I sucked in a sharp breath. Of course, most of the abnormals I’d hunted down in my career were literal monsters, both in looks and temperament. But there were many abnormals like Zee and Simon, who could pass for human. It was easy to forget that the truly twisted ones usually ended up in places like this. Condemned by the normals and condemned even by other abnormals for being too different.
“What are you being threatened with? What are you afraid of?” I turned to Lars. “Tell me.”
Lars swallowed hard. “And if I tell you?”
I didn’t take my eyes from his. “Maybe I’ll do something about it.”
His jaw worked back and forth and his body softened as if he were about to melt away and then he firmed up. “What would happen if the world was full of abnormals?”
I frowned. “That won’t happen.”
Simon grunted. “You heard the kid spout the stats. It’s already happening.”
Lars nodded. “It is. But not at the rate some people want. More than that, there are very few deadly abnormals. You know that.”
I did know that. “What has this got to do with Ikimono?”
“You’ve said too much, Lars,” a voice whispered through the wind, dipping in and around us.
The group of abnormals whimpered and spun, searching the shadows. I glanced at Simon. The look on his face said it all. We were out of time. That or someone finally realized that they outnumbered us, and that I had a rather large bounty on my head.
Simon held his hands out wide, spread like he was about to make a grand speech. “Nix.”
Just my name but it was all I needed to know my gut feeling was right. It was time for us to go.
Lars looked at me. “I’m going to die for this, but . . . you have to stop what’s happening.”
“No, she doesn’t!” A man—check that, an abnormal—swept toward us. His face was piggish right down to the tusks jutting from his lower jaw. “Not all of us agree with you, Lars.”
Pig Man launched at Lars and they wrestled away from us.
I grabbed Simon’s arm. “The rope is two miles away.”
He didn’t look at me. “How the hell do you know that?”
“Not the time,” I said under my breath. “I’m going to make a hole, we’re running through it.”
I turned so my back was against his, but I still faced the two men wrestling for dominance of the Jungle. “Lars, keep your people off me, or I’ll kill them.”
“Kill her!” Pig Man yelled as he gored Lars, or tried to. Lars melted away from him.
I spun so I faced the trail we’d come in on. Seven abnormals blocked the way. Before they could so much as twitch, I had Dinah and Eleanor up. I squeezed their triggers in rapid succession as I bolted toward the path I wanted to take. “Simon!”
“I’m with you.”
The first two abnormals went down easy, their heads snapping backward with the force of the bullets going through their skulls. The next two leapt out of the way, but the final three held their ground. I kept running, guns up.
“Switch it out, ladies!” I hollered over the sudden roar of abnormals who rushed us from behind.
The interior workings on both guns clicked and I squeezed their triggers again. Twin bolts of flame shot from their muzzles and slammed into the mid-sections of the two abnormals directly in my path.
Fire licked along their bodies, clinging to their clothes and skin like the hands of a needy lover. Screams cut through the air; the crackle of flames and the thud of feet echoed the sounds like an orchestra of death.
The last abnormal in our way was not very big, looked very human and very young, and his eyes were wide with fear.
“Move!” I snarled the word at him and he leapt out of the way of the path.
“Kill them, I said!” Pig man yelled behind us.
“Making friends, wherever we go.” Simon panted the words as we bolted down the pathway. On either side of us, the bushes rattled and bounced as though we were being flanked by beasts.
I shot into the thick Jungle to either side of me. The incendiary rounds lit up the drier underbrush and in seconds the flames danced and shot around us, reaching for our clothes and skin.
“Oh, that is not helping!” Simon snarled.
I didn’t answer him, because I knew what I was doing. I was buying us time. Abnormals burned just like humans, and felt pain like humans. Of course, not all the underbrush was dry and the wet wood and leaves caught hold of the flame and gave back rolls of thick choking black smoke.
