“Cover your ears!” He called out, and fired.
His first bullet took the driver’s side door, denting the Jeep and forcing it away; the second shot took out Duke’s front tire. His car lurched towards us as he fought for control, and he slammed into the Lincoln broadside, his front window level with Talya’s. He snarled, his face a bestial mask, his teeth stained black, and lunged through the pair of open windows.
“Duke, come on! Look what they’ve done to you!” Talya slashed at him with the machete as he groped and clawed for her. She hit his face with her machete, lashing the back of the driver’s seat with dark blood. Duke howled, the sound choking off as the cut sealed over with Yen and his eyeballs burst. Needles of glass forced themselves out of his sockets, crowding them.
Talya screamed and dropped the knife. I pushed her back against the seat and shot him twice in the neck and chest, point-blank. I’d hoped the force of it would knock him back, but the impacts didn’t even slow him. Zane hauled the wheel to pull us away, Duke lunged through the window, clawing at Talya with hands that were already half leopard.
“Miss me, babe?” He snarled, voice too deep and thick to be human, and then ruptured into animal form.
I shouted, Angkor shouted. Talya was shrieking high, panicked screams as Duke wrapped her in his forelegs and pulled her through the broken window, kicking and cursing and crying. The Jeep was out of control, and veered to the side away from us. Duke was scrabbling to remain in the cabin; Talya slammed into the outside of the door, Duke’s fangs buried in her throat, his paw wrapped around her chest.
The girl gnashed her teeth and shouted with rage and pain as she tore herself away from him, ripping open her own neck in the process. Talya tumbled messily to the ground and out of sight on the dark road behind us.
“Talya!” Zane cried out.
Angkor and I both opened on Duke. He took the bullets, roaring, and then tore the door off the Jeep and leapt out onto the road at breakneck speed as the car swayed to the side, flipped the barrier at the edge of the road, and careened into the trees.
“God fucking dammit!” Zane snarled, steering us in towards the truck. “Is she going to get that glass disease from this, or what?”
“Weeders can’t transmit Yen to other Weeders through bites. Sex, StainedGlass weapons or the insertion of an infectious payload… that’s it,” Angkor said, reloading his rifle. “Proper StainedGlass is the only reliable vector. Besides that, Talya’s the Weeder equivalent of The Hulk.”
Even Talya’s slight weight had slowed the Lincoln, and we gained on the truck as the entire caravan rounded the sharp corner onto Inningwood. Jenner was waiting for us on the highway. We just had to keep on them until they reached the straight and we could open up.
“We need to drop the back tires!” Angkor threw his rifle into the back of the car, rolled over the seat, and took the other rear position. “If the truck rolls, the kids are going to be mashed inside that thing.”
“Someone has to get in the cab,” Zane said.
Angkor turned to me, eyes flashing in the orange gloom. “I can’t drive, and I’m too weak to hold on up there at high speed. Can you do it?”
“I’ve taken twelve hits in as many hours,” I replied, loading a new magazine into the Glock and holstering it. “I’ll try, but I can’t promise I’m any stronger than you right now.”
“I’ve got enough in me to help you overclock.” Angkor reached out and clapped my face between his hands before I could protest. I jumped, startled, and then relaxed as his eyes bore into mine. They were normally a dark, iron gray, but in the darkness of the cabin, I saw them shine with a subtle, luminous green. Deep inside them was a glimpse of his Neshamah, an elusive ghostly thing as visceral and unnerving as he was. For a shocked moment, I thought he was going to kiss me.
My body flushed with a wave of sudden energy. I felt my muscles swell and warm. My heartrate picked up, and my senses sharpened to a finely honed edge. Colors were brighter. I began to sweat in the cold wind.
“Go!” He said, pushing me. “You’ve got five to ten minutes before you wind down!”
“Five or ten?” I holstered my pistols, checked the knife, and knelt up ready. There was now so much tensile strength in my legs that I nearly hit my head on the ceiling.
“Expect five. Hope for ten.”
