Matt Archer: Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page A

“They weren’t supposed to strike if people were on the street.”
    “What choice do they have?” I asked, crouching behind a statue to keep watch. “There are too many for us to take out with just the knives.”
    Three more missiles flashed and more monsters plummeted to earth, crushing whatever was unfortunate enough to be underneath them.
    By now, the Freaks had figured out what was going on, and part of them took off en masse, flying at something we couldn’t quite see. There was a whine and a screech of metal bending, then the smoking remains of an out of control F-16 zoomed overhead before going down in a smoke cloud somewhere in the mall.
    “That’s not good,” Will said.
    “No.”
    Another F-16 crash landed in a ball of fire behind the Capitol building and the Freaks let out screeches of triumph. The flock, or whatever you’d call it, wheeled around and flew toward the Washington Monument.
    “We need to get over there,” I told Will. “Penn! Pick off anything that flies low enough. Herd them back our direction so we can figure out how to deal with them.”
    “Okay!” she yelled.
    “Be careful!” Ella called.
    I waved her direction, hoping she saw it, and sprinted for the mall.
    “So how are we going to handle them?” Will asked as we ran.
    “No idea,” I said, not wanting to waste breath on talking. Running in dress shoes took more effort than I was used to. “We’ll come up with something, and if we don’t, Parker, Jorge or Ramirez will.”
    As we cleared the Capitol building, I skidded to a stop, and Will crashed into my back. “Back, back!”
    We took cover behind some trees, because additional help had arrived and we’d stumbled into a live fire exercise.
    Overhead a pair of Apache attack helicopters were firing missiles at the creatures and monster parts were raining from the sky. A wing landed two feet from the tree we were sheltered under and left a dent in the grass.
    A battalion of soldiers had also swarmed the area in armored vehicles to evacuate civilians, while others were using vehicle mounted rocket and grenade launchers to tear up the monsters’ wings. Two Abrams tanks were rumbling down the lawn and sidewalks of the Mall, using their main guns to fire armor-piercing rounds into the clusters of grounded Freaks to finish them off.
    “This is actually working! It took heavy artillery, but we finally have real ground support!” Will crowed as a smoking monster-head crashed into our tree, taking out branches before pitching to the ground. “General Richardson got that call out fast.”
    “I think he wanted to be prepared. He probably had half the Pentagon on alert,” I said, checking to see if it was safe for us to venture out. “All five wielders in one place with a lot of opportunity for mayhem? That’s like begging for an attack.”
    The smoke cleared and the tanks moved farther down the Mall, so I motioned for Will to follow me. Even if they were thinning the herd, there were still plenty of these flying nightmares dive bombing the roads and smashing cars as people tried to speed away. If they came close enough, I’d do a little knife-work.
    The lawn leading to the Washington Monument was churned up, with big ruts from the Humvees and the tanks’ heavy treads. A group of three people were crouched near the Capitol’s reflecting pool at our end of the Mall. One was a man whose arm hung limp at his side, but was still struggling to help another man pick up an unconscious woman. She was bleeding from the head. As we headed their way, a big Freakasaurus swooped low and took the man with the hurt arm. Cursing, I ran faster, hoping to provide cover for the other two while Will chased the kidnapper to bring it down.
    I put the blade between my teeth, murmuring a quick instruction to Tink to keep it from cutting me. She snorted and said, Just this once, because it doesn’t belong in your mouth. The knife is not a chew toy.
    “What-eh-er,” I said around the blade, then