Moccus spread his hands. ‘You see? Now, if you will simply surrender Mrs Keeling to me without a fuss, you can take one of them and go home.’
‘How is this even up to him?’ Prav protested.
‘It’s not,’ said Dennie. ‘Of course, I’m going to go with him.’
Prav uttered a short, hard bark of contemptuous laughter. ‘Oh, that’s not going to happen.’
‘Wait,’ said David. ‘One of them?’
‘Of course,’ said Matt. ‘We’re meant to trust that you won’t call in the cavalry as soon as we leave? Uh-uh. We give you one of yours as a gesture of good faith, we take Dennie and the other one, and once we’re safe and sound we let the other one go. And we all live happily ever after, like baby lambs.’ He looked at Turner and winked.
Prav sighed. ‘Oh, you stupid dickhead.’
Bellowing, Turner threw himself at Matt, and it all went to shit.
Matt swatted Turner away, but in doing so Turner lost his grip on both gun and leash and Hob leapt for the one who had attacked his master. Daz saw his dad knocked flying, let go of Bella’s leash and raised his own shotgun while Bella lunged for Matt too. David saw the female creature that had held a knife to his daughter’s throat bend towards where Alice and Becky lay clutching each other, still shuddering from the effects of Moccus’ exorcism, and he leapt at her, screaming, ‘Get the fuck away from them!’ The female loosed a cry exactly like an enraged boar, mouth agape and grinning with tusks, and turned to meet his charge, swinging her knife. The stab vest turned it, and his momentum carried him into her, slamming her to the ground. His hands were around her throat and he squeezed with the strength of the first flesh while she clawed at him; the vest caught some of her attacks, but she was gouging at his arms too, and his blood was running down them and onto her face.
* * *
‘Oh, you stupid dickhead.’
Prav levelled her Taser on Moccus and fired; the twin barbs struck him squarely in the chest, and the pistol crackled as fifty thousand volts surged along its wires. Moccus looked down at them with a frown like a man seeing a bug crawling on him. He plucked them out and tossed them away.
‘Or we can do this,’ he said, and came for her.
Gibbering things were coming out of the trees and a shotgun was barking and Dennie was at her back, hands over her ears, screaming. She dropped the Taser, flicked out her police-issue baton, dropped her centre of gravity into her knees and squared herself to meet the god.
* * *
Mark Turner picked himself up, and looked around for his gun. Daz was blasting at the things that came running out from the bushes. A few yards away, Hewitson was staggering about with Hob locked on his arm and Bella ripping at his thigh. As Turner’s fingers found the smooth steel of the gun barrel, Hewitson plucked Hob away by the back of the neck as if he’d been nothing more than a puppy and flung him at a stone block the size of a fridge. Hob bounced, shrieked, and fell limply to the ground.
‘You little fucker,’ he grunted, and grabbed up his shotgun.
* * *
Dennie cowered amidst the noise. With trembling fingers she fumbled at the gardening utility pouch on her belt and took out the little foldaway pruning knife she habitually carried. Its blade was only two inches long, but it was the only weapon she had.
No, it isn’t, said a familiar voice, and the rail spike slammed her between the eyes.
* * *
The female creature had stopped clawing at David’s arms and instead was pushing at the ground as if trying to dig her way into it. He realised she wasn’t trying to hurt him any more, just get away, so he released his grip and she scrambled out from underneath him and fled for the safety of the tree-line, clutching her throat. He threw himself over to where Alice and Becky were cowering. He clutched them both in his arms and kissed them.
‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘Don’t move.’
‘Don’t go,’ Becky moaned. Alice whimpered into her shoulder.
‘I’ll be right back, I swear.’
He picked up the knife that the female creature had dropped, and went to help Prav.
* * *
Matt shook the other dog free and charged at Daz. Half a dozen Recklings were dead or crippled from his gun, and the rest of them looked like they were ready to break and run. Sus had already legged it. In the dark, and with the element of surprise, they could be vicious little bastards, but in broad daylight with a man shooting at them their natural animal cowardice was taking over. He needed to do something about that.
He ran up to Daz and ripped the shotgun from his grip, flinging it away. Daz swore and punched him in the face but it was a grazing blow, easily shaken off. The first flesh was in him, and he was untouchable. He laughed and dropped Daz to the ground