“Okay! Get ready!” Zane swung in to close the gap between us and the truck. We were almost at the final curve of the road, a thousand feet from the highway. He pulled up even with the rear of the cab. I flung the door open, easily able to hold my weight against the onrushing wind, and kicked off into a rushing void of empty space.
There was a moment where I was sure that momentum was just going to pull me back, that I was going to miss a handhold, slip, and tumble away like Talya had. I caught the corner of the shipping crate, slid down, and hung on the bottom of the cargo tray. My legs were swinging close to the churning tires below. I got a heel onto the tray and then half-pulled, half-pushed myself up, plastering myself against the side of the shipping container like a bat.
The Lincoln surged forward – I was second-heaviest after Zane – just as the truck swerved to the left and rammed into the side of the car, bouncing me off my feet. I clutched the bolt rail of the container through the piercing metallic screech; Zane managed the fishtail, but the car fell back.
The truck swung around the right turn hard enough that the shipping container jounced and leaned, pitching my back to the road for a breathless moment before it thumped back into place. Faint screams echoed from inside of it. The kids.
I inched around the edge of it, putting myself between the container and the back of the cab as Angkor’s rifle barked. The truck wheeled and screeched as he dropped one tire, and then braked, hard. Zane shot past us onto the parkway, and then the truck floored it, charging him down as he was forced to wheel and catch the turn. The Lincoln was already just up off the ground when the truck took it in the side like a charging rhino. The car went flying and bounced, barrel-rolling to a smoking stop on the other side of the parkway. I couldn’t see the men inside.
“Fucking… blyat, suka!” I lunged forward and grabbed the ladder leading to the top of the cab. I pulled myself up, hand over hand. At the top of the semi, I saw the three-car escort ahead of us. They were headed straight for an armada of motorcycles.
Harleys roared up and out from their ambush positions on the side of the road, flinging mud and gravel as they charged. The first line of them held steady, firing on the escort cars. Shotguns went off like cannons; the truck braked again, squealing to a halt. It knocked my feet out from under me. I hit the top of the cab with my chin, biting my tongue, and fumbled to find a grip on the edge of the windshield.
Normally, I would have slid and then been thrown. Fueled on magic, I clawed my way to the front of the cab, swung down, and emptied half the clip into the driver’s side window. Blood exploded against the inside of the windshield, and the truck veered to the side, but it didn’t stop. I scrambled back up as someone returned fire from inside, and held on as they took the wheel, slammed the accelerator, and threw the cab to the side to shake me off.
The cars ahead tried to ram into the oncoming motorcycles, but they were too fast: they split around the vehicles trying to hit them, firing into the windows and at tires. The occupants had the same H&Ks they’d used at Strange Kitty, and even as I watched, one rider and gunner pair went down, jerking spasmodically and tumbling off the out of control bike. The Harley fell and skidded to the edge of the road in a tangle of flesh and metal.
The nearest car erupted with a forest of insectoid legs, and a peal of screams that quickly cut. Spiders the size of dogs crawled out, followed by three small shapes that ran up onto the trunk and onto the semi’s hood, just as it rammed up into the back of the vehicle ahead with a metallic crunch.
Panting, I let go and slid back to the edge of the roof until I caught the ladder. I held on until I had a steady moment, then leaped for the top of the sh
ipping container. The metabolic boost made me stronger, but no more graceful. I hit the edge of it as the semi wobbled from side to side, winding myself, and had to scramble inelegantly to the top with the Glock in hand. We’d slowed down – sixty miles per hour instead of eighty – but we were all still running a fighting battle down the road. I had to take out the tires.
Weaving, stumbling, I tried to walk and ended up crawling along the roof of the container. If I could get to the bottom edge of the cargo tray, then I could take out the other back tire and force it to drag its ass along the road. My heart was pumping hard enough that light flashed in my mouth with every heartbeat. I staggered up during a steady moment and ran for the end.
Something hit me just below the shoulder and began to thrash back and forth, levering a thin blade between my ribs. With a roar of pain, I groped back for it, pulled it out, and crushed it in my hand. It was a shrike, a bird, its skull stripped down to bone and shards of crystal. Its beak had become a razor glass weapon. I wrung its neck and threw it off the truck, coughing, and staggered to one knee as something else hit me low and then swarmed up my body like a tree. A squirrel the size of a terrier screeched and lunged for my throat, Yen spines bristling like porcupine quills. The missing Pathfinders.
