Fitz aimed at the entrance, spotting shapes in the darkness.
Three or four muzzle flashes suddenly lit up the open doorway.
“Down!” he screamed.
Bullets plunged into the chairs and webbing around Team Ghost. A round slammed into Esparza’s shoulder, and she fell backward, crumpling against a chair.
She pressed a hand against the wound. Blood gushed between her fingers.
More rounds hammered their position. Fitz couldn’t see their assailants or Dohi, but he could hear them. Another four juveniles rushed in screeching, and Dohi screamed back a blood-curdling war cry.
Rico crawled past a few destroyed seats to another position. A monster suddenly leapt over the seats in front of her.
“Jeni!” Fitz yelled.
She swiveled onto her back, bringing her rifle up to parry the snapping teeth of the creature. Fitz tried to aim, but another juvenile swiped at him from the seats he was behind.
The creature grabbed him by his collar and yanked him up, ripping his rifle strap with its claws and tossing him to the aisle. He hit the ground hard but drew his holstered M9 with just enough time to fire at the beast as it lunged for him. Bullets smashed into its armor but didn’t kill the wretched thing. It grabbed his prosthetic blades and pulled him closer, right into biting distance as he fired into the armor of its neck and face.
“STOP!” came a gravelly voice.
The bleeding juvenile loosened its grip, whimpering and backing off.
Fitz turned his gun on a Chimera with a ragged cloak striding down the aisle holding a cutlass. A broken skull covered his face.
Elijah.
The abomination that had killed Ace.
“Put your weapons down or you all die,” Elijah said. “This is your one chance!”
Fitz swallowed his anger and took a stolen moment to assess the situation while he kept his pistol trained on the skull mask. He couldn’t see Dohi, but Esparza was down. Rico was in the grip of a juvenile and six Chimeras marched beside Elijah. They split up, advancing down the sides of the throne room.
“Put down your weapons or your little Rico dies,” Elijah said. “The Prophet has chosen you. There is no need for you to waste your lives heedlessly.”
The beast looked away from Fitz to Esparza. “But not you, heretic.”
At the snap of his claws, a juvenile leapt over a seat and ripped into her.
“NO!” Rico shouted.
Fitz kept his gun aimed at Elijah as the monster tore Esparza apart, the sickening sounds of teeth on bone cutting through the air.
“Rico’s next if you don’t submit,” Elijah said.
“Don’t do it, Fitzie!” Rico yelled.
Saliva from the juvenile dripped onto her face.
Fitz was about to lower his gun when Dohi leapt over the seats. With his hatchet and knife in hand, he ran for Elijah, screaming at the top of his lungs.
A Chimera tried to stop him, but Dohi whirled and sliced open the throat of the monster and then slammed his hatchet into the face of a second Chimera. With only his knife left, he jumped onto a seat and then launched himself into the air toward Elijah.
The Chimera was caught off guard, and Dohi slammed into him, knocking him down. He brought the blade to Elijah’s throat but did not kill him.
“BACK OFF!” Dohi yelled to the other Chimeras.
The beasts throughout the room gave each other confused looks.
“Do it, or he dies!” Dohi shouted.
“If you kill me, your friends die,” Elijah growled. “I would readily give my life for the Prophet. But there is only one way out of this for you. Team Ghost joins the New Gods or the New Gods feast on your flesh.”
“I’d rather die than join,” Rico said.
“Fitz,” Dohi said. “Tell me what to do.”
Even if Dohi killed Elijah, they would all die in this throne room—and the Prophet would still be out there.
“You’re outnumbered, and your pathetic forces are on the verge of complete defeat,” Elijah said. “I am giving you the only way you make it out of here alive. Join us. Join the Prophet.”
“Where’s the Prophet?” Fitz asked, trying to buy time.
“In Galveston, leading our forces to victory.” Elijah chuckled under his mask despite the blade pressed against his throat. “It’s over for your beloved country.”
Dohi looked over his shoulder at Fitz, shock painted across his expression. Elijah took advantage of the mistake, grabbing him and tossing him aside. He rose to his feet with a cutlass in hand and angled it down at Dohi.
“You weak, pathetic traitors,” Elijah said. “You should have surrendered when you had the chance.”
— 25 —
The resounding thuds of explosives and the constant roar of gunfire filled the air. Beckham had his shemagh scarf pulled up over his nose, but there was no keeping out the biting odor of smoke.
Soaked from the sheeting rain, he and Ruckley were still on the catwalk stretching along the ten-foot-high, steel-panel wall surrounding the inner core of the base. Command and the hospital facilities were tucked away behind these walls, as was much of downtown Galveston.
From the catwalk, they could see the bay and the bridge four miles to the southwest.
Behind them, a platform led to a tower where Commander Jacobs was posted with his officers. It offered one of the best vantages on the island and was well protected by reinforced layers of wall topped with razor wire.
Minutes ago, they had all watched Timothy and Horn arrive in their Humvee, just before the soldiers guarding the bridge had blown it. Beckham had received radio confirmation that his friends had made it through the first sliding steel-and-razor-wire gate where the Gulf freeway met Galveston Island.
Those outer walls and gates had taken too much damage in the bat attack to be defensible, so the soldiers assigned there had fallen back. They were now positioned on a second set of barricaded steel-panel gates with two watchtowers about a mile to the southwest connected to the same inner core walls that Beckham and Ruckley
