“The ladders!” Meredith yelled, firing near the pilothouse. The creatures were coming up from the ferry’s interior now, too.
They’d set a trap—a coordinated attack.
“Fucking hell!” Glenn said as an Imp batted the weapon from his hands. Miguel knocked the creature aside with the butt of his rifle, but the distraction had left an opening for two more creatures to attack. Dom sprinted at them, afraid to fire. He couldn’t risk hitting one of the Hunters. Instead, he clubbed the beasts with elbows and fists.
Even as Dom helped Glenn and Miguel, he heard Andris and Jenna cry out. He picked up two Imps descending on Miguel, grabbing them by their necks. They flailed in his grip, and their tails whipped about wildly, threatening to flay his skin. But Dom ignored their struggling and slammed their heads together. Both creatures went still, and Dom threw their lifeless bodies over the gunwale.
He rushed to Andris and Jenna. The two stood back-to-back, firing and kicking out at the circle of Skulls encroaching on them. Bullets ricocheted off the deck and pinged against bulkheads. Dom picked off a monster perched on the gunwale then brought down another.
“Help!” someone else cried.
Dom turned to see Meredith, cornered and alone, her back against the pilothouse’s bulkhead. A group of six Imps slunk toward her. She fumbled to load a magazine into her rifle, but one of the Skulls’ tails twitched out, snapping against the magazine. It clattered on the deck and skidded away from Meredith.
“Meredith!” Dom yelled. He shouldered his rifle, firing at the creatures as he ran at them. But a sudden tornado of slashing claws came at him from his left side, and he was forced to juke out of an Imp’s warpath. The monster deftly followed him, losing no momentum.
Dom struck out at the creature’s head. The Imp ducked under the rifle’s stock and bared its teeth in a menacing snarl. Dom defended himself against another rash of attacks, desperate to turn the fight in his favor so he could get to Meredith. But in his periphery, he saw more creatures encircle Meredith as she tried to get a new magazine in place. His anger and guilt burned through him with the hot intensity of a desert sun.
There was no way he would reach her in time.
-24-
Meredith pressed her back against the bulkhead as if it would suddenly give way and let her retreat into the safety of the pilothouse. Her fingers trembled as she tried to reload the rifle again. The monsters didn’t let up. Each time she had the magazine in place, an Imp would rush her or whip its spike-covered tail to thwart her efforts. It was as if they were toying with her—or maybe getting revenge for all the other creatures that now lay dead across the deck.
She couldn’t fall now. Not like this.
Blood trickled from the stitches on the side of her head where she’d lost her ear. The wound had broken open again. Soon, she feared, that wouldn’t be the only bleeding injury on her body. Another creature thrust its blade-like claws at her, and she beat it away with her rifle, smashing the thing in the face over and over. As the monster reeled back, three more flew at her. She couldn’t raise her rifle in time to shield their blows, and she winced, waiting for them to tear into her skin.
But instead, she heard the pop of a handgun. Three, four, five times. A creature hit her chest, and another flopped against her legs. But they didn’t bite or claw at her. They were dead.
Two creatures turned on Meredith’s savior, but they too were ended in a barrage of bullets that plunged through their bodies. Their limbs jerked with each impact, and Meredith used the opportunity to finally reload her rifle. Her magazine clicked into place, and she pulled the bolt back on the rifle. Lining up the nearest Skulls in her sights, she riddled the monsters’ bodies with bullets and sent them sliding across the deck already wet with blood.
“Thanks!” Meredith called to Renee, who was leaning out of the pilothouse. The woman had one hand on the bulkhead to steady herself, and she looked positively drained from the effort it had taken to stand and take out Meredith’s attackers.
Renee simply nodded before aiming at another Imp leaping up the ladders. Her arm shook slightly. The recoil of her pistol made her whimper, but her aim was true. Nearby, Dom hammered the final Imp attacking him. It seemed the tide of battle was finally turning. The last few Skulls went down with ease.
