by Dean Murray
I pushed a little harder and squeezed a couple of miles per hour more out of the bike despite the risk that we'd crash, but it was unlikely to make much difference. The bike was inferior in almost every way to my normal mode of travel. The exhaust whipped away behind us, but not before filling the air with a burning, artificial scent that ruined my sense of smell. As bad as that was, even worse was the way that the drone of the engine drowned out my ability to hear anything else.
Despite all of the things that were working against me, something prompted me to look back just in time to see Brandon jump. I goosed the bike and it leaped forward just before Brandon would have hit us.
I had a split second of satisfaction as Brandon's lean, wolf body hit our back tire and then flew away in a yelp of pain. The impact nearly threw the bike over. The back tire broke loose from the ground and spun out in a spray of dirt and rock, but I threw my weight to the side which kept us from crashing and then I leaned forward and pushed the bike even harder.
We only had a few hundred more yards until we'd reach the road and I'd be able to safely speed back up, but Brandon was apparently faster in wolf form than I'd given him credit for. It was starting to look very doubtful that we'd make it.
We were riding on the very edge of ruin. I was driving too fast for the terrain and my skill level, and I was having to constantly look from side to side in an effort to keep tabs on where Brandon was. It took him only a couple of seconds to regain his feet and give chase and he was quickly gaining on us.
The road was less than fifty yards away, but we weren't going to make it. Brandon could have made another try for us at any time during the last ten seconds, but he hadn't which meant that he'd spotted a better opportunity and was just waiting for us to reach the right spot.
I looked ahead of us and saw a couple of likely spots. The sandy ground had robbed him of the extra edge of speed that he would have needed to bring us down last time despite my best efforts. There was a rock on the left that looked like it was big enough to solve that problem, but it still didn't seem quite right.
Desperation started to take me over and then I realized that I'd been thinking in terms of what would help Brandon rather than what would hinder us. We weren't going to just be able to drive up onto the road, we were going to have to turn left and then go up a slight slope first. There was no way to be positive that was when Brandon was planning on striking, but it felt like the right answer and I didn't have time to second-guess myself.
I floored the bike again as we came up to the rock I'd identified. It was a pitiful attempt, but all that I could manage in the way of evasion that wouldn't leave us sitting ducks if indeed Brandon was biding his time until just before the road like I thought he was.
We flew past the rock and then there was only a couple of seconds before we'd be to the road. Knowing that Brandon would probably go with hundreds of thousands of years of instincts and aim for my neck, I leaned further forward on the bike and then we were to the turning point.
I grabbed the front brake with my right hand and mashed down on it hard enough that the back tire came up off of the ground and only then did I look over to see if my timing had been right.
Brandon was hurtling towards us, but he'd been aiming for where we were supposed to be which meant his aim was off by nearly half a foot. My right hand was still clamped on the brake in an effort to slow us enough to gain a few more inches of clearance, but it wasn't going to be enough. I leaned back, sandwiching Rachel between the back of the bike and me.
Rachel screamed in fear, but I didn't have time to reassure her, not when I was still trying to figure out whether I was a dead man.
It still wasn't enough. I could see the trajectories and although Brandon would miss us with the bulk of his body his jaws were still going to fasten around my neck. My analysis took only the tiniest fraction of a second, and then I threw my left arm forward. It was crazy. Given the relative velocities and the sheer inertia of something Brandon's size it couldn't possibly work, but I was out of other options. I shot my left arm towards thin air and by the time it had moved just a couple of inches the space I hit wasn't empty. I managed to time things just right and I made contact with Brandon's shoulder and shifted him just far enough that his teeth snapped shut two inches from my throat instead of ripping it out.
Shoving Brandon had imparted a sideways motion to us that I hadn't been prepared for and the back wheel of the bike crashed into the rock that we'd been turning to avoid. Brandon hit that same rock several feet ahead of us, but I was too busy trying not to lose complete control of the motorcycle to enjoy my victory.
I got the rear tire back on the ground and twisted my wrist to send us jetting away from Brandon, but although the bike did shoot forward I could tell that something was wrong. The back wheel had picked up a worrisome vibration and it got worse the faster we went.
We made it up onto the road and I took us up to sixty miles per hour, but between the vibration and the fact that we didn't have road tires, that was as fast as I could go without risking that something would go wrong and we'd end up miles still from our destination with Brandon stalking us.
I checked back to confirm that Brandon wasn't able to keep up, and then just focused on keeping the bike from snaking off of the road.
Five minutes later we were within sight of our destination. Getting the schedule for the high-speed passenger train that crossed through the extreme edge of the pack's territory hadn't been difficult, but finding a spot where the train slowed down enough that it was possible for even someone as fast as me to get on was a whole different proposition.
I'd superimposed the train's route over a topological map and finally found a two-hundred-yard stretch where the elevation change was steep enough that I figured I at least had a chance of getting on the train. Either way, as long as the bike held up for another couple of minutes then Rachel would be getting on the train.
