer, smaller amber circle. It was wide enough for the seven of them to stand and move comfortably around some big stones, each a couple feet high, but not so large that it included the sacrificial trees of the clearing, or the stone altar that stood halfway between the trees and the clearing's center. Elen continued to write strange symbols into the air, and Jeremiah continued to read from his book. Engrossed as they were, Damien could have probably run up to them and started shooting, and they wouldn't have stopped what they were doing. Angela, on the other hand, lifted her head, and looked toward him. Not directly at him, but toward him and where he landed. It seemed his Cloak had not been perfect.