I jammed the gun between it and me and emptied the clip into its chest and head. The bullets did nothing except drive it back. It rolled to its feet, tail flicking as more spines ejected from the new holes, and charged at me with mouth agape. I threw the empty gun and pulled the knife, slashing as it jumped. The former Pathfinder was more agile than physics should have allowed for: it twisted in midair and landed on my chest, claws ripping at my shirt. I stabbed it through the back multiple times before it began to weaken, and tore it free by the neck. I was still stabbing it when a second squirrel bit a large chunk out of my calf and collapsed me to the ground.
“Fucking squirrels!” The one on the knife was gasping in its death throes, black blood frothing from its mouth. I used it to backhand the other one still worrying my leg like a dog. I stabbed it two more times and flung it away, reaching down to grab the other one by the tail and haul it away from my leg.
And then, the spell cut. The small animal was suddenly a lot stronger, a lot faster, and it was on me in an instant. This one was missing its eyes and most of its fur, an animal made of broken crystal, huge teeth, and bubbling, tortured flesh. I rolled onto it, pinning it with my forearm and frantically stabbing it as it continued to kick, bite and claw.
The truck swayed and then spun to a stop, nearly tipping the container full of children off the tray and onto the road. The squirrel and I were flung off the side. I had two seconds of dizzy inertia before the crunch.
Years of combat training saved my life, but not my shoulder. I hit the ground rolling and tumbled ass over head before halting, the squirrel still impaled on my knife. I slammed its head on the ground until it stopped moving and picked myself up, trying to orientate on what was happening. There was a blockade of black cars ahead of us down the road, but no flashing lights or sirens. Confused, ears ringing, I staggered to my feet and found I couldn’t put any weight on one of them.
I saw a motorcycle pull up along the door: Jenner and Ron. She was perched on the back of the Harley like an acrobat, a bottle of something in her hand. I thought it was a Molotov until she threw it, unlit. A thin arc of liquid flew out behind it before it splashed. There was a roar of agony from the cab of the truck, and then the driver’s side door blew open. Mason leaped to the ground, a wave of warped muscle and dirty white fur, and bellowed to the night sky before fixing on me, now trying to limp away as fast as my one good foot could take me.
The escort cars were stopped, and one of them was on fire. All but two of the motorcycles were headed towards the roadblock, and I smelled a trap on instinct alone as I backed up from Mason, who was stalking me, eyeless sockets fixed on my position. I’d barely taken five steps before the front line of riders collapsed in a straight horizontal line. The lead riders were decapitated at the neck. The ones behind them either crashed into the one in front, or swerved into a skid to avoid the wire strung between trees on either side of the parkway.
Big Ron and Jenner pulled around up ahead and charged back from behind Mason. As they shot past us Mason reared up to slap as Jenner leapt off the back with a wordless cry, shifting in midair. She landed on Mason with her forearms spread, claws out, a wrap-around bear hug that began their bloody close quarters fight. The orange tiger slammed Mason into the truck and threw him to the ground, where they tangled into a snarling, spitting, slashing heap.
Men had unloaded from the black cars ahead of us, guns in their hands. With no regard for the few oncoming civilian cars trying to weave through the mess, they opened up on the remaining Twin Tigers like a firing squad.
We were dead. The cops were guaranteed to show up now, but they wouldn’t be here in time and they wouldn’t have enough initial firepower. I staggered behind the truck tire, crouching and shielding as stray rounds flew by and struck the truck, the shipping container, and the two tigers trying to rip each other to pieces. Ron had kept on going, turning the street corner up ahead and roaring off the way we’d came. He was going to look for Talya.
Two figures were running down the road towards us from that direction: Angkor and Zane. They were shouting, waving their arms. Hope flared back to life, and I got to my feet, drawing the Wardbreaker and a deep breath against the pain. I rounded the corner to rejoin the fray and got knocked upside the jaw with something hard and heavy that pitched me to the ground. The Wardbreaker skittered away from my hand.
