follow him and follow him, as they no doubt had been doing, until they caught him or killed him trying. Maybe he was just so tired and figured that if caught, he may be taken to the same place they had Kira and he’d see her again. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t intending to run this time and passively stood his ground.
That was until the soldiers had gotten close enough and one had grabbed Ninah to pull her out of the way and another lunged, wrapping an arm around Donna’s neck. It may have been that Kyato was just biding his time, waiting for the optimum moment to strike, but to the others in the church, it was definitely the violence toward the girls that provoked him into action.
His wing had obviously healed enough to use because he struck like lightning. His movements and reflexes were far too fast for a human to follow, much less parry or emulate. In the time it took Donna to blink he’d leapt, seeming to float in the air before her and her captor, wings spread wide and cupped to support him. He pivoted smoothly and one foot lashed out, passing Donna’s face by a centimeter, to smash into the face of the soldier holding her. The blow was so strong that she heard his nose break. He screamed and let go of Donna, hands going to his face. An instant later and Kyato had pivoted the other way and his other foot slammed into the soldier’s side so hard that his body actually flew five meters before hitting the ground. Donna, tugged off balance, fell to the floor also.
Kyato didn’t pause and two seconds later, Ninah’s assailant had received similar treatment. Kyato then shot into the air, circling high up near the church roof then diving down aiming for another soldier.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” the sergeant had been shouting at his men. He held a tranquilizer dart gun in his hand and was trying for a shot but Kyato was moving too fast. Kyato grabbed a soldier who screamed and despite the sergeant’s orders, tried to bring his weapon to bear. Kyato slapped it aside to clatter on the floor. Another soldier sighted on Kyato but Sheriff Tanner shot him first. The bullet hit the soldier in his armored flak jacket, knocking him off his feet. He got back up straight away and started firing his carbine at them, making the group dive for cover.
The sergeant took aim with his dart gun and fired but Kyato and his prey were already gone and the dart plinked against the sandstone wall. “Shit!” the sergeant swore, reloading his gun.
Kyato had dragged the soldier into the air with him, whisking him straight up. Three meters from the roof he released him. Kyato stopped, but the soldier didn’t. He slammed into the ceiling and this silenced his screams, then he fell back down to the church floor. Kyato beat him down though; he’d already chosen another target. This soldier fired at him, the explosive chatter of the carbine incredibly loud in the resonant church. Everyone screamed and covered their heads. Kyato pivoted in mid air to avoid the wild stream of bullets and continued on, to pile into the man on the full, sending them both to the ground.
“No firing!” the sergeant roared again. He’d gotten another dart into his gun and brought it up two handed to sight along the barrel at Kyato, who’d just dragged his screaming victim to his feet. The sergeant pulled the trigger and Kyato snapped his head around at the phut sound of the dart gun going off. With inhuman reflexes he spun with his victim in his arms and the dart thudded into the soldier’s neck.
“Fuck!” the sergeant screamed, going for yet another dart. Kyato hurled the now limp soldier in his arms at the sergeant, who had to drop the dart gun to fend off the approaching human projectile. Kyato followed right behind and waded in.
Ed had taken advantage of the commotion to slip up the side aisle and grab his girls, then started leading them back down towards the front of the church. Ninah was crying and Donna appeared to be in shock, but neither was hurt beyond that. They reached the front door just as Kyato finished with the sergeant and tossed him away like a rag doll. Ed saw him leap up with a powerful wing beat to narrowly avoid a spray of bullets that tore into the wall behind him at chest height. “Jesus,” Ed muttered as he dragged his girls outside.
The area outside the front of the church was a tumult of struggling figures. The crowd was fighting back against the soldiers despite the rifle butts and Ed could see some steel pipes and baseball bats in use. There was sporadic gunfire, screaming and shouting over the wail of police sirens and this all being stirred up by the whine and down draft from the choppers over head.
Standing in the middle of all this carnage, amid a protective ring of his soldiers, was Carlisle. Ed snarled when he saw him. Carlisle was looking at the church with obvious concern as the sound of more gunfire came from within. He saw Ed and bared his teeth before returning his attention to the church.