As hard as it was to believe after the craziness and terror of the last few minutes, we were actually ahead of schedule slightly—that or the train was running late. As we finally pulled even with the tracks, I looked down the rails and was able to see the train racing towards us. I crossed over to the other side of the tracks and then started the bike slowly towards the train.
Once we were even with the train, I spun us around and started back the other direction. The ground wasn't particularly even, and the vibrations from the back wheel made it even harder to keep the bike steady, but I managed to match speeds well enough for Rachel to let go of me with one hand and reach for the ladder on the back of one of the cars.
"I'm scared, Alec!"
"I know, Rach, but if you don't grab the ladder with both hands then all of this was just a huge waste. Brandon is getting closer all of the time. We may only have a minute or two before he arrives!"
She was shaking so violently that I could feel it even over the road vibrations, but she let go of me with her right hand and started pulling herself up.
"I can't do it!"
I turned my head just enough to see that her fingers were starting to slip, but it was too late to try and get her back on the bike. I'd never convince her to try a second time. I rotated my torso and grabbed ahold of her leg so that I could push her up and off of the bike.
She screamed as she came free of the bike and for a heartbeat was supported by nothing but her hands and my grip on her leg, and then I pushed as hard as I could and her left foot made it onto the very bottom rung.
The motorcycle started to go down even as I saw that Rachel had made it to safety, but everything happened too quickly. I didn't have a chance to change forms, even if I'd been willing to do so where there were so many potential witnesses.
I hit the ground harder even than I expected to. I bit my tongue hard enough that I tasted blood and my elbow was driven into my side hard enough to produce the sharp pain of cracked ribs. For an instant I was tempted to just stay there. Rachel was safe. I'd achieved more than I'd expected to, but I
knew that safety in the world that I lived in was a transitory thing. Rachel might be safe for the moment, but sooner or later she'd make a mistake and then Kaleb or Brandon would find her.
I levered myself up off of the ground and checked to make sure that nothing other than my ribs were broken. I was even more bruised and bloody than I'd been a few minutes before, but it looked like I could still run, which was good since the bike looked like it was totaled.
I jogged over to double-check and confirmed that the right handlebar had been snapped entirely off. Luckily Kaleb's sword had been strapped to the left side of the motorcycle and was undamaged. I pulled the weapon free of the wreckage and started running towards the train. I'd lost a lot of ground in the crash, but we were only halfway through the slow stretch.
In human form I could sustain speeds in the low twenties and even sprint up into the high twenties or low thirties for a very short period of time. The heavily-loaded train was only moving at a little over twenty miles per hour, so it took less than a minute for me to make it to the caboose and jump onboard.
The door was predictably locked so I started up the side of the car, thinking once again how grateful I was that the sword wasn't even heavier than it was. I could climb with thirty pounds in one hand, but I never would have been able to climb with a hundred pounds dangling from my right hand. I'd somehow expected given the incredible strength that hybrids possessed that the sword would be massively heavy, but it actually made sense that the ancient shape shifters would have wanted a sword that could be carried while they were in human form as well.
I made it to the top of the caboose without any problems and then started working my way up along the train as the engines in the front made it to the top of the grade and the train started picking up speed. It felt like we were doing nearly thirty-five miles per hour now and a sense of relief washed through me as I realized we were safe.
I turned back to check for Brandon and saw him arrowing towards us through the failing light, but he'd been just a minute or two too slow. At our current speed he could keep up as a wolf but not as a human.
A slightly juvenile part of me thought about taunting him, but I squashed the impulse and merely watched as he closed the distance between us until he was running just behind the car I was currently standing on.
I wondered if he was planning on pacing us for the next two hundred miles until the train slowed down again, and then without any warning Brandon planted all four feet and threw himself at the ladder on the back of my car.
I had a split second to hope that he'd miscalculated somehow and would be crushed underneath the train, but then he shifted in midair back to his human form and grabbed the ladder that should have remained safely out of reach.
I'd never seen such a smooth transformation, and frankly I wasn't sure that anyone else could have jumped hard enough to compensate for the sudden increase in air resistance as he changed forms, but Brandon had done it.
I shook the sheet off of Kaleb's sword and charged back in an effort to stab Brandon before he could make it to the top of the car and face me on equal ground, but he dodged my attack by throwing himself backwards, once again shifting in midair so that his hybrid claws buried themselves in the metal of the next car.
Brandon looked up at me with feral yellow eyes and a menacing grin on his face for several seconds before pulling himself up to the top of the car. I faced Brandon across a gap of four feet and even as I let my own beast trigger a transformation to our hybrid shape, I knew that Brandon was going to kill me.
Peripheral concerns tried to demand my attention. Fighting on the top of a train in our hybrid forms was a clear violation of every rule the Coun'hij had ever set down to keep our existence a secret, but that hardly mattered in comparison to the fact that I was about to fight one of the most deadly hybrids who'd ever lived. I had Kaleb's sword, but I didn't really know how to use it, and even if I had, all of the stories I'd ever heard had agreed that a single hybrid, even with a sword, wasn't a match for the strongest of the jaguars.
