by J. N. Baker
Annie smiled back at me. Glad you made it.
“Where are we going?” Josh shouted over the roar of rotors.
“Nevada,” William answered.
“Why Nevada?” I asked, grabbing the headset dangling over my head.
“That’s where the plane is.”
With that, the helicopter headed southeast.
“We have about three hours,” William announced over the intercom, his voice buzzing in my ears like a mosquito.
“Until…” Cody hesitated, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. I knew I didn’t.
“The end.”
I leaned over in my seat to stare out the window on the sliding door beside me, watching the earth pass beneath us. Clouds of smoke billowed from the ground, fire consuming what was left of the land.
“With your delay, I am hoping we are not already too late,” William continued, very clearly emphasizing my failure. “We are already going to be cutting it close on fuel. I have my men readying the plane as we speak. We should have been there hours ago.” Something swooped in front of the chopper. William leaned forward and peered out through the tall windshield. I thought I heard the beating of wings against the outer shell of the aircraft. William didn’t say a word, but we picked up speed.
“So,” I took a deep breath, “the survivors here—”
“There will not be any survivors,” he said gravely.
Cindy looked at me with grateful eyes. She was very aware of how lucky she was to be alive. Who knew what would have happened to her if I hadn’t made that phone call? Well, I knew, but it wasn’t something I liked thinking about. As if he knew what I was thinking, Alec reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly. I leaned against his shoulder and let my mind go blank.
“We’re getting close.” William’s voice came booming in my headset, shaking me from my slumber. “About thirty more minutes.”
I sat up and looked out the window, but there was only darkness. No, not only darkness. There was something moving through the darkness and it was coming straight at us, blood-red eyes locked onto their target.
Before the warning could leave my lips, the beast crashed into the side of the helicopter, sending us careening to the right. An ear-splitting shriek cut through the air.
“Shit!” Jade shouted over the helicopter’s blaring warning alarms. She unbuckled and moved toward the cockpit. “It’s the Sythen!”
“The what?” Annie cried from the co-pilot’s chair.
“Get out of the way,” Jade ordered, practically dragging Annie out of the chair and throwing her back to me. Jade jumped in beside William and started flipping levers and pressing buttons as William fought to right the large bird.
Just as he started to get it straightened out, we were hit again, sending the helicopter spinning wildly out of control. I tightened my hold on Annie, anchoring her to me. Four long talons pierced the door on the other side of the aircraft, right beside Cindy’s head, and she screamed. A second set of talons shot through the door. I watched helplessly as she struggled with the buckle of her harness. Cody leaned over, tugging on the belt with her.
“It’s jammed,” he shouted.
“I’ve got you, doll.”
Trent twisted around his seat to reach hers. I heard the sound of a knife sawing through the harness. As the beast ripped the sliding door off the side of the helicopter, Trent yanked Cindy free of her seat and into his arms. He set her down in Jade’s vacant seat, strapping her in and patting her trembling hand.
“Looks like we’ve got two, maybe three,” Jade announced.
We’re all going to die. Annie’s voice cried in my head.
“We’re not going to die,” I snapped, tightening my hold on her.
“Can we outrun them?” Josh yelled from the chair behind me.
“I do not think so,” William replied.
“You’re going to have to shoot them down, Ryuu,” Jade called over her shoulder.
“Shit,” he grumbled, sliding the gunner window open and shoving the machine gun barrel out. “Give me something good to hit!”
William shifted the helicopter and Ryuu started spraying bullets into the darkness, drowning out the collective screams of Cindy and Tiffany. Somewhere in the darkness, one of the beasts cried out.
“Yes! Got one!”
Something crashed into the back of the helicopter and the whole thing started to rock back and forth violently before spinning erratically.
Jade cursed from the cockpit as more alarms sounded and William grunted against the controller. “They got the tail rotor,” Jade shouted. “We’re going down! Ryuu!”
“On it!”
