The Seal of Solomon by Rick Yancey

have torn out his eyes. But, as Carl clawed frantically into the spaces where his eyes used to be, the truth hit me: Carl had ripped them out.
    Beside me, Op Nine said softly, “You see now why I warned you never to look into their eyes.”

21
    Op Nine grabbed the first-aid kit from Ashley’s hand and pulled out a shiny instrument. It was the same thing Ashley had used on me in the helicopter.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Ashley asked.
    â€œSedating him,” he answered. “Otherwise, he may literally tear himself to pieces.”
    He jabbed the needle into Carl’s arm. In two seconds he rolled onto his back, out cold. Op Nine handed the kit to Ashley.
    â€œDress the wounds, quickly,” he told her. He scooped the 3XD out of the sand and held it toward me.
    I hesitated for a second, then took it from him. The rifle was lighter than I expected. It weighed about the same as a broom.
    Op Nine kneeled beside Carl, pulled the sash of cartridges from his body, and handed it to me.
    â€œRemember, Kropp, the ammunition is limited.”
    That’s okay, I thought, so am I.
    I threw the cartridge belt over one shoulder and slung the 3XD over my back. I trudged back to the sand-foil, dragging my aching right foot in the sand. Ashley trotted back after a minute, carrying the first-aid kit under her arm and pulling off bloody surgical gloves as she ran.
    Op Nine took the point now, as we raced southwest.
    His voice sounded tinny and distant over the speaker in my helmet: “If another operative flees the engagement, we do not stop.”
    It looked like the engagement was winding down. When it first began, the tracer fire lighting up the sky had looked like the climax of a Fourth of July fireworks show. Now the firing was sporadic and the black holes punched through the searing lights appeared less frequently. Either ASSFOR-1 was running out of ammunition or it was running out of personnel.
    I blinked rapidly behind my visor, because the lights in the sky now reflected off the sand, like the battle was taking place over a vast lake.
    Suddenly a ball of light separated itself from the main firestorm and came barreling toward us. We were going about 130 miles per hour; this thing came toward us at three times that speed.
    â€œEngage, engage, engage!” a frantic voice screamed over the speaker. The agents brought the sand-foils skidding to a stop, angling them into a circle. They jumped off, fell to one knee inside the circle, and swung their 3XDs toward the sky.
    I plopped down next to Ashley, swinging my rifle upward too, but feeling a little ridiculous, to tell the truth. I’d been to a carnival or two where you fire at the little plastic cutouts of ducks as they slowly roll along the track. I never knocked down a single duck. But maybe saving my own skin from being fried by demon-fire would focus my aim better than winning the kooky stuffed monkey with the disproportionately big head.
    â€œOn my mark . . .” Op Nine said.
    I rested the pad of my index finger on the cool metal of the trigger. Sweat trickled down my forehead and burned my eyes, but I couldn’t wipe it off because of the helmet, and I wasn’t about to take my helmet off. The memory of Carl writhing in the sand was still fresh in my mind.
    â€œMark!” Op Nine shouted.
    â€œFire, fire, fire at will!” someone else screamed.
    The 3XDs erupted all around me and the night lit up in a fury of red. My finger jerked on the trigger, which slammed the weapon hard into my shoulder as it recoiled, nearly knocking me onto my butt. I didn’t aim, really—it was kind of a frantic repeat of my duck hunting at the carnival—but just jerked the barrel this way and that, firing randomly at any movement above me. Waves of furnace-level heat rolled down from the sky.
    I could see them now, and the sight nearly made me throw down my gun and run in pure panic.
    Thousands of demons—maybe tens of