There was another loud burst of firing from inside and then the door opened and Jennifer, Marko and Father Kelly dove out. They fell to the ground, hands covering their heads as behind them, rounds peppered out through the door’s wooden panels.
“Father, are you okay?” Ed yelled.
“Aye, are you?”
Ed nodded. “Where’s Burt?”
“Still inside, he took a hit in the leg!” Marko shouted over the commotion. “Dr Parker is trying to help him.”
“Kyato’s got hold of one of the guns, he’s cutting the whole place up!” Jennifer screamed as more bullets punched out through the front door, making them all duck again.
“Oh, Jesus,” Ed said again, covering Donna and Ninah as best he could.
“Lieutenant, put a gas grenade into that church!” Carlisle yelled. “Flush him out!”
“Sir, what about our men? They don’t have masks!” the lieutenant responded.
“Now, lieutenant!” Carlisle barked.
“Yes sir!” The lieutenant waved a command and several men broke from the melee and headed around the side of the church. A few seconds later came the light coughing thump of the grenade launchers as they spat their nasty loads through the already shattered stained glass windows.
“Carlisle, you bastard!” Jennifer screamed. He ignored her and the other insults, concentrating his attention on the church as whitish-grey clouds started to waft out through the window frames.
The church door opened and Doc Parker staggered out, supporting Sheriff Tanner. Both were coughing and had tears streaming down their cheeks from red raw eyes. They’d just reached the first step when the doors burst open again and a coughing soldier came charging out. Somewhere along the way he’d lost his weapon. He piled blindly into the Doc and the sheriff, knocking them down the stairs, which was just as well as another burst of fire cut through the church doors. It caught the fleeing soldier in the back of his flak vest and hurled him from the top step to the ground below.
What was left of the door burst open again and Kyato leapt out amid a cloud of gas. Amazingly there was still a fire fight going on inside, as the soldiers still in there and, unaware he’d left, fought amongst themselves.
Donna looked up at Kyato. He stood there taking in the melee below with eyes wide and turned wild. He was naked, having discarded the overall somewhere, undoubtedly to free himself up to fight faster and if he had once had a weapon, it was also gone. Blood splattered his body and wings but it wasn’t his. His chest worked in and out, it was the first time she’d seen him breathing hard.
Donna couldn’t believe what she was seeing, the change in him. This was no gentle creature of God; it was an animal, just like her and the rest of them. An animal that had been cornered and was now fighting back, and obviously doing so with a skill and ferocity these soldiers had totally underestimated. She could see the rage in his face, the eyes, the bared teeth. These were the men that had stolen his mate, his lover, his unborn child, and Kyato looked as though he intended to kill them all. Good, she thought, let him, as far as she was concerned they deserved no less.
Abruptly Kyato’s eyes locked onto Carlisle, who was staring at him in return. Something, instinct or intuition, told Kyato that Carlisle was in charge. He growled low in his throat and with eyes locked on his tar
get, he snapped his wings out and leapt toward Carlisle and his group.
Carlisle’s eyes went wide and, totally surprised by the attack, he took an involuntary step back to try to turn and flee, but the soldiers and the crowd were pressed up behind him. Carlisle screamed as Kyato came swooping down like the wrath of God, his face a mask of white-hot hatred and fury.
The single shot rang out like a canon blast. It sounded so much louder than the surrounding noise. Seemingly in slow motion Donna saw the muzzle flash, saw the pistol jerk in the soldier’s hand and the breech slide snap back, ejecting the empty shell casing.
Then everything was happening too fast. Kyato seemed to stagger in mid air as the bullet hit him and Donna saw it exit through his back, right between his wings, splattering his feathers with more red drops. Kyato crumpled in on himself and fell the remaining ten meters to land on the pavement of the church’s front path.
It was as if someone had flicked a switch. All the struggling ceased, everyone went totally silent and still and looked at the prone figure. Some wore expressions of horror, some of shock and fear, others of unbearable sorrow. No one said anything and apart from the drone of a helicopter high over head, you could have heard a pin drop. An impartial sun shone down on the