When Renee lowered her weapon, her legs wobbled unsteadily, and she collapsed into the pilothouse. Dom rushed to her side, disappearing beyond the hatch. Meredith stood to help, but movement in her periphery caught her attention. One more Imp crawled over the side of the ferry, and Meredith fired on it. Her shots went low. Rounds cut into the creature’s legs, sending it sprawling, its limbs bent at odd angles, fractured and pulpy. It flopped forward and dragged itself toward Meredith, pulling its mangled body through the messy remains of its comrades.
The stench of the Congo River intermingled with the coppery odor of blood and the pungent smell of gunpowder. Meredith aimed at the stubborn creature. The more she looked at it, the more she could see the animal it had once been. She recalled a time when she’d been at the Smithsonian National Zoo after a run through DC. She had always felt bad for the orangutans, gorillas, and other primates behind the glass walls and cages. There was something soulful in their eyes, something intelligent when they looked through the glass, meeting her gaze as they sat among the artificial branches and leaves of an exhibit that was no more a vibrant jungle than Meredith’s living room had been. Those animals might have had good reasons to be there. Scientific study. Rescued from illegal exotic animal trade. Education. But that made no difference. There had been a yearning in their expressions—to live, to be free.
The Imp lifted a bloodied paw. Its pupils dilated, growing wider against its mask of bone and cartilage. The Oni Agent had been as unforgiving to it as it had been to any number of humans, forcing the creature into some kind of abominable evolution. The Imp was no more a monkey any more than a velociraptor was a bird. Meredith sucked in a breath and centered the Imp’s snarling face in the crosshairs of her sights. She squeezed the trigger. As the creature’s fingers gave a final twitch, Meredith turned, her chest heaving, and surveyed the carnage. She made her way to Andris, Jenna, Glenn, and Miguel. The others were all covered in a mixture of sweat, blood, and bone fragments.
“Everyone okay?” she asked in a hushed voice as they covered each other’s backs near the pilothouse.
“Okay is relative, wouldn’t you say?” Glenn replied.
“No bites,” Miguel reported.
Jenna held a gloved hand up. There were tears in the fabric as she rotated her wrist, but no blood. “Looks like I’m clean.”
“You do not smell clean,” Andris said.
“Can it, comedian,” she shot back.
“Are we sure they’re gone?” Meredith asked.
The Hunters quieted, their laughter dying away, as they scanned the deck. Meredith surveyed the pilothouse’s roof then trudged back to the side of the ferry, stepping over the corpses littering the deck. Her boots slurped with each step, and she tried to ignore the sickening sound. A low moan sounded from her feet. She aimed at a beast whose bottom legs had been blown off. Its arms were a mess of sinew and claws. One orbital cavity was empty, and it looked up at her with a single bloodshot orb. Its half-broken jaw chattered uselessly, and Meredith couldn’t help but whisper a short prayer for the thing before kicking it overboard.
“Any more contacts?” Dom’s voice came over the comm link.
“Negative,” Meredith said. A flurry of other negatives confirmed that the ferry was clear.
“Everyone, inside the pilothouse. Let’s regroup.”
The Hunters trudged through the open hatch. Meredith left the carnage behind and closed the hatch hard, locking it into place. Dom was kneeling next to Renee. He held a bottle of water for her. The others cracked open their own canteens, chugging thirstily as Terrence valiantly stood at the helm, guiding the ferry with only the aid of moonlight.
“No other injuries?” Dom asked, hel
ping Renee take another sip. The Hunters shook their heads. Dom eyed them with skepticism. “Are you sure?”
“We’re good, Chief,” Miguel said.
“Did you check?” Dom asked.
“Of course we did,” Miguel said. “We’re one hundred-fucking-percent.”
Dom grunted. Meredith watched him, searching for signs that he was about to crack. He’d always been careful, but this was bordering on paranoia.
After two decades of partnership, both in the field and, at last, in love, Meredith had thought she knew him. But the look in his eyes, the half-feral glint, was something she didn’t recognize. It was like looking at a stranger.
And it frightened her to the core.
