Suddenly, sound exploded in Audrey's head, as if someone had the volume turned up all the way and had just pressed the unmute button.
"Mar!" Karmash roared. "Face me!"
Something smashed into him from behind. Karmash flew forward, rolled over, and jumped to his feet.
In the doorway, Gaston landed on the carpet. His black hair spilled over his shoulder like a mane. His eyes flared silver, reflecting the flames. Muscles bulged on his exposed shoulders. He looked demonic, like some prehistoric monster.
Karmash hesitated, unsure.
"The Mar family says hello," Gaston growled.
The giant roared and charged. Gaston leaped, catching Karmash head-on. They collided and rolled down the aisle.
The orange woman slipped out of her cloak. Chain mail covered her body from neck to mid thigh. She dashed toward them, leaping over the overturned broken benches.
"I believe this is my dance." Kaldar flicked his sword and lunged forward, blue magic flaring about him in a flash shield. They collided. Steel rang against steel, and Kaldar and the woman danced across the ruined church like two whirlwinds.
The beast man stared at Karmash and Gaston, locked in battle, then looked at Kaldar and the orange woman. His gaze fastened on her and the kids. A predatory focus claimed his face. Oh shit.
"Run!" Audrey tried to get up, but her legs were still numb. "Run!"
"No." George shook his head. He was bleeding from his nose and his mouth.
Jack just stood there. He looked so young and lost. In shock, Audrey realized.
The beast man charged toward them.
"Run! Save your brother, you idiot!"
George thrust his hands out. Magic pulsed from him. The nearest corpse in the aisle jumped to its feet and clamped onto the beast man, trying to rip him apart. Another corpse joined the first. The third and fourth followed. They clawed at him, gouging the skin, ripping at his hair.
He ripped one dead guard off and hurled him aside. The body flew across the church and crashed against the wall.
"George, I order you to go! Do you hear me! Go!"
George's hands shook with strain.
The second corpse fell into the aisle, torn to pieces. The beast man kept coming.
Twenty yards.
The third corpse fell apart under the savage blows of the massive claws.
Fifteen.
The last body flew, knocked aside. George pulled a dagger from his belt.
The beast man tensed, gathering himself for the final leap.
An inhuman howl ripped from Jack's lips, a terrible mix of anguish, pain, mourning, sorrow, and rage. The scream built on itself, pounding at her, growing louder and louder. The horrible sound clawed at her ears, pierced her chest, and crushed her heart, squeezing pure panic from it. At the far end, Gaston and Karmash paused. Kaldar and the orange woman lowered their blades, their faces shocked.
Magic burst out of Jack. Audrey couldn't see it, but she felt its touch. It burned her for the briefest of moments, but in that instant she stared straight into its wild, savage face, as if the primordial forest full of man-eaters yawned and swallowed her into its black maw studded with cruel fangs. Fear gripped her, and she cried out.
Jack's scream vanished, cut off in mid-note. The thing that used to be Jack, the terrible wild thing, grinned, its fangs bared in maniacal glee. It pulled two daggers from its waist and sliced the beast man. The Hand's agent moved to counter, but he was too slow. The Jack thing carved a chunk of flesh off his side and laughed.
George landed next to her. "It will be okay," he whispered.
"What's happening?"
"Jack is rending. Changelings do this sometimes so they don't become unhinged. It will be okay."
Blood sprayed from the beast man. The thing that was Jack laughed and laughed.
"Just don't move. He won't kill you if you don't move," George said.
In the aisle, Gaston and Karmash ripped into each other, throwing pews around with superhuman strength. Three minutes later, Kaldar sliced the orange woman in half. The top of her slid one way and the bottom the other, but Audrey no longer had any emotion left to spare. Kaldar walked over to them and sat next to her. His arms closed around her. He held her, and together they watched Jack stab the lifeless stump of the beast man's body. He carved it again and again, hurling the bloody chunks of muscle like it was play sand.
The feeling slowly returned to her legs. Kaldar said something about a temporary paralytic agent, but she couldn't concentrate enough to pay attention.
At some point, Gaston joined them. He was bloody and bruised, and his arm stuck out at an odd angle, but the fingers of his left hand had a death grip on the pale hair of Karmash's head. He sat next to them, cradling it like a watermelon. They watched Jack together.
The fire had died down to nothing. The coals turned cold. Ed Yonker had long since gone.
Jack swayed and sat down, his gore-covered arms limp. George stood up, walked over to him on shaking legs, and hugged him. Jack looked at his brother's face, looked back at the ruin of the corpse in front of him, and began to cry.
THEY found a Chevy van in the deserted camp. Kaldar drove. Gaston sat next to him in the passenger seat. Kaldar had forced Gaston's dislocated shoulder back into its socket, and now the boy held Karmash's head with both hands. Audrey cradled Jack. He had stopped crying, but he still looked like death.
They were bloody, bruised, battered. Everyone hurt.
"This is what it's like to fight the Hand," Kaldar said. His voice held no mirth.
The boys didn't say anything.
"Tomorrow, I will buy two tickets," Kaldar said. "We'll put you on a plane in the Broken. You will land in a large airport, then another plane will take you to a smaller airport not too far from where you grew up. You will enter the Edge there, find your grandmother, and wait with her until Declan comes to get you."
"No," George said. His voice creaked like an unoiled door. "We'll finish it."
"Jack?" Kaldar asked.
"We'll finish it," Jack said with quiet savagery.
"Okay," Kaldar said.
"Okay?" Audrey asked. "Okay? Help me out, Kaldar, which part of this is okay? Are we in the same car? Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"
"We're all alive and mostly uninjured," Kaldar said.
"We are putting them on that goddamned plane tomorrow."
"We won't go," George said.
Jack reached over and patted her hand.
"Yes, you will. This is no place for children. This is not a kid's fight. We survived today by the skin of our teeth."
"You don't have to be here, either," George said softly.