“Stay close.” I didn’t look back at Simon as I spoke. Instead I pulled the edge of my shirt up over my nose and mouth as I ran. The wind shifted, pushing the fire and smoke right into our faces, stealing both vision and air. Even as we ran, my mind was working. The Pig Man might be after us, but who had spoken before him? Whose voice had been in the wind, warning Lars? I didn’t think it was another abnormal for some reason I couldn’t put my finger on.
A yell from behind spun me around. Simon was on the ground, his fingers digging into the damp earth. I went to one knee to get under the worst of the smoke. The thing that had Simon around the ankle was a two-headed pig man with tusks the size of my forearms sticking out of both of his faces. The creature had driven the tusks on the right head through Simon’s leg. Related to the Pig Man running the show, likely, which made this even sweeter.
I lifted Dinah.
“Here, piggy, piggy,” she said with a great amount of glee right before I squeezed the trigger.
The bullet took the pig man between the eyes on the left head. The right head, though, did not go down and continued to shake, twisting Simon around like a rag doll.
“Hurry the fuck up!” Simon twisted. “I can’t get my hands on it without putting my head in the way of your shot!”
I scrambled closer so I was right next to Simon before I aimed Dinah again. The second shot took the piggy down, but Simon was hurt. This was going to slow us.
“Don’t you even think about leaving me behind.” He reached around my neck and I hauled him to his feet.
“Broken?” I asked.
He nodded. “Bad, too.”
With Simon leaning on me, I did what I had never done before. But desperate times called for desperate measures. “Dinah, will you shoot for Simon?”
“Yes.” Her response was immediate and I handed her over to him before I could change my mind.
He didn’t say anything as I kept my now-free hand around his waist, and the other holding Eleanor up, ready to blast our way out.
The pathway ahead of us opened into the small clearing that held the Pink Blob with the many arms. “Here we go again,” I muttered. We stumbled out of the narrow, smoke-filled path and I turned so we were both facing Pink Blob together, guns raised.
All his arms shot into the air and his entire body quivered. “Don’t shoot! I’m not going to stop you!”
“The one who brings the Ikimono, who is it?”
“The Shadow’s minions,” he blurted out, along with a long gob of saliva. “The Shadow sends his minions to bring us the Ikimono myst and they are coming soon.”
A blubbering wail erupted out of his beaked mouth and bright green tears slid down his face.
“The Shadow’s minions, are you sure?” I let go of Simon and took a step toward the Pink Blob. “You’re sure?”
The quivering intensified in what I assumed was a nod. “Yes, today. Soon.”
I swallowed hard and look at Simon. “The Shadow is one of my father’s guardians from Hell.”
“You know how to kill him or his minions?” Simon asked as calmly as if we weren’t standing in the middle of a burning forest with abnormals sweeping in around us and him standing on a broken ankle.
He had a very good point even if I didn’t like it. “No. I don’t.”
“Then we have to go.”
“I hate it when you’re right.” I strode to his side and slung my arm around his waist again. Half carrying him, we hurried through the narr
ow path that would take us to the rope, back up to the highway. How the fuck we were going to get Simon up there, I wasn’t sure yet. I could climb and then pull him, but I didn’t think we would have that much time.
A part of me wanted to stay, though, wanted to fight the minions and show them I was not afraid of them or their master. I wanted to eliminate one more hurdle between me and Bear.
The shadows of the trees and bush around us suddenly seemed deadlier than before, now I knew the Shadow’s minions were on their way. Or possibly, already here.
I tightened my hold on Simon and picked up speed. The quiet of the Jungle was there again, and I couldn’t even hear the distant crackle of the fire, or the thud of an abnormal’s footstep as they dogged us.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I breathed out the words, knowing what the quiet around us meant.
The Shadow’s minions had found me.
Chapter Fourteen
I couldn’t tell how close we were to the hanging rope that in an ideal world we would climb to escape the Jungle around us, and the abnormals the Jungle held. The rope could still be a mile away, and with the shadows of the foliage around us, that was no good. The guardian my father could have sent lived in the shadows. His minions lived in the shadows.