Ryuu bailed from the gunner seat, grabbing an overhead strap with one hand and lifting the other out in front of him. The helicopter steadied. Another shriek filled the air.
“We need to shoot it before it takes us down!” Trent roared.
Sweat dripped down Ryuu’s forehead. “I can either keep us from crashing and burning or kill the beast,” he retorted, his voice already strained. “I can’t do both.”
“I’ll do it,” Alec growled, unbuckling from beside me at the same time as Trent.
“No,” Trent protested, putting a hand on Alec’s chest. “I’ll do it. You know I’m a better shot than you are, brother.”
A massive head appeared at the opening in the side of the helicopter, jaw snapping as the beast tried to push its head in.
“Dudes, we got company!” Cody shouted.
“You think?” Josh snapped, Tiffany screaming beside him.
“Guard the door!” Alec ordered, pushing Trent away as he took the gunner seat for himself. Alec buckled himself in and lifted the gun, his golden eyes fixed on the darkness, hunting for his prey. “Give me a target, William.”
“I no longer have directional control,” William replied. “Only speed.”
“Ryuu?”
“I’m doing my best,” he panted. With a twitch of his finger, Trent’s and Cindy’s empty seats flew out of the helicopter and slammed into the beast’s face, throwing it back into the darkness.
Trent unsheathed the katana from Ryuu’s hip and stepped up to the open doorway, yanking down an overhead strap and tying it around his waist.
Ryuu groaned, tightening his grip on the strap. He was working to keep the helicopter from spinning out of control. There was no way he was going to get it to do any controlled turns. We needed to lure the beast to the gunner side.
I tossed Annie down in Alec’s empty seat and clicked her harness in. Instinctively, she and Cindy curled into one another.
“Jade,” I shouted, jumping out of my seat. “Weapon!”
Her short sword came flying at me from the cockpit and I snatched it out of the air. Using the ceiling straps, I swung to the closed door beside Josh’s and my seat.
“You need to move,” I told him. “Take Cody’s seat. Cody, help Trent.”
I tossed Cody Jade’s sword as he unstrapped himself. He gave me a quick salute and moved to the opening with Trent, using another strap to tie himself in.
“I can help too,” Josh insisted as he unbuckled.
Tiffany and I both shouted “No!” at the exact same moment.
I shoved him back and Tiffany yanked him into Cody’s seat with her good arm. “No humans,” I snapped. I hated how much it sounded like something William would say, but I couldn’t put his life in danger. It was for the best.
Unsheathing my own sword, I took a deep breath and slid the door open.
“Here, little monster,” I whispered, eyes scanning the black sky. “Where are you, fucker?”
A deafening shriek erupted in response and a pair of red eyes locked onto me.
“Coming in hot,” I shouted, widening my stance. I raised my sword, ready to strike if Alec missed the shot.
Bullets rained down in rapid fire and the beast cried out, dropping away just before striking the aircraft.
“Did you kill it?”
“I think so…” Alec answered.
“What do you mean, you think so?” Jade snapped.
“I can’t hold this thing much longer,” Ryuu bit out.
Something screamed from the other side of the helicopter and I spun to see the giant black serpent beast descend on Trent and Cody. Trent brought Ryuu’s blade down hard, catching it across the nose, black blood splattering across his chest. The beast hissed and reared back. As the beast came back again, Cody lunged forward, using Jade’s sword like a spear, straight through the creature’s eye and into its skull.
“Zoe, watch out!” Josh yelled.
I turned my head just as a second creature collided with my side of the helicopter, sending me to my knees. I leapt to my feet with my sword ready but its attention wasn’t on me this time. It was on Alec’s gun. Large jaws snapped shut on the barrel before Alec could get a shot off, ripping the gun from the side of the helicopter.
“Shit!”
Alec unstrapped from his chair and unsheathed his blade. His eyes locked onto mine. “I’ll be back.”
“What are you…” Realization hit and I gasped. “Don’t you even think about it,” I shouted, lunging for him.
