Demon Forged

will you know if we’ve been successful?”
    “I will know,” Khavi said. “Roads that have been open will close. Certain possibilities will cease to exist.”
    Possibilities, such as a dragon passing through a portal? Why did Khavi never speak clearly?
    Irena clenched her teeth and held in her response.
    Drifter asked, “And the rest of us?”
    “Anaria has focused her nephilim at the ceiling. They have almost killed all of the nosferatu—and we will not make an effort to stop them.”
    He paused. Irena said, “You will not find an argument here.”
    Michael smiled briefly, before continuing, “Our second task is simply to stop the nephilim from completing their task at the barrier. They are writing symbols between the bodies. We have to interrupt that.”
    “How?” Jake asked.
    “Whatever manner that you can, according to your Gifts and your strengths. We are also a distraction until Irena’s team closes the portal, but none of you will take unnecessary risks or make sacrifices,” Michael said. “You will be in teams of three—each team will have one teleporter. Drifter, Mariko—you are with Selah. Radha and Luther, with Jake. If the nephilim converge on your teams, or you find yourselves losing ground, run. The nephilim have a task, and they will go back to it rather than give chase. If choices must be made, you must choose to leave Chaos, taking your team with you. I will have no argument in that.”
    No one offered one—yet. Irena eyed Jake, waiting.
    “Do not approach Anaria; I will take her. Avoid the dragons. I cannot heal a dragon’s bite, but I will watch for any other wounds, and heal them as quickly as I can.” Michael glanced at Jake. “You are the Weapon, so you will be in the lead. Try to kill all of them—dragons, nosferatu, nephilim—before we fly in and engage.”
    “I thought I’d have a little more time to practice with it.”
    “You don’t.”
    “Right, then.” Jake nodded, once. A long metal tube appeared in his hands, carrying the scent of gunpowder and oil. He hoisted it over his shoulder. “You mind if I use a couple of these first?”
    Khavi frowned. “What is it?”
    “Rocket launcher,” Jake said, never taking his eyes from Michael. “And I’ve got a few other ideas, too.”
    Michael gestured at the table, inviting Jake to lay them out.
    Jake vanished the missile launcher, called in a pen. “All right. So we’ve essentially got a whole mess swarming around beneath those bodies. The dragons, because that’s where they’re feeding, and the nephilim writing their symbols. And we’re looking to scatter the nephilim, confuse them, just keep them from doing what they’re doing. So we should be doing that over here.” He made an X beyond the edge of the dangling bodies, a small distance from the mountain’s cave entrance. “If we come out our portal, circle around behind the mountain and use it for cover as long as we can, then set up shop here, we can start blowing shit up from a distance, aiming right into those bodies—and we can keep an eye on that cave entrance, so that Khavi can be freer to move around like Michael, keeping Anaria and the dragons off our ass.”
    Crossing his arms over his chest, Michael studied the lines Jake had drawn. “Go on.”
    “Irena, Alejandro, and Alice are still our best bet in the caves—they’re our strongest on the ground and in tight quarters, and Irena’s and Alejandro’s Gifts play both offense and defense. But the rest of us, we need to form a line here.” He tapped his finger on the X . “Luther, Drifter, Selah—their Gifts don’t have long-range capabilities, so I say we stick them with these missiles and let them go to town. I’ll try to get my lightning working, but if I can’t, I’ll pull out my own. So we’ll be the offense. Mariko and Radha, they’ve got good short-range defensive Gifts that can weaken the nephilim before going hand-to-hand. A nephil or two breaks off, comes after us, Radha and Mariko intercept it as a team, try to take it out.”
    Mariko nodded. “We can do that.”
    “Right on. Now, if the nephil gets closer than that, or if there’s more than one or two, we’ve got these.” Jake replaced his pen with an automatic rifle, and tilted the gun as if he were displaying a trophy. “These AK-47s will fire six hundred rounds per minute. We aren’t going to get minutes, and shooting their bodies isn’t going to hurt them enough—so we’ll aim for the wings. We’re all