Damali took over for Carlos, trying to piece together shattered bone and torn ligaments while keeping the fellow Guardian conscious.
Lisa and Adrienne hustled through the metal door with Heather and Jasmine, all four women toting heavy firepower. Rushing to the edge of the roof between blasts, Lisa set the launcher down quickly, Adrienne stuffed it, and the launcher was up on her shoulder in a matter of seconds. Heather and Jasmine covered them, sending a spray of Uzi shells toward the offending command post. The blast got deflected by a black charge and, rather than taking out the more densely packed enemy, it took out a section of train trestle with ten demons. But now there was the issue of innocents.
"Damn!" Lisa shouted and reloaded.
"Hold up," Carlos said, looking at Rene and Rod. "What time's the next train through?"
"Four minutes, man." Rod crossed himself and checked his clip. "We can bend the beam, fry 'em,maybe interrupt the power so the train stalls-but at this point, it might be moving too fast. Might still keep coming even if the power shuts down, then the one behind it will ram it. You talking chain reaction, bro, with a lotta people dying."
"Okay, y'all-I need Phat G, 'Bazz, J.L., Dan, any tacticals y'all got to bend the beam," Carlos said. "While Damali is working on that downed soldier, I want three seers on mind-jolt to hit the people that originate the schedule, so they'll check and double-check and delay. It's gotta be so that the train behind this one doesn't ram the one already heading our way."
"Get our Stonehengers setting up blue-white charge on this building, too," Damali shouted from where she sat. "Anything that slithers up the wall, I want it to fry on contact."
"Chantay and 'Nyya can work with 'em, and we got seers that monitor the trains all the time for demon flybys," Adrienne said. "Carmen's got the damned thing memorized."
"Cool. Put her on the lead and our squad will reinforce," Damali said, covering Anthony's wound. "Both squads have enough sharpshooters to pick them off one at a time, if they stay behind Carlos's shields."
"Yeah, but I've gotta go catch a train."
Carlos was off the roof before anyone could draw a breath. He stood on the tracks, assessing the damage, deflecting catapulted black-energy orbs. There was a gaping hole that revealed fragile trestle on the left side of the track. The platforms down at 125th and up at 137th were crawling with skeleton-faced demon warrior archers in black armor and spaded tails. They were the source of the rain of fire. Carlos looked down at the ground through the massive hole in the tracks. Below him, a demon cavalry, riding fire-snorting black stallions, was advancing on the building. Across the street on two building roofs were the catapults. He stared at the crest hard, his old throne knowledge bubbling to the surface of his mind . . . Vlad the Impaler's Hungarian forces?
Then to command them, the necromancer had to be near-as did their mistress, the Countess.
Oncoming train lights returned Carlos to the moment. He added in his pull to the third rails, watching the blue-white power slowly bend. It groaned loudly, the distortion of atmosphere created a haunting sound.One mind . . . he was about to broadcast out via telepathy and then froze, quickly retracting the thought. He was viral, could black-shock every tactical on two teams!
The lights went out on the train, but it was already committed to momentum. He could hear the people inside the cars screaming in the dark. He had to get behind it.
Folding-away, he came up behind it, drew a white-light orb into his hand, and threw it as hard as he could. The cord caught and held, but the weight of the train dragged him forward with a violent pop-it was heavier than the dragon Cain had tried to stop in that same manner. He hit the tracks on his stomach, twisting, dragging, almost gutted by the track ties before he was able to untangle himself. There was no way to anchor the rocketing cars. Plan B. Laughter echoed from near the catapults. Good. The generals had given away their positions.
Bloodied and losing energy, he temporarily lifted the shield from the roof team, flung it to the track hole just in time for the train to sail across it. A catapult blast answered the vulnerability, but Phat G's squad, with his, had finally bent the third rail energy and then scorched the offending rooftop attackers.
"This man is whole;get him down below, away from the catapults," Damali said.
"How's the next train looking?" Carlos hollered to Phat G.
"Off schedule.Word is getting back that there's a stalled train on the 131 bisect up inHarlem ."
"Tell those seers, good looking, G."
"You're busted up," Damali said, putting a hand to his chest."Real bad, Carlos."
"I know," he said, heaving in air and spitting out blood. "But we gotta go smoke Sebastian and the Countess-motherfuckers raised Vlad's army."
"What?"
"That's why they've got catapults."
"Take five. You go down, our shields go down, and that can't happen with a baby and an away team in the house."
Carlos nodded, weaved for a moment, and then sat down with a thud beside Anthony.
"Lisa, get Medic up here.Berkfield from our squad. We've got a man down, and I can't heal him 'cause of time."
Lisa nodded and waited for an opening in the rounds.
"Tell Medic it's my husband and to work hard, all right?"
With a crisp nod, Lisa was a flash, dodging between heavyfire while Adrienne took up her post.