flopping onto the bar. From there, Sonya was set upon by Mud People who bit and clawed at her in a blind frenzy.
“Get to the back room!” Tristan shouted.
With most of the Mud People converging on Sonya, there was just enough of a gap for the Skinners to escort Tristan and Kate past the main stage. Rico was in that vicinity, surrounded by the remaining Mud People. Still chanting Henry’s words, some of them clawed and swung at him, while the others latched onto his arms and legs. Henry had made an appearance as well. Cole could tell as much by the muddy corpse on the floor that was swollen from an attempted transformation and left with its head twisted at an unnatural angle. Behind him, Cole could hear the horrific tearing of flesh followed by the leathery flow of tentacles as Sonya was overcome by an overdose of Pestilence that was easily ten times more than what had killed Peter Walsh.
“The old man got past me!” Rico yelled as soon as he caught sight of Cole and Paige. “In the back room!
While he may have been inclined to follow that order under normal circumstances, Cole wasn’t about to do so when Rico was close to being brought down for good. Rico not only had the Mud People to contend with, but Jerry had flanked him and was about to blindside the big guy. Cole ran forward and used his momentum to drive the spear deep into the Nymar’s side, angled toward his heart. Enraged by the proximity of the nymphs and all the Pestilence in the air, Jerry turned into something that could no longer even pass as a person. Cole ground the spear within his chest as if turning a crank until he felt the point snag upon the spore attached to the Nymar’s heart. Once it was punctured, the spore sucked all of the moisture from Jerry’s body in a futile attempt to heal. The Nymar’s last movement was to reach out for Kate’s arm as she hurried past him.
Malia was knocked off course, to land on her side upon one of the few tables that had yet to be overturned. Although some of her fur was bloodied and singed, the Mongrel wasn’t about to be put down by a single shotgun blast. Christov stood in the hallway behind the shattered mirror, still grasping the smoking weapon in his hands. “What the fuck’s happening here?” he screamed, as though on the verge of tears.
“Come on!” Tristan said as she pulled the employees’ door open. Kate rushed through, immediately followed by Paige.
Rico fired his last shot at Malia, sending the Mongrel darting under a different table. “There’s a few more of Christov’s boys back there,” he said to Cole. “Some big black dude and a preppy kid. If that old man’s still here, those bouncers will need all the help they can get.”
The Mud People shifted their attention back to the Skinners, and several were knocked off their feet as Malia charged through the group. Careful not to bite any of the Mud People, she scurried beneath a table and lunged at Rico. In the time it took for him to reload his .45, his arm was grabbed by two of the mud-faced customers. Both of them were dressed in plain shorts and T-shirts. No more details than that could be seen through the stains smeared into their clothes. More of the diseased customers grabbed Malia, causing the Mongrel to swipe at them with her claws.
One of the Mud People closest to Rico turned to look at him. She was one of the human dancers, but now her face was slick with dark bile. When she opened her mouth, she coughed so violently that it snapped her head to one side, which was followed by the wet crunch of breaking bone. “Pestilence will make the world new again,” she said. “Maketheworldnewagainmaketheworldnewagain!”
The other muddied customers may have tried to say those same words, but they couldn’t get out more than gurgling croaks since their throats were now full of blackened paste. As one, all of the Mud People shifted their eyes toward the employees’ entrance.
When Cole ran to help Rico, he found himself quickly looking down the barrel of the Sig Sauer. “I’m covering
“We’re all back there, Rico! How about you move your ass and come with us?”
The bigger man thought about that for as long as it took to crack the side of his pistol against the temple of a Mud Person who tried to close his hands around his throat. As soon as the would-be strangler was down, Rico followed Cole to the door.
No matter how many Mud People had piled onto Malia, there weren’t enough to keep her pinned. She slashed her way through them amid a wailing, feral snarl.
“Shit,” Rico grunted as he stopped just short of the door, then waited for a clean shot and fired a round that dug a bloody trench down Malia’s back.
Pain, desperation, and fury gave Malia the fuel she needed to shake the Mud People loose and charge at the true target of her aggression. “Out of my city!” she snarled through a mouthful of teeth that looked like sharpened icicles.
After everyone had made it through the door, Rico filled up the entrance with his body and lowered his head as Malia ripped into his back. Cole grabbed onto the lapels of his patchwork jacket and tried to pull him in, but Paige shouted, “Leave him!”
A rotund man wearing khaki pants and a flower print shirt stepped through the broken mirror while filling the back hallway with a wet groan. Christov fired another blast from his shotgun, which liquefied the former customer’s legs and stopped the rest of the Mud People in their tracks.
“Hang on,” Rico growled. “Almost…got it.” Gripping the door frame as well as the hand Cole offered, he pulled himself into the hallway as the sound of tearing flesh drifted through the air. But the flesh being torn wasn’t Rico’s. Instead, Malia’s teeth had clamped around his jacket, and she tugged at it like a dog trying to claim its end of a knotted sock. Though she shredded a good portion of the protective layers, her teeth didn’t make it through the Half Breed body armor.
Using the blunted end of his spear just in case he hit Rico by mistake, Cole reached over the other Skinner’s shoulder and cracked the bridge of Malia’s nose. She opened her jaws, shook her head wildly and snarled at the clawing Mud People behind her. She must not have liked her odds any longer because she crossed the room in one jump to land upon a partition separating the restrooms from the rest of the club. One more jump took her to the front of the club, where she darted out the front door.
Rico shoved past Cole and slammed the door shut. “Thanks,” he said while twisting the lock above the handle.
“Will you be safe in your office?” Paige asked Christov.
“My guys are already in there,” the bald man replied.
“Fine. Just dig in and stay there.”
Christov didn’t need any more coaching before pressing his back to the wall and shuffling past the broken mirror. The Mud People may have seemed mindless, but the sight of the infected customer squirming on the jagged shards of glass after getting his leg blown was enough to make the rest of them hesitant to pass that line. When Christov scooted past the dressing rooms, the hobbled Mud Person snapped his head to one side and pulled himself over the razor-sharp glass.
“Dr. Lancroft don’t wanna be interrupted!” Henry said through the Mud Person’s slimy lips.
Henry nearly eviscerated himself to crawl over the glass. Kicking frantically at the possessed customer, Christov ran to his office and almost rattled the door off its hinges before the bouncers inside finally let him in.
Paige, Cole, and Rico formed a barrier between the Mud People and the remaining dancers. Somehow, Tristan and Kate had kept their wits about them long enough to bring two of the human girls away from the main room as well.
Cole could hear Shae’s screaming, but couldn’t quite place where it was coming from.
“Did they get out through the side exit?” Paige asked.
Tristan turned to place her hands flat upon the wall at one end of the hallway. “No,” she replied. “They’re in here.”
Some of the Mud People grew brave enough to crawl over the shell Henry had left behind. The slaps upon the employees’ door grew not only in number but in intensity.
“They’ll break through before too long,” Paige warned.
Rico double-checked his .45 and took steady aim at the broken mirror. “So will the cops.”