“Simon, we’re in deep shit here,” I said. “What I know of the Shadow is limited. He can move through the darkness, and his minions are the same.”
“The abnormals aren’t following us, and no yellow-bodied minions that I can see.” He glanced at me, a half-smile on his face, but I kept my eyes moving, searching the flickers of gray darkness around us. One of the shaded spots darkened as if a body moved within it, pacing us. Then another, and another, flashed by.
Yeah, this was bad. “My father’s guardian sent his minions here to deliver the Ikimono, Simon, and they found us instead. A real prize to take back to their master.”
“You sure?”
We stepped out of the cover of the bush and the knotted rope was there hanging from the freeway guardrail like a lifeline from a sinking ship. Simon moved to take a step and I held him back. “Wait.”
The sun had moved so the underpass was completely in the shade now. Where we stood, the last sliver of sunlight reaching past the overpass circled us like a protective barrier. I wasn’t sure how much the Shadow’s minions could manage sunlight, but I was betting that was a huge part of the namesake. From what I remembered, he moved in the shadows, and anywhere there was darkness, he could be there. Which meant we were good and royally fucked over if we couldn’t make it to that rope.
I drew a slow breath. “When I say go, get to that fucking rope and climb.”
“You know, that’s exactly what I was thinking, seeing as I have only one good leg. Climb the rope, no problem.” He lifted both eyebrows at me.
“I didn’t say climb fast, I said climb.” I scanned the darkness around the rope. “Fuck, this is not going to be fun.”
I held my hand out to Simon. He put his palm against mine, like we were on a date. I glared at him. “Give me Dinah, Simon, not your hand. We aren’t going to start singing kumbaya.”
“Right.” He handed her over to me with a soft laugh, and I settled her into my right hand.
“Ready?”
“Sure. I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss about this. We’d see these minion things, wouldn’t we?” He took a hobbling step out of the tiny spot of sunshine left to us and into the cover of the overpass.
A blur of black, and then a body slammed into him, coming out of seemingly nowhere. One minute the minions weren’t there, the next they were. I didn’t move from the sunlight patch. The two bodies tumbled over each other while others circled around. Their bodies looked like they were made of mist, of fog and night sky, moving within a proximity of being humanoid, but then sliding into something more ethereal.
Basically, they were going to be damn hard to kill. If they could even be killed.
“Motherfuckers, you want a piece of me?” I yelled. “I’m right here, you fucking cowards. Minions, you aren’t even worth getting your own names. My guns have their own goddamn names!”
“Oh, she’s getting mean now,” Dinah said.
“Be careful,” Eleanor added. “They’re faster than you.”
Great. That was not what I wanted to hear. Suddenly I wished I’d kept a few more vials of the Diva myst.
The tumbling bodies stopped right below the rope, and the minion that had been on Simon turned and faced me. Though that was something of a misnomer since I couldn’t actually see his face.
The minion moved as though his cloak and body were made of liquid darkness, smooth and full of a dangerous grace that was only given to those who killed as if it were second nature to them. Like they woke up and killed someone before breakfast just to get the blood flowing.
He moved toward me and I had both Dinah and Eleanor up. I didn’t give him a warning, didn’t hesitate as I pulled the triggers one after the other. The minion dodged and ducked as if the bullets were moving at half speed, and he could see them coming. The others around him laughed, a chorus of snickers that could have been the twittering of birds if I let myself look away.
The heat of the sun on my thighs was still there, but the patch of light was shrinking. Time was running out.
“Simon, get your ass up that rope!” I screamed at him while I followed the main minion in a slow circle. He went to my left, drawing my eyes and my guns.
“Switch it out, ladies,” I said. “Let’s see how they handle a little flame.”
