One of the bigger werewolves howled and the others sang along even as the Mazda plowed straight through them.
Paige and the Amriany were knocked against the car’s interior and bounced against the roof as windows shattered and steel bent around them. The car was damaged even further when the stubborn Half Breeds hung on after being hit and shredded the Mazda as if it had been constructed from wet toilet paper. After skidding to a stop within ten yards of the private jet, Paige said, “This is as close as I can get.”
“Good enough,” Gunari replied. “Let’s go.”
“Leave me here,” Milosh said.
Both passenger side doors were open. Gunari stood with his feet planted and his arms raised in a two-handed firing stance. The .44 sent a pair of blazing rounds into an approaching Half Breed before he shifted his aim and fired again.
“We’re not leaving you,” Nadya said. “You’re wounded.”
“I know. That’s why I should stay to make sure the plane gets away.”
“We’re all getting out of here,” Paige said. “But only if we stop dicking around in the car. Get to some bigger guns and get that fucking plane ready!”
Just as Milosh seemed ready to take Gunari’s hand and allow himself to be pulled from the car, Nadya pointed the MAC-10 out her window at a mass of dark red fur that had leapt over the small airport building. Minh landed less than twenty yards away, bullets pounding against her coat like rain on a heavy tarp. She opened her mouth to roar angrily and then surged forward. Bullets struck her face, but none of them so much as chipped a fang. Then, less than a second before she could close the distance between herself and the Amriany, Minh was struck in the side of the neck by a blade thrown by Milosh. Charmed steel dug through the protective layers of fur and lodged into her flesh. She twisted away to bark at the closest Half Breeds, and like dutiful soldiers the smaller werewolves broke formation to circle around the Mazda from two different directions.
Knowing that the Half Breeds would take her down the moment she left the car, Paige threw the Mazda into reverse and backed away from the jet.
Gunari ran up the stairs leading to the Gulfstream’s side door, opened it and stepped inside. He emerged a second later with an assault rifle braced against his shoulder and unleashed a torrent of three-round bursts at the Half Breeds. In between chattering onslaughts, he motioned for his partners to come to him.
The Mazda was still running, but plowing into so many bodies wasn’t doing it any favors. The only thing that allowed the car to keep rolling at all was the fact that the multijointed Half Breeds could bend on impact instead of taking the hit like dead weight. Smoke drifted from under the hood and the engine made a disturbing grinding sound as she circled around to the other side of the aircraft. “You guys get out and I’ll draw them away.”
“You are coming with us,” Milosh snarled fiercely.
“None of us will go anywhere unless I lead some of these things away from here,” she insisted.
“She’s right,” Nadya said while kicking open the door. She helped Milosh out as Gunari continued to fire at the werewolves. He even tossed an explosive at them that thumped loudly and sent several of the creatures scattering. The two Amriany moved away from the Gulfstream to circle around it from a clearer side.
Paige backed away and then pointed the front end of the car at Minh. “All right,” she said under her breath. “Blaze of glory time.”
She stomped the gas pedal. The Mazda lurched, coughed, and ground noisily, but jumped forward. As the tires peeled across the pavement, gunfire popped nearby and supernatural voices rose to a singular howl.
Minh had just found Nadya and Milosh, but she stopped and glanced casually over her shoulder at the approaching car. Considering her angle and speed, Paige thought she had a real good chance of using a few tons of rolling steel to ruin the Full Blood’s day until another mass of fur dropped from above to land squarely on the hood of the car. Paige’s head knocked against the steering wheel, but the dizzying effects were quickly wiped away by the healing serum produced in her blood.
But she couldn’t see anything.
Even the sounds were muffled.
All she could feel was the rattle of the car’s struggling engine and the brush of something coarse against her cheek. When she tried to look out her window, she realized that her senses weren’t as dulled as she thought. There was just an air bag pressed against her face. As suddenly as the air bag had deployed, it was broken down by a set of claws that came in through the front window to swipe at her.
