Chapter 61: White Sun

Outside the church, the downpour showed no sign of letting up.

Marcus and the others had been driven all the way back to the edge of the barrier.

The Humvee sat at an angle against the invisible wall, its rear pressed to the barrier and its nose pointing outward, the vehicle and the barrier together forming a triangular defensive pocket.

Marcus and the others held the horde from inside that narrow wedge. With the barrier covering one side and the Humvee blocking another, their defensive line had shrunk considerably, allowing most of their firepower to concentrate on the opening ahead.

The M2 on the roof was carrying almost the entire front by itself. Its barrel had already been glowing red for a while, and every drop of rain that struck the scorching metal flashed into clouds of white steam that rolled along its length.

By all rights, with an M2 holding the front, Marcus and the others should have had a much easier time.

The rotters were packed tightly together and kept surging straight ahead without even trying to dodge. They were walking targets. A burst of 12.7mm rounds would tear the ones in front apart, and the bullets still had enough energy left after punching through flesh to keep going into whatever stood behind them. For a heavy machine gun, a massed charge like this should have been even easier to deal with than ordinary enemies.

Yet they had still been pushed all the way back to the barrier.

The problem was the gun’s position on the roof.

The M2 sat too high. At longer ranges that hardly mattered; the trajectory stayed relatively flat, letting the weapon make full use of its power. But once the horde got close, the barrel had to angle downward. The rounds cut diagonally into the mass, punched through one or two rotters, then buried themselves in the pavement. Energy that should have been enough to punch through several more bodies ended up wasted in concrete and mud.

And the second M2 still had to keep the Dragon in check, its barrel tracking the enormous shadow circling through the rain overhead.

So from beginning to end, they only had one M2 available for clearing the horde.

A rotter had barely pushed its head out from beneath the Humvee when a boot came down and crushed it.

"Fuck."

Nick pulled out his last magazine and slapped it into place.

"How the hell are there still this many of these things?"

Nobody paid him any attention. Coach had already turned his gun into a club, the stock still smeared with flesh and blood from the rotter whose skull he had just smashed apart. Rochelle kept the stock tight against her shoulder, eye fixed on the sights as she picked off anything that pushed too close, one shot at a time.

Marcus swung the longsword he had picked up from a rotter and took the head off the creature in front of him. His chest heaving, he instinctively leaned back, ready to rest against the barrier for a second.

His back met empty air.

His whole body tipped backward. One boot slipped in the mud, and he dropped hard onto his ass.

"Fuck—"

Marcus braced himself on the ground and looked back.

The invisible barrier that had been right behind them was gone.

...Gone?

Marcus’s expression changed. He immediately grabbed the radio clipped to his chest.

"Lin, you hear me?"

Kssshhh—

A wash of static filled the channel.

He was about to call again when the church behind him began to glow.

White light seeped through window after window and from beneath the doors. At first, he could still make out the frames. Then the light intensified until every opening became a solid sheet of white. Even the tiny seams between the stones began to shine, brighter and brighter, as though something deep inside the church were swelling toward a breaking point.

Within seconds, the entire church had turned stark white. Light spilled across the steps, the grass, and the sheets of rain, turning the surrounding night bright as day.

Marcus narrowed his eyes and raised an arm in front of his face.

BOOM—!!!

A deafening blast erupted from inside the church.

Entire rows of windows exploded at once, countless shards of glass spraying outward through the white light. Then a visible ring of force burst from the church, sweeping the rain aside and carving a widening circle of empty air through the downpour.

The Humvee lurched sideways, both roof-mounted M2s shuddering violently on their mounts. The people standing beside it were thrown off their feet. Marcus rolled across the ground several times, Nick slammed back-first into the door, Coach was hurled forward and landed in a pool of water several meters away, and Rochelle was swept off her feet as her rifle flew from her hands.

The rotters went down in masses as well. The closest few were hurled straight into the horde behind them, while the rest toppled in sheets like wheat under a scythe, leaving a broad ring of open ground around the church.

The group scrambled back up and turned toward the church together.

"Jesus Christ—"

"Holy shit!"

"Fuck!"

All three voices came out at nearly the same time.

Marcus climbed to his feet and stared at the church, now completely swallowed in white light.

It worked?

If the Awakening alone could cause something like this... wouldn’t taking down that Dragon be a piece of cake?

A grin spread across Marcus’s face.

After everything they had gone through to get here, it looked like the people inside had actually pulled it off.

He grabbed the radio on his chest.

"Lin, you hear me?"

Kssshhh—

Static flooded the channel.

Marcus glanced at the church, still smiling.

With that much power erupting all at once, the signal getting scrambled made sense.

He pressed the button again.

"Lin?"

Kssshhh—

More static.

This time, Marcus’s smile faltered.

He waited a second, then tried once more.

"Lin, come in."

Kssshhh—

The same harsh static filled his ear.

Marcus slowly lowered the radio.

White light was still pouring out of the church.

Through the shattered windows, the open doors, even the hairline cracks between the stones, it kept spilling outward, brighter and brighter.

A moment ago, that light had looked like proof that everything had worked.

Now, Marcus found himself staring at it with a very different feeling.