Their inner workings clicked and tumbled and my next two shots burst out of their muzzles in a trail of fire that lit up the underpass. Again, the minion dodged with ease, but the darkness around it was smaller.
Hot damn.
I twisted and shot around the base of the rope, giving the area some light as the other minions began to flow toward him. They whipped away from the open flames. Bingo.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Simon was only ten feet up the rope, and he scrambled to get away from the heat.
“Giving you a chance. The fire keeps them at bay,” I yelled back.
Maybe it wasn’t perfect but it was something—
Pain burst over my senses as a knife sliced through my left forearm. I spun and jammed Dinah into the minion’s cowl-covered face and pulled the trigger.
He didn’t even flinch, just put his hand over mine and pulled me out of my little patch of sunlight and into the darkness of the underpass.
I spun with the momentum of his pull and kicked out, sweeping my foot toward his lower body but my leg went through air. He’d already moved. I was left dangling off his hand as he slowly raised me so I no longer touched the ground.
I kicked out again, and he caught my right ankle so he held me stretched out in front of him like a rag doll.
“Let me go, and I won’t kill you,” I said.
Laughter rolled from him and his voice was soft, gentle, and nothing like I would have guessed. “I am a child of a guardian of Hell. I cannot be killed.”
“Tell that to the Stick Man.” I grinned at him. “I found a way and burned that motherfucker to a crispy pile of ash.”
His hands tightened over my hand that still held Eleanor, making the metal of her stock bite deeply into my palm. I didn’t flinch. There were times to struggle, to expend energy and fight for your life. This was not one of them. He wanted to talk.
“What do you want, minion?”
His hold on my ankle intensified and I had to work not to gasp. I decided to try another tactic. “Romano have a message for me?”
“No. My boss does, though.”
His boss.
Oh, fuck, he meant the Shadow himself. A true guardian of Hell. “What does he want to tell me?”
“That you don’t know who you play with. Mancini . . . is not what he seems. And that he looks forward to eating your soul.”
The Shadow wanted to eat my soul? Now was the time to fight. I brought Dinah aroun
d and squeezed the trigger and the incendiary round caught the edge of his cloak, but the flames did not catch as I’d hoped. I pointed Dinah to the ground and shot off round after round, lighting the area, dispersing the shadows around us.
The minion dropped me and I hit the ground and rolled, keeping him in my sights. He’d retreated a few feet and I scuttled to the center of the flames, the warmth too much but they kept the dark at bay. And that was what I needed.
“He will come for you, even if your father fails. He covets your soul,” the minion said from ten feet away, “and the fire in your guns is not forever. He will come for you when you least expect it, Phoenix. And he will hand you over to his father.” I got the sensation he smiled as he spoke. “You will fear the shadows, you will fear the darkness, and your heart will quiver with that fear and my master will feed from it as he drinks you down.”
I blinked and the minion was gone. Or maybe not. I turned slowly to see Simon three quarters of the way up the rope. Not a single minion near him.
The bottom ten feet or so flickered with fire.
I stood where I was, knowing I was safe and that the first step I took into the shade of the overpass I would be once more at the minion’s mercy. I could send incendiary rounds along a path to the rope but . . .
“I know what you’re thinking,” Eleanor said. “And we are down to two more fire rounds each. That’s not enough if he comes back. You’ll have to run for it and pray you are faster than the darkness.”
That was the conclusion I’d already come to. I jammed the ladies into their holsters, then bolted for the base of the rope. Twenty feet I should be able to cover fast enough. I kept my eyes locked on the rope. I would jump at the last second and be in safety of the fire.
Arms pumping hard, my leg muscles bunched and I leapt into the air.
The minion caught me mid-air around the waist.
I slammed both hands down against his shoulders close to his neck. On any other man, I would have broken the clavicle bones on both sides, sending him to the ground, writhing in pain. But the minion was no ordinary man and my blows did nothing.
Blood of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 2) Page 15