A weird chemical taste filled my mouth. I rolled over, groaning, and squinted up at the calm face of John Spotted Elk.
Chapter 39
The reedy old man, false paragon Elder of the Four Fires, wore a black turtleneck and a shoulder holster. His hair was tied back. He was pointing the muzzle of the Wardbreaker at my head with an uncertain hand.
“Alexi Sokolsky,” he said. His face was graven and deeply lined with fatigue. “The Deacon warned me about you. I tried to put a stop to this nonsense. I tried being nice. I tried to get Ayashe to take you in. I respected you, because I know what it’s like to live in Russia during times of crisis. I did it once, long ago. Now look at this mess you’ve gotten yourself into. No one had to die like this.”
“Times of crisis? You mean during the chush’ sobach’ya?” I said. “The Revolution? Is that what you’re talking about?”
“Of course,” he replied, stiffly.
I laughed, for the first time in months and months. I couldn’t help it. His face became more and more graven.
“During the chush’ sobach’ya? ‘The Bullshit’? Really?” Once the laughter started, I couldn’t stop. “Bozhe miy, everything about you is a lie. You can’t even hold a gun straight.”
He looked down his nose at me, nostrils flaring with rage, and said nothing in reply.
“Pseudologica Fantasia,” I said. “Pathological lying. You weren’t in the Navy. You weren’t anything. The only thing you are is a good liar, and that just makes you a piece of shit. You’ve never even killed someone yourself.”
“I’m about to,” he said.
“Preserving your fantasy life was worth the lives of how many children, exactly?” I crawled back a bit, the knife in hand. “Twenty? A hundred?”
“They have to learn all of this sooner or later,” Spotted Elk replied, shifting his finger on the trigger. “When you’re as old as I am-”
I rolled my eyes. It hurt, but it was worth it.
“-and you see all the things HuMankind is willing to do to itself, you realize that none of it matters anyway.” His voice firmed, trembling with gathering anger. “I was in the trenches in World War One, I was in the Inquisition and I was hunted by them. No one ever noticed me watching them. After the first hundred cycles, I stopped pretending I was human. They’ll be reborn no matter what happens. Death is a lesson we all have to learn.”
While he was lecturing me, Jenner and Mason’s fight raged. They were chasing each other towards the side of the road, limping with ragged, gaping bloody wounds that weren’t healing. Beyond them, it was a bloodbath. Bikers were using the emptied escort cars for cover against the gunmen firing on them. Neither side were properly trained or properly armed. Three of the black cars were somehow on fire.
“What a load of bullshit. Rape and murder aren’t lessons appropriate for children,” I replied, focusing back on Spotted Elk. “You never cared about them. You knew what Lily and Dru were doing, and you didn’t stop it. You’re not even a shapeshifter.”
“I am the oldest and strongest Elder in this country!” he spat.
I flared my eyes and leaned forward. “Do it, then. Transform and eat me. Go on.”
His face contorted with anger. “I don’t have to prove anything to the likes of you.”
I curled my lip. “You. Can’t. Change.”
John scoffed, but he was sweating. It was pouring down his face, running off his nose. “You think you’re a killer. You think you’re all that. You’re just a loser. Everyone knows what I am, what I did for this community and for the tribes. I’ll tell them that I was kidnapped. They’ll believe me, and you’ll be dead.”
“Then fucking do it, suka!” I struggled up higher. Zane and Angkor were surely almost within firing range.
His finger trembled on the trigger. “You don’t want to be alive when the world is the way it is. It’s all wrong.”
“DO IT!” I roared.
John Spotted Elk was panting. He cupped the butt of the pistol, but he couldn’t control the weapon and he was confused as to why he couldn’t press the trigger. I knew it. He’d never shot a damn thing in his life.
The sweat dripping from his nose froze in mid-air, hanging like a tiny crystal. I couldn’t move… or that I could, but only with extraordinary slowness. My heart thundered in my ears. The blood bubbling in my chest and throat popped and gurgled in stop motion. Only my mind remained at normal speed.
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