But he was already gone.
One of the beasts screamed from outside of the helicopter.
“Where’s Alec?” Trent panted, hands on his knees. He and Cody were covered in black blood from the creature they’d killed.
I didn’t answer, just looked out into the darkness behind me. Another shriek arose.
“Don’t worry about him,” Trent said. “It isn’t the first time he’s rode on the back of one of the Sythen, and it probably won’t be the last.”
Call me crazy, but that notion didn’t make me feel any better. And, as if Trent had summoned him, Alec reappeared in the aircraft beside me, wearing more black blood than the two shifts combined.
He smirked at me. “Miss me?”
I was torn between hitting him and kissing him. I settled for a grunt.
“I told you,” Trent started, tossing Ryuu’s katana to Cody while he worked to untie himself from his tether, “he’s a total show-off.”
“Are we clear now?” William called back to Alec.
“Yeah, we should be.”
A collective exhale filled the helicopter and I sheathed my blade before pulling the sliding door shut behind me.
“I’ve got to take us down,” Ryuu breathed, his face damn near purple. Already I could feel the helicopter starting to lose altitude.
“Go ahead, Ryuu,” William said from the cockpit. “Jade and I will help as best we can from here.”
Trent reached over and gave Cody a high five. “Not too bad for a noob,” he teased. “Give me six months with you and I could make you one bad ass shift.”
None of us saw the beast coming until it was too late.
Powerful jaws snapped shut around Trent’s torso, ripping him from the helicopter. Just like that, he was gone.
“No!” Alec’s eyes grew wide as Cindy’s scream ripped through the helicopter. He ran to the open door, dropping to his knees. “No!”
I pitied Alec. I found myself looking at him the same way Josh had looked at me after the “accident.” Yet, somehow, I felt like I was getting a glimpse into my own future. It could’ve just as easily been Josh or Cody in that beast’s mouth. Hell, it nearly had been Cody. Two feet to the left and he would’ve been gone.
Perhaps Alec was right, I needed to come to terms with reality. One day, they’d all be gone—Cindy, Josh, even Cody. Everyone died at some point; that was, everyone except me. I was Chosen. There was nothing I could do to change that. Maybe it was finally time to accept it. But as I caught Josh in the corner of my eye, I wasn’t sure I knew how.
Alec seemed different, defeated even. His golden eyes had faded and his face was hard as if he were nothing more than a lifeless statue. In fact, he was starting to look a lot like William. That worried me.
After Ryuu and William had not-so-gently set the helicopter down in the middle of the desert, Alec demanded we go back and find Trent. It took Jade and me holding him down and her screaming in his face that Trent was gone for him to finally stop.
Now, Alec was pacing along the side of the helicopter, clawing his fingers through his hair and down his neck, no doubt trying to scrape away the creature’s blood. I watched him closely. He was clearly struggling with the “what ifs.” It was written all over his face. What if he had let Trent do the shooting? What if he hadn’t told him to guard the opening? What if he’d shot down more of the beasts? What if the beast had taken Cody instead? What if we’d gotten out of the city sooner? What if I’d never pushed to get Cindy in the first place?
I was no stranger to the “what ifs.” What if I hadn’t gone to the movies that night? What if Josh had gone with me? What if I’d let someone walk me to my car? What if Josh hadn’t called 911 or, better yet, what if the doctors had just let me die? I knew more than most the devastating effects of the “what ifs.”
I stepped up beside the helicopter. Alec stopped abruptly, snatching up my arm and pulling me into his hard chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around him. I didn’t know what else to say, so I just held him.
“I knew Trent for almost three hundred years,” he finally said, leaning back. There was a fire in his eyes, though not the one I was used to seeing when he looked at me. “Baldric will pay for this,” he swore. “He will pay for what he’s done.”
“He will,” I agreed, and I meant it.
“So, what do we do now?” Tiffany finally asked.
“We walk,” Jade answered.