***
Dom held Renee as she shook in his arms like a child.
“I’m cold,” she said. “So cold.”
He touched her forehead with the back of his hand. She was burning up. He’d checked her over again for open cuts or scratches, but he couldn’t find anything other than bruises. So why was she so sick? Renee was always the first one through the door and the last one on her feet. To see her like this, shivering and fragile, made him almost frantic with worry.
“Huntress, Dom here, do you copy?” Dom asked.
Meredith crouched beside him, clearly eager to help. He shook his head subtly, warning her off. Renee was his responsibility.
Instead of leaving, Meredith reached out to hold Renee’s clammy hand.
Chao’s voice crackled over the comm link. “Huntress here. We read you loud and clear.”
“Put Lauren on the line.”
“Is everything—”
“Get me Lauren now!”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Chao said. “One moment, please.”
Static sounded over the link before it fell silent. A couple of the others crowded around, but Meredith waved them away, gesturing for more space.
“My head’s killing me,” Renee said, massaging her temple. “Does that mean...am I...?”
Renee didn’t finish her sentence. She held her hand in front of her face, studying it. Dom knew what she was looking for. Fever. Headache. Both signs the Oni Agent had taken hold. If that was the case and they didn’t act soon, the nanobacteria component of the Agent would produce an unstoppable wave of prions that would destroy Renee’s brain permanently.
“Get a dose of chelation therapy ready,” Dom said. Meredith immediately began unwrapping a syringe from their limited supply. The therapy would stop the nanobacteria in its tracks—as long as they caught it in time. When Renee had initially fallen unconscious, there hadn’t been time to administer a dose. They’d been in such a rush to get to the ferry.
But now Dom regretted his decision.
His comm link crackled. “Dom, this is Lauren. What’s going on?”
“Renee’s awake,” he began.
“Oh my God, am I glad to hear that.”
“But she’s got a headache and fever, and a nasty knot on her head. Meredith’s prepping the chelation treatment now, and—”
“Don’t!” Lauren said.
The alarm in her voice sent another shockwave of worry through Dom.
“You know the risks of chelation treatment, right?” Lauren asked.
“Bone density loss and internal bleeding,” Dom said. He remembered all too well. Kara had nearly bled out after she’d been dosed in the med bay.
“Exactly. If you give Renee the treatment, it could kill her.”
Dom looked at the dark bruises under Renee’s eyes. She blinked slowly, as if each small movement pained her. They’d removed her helmet, so she hadn’t heard what Lauren had said. But judging by the looks on the others’ faces, the rest of the team clearly had.
“Understood,” Dom said as calmly as he could. He stood and walked away from Renee so she couldn’t hear him. In a hushed voice in the corner of the pilothouse near Terrence, he asked, “So what am I supposed to do?”
“You checked her over for lacerations, right?” Lauren asked.
“Yes. Nothing,” Dom asked, pacing beside Terrence.
“I want you to check a few things for me. Does she have bruising under her eyes?”
The dark circles made Renee look like a raccoon. “Affirmative.”
“And what about behind her ears?”
Dom furrowed his brow and strode back to Renee. She looked up at him as he bent beside her and swept a lock of hair from the side of her head. “Don’t worry,” he said as he studied the pooling bruises stretching from her ears to her scalp. Over the comm link, he said to Lauren, “There’s a bit of bruising.”
“Okay, okay. I can practically guarantee she’s suffered a concussion even without seeing her.”
Dom nodded. “Which can explain the headache. But what about the fever?”
“Also a symptom of a concussion.”
“Damn,” he said, frustrated. There were simply too many similarities between an Oni Agent infection and a concussion. “Is there any way to know for sure that it’s a concussion and not the Oni infection?”
“Not with one hundred percent certainty.”
“Then isn’t the risk of giving her the therapy worth it?”
“I’m not sure,” Lauren said. In his mind’s eye, Dom saw her chewing her lip in thought. “Check something else for me. Then maybe I can give you a better assessment.”
Miguel and Jenna were whispering in a corner, and Andris shot Meredith an apprehensive look.
