Enkyklios.
Cole charged toward the giant parasite, yel ing like a Celtic warrior, his hair flying out behind him, his gun gripped so firmly in his hand it seemed like an extension of his arm. Bergman’s glasses had flown off sometime during his ordeal, so he couldn’t quite get the details. But, in general, he knew it might be time to panic.
“Cole!” he yel ed. “What are you doing?”
“Dave made it back, so I’m free to save you!”
He peered at Cole’s hand. “With a remote control?”
“Bergman! For once, could you stop thinking and just duck?”
Miles bent over, the Rider nearly toppling him onto his head as his balance shifted. For a second they resembled a couple of kids playing Superman. And then the Rider looked up. Cole said later that only his inertia kept him moving forward in the face of those eyes. Deep pink pupils surrounded by lighter pink irises bored into Cole’s face like a couple of ice picks. He had a few seconds to realize the grinning mask was ful of flat, broad teeth, none of which could’ve pierced Bergman’s delicate veins. And then he understood. The Rider’s needle-tipped ribs were also its teeth, every one of which had pierced Bergman’s sides so cleanly that barely a drop of blood had stained his old brown sweater.
Now those teeth throbbed as they attempted to draw out his very essence. Bergman’s chest heaved as he fought against the attack. Spit bubbled on his lips. His eyes rol ed, fol owing Cole into the mix.
Our sniper, normal y lethal at five hundred feet, closed in on the Rider, yel ing, “Long live the Bemonts!” like some crazed Scottish Highlander as he emptied his clip into the Rider’s face. It jumped and howled with each shot, making Bergman dance like a Broadway star. But after the last shot had been fired, not even a single rib had detached.
Which was when Cassandra said to Dave, “This may not end wel .” Jack’s low growl echoed her sentiment. She’d grabbed his lead when Cole dropped it, and was now rubbing his head, though which of them was more comforted by the touch she couldn’t have said.
Dave nodded and pul ed yet another knife from a sheath he’d strapped across his back. Kissing her on the cheek, he said, “Don’t watch if this is going to change your mind about me.” She snorted. “I’ve seen gladiators shove their hands inside their enemies’ rib cages. I think I can handle a little knife fight.”
He looked down at her admiringly. “You’re such a rocket in the sack I keep forgetting you could’ve been the model for a Spanish doubloon.”
“Who says I wasn’t?”
“Tease.”
“Oh? So you’ve seen the new miniskirt I bought?”
Dave huffed. “That’s it. I’m kil ing this sumbitch in record time.” He whirled away, cal ing, “Move over, Cole! I’ve got plans for the next hour and they don’t include getting my ass kicked!” Cassandra, having already met Albert, knew that his methods of motivation might meet with occasional success. But with his son, her approach worked every time. And best of al ? It gave him an excel ent reason to make sure he survived. Which was why she took credit for Dave’s extra burst of speed, the one that al owed him to catch up with Cole, so that the sniper’s gun-butt bludgeoning coincided with her husband’s slice-and-dice as if they’d practiced on a Rider- shaped dummy in Vayl’s backyard.
The Rider screamed in pain as Cole’s improvised club and Dave’s blade battered the soft skin between its tusks. But so, unfortunately, did Bergman.
“No, Mom!” he shouted. “I’m not going to your goddamn protest!” Cole spoke urgently into his ear. “Miles! Come on, buddy, you know these suck-you-til -you-sag types. The sadder, the more violent, you feel, the sweeter you taste. So flood your head with good stuff. Your first peek at a
But the incision-like wound was already closing, the saliva stretching from the Rider’s tooth to Miles’s skin quickly drying into a bio-bandage. “That’s handy,” said Cole. “Also kinda sick. Bergman is not gonna be happy.”
Dave pul ed a fang out from the other side and sliced it off at the Rider’s body, causing it to scream and convulse even as Bergman blushed and murmured, “Sweetheart, I’m not sure that’s legal in this country!”
“Who is Monique and what the hel does she see in this brain-ona-stick?” demanded Dave as he and Cole continued defanging their tech guru, covering him, the Rider, and themselves with a startlingly rancid combination of saliva, blood, and bile.
“She’s Bergman’s girlfriend,” said Cassandra, who’d come closer to lend moral support. “He met her when we were in Marrakech.”
“She’s a little older than him,” Cole said. He added, “Watch out, Cassandra. I think this Rider’s about to hurl.”
It was shaking and heaving like Bergman’s blood hadn’t agreed with it after al . Cassandra stepped aside just as it puked up the contents of its stomach over Bergman’s left shoulder. They hit the pine needles with a wet, splatting sound that made her nose wrinkle. “This job is so nasty. They should, at the very least, send you off with your own personal bottle of Germex.”
“I agree.” Bergman sighed. Dave and Cole had nearly torn the Rider from his back. But the final connection, a pair of knittingneedle-sized ribs that seemed to shoot straight into Bergman’s back and out his chest, would not yield.
“We’ve done al we can,” Dave told him grimly. “Like I told you before, it’s stil up to you.” Bergman nodded, his head winding around in a circle like he was too tired to make a precise up-and-down motion anymore. He sighed again. Dave and Cole shared a look of round-eyed worry with Cassandra. She stepped forward to urge Bergman on to greatness, but before she could say her piece, Astral had hopped over to the open spot at his feet. Jumping up so her paws rested on his shins she said, “Learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings.”