“Can’t get away yet,” Liam said while reaching into the car as if fishing for the prize inside a box of cereal. “Killin’ you won’t be any help unless we can do it out in the open where all your friends on the computer can see it replayed again an’ again!”
Having gotten close enough to Liam’s paw to taste his fur, Paige jumped across to the passenger side, shoved the door open and rolled out. Her knees and hands hit the rough cement as a load of bile gurgled up from her stomach. Forcing down the rancid liquids along with the distinct coppery taste of blood, she scrambled away from the Mazda on all fours until she gained enough momentum to get her legs beneath the rest of her body. By then Liam had all but turned the driver’s side of the car inside out. Saliva ran from both corners of his mouth in an uneven stream as he looked down at Paige. “Been thinkin’ about this ever since Kansas City.”
Spitting out a wad of blood, she replied, “Yeah. And you still need an army to take me on.”
His massive head swayed back and forth. Fur hung down from his jawline and a crystalline eye glittered menacingly from beneath the shelf of a ridged brow. His mouth opened with the start of a word but snapped shut at the sound of whining jet engines mingling with the deep thump of heavy machine-gun fire.
“I’ve already taken care of her,” Minh said from somewhere outside of Paige’s field of vision.
Liam crawled down from the roof of the car, looked at the deep bloody grooves in Paige’s right arm and sniffed. When he raised his head again, he was smiling. “Right you are, luv.”
Paige couldn’t tell what sort of gun was being fired, but it was raising hell among the Half Breeds. Before she could become too happy about that, the sound was wiped away by snarling howls and ripping metal. More gunfire preceded the flaring of the engines.
Hunkering down as if in prayer, Liam shifted into a vaguely human form that was covered in thickly matted fur. “They’re leeeavin’ on a jet plane,” he sang cheerfully. “Don’t know when they’ll be back again.”
There was no more pain from getting hit in the face by the air bag. Paige felt no more panic from the ambush or the notion of being abandoned in a town that appeared to be overrun by werewolves. She simply reached for her shoulder holster, drew her Beretta, and fired two shots into the mess of scar tissue filling Liam’s right eye socket.
The Full Blood recoiled and made a sound close to a shriek Paige thought she would never hear from one of his kind. She propped herself up, steadied her aim, and continued to fire. Just as she was starting to get into it, she was knocked down by something that felt like a piece of the car that had come alive to make her pay for all the reckless driving that brought her to the airport. Now that she’d stopped shooting, she could hear the other snarling voices, as well as the wet ripping of flesh being torn asunder.
The Gulfstream was moving away from the hangar and taxiing toward the runway. Half Breeds scrambled across its fuselage, some of them gnawing at the landing gear while scraping madly at the ground, others tussling with lean figures that could have been one or more of the Amriany. Gunari leaned out the side door, firing his assault rifle until it was time to pull his head inside and shut the door behind him.
Liam rolled away from the dented remains of the Mazda and pulled something off his back. It was another shapeshifter, but not a werewolf. Paige had seen enough of the feline creatures to recognize them as Mongrels. Minh was preoccupied with a cluster of blurred figures that could only be seen as a disturbance in the air surrounding her. A familiar scent caught Paige’s attention then. To confirm her suspicion, she pulled in a deep breath that was thick with traces of oil secreted by certain Mongrels, which allowed them to bend light around them until they were all but invisible. Now that she knew what to look for, she spotted at least three blurred figures attacking Minh and the Half Breeds. She didn’t know who they were or where they’d come from, but if Mongrels wanted to take the Full Bloods off her hands, they were more than welcome.
Paige struggled to stay on her feet as she ran from the swarm of flailing claws and teeth behind her. She kept her eyes fixed upon the Gulfstream, hoping one of the Amriany would look back and find her. If the engines let up for only a moment, she knew she’d be able to catch up. Then, like a true miracle, the engine noise died down.
The jet pivoted around at the end of the runway to line up with the strip of pavement. A surge of energy flowed through Paige’s body, carrying her forward until the wind whipped through her hair. Suddenly, her body was dragged