“All right, Doc,” Dom said. “What next?”
“Do you see any fluids coming from her nose or ears?”
Dom didn’t have to squint to see the dried scarlet trails from Renee’s nostrils. “Blood from the nose, for sure.”
“Nothing else?”
“No...wait, hang on a second.” Dom grabbed a flashlight from his tac vest and shone it at Renee’s ear. It illuminated a thin trail of clear fluid seeping from her ear canal. “Clear fluid from the ear.”
“Damn it, damn it, damn it.” Lauren sighed. “She might have a skull fracture.”
“What do we do for that?”
“Honestly, there’s not much you can do. Most of the time, these things eventually heal on their own. Your best bet is to keep her upright so any fluid drains away from her brain. Anything else would need to be surgical, and you guys aren’t equipped to deal with that.”
Dom couldn’t keep the skepticism from his voice. “So keep an eye on her and hope she gets better?”
“That’s about the best I can offer,” Lauren said.
That wasn’t what he needed to hear. Dom’s gut churned with anxiety as he looked at Renee’s pained expression. He wanted to help her, but he felt useless. “Where does that leave us with the chelation treatment?”
“The chelation therapy is going to drastically decrease her bone density, so even the slightest bump can exacerbate her head injury. If there’s already a meningeal tear leading to cerebrospinal fluid—the clear stuff you saw coming from her ears—it would get worse. More leakage increases the risk of a neurological infection. Basically, she’d be more fragile than a porcelain doll.”
“And if she starts bleeding internally...”
“Exactly,” Lauren said. “Any current subdermal bleeding or even ruptured arteries or veins in combination with the skull fracture could lead to severe bleeding into the space around her brain.”
Dom balled his hands into fists, frustration tearing through him. If Renee had been infected and he didn’t give her the treatment, she was doomed to become a monster. And regardless of whether she’d been exposed to the Oni Agent, the chelation therapy might kill her. It was an impossible choice—and Dom was running out of time to make it.
-25-
Frank ran from the screams of the dying Skull as it burned beside the wrecked helicopter. His heart threw itself against his ribs with the ferocity of a caged lion as he ran for the flight school.
She had to be alive. She had to be.
He leapt over the appendages of the Skulls
he’d mowed down with the chopper and almost slipped in their blood. His boots slammed onto the concrete sidewalk leading up to the door. Shapes were already moving toward the rear of the office. He rushed through the doorway and picked up the broken bat he’d left stuck in the Skull formerly known as Leonard Craft. Four Skulls pounded their clawed fists against a closed door down the hall. They roared in hunger, their cries deafening in the enclosed space.
Frank held the fractured bat like a sword. “Hey, you ugly pieces of shit!”
They ignored him, fixed on their prey behind the door.
“Don’t ignore me! My ego is fragile.” He loped forward. “C’mon, there’s more meat on one of my arms than there is on that whole little girl. Come on!”
A Skull turned. Its eyes locked on him, and its lips curled into a rattling snarl. A soldier’s helmet still sat atop its head, and though its camouflaged fatigues were shredded, a utility belt hung around its spiked waist. Frank saw the holster was empty. A damn shame.
The beast let out another growl before running to meet Frank. Frank thrust the bat out, and the creature cried out in agony. The splintered wood lanced through the Skull’s eye and buried itself in the monster’s brain. Its body went slack almost immediately, but Frank didn’t stop there. He used his forward momentum to drive the dead beast into the other three monsters. With their focus still on the office door, they toppled sideways, caught almost completely unaware. Frank gave a final, powerful shove, throwing them into the open door of the kitchenette. He slammed the door. As soon as it shut, the beasts threw themselves at it. The impacts shook dust and paint flecks from the ceiling and doorframe like a soft snowfall.
Frank turned to the locked closet. He knocked on it gently and attempted to sound calm even as adrenaline made his fingers twitch. “I’ve come to get you out of here. Let’s go for a nice helicopter ride, huh?”
The Tide (Book 5): Iron Wind Page 15
