Pop, pop, pop. Rapid fire was handy, and I used it to our advantage, mowing down the first wave of soldiers headed our way. Humans for sure, they didn’t get back up. Fifteen down. The other fifteen or so scattered, looking for cover. I picked them off as they ran. Two more on the left, four on the right.
Nine left. This was going well. About as good as I could have hoped.
My dog lay at my feet, not moving an inch even with all the gunfire. Her ears