Matthew Silver and the Monster Hunters, Book One: The Darkest Waters

Chapter Thirty

JadeCHAPTER THIRTY

If there’s a God out there, Jade prayed silently, please take into consideration that I’m only fourteen, which sure seems way too young to die a painful death.

Matthew had taken her place as the injured one. He’d taken quite a few beatings on the mission, but a gunshot topped them all. He was trying to act like it didn’t bother him, but he was sweating profusely, and his eyes spoke volumes of pain and panic. As impressed as she was that he could somewhat move around, she ordered him to stay seated. The leg needed to heal, not go into another battle.

She had fixed the harpoon gun onto the railing on the back of the boat. It could swivel in a full 360°, making it ideal to aim at moving objects. Because the harpoon was made completely of silver, it was very heavy and very lethal to monsters. They were counting on that.

They had stopped at the campsite and were pleased to find that everything was still intact and in place. Scott had stashed away way more weaponry than he had let on, which they had helped themselves to. Matthew had found a few things that he said would be helpful in going directly after the demons. That and plenty of explosives.

Their next stop was at their original campsite. Supposedly, that was where the Pukwudgies dwelt, and where Scott and Sandy would be held captive. The boat was at rest about a half a mile away from the shore. Parker had said that they only had until sunrise to save Scott and Sandy, so that left them with three hours.

“Well,”she said quietly. “This could be it.”

“Yeah,”Matthew said, staring intently at the starry night. “The Pukwudgies are weak fighters. If we can just get Scott and Sandy free, the whole thing will be a hundred times easier. They only have advantage in numbers. With all the firepower we have now, we should stand a chance.”

“You ready?”

“Uh-huh,”he said, still just as distracted.

“You don’t look ready. You can’t fight in your condition.”

He glared at his leg, like he was mentally scolding it for being injured. “You worry about your own skin. I’ll be fine. Are you ready?”

“You know it!”

The boat sped towards the beach with rapidly increasing speed. The waves were clear, so nothing stood in the way of going full throttle. Jade sat up in the back with a semi-automatic shotgun. Every so often, she would fire off a blast into the air. It gave away their position, but that was the whole idea.

Land was rapidly approaching, and Jade began to increase her firing rate, only pausing to feed the gun with more shells. As the boat began approaching the shore, time slowed down as her combat instincts sped up to compensate.

100 yards out. Jade was seeing hundreds of glowing red beads along the beach. A huge Pukwudgie beachhead was waiting there. They got the message from the gunfire that they were under attack.

50 yards out. The Pukwudgies were nervously shifting around. Jade could barely make them out through the darkness, but they seemed to be realizing that something was up. Jade kept on firing into the air, and Matthew wasn’t slowing down.

30 yards out. “This is the part I’m not so sure about!”She yelled over to Matthew. She could swear that he was laughing, but she couldn’t tell.

20 yards out. The Pukwudgies were forming ranks, brandishing spears. They also threw in another surprise. They had archers. The bows were made of the same wood that the spears were, and they looked just as ugly, but the arrowheads upon the shafts glowed a deathly shade of green.