“That’s it,” Tristan whispered as she closed her eyes.
Cole struggled to get to his feet and stood with his spear held in front of him. Paige could only watch for a second before she once again sloshed toward the shore.
“No!” Tristan told her. “Stay where you are! I need to feel his fear.”
Paige had every intention of ignoring the command until the air popped and hissed in front of her. Beneath the shrieking, howling, screaming, and gunfire, the pure tone of Tristan’s singing voice ran like the current flowing along the deepest ocean trench. As Cole faced the possibility of being torn apart by Minh, the Dryad’s voice rose in pitch and the disturbance in the air ripped apart to become another glowing green portal like the one that had brought him into Oklahoma.
Since the portal was between her and Cole, Paige walked around it in knee-deep water toward the Amriany. Once half a dozen gargoyles latched onto Minh’s fur, Cole backed toward the shimmering gateway. He waved his spear in the air to attract the next wave of fliers and was just quick enough to lay flat so they could streak over his head and disappear through the Dryad bridge.
Liam stared in utter disbelief. Minh swatted at the gargoyles around her but was losing her battle as more and more of them clamped on. She looked at him and roared for help, which Liam sent in the form of more Half Breeds. The wretches ran at her as well as the humans seeking shelter in the water, but were covered in so much of the gargoyle juices that the other flying creatures were drawn to them like magnets.
Paige stepped into the little area cleared by the Amriany and cupped her hand to her mouth. “On the ground at your feet, Cole! The silver thing! Pick it up!”
Cole turned and started walking toward her.
“No!” Paige shouted. “On the ground! Look on the ground!”
He looked down, spotted the discarded Amriany projectile, and stooped to pick it up as a gargoyle sliced through the air where his head had just been.
“Throw it over here, Cole!” she said.
She couldn’t be certain he’d heard everything she’d said, but there was no way Cole could miss the angry growl that rolled out of Liam’s throat like the engine of a rumbling semi. Cole’s fist tightened around the gleaming little cylinder before he tossed it to Paige. The object was passed to Nadya, who stuffed it into the engraved tube, pulled back the handle and shot it at Liam.
“It’s Full Blood bait!” Paige shouted.
Nadya threw the tube into the portal. Although Liam moved toward the glowing opening, he resisted with every powerful muscle and shred of willpower at his disposal. He ignored the gargoyles diving at him, shook off the ones that had sunk their talons into his fur, and dropped to all fours to run at Cole like a man that had suddenly become wild. His steps were clunky and off-kilter. Every time he stretched out his hands to claw at the earth, more of the rocky crust that had been poured onto his back cracked away. Rather than run at the portal, however, he charged Cole. By the time the splash of his steps reached Paige’s ears, the Full Blood, Cole, and several of the gargoyles disappeared through the green portal, which then flickered from existence.
“Where are they?” Paige demanded as she turned to face Tristan. “Where did you send them?”
She blinked, drew a breath, and quickly collected herself. “Hush.”
“Did you just tell me to—”
Paige was cut off by the crackle of one bridge closing and another being shredded into the air. This time the pale green light emerged in the vicinity of Minh and a group of Half Breeds. “We brought those gargoyles to deal with the Full Bloods, and I’m here to send them away. If that doesn’t happen now, it won’t happen at all.”
Minh was making her way to the trees, her movements slow as she kept a low profile, in contrast to the Half Breeds that barked and climbed over each other to wildly attack the gargoyles flapping around her. Paige could see that Tristan was right. And after all that had happened to get things this far along, she wasn’t about to let Cole’s plan go to waste.
“Can you herd those things?” Paige asked while making her way to the spot being held by the Amriany.
Nadya swapped the empty magazine in the FAMAS for a full one. “I may be able to steer them a little, but that’s all.”
“Then steer them toward me.” Without another word of explanation, Paige ran to Bill’s body and removed her sickle from his head. Tightening her grip on the weapon, she drew the stake from the holster in her boot and rushed toward Minh.
