Time Jacker by Aaron Crash (nonfiction book recommendations .TXT) 📕

love dicking. Guess we’ll see how much of a Time Knight I am. I might just come in the dick of time to save the day.”

Gabby squinted at him. “You didn’t just say that.”

He shrugged. “Let’s just kick some fucking Fug ass so none of us—and I mean none of us, Gabby—has to make the sacrifice play.”

“Amen to that shit,” Bailey agreed. “Let’s be quiet. When the time is right, we’ll ambush their Fug asses.”

“I hate that word,” Gabby complained.

There was ten feet of decaying stone steps connecting their hilltop bunker to the road.

They waited as the toenail oxen approached, leaving behind trails from their bloody stumps. And the chitin dogs clacked around. They did have black nostrils under their horns but no discernible ears, eyes, or mouths. They snuffled a bit, but they probably only smelled the decaying meat of the ancient dead demon around them.

Overhead, the fingernail birds circled, their fleshy yellow barbs trailing their pale bodies.

Just before Kerrata’s cart lined up with their steps, Jack looked down at the toy soldier on his hand. He was a soldier all right, and he was fighting an evil army that had captured an innocent soul, a powerful soul, if all the gossip was true.

Jack was going to save her.

He considered the toy soldier. He held his thumb over the tattoo and concentrated. He drew in a mixture of Kairos and Decaysia—there was more than enough of the death energy to go around. The land was literally leaking it into the air like a graveyard version of a Yellowstone geyser.

With his thumb near the tattoo, with his intentions clear, he felt the entire realm of hell around him, countless demonic creatures, things that fed on the last of the Nefesh of damned souls, the Decaysia of the dead god, and, yes, some things that fed on fouler things.

Stopping the Influunt Diaboli would be like throwing himself into the cogs of a giant clock. There was no way he’d be able to pull that off without destroying himself.

He thought of what Gabby had said. Was Annie’s life more valuable than his own? Probably. But he wasn’t about to throw his life away if he wasn’t sure that Annie, Bailey, and Gabby would survive.

Jack gripped his shotgun. “Time to rescue the damsel in distress.”

“Fuck yeah.” Gabby’s curse came as a surprise.

Bailey had no reply. Her normally calm and cool demeanor was gone. The demon was sweaty, pale, and afraid.

Afraid or not, it was time to fight.

Chapter Thirty-Four

JACK FOLLOWED THE ANGEL and the demon down the stone steps and onto the Sin Road.

Bailey and Gabby cut a path through the chitin dogs with longsword and war pick. Bailey had an extra move she made, swinging the chain on her pick to crack open the horned skull of a dog, or sweeping out the sharpened bone feet of the Fugs, sending them to the ground. She also used her tail, which was soon as bloody as the dual spikes of her pick.

As for Gabby, she was like a living ray of light that slashed through creature after creature, cutting the Fugs in half, either by width or by length. She worked with her wings as well as her blade, sweeping her feathers into the backs of the chitin dogs, hacking through their spines. The dog-like Fugs bled black, and that gore stank like everything else. No wonder the chitin dogs didn’t smell Jack and his friends—they probably couldn’t get over the stink of their own internal organs.

Jack protected the women as they fought. When any of the chitin dogs came close, he unloaded his shotgun, that first shot working to splatter their bone and brains across the cobblestones. And when one of the fingernail birds flashed down, Jack turned the barrel skyward, blasting the creature out of the air. Those things must have a mouth somewhere because they went shrieking down to the ground to be trampled under the chitin dogs.

Every kill gave him Kairos, and he added it to the pile—he was far from dipping into his auxiliary supply.

Some of the Fugs were so battle-crazed they tore each other apart to try to get to Jack and the women. Good. The monsters were doing Jack’s job for him.

Gabby launched herself into the air, white wings spread and gleaming, her longsword raised. She shot up and hacked through fingernail birds during her ascent. She also had her big bugle in her left hand to use as both a shield and a cudgel. Whirling, she took out three of the fingernail birds at once with the hidden blades on her wings.

A bird struck at her with the long barb of its tail, but she caught the attack on her horn, shrugging it away. Watching her fight was like watching a ballet of death—that was a billion years of training in action.

Bailey leapt onto the cart, half jumping, half using her black wings to glide down onto the splintery wood. Jack clambered up a wheel to get to the top of the cart. He didn’t want to be on the ground with those chitin dogs. The fingernail birds were easier to kill.

Kerrata let out a choking laugh. He freed the toenail oxen. The massive animals turned, bellowing from mouths underneath their yellow toenail heads.

Annie struggled against the pole where she was tied.

The big horned Fug turned and slapped her. “Give up hope, bitch. Always hope with this one. Always such hope. Even while I sucked the quick minutes out of her. I like the slow seconds, like that other bitch I snacked on. Those slow seconds allowed me to find an army, gave me the power to come to hell. Those slow seconds were deliciously good.”

Kerrata unfurled the whip on his belt, a cruel cat o’ nine tails. The would-be Interim Lord vibrated with power and energy. Kerrata flung out the whip and caught Gabby’s legs, whipping her down to the ground, right under the oxen’s bloody stumps and their sharp chitinous