Dreams of a Dark Warrior

do not care to board this plane, as it happens. We’ll talk when you come back down.” With that, he turned and strode outside.
    Come back down? “Crazy Horde vampires,” Declan muttered as he fired up the engines on each side of the cockpit. When both started and the propellers began turning, Declan hid his relief.
    Another miracle? The fuel gauge read full. But God only knew how long that fuel had been sitting.
    “How many miles is it to the mainland?” Natalya asked. She was sitting on Thad’s lap in the sole remaining seat.
    “Eight hundred.”
    Brandr gave a laugh. “This thing won’t make it that far!”
    “There’s an alternate island site nearby.” Basically a dirt runway and a camp. “We’ll figure out what to dothere.” He glanced down at his watch. The incendiaries would detonate in two minutes.
    “We’ve got more company!” Thad said, face glued to the port-side window. “Wendigos on the runway.”
    No time for a systems check. Declan pushed in the throttle, and the plane lumbered forward out of the hangar.
    He taxied down the runway, forced to shave off as much length as he dared to avoid the nearing throng of Wendigos.
    To take off, he had to reach a minimum of eighty miles per hour. Eighty, with cold engines, a short run-way, and gusting winds. At the far end of the track, a stand of fir trees whipped in unison, like a moving wall.
Have to clear them.
    Brakes engaged, he shoved the throttle in, RPMs spiking, engines rumbling. Over his shoulder, he snapped, “The shite in your pack better be really important, kid.”
    “It totally is!”
    With a curse, Declan released the brakes, and they surged forward. Gaining speed, gaining …
    At any moment he expected to feel the plane rocked on its arse from a bomb’s blast wave.
    Natalya said, “Those trees are coming up awfully fast, Blademan.”
    Brandr yelled, “Chase, balls to the wall!”
    “I’m throttle down,” he grated.
    Fifty miles per hour. Sixty.
    At the last possible second, he heaved back on the yoke. The nose shot up, the tail sandbagging.
“Come on, come on.”
He held his breath. …
    The wheels scraped the tops of the trees. They flew clear.
    When they’d reached a minimum safe altitude, Declan’s eyes briefly closed. “We’re away.”
    The three conscious passengers exhaled with relief.
    “We made it! This has to be the coolest thing ever,” the halfling said. “To outrun those Wendigos?” His expression was animated. “Never been in a plane before!”
    Oh, yes, you have,
Declan thought, just as Natalya said, “Lad, you must have been.” She spoke to Thad but glared at Declan as she said, “You were flown here when the magister’s men kidnapped you—an eighteen-year-old boy—away from your mother and gram and wholesome Texas life.”
    The halfling turned back to the window. “Miss ’em.” Then he absently told Natalya, “I just turned seventeen.”
    Natalya’s face screwed up.
“Oh.”
    “Hey, Nat, take a look at the place.”
    Declan gazed back at the facility. Or what was left of it.
“Jaysus.”
    In the center was a mass of stone, a new mountain towering among the flames. Cement blocks swirled above the ruins. Even in the pouring rain, flames climbed high, like a picture of hell.
    My life’s work.
    The fey murmured, “You reap what you sow, Blade-man.”
    She was right. As of this night, all the work he’d done—all the effort and discipline—had netted him nohome, no work, no life. Not a friend in the world after Webb’s betrayal.
    And it was a betrayal. Declan saw that clearly now.
He knew what Regin is to me. My female.
And yet Webb had hurt her in unthinkable ways.
    Declan gazed back at Regin, laid out across the bench. What would he do now? Where to go? All he knew was that he wanted to be near her—and she’d never want to be with him.
    “I thought the island was going to disappear,” Brandr said.
    Declan glanced at his watch. The self-destruct was now nine minutes overdue. “It was supposed to have.” He surveyed the landscape below. Not a single detonation. Something must have jammed them.
    For better or ill, he suspected there’d be no blasts tonight.
    “What’s that?” Brandr pointed ahead.
    Declan faced forward. Squinting, he wiped the windshield with his sleeve. A cloud of dark shapes hovered in their path. He slowed his speed, descending to avoid them, but they dropped down as well.
    The answer hit him just as Brandr said, “Winged demons.”
    Dozens of them.