Now that Nadya’s bait had disappeared, Minh didn’t have to struggle to maintain her focus amid the swirling storm of predators. She turned her back on the reservoir and crouched in preparation for a leap that would carry her into the trees when a stabbing pain lanced all the way through her lower right side. She howled and tried to take a step, which only aggravated the wound created by the sickle blade now wedged into her thigh.
“You wanna run?” Paige asked as she raced to Minh’s side so she could grab the weapon she’d thrown and turn it like a crank within the meaty portion of the Full Blood’s leg. “Too late!”
Minh’s growl rose into a wailing howl as the metal-encrusted blade rotated within her. After pulling the weapon out, Paige dropped her other fist like a hammer to drive the pointed end of her wooden stake into the bloody gash she’d created. Minh’s flesh pinched together around the weapon, healing from what should have been a crippling injury. As the Full Blood straightened its back and looked down at her with fierce, crystalline eyes, Paige willed the stake to stretch deep within Minh’s thigh, where it branched into a sharp network of thorns.
Charmed wooden needles burrowed inside Minh’s lower body. When her knee hit the dirt, wooden points sprang from beneath her flesh, while others ripped her from within. The howl that she offered to the Breaking Moon was matched only by Paige’s war cry as she swung her sickle toward the Full Blood’s chest. Moving with a speed impressive even for a Full Blood, Minh blocked the sickle using her own forearm. But though she prevented that strike from landing, the wooden lattice still burrowed inside her leg.
The chatter of Nadya’s FAMAS remained on the outer edge of Paige’s awareness. Even the screaming gargoyles were demoted to background noise as one of the most powerful creatures in existence was held prone by the stake in her hand. Locking eyes with the Skinner, Minh planted her other foot and began to pull the sickle away from her. Unwilling to let the weapon go, Paige could only grit her teeth as her elbow strained to the point of popping out of joint.
Her ears were filled with the rush of blood pulsing through her body. Desperate thoughts raced through her mind, most of which were in expectation of losing a limb that she’d become very fond of throughout the years. The werewolf grinned widely, lifting her off the ground until the thorns snaking through Minh’s leg were twisted at a sharp angle. Paige willed as much of the weapon as she could to stretch into the Full Blood’s thigh and expand in every direction until more of the thorns emerged from her flesh. Minh narrowed her eyes into slits, bared her teeth and pulled Paige’s arms in opposite directions.
The Amriany were shouting and firing wildly behind her, but Paige was fading. When her elbows and shoulders crunched before snapping out of joint, she was hard-pressed to remember anything but the single face that had driven her this far.
Paige’s fist remained locked around the handle of her weapon. Coppery blood washed over her hands and shrieking cries mixed with the deafening chatter of assault rifle fire as she stared into the face of death itself. The glow of the moon that had played across Minh’s fur was suddenly splayed over the leathery back of a gargoyle that wrapped around the Full Blood’s face. It was followed by another and another, all of which sank their talons into Minh’s body to draw themselves tightly against her in a desperate, suffocating embrace. The only part of the Full Blood protected from the gargoyles was the section of her thigh where Paige’s stake protruded.
Abruptly, Paige fell to the ground. Not only had Minh released her to try and fight off the gargoyles, but Paige had somehow maintained her grip on the sickle. The Full Blood was unable to move quickly enough to shred all of the gargoyles that descended upon her, and the more of them she ripped apart, the more creatures showed up to take their place. A pair of hands grabbed Paige by the shoulder and dragged her away. She screamed as her dislocated arm was tugged with a crack that reverberated inside her head. When she was set down again, the pain from that shoulder had lessened significantly.
Now that the remaining gargoyles had their meal, the only sound they made was the brush of one leathery body against another and the scrape of talons against flesh. Every so often one of their gaping mouths sucked like a baby trying to latch onto a nipple.
Tristan’s voice filled the air, and the pale green glow flared up to an almost blinding flash. When it was gone, so was Minh and all the gargoyles attached to her.