“Walk where? There’s nothing here.”
Jade rolled her eyes and gestured toward the dark desert.
Tiffany gaped. “For how long?”
“Until you aren’t able to walk anymore,” Jade sneered. “And then we will leave you there and keep walking.”
I watched as Cindy very clearly swallowed her complaint as it sat on her tongue. She looked truly terrified of Jade. I couldn’t fault her for that. She hadn’t said much since Trent was killed and, for her, that was saying a lot.
“Don’t you dare leave me behind,” she grumbled as she marched over to me. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or Jade. Either way, I nodded.
“How much farther do we need to go?” Josh asked.
“We are still a good five miles from our destination,” William finally spoke up.
“Five miles?” Cindy squeaked.
“We’ll be walking forever,” Tiffany whined.
“Don’t bitch,” Jade snapped. “Alec and I walked over twenty miles to come back and save your asses. The least you can do is walk a measly five. And be sure to keep up. We’d be there already if it weren’t for you humans.” She spat the word out as if it were a filthy slur. “Actually, it’s not too late to ditch the humans. We could probably make it in under fifteen minutes. I’m sure Shifty over there could fly his happy ass.”
“We aren’t leaving anyone behind,” I said, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. After all, Jade had come back for us. I had to believe she wouldn’t actually leave anyone behind. Right?
Cody swung an arm around her shoulder. “Well, I, for one, am glad you came back for us. I’m much too young and hot to die. Jade the Magnificent! They’ll tell stories of your grand sacrifice for centuries to come.”
Jade growled, flicking his arm away as if it were a bug. “Watch it, shift.”
“Dude, aren’t deserts supposed to be hot?”
“Not at night,” I muttered, ignoring the sound of Cody’s teeth chattering.
We’d been walking for nearly an hour through the pitch-black desert with no destination in sight. William, Jade, and Alec took the lead, guiding our battered and broken group through the darkness. I took up the rear with Cody and Ryuu. While Jade wasn’t too happy about taking a “human’s pace,” I was pretty sure Ryuu was ecstatic. He was still looking a little weak from what h
e’d done to keep the helicopter from crashing into a fiery inferno.
The three of us trailed behind Cindy, Josh, and Tiffany, following their bloody footprints. Cody caught my eye as I stared down at his unbloodied feet.
“Years of surfing,” he answered my unspoken question. He shrugged and then gave me a wink before picking up a foot to show me a very unhuman pad where the bottom of his foot should have been. “But being a shift also comes in handy.” That’s when I noticed his eyes were bright yellow. So, that was how he seemed to move so easily through the dark.
“Can’t you just turn into some sort of mystical dragon or something and fly us all to wherever the hell we’re going?”
“Nah. I have to have touched a creature to be able to take its form.” He leaned in close, dramatically whispering, “I’ve been banned from like five zoos.”
At that, Ryuu snorted and I smiled. But the smile was short-lived as I thought of the dragon-like beasts that attacked us—and the one that haunted me.
“What was that thing?” I asked Ryuu, keeping my voice low. “I’ve seen them before.”
“The Sythen,” he replied, his eyes staying forward. “They’re one of the general’s most prized pets.”
“Pets?” I almost shouted and then lowered my voice. “I have a pet. Those things are not pets.”
“Hey,” Cody scolded, “I’m not a damn pet.”
I started to apologize and then remembered he had tricked me into taking him in as my cat so he could keep an eye on me. I shot him a warning look.
“The Sythen are ruthless, bloodthirsty monsters,” Ryuu continued. “They are the only living relatives of the dragon family and all of them belong to Baldric. He’s the only one able to control them.”
“Of course he is,” I muttered.
“We made it,” William called out, pointing to a light in the distance that I was sure half the group couldn’t see.
As we drew closer, a military base materialized in the middle of nowhere.
“Where are we?” I asked, scanning the desert. We were standing in front of some sort of military base, a massive Boeing 747-8 sitting in one of its hangars.