Brandon was capable of killing a jaguar with nothing more than his claws and fangs. I had no chance whatsoever. I knew resisting him was pointless, but something inside of me refused to go down without a fight. The sense of exhaustion I'd felt after wrecking the bike hadn't gone anywhere, but my sense of calm had started to settle back over me.
I'd accomplished things that I would have said only hours ago were impossible. All I would have needed was a bit more luck. If Brandon had arrived a few minutes later the train would have been moving too fast for even him to board. I was proud of my efforts.
I backed up a few steps and then took a few practice swings with Kaleb's sword, my sword. It was incredibly light to my hybrid muscles and it fit my giant hands surprisingly well. Even the long, semi-retractable claws on the end of each finger didn't get in the way of cutting and thrusting with the ancient weapon.
Under other circumstances it might have been easy to lose myself in delight at just how responsive my sword was, but in between one practice slash and the next Brandon rushed me. It was just a feint, just something to allow him to begin getting a feel for how fast and dangerous I was with a weapon in my hand, but I still nearly scored on him.
The next few seconds were more of the same. Brandon probably could have overwhelmed me right at the start with his superior strength and speed, but he was obviously uneasy about fighting someone with a sword.
By the third or fourth exchange he had a pretty good idea of just how much faster he was than me, and I'd started to realize just how much of a benefit six extra feet of reach really was. Brandon was having a hard time compensating for any kind of lunging attack while I quite simply couldn't match his blinding speed.
If we'd been fighting on other terrain my best efforts wouldn't have kept me alive for more than a couple of seconds, but fighting on the top of the train car like we were limited the amount of mobility in the fight. Brandon could only move a few feet side to side, which meant that most of the motion in the battle was either advancing or retreating, which favored me more heavily than I could have ever hoped.
Brandon blurred forward in another attack and I stabbed where I thought he would end up, but he wasn't where I expected him to be. He'd come up along the right side of the car and dodged just far enough to the side that my stab had missed, if only by inches.
His claws raked across my right side, but I dropped the hilt of the sword and hit him as hard as I could on the shoulder with the pointed pommel as I backpedalled away from him. Something cracked as the sword hit him, but he'd already jumped backwards so that my follow-up slash missed him.
Physically he was still far and away my better, but I was realizing that in some ways he'd grown too dependent on outmatching anyone he came up against. He was making mistakes that wouldn't have even been noticeable in a normal fight, but which were keeping me alive longer than I'd ever anticipated lasting.
I charged forward, being careful not to overcommit as I tried to sink the point of my sword into his chest. He should have pressed forward on that last exchange rather than retreating. Once he was up close most of my advantages were negated and he would be able to overwhelm me quickly. I wasn't sure if he'd realized his error yet, but I now knew that I had to keep the offensive or I risked letting him close again.
Brandon sidestepped my lunge and darted forward, but I'd already anticipated the fact that I'd miss and I retreated with a slash that once again hit nothing but air. I was missing, but I was coming close and I got the feeling that Brandon didn't like how close I was coming. Fighting with a sword was a completely new experience for me, but it was proving to be an adjustment for Brandon as well.
As my blade sailed over his head Brandon sprang at me again, at which point I caught my next break of the night. He sank his talons into the metal roof of the rail car, but when he threw himself forward he did so with such force that the thin metal tore and gave way rather than letting him apply all of his strength to powering hi
s movements.
Brandon's attack came up a few inches too short because of his lost momentum, and I let my left hand come off of the hilt of my sword and instead used it to rake him across the shoulder just before I backed out of range and brought my weapon around in an attack designed more to make him back off than to actually hurt him.
I'd actually been aiming for the side of his neck with my claws, and if I'd landed my attack the fight would have been over right then, but Brandon had thrown himself to the side at the last second, using his claws as well as his talons so that he could be sure of having enough traction to get his vitals out of the line of fire.
I was disappointed that I'd missed my true target, but I was starting to realize that I couldn't have picked a better arena for our fight if I'd tried. I'd used my full strength for the last several dodges and although the metal had creaked and groaned at the abuse I was putting it through, it had held. It was the football equivalent to me wearing cleats while Brandon wasn't. He was enough faster than me that he could still match my speed, but he wasn't going to be nearly as fast as he otherwise would have been.
I stepped forward and lunged almost to full extension and this time I caught him in the stomach, but he slashed the outside of my arm before I managed to pull the sword out of his body and back away again.
"Did you figure out yet that I was playing with you there at the start of the fight?"
I nodded. "Yeah, that wasn't hard to notice, but it's kind of irrelevant. What matters is that you're not playing around now, but you haven't managed to kill me yet."
"That's what I love about you, Graves. You're so damn overconfident. Of course I'm still playing around with you. Now that I know more or less what you're capable of I can pause and tell you all of the news that I've had saved up for you since I started chasing you across this sandbox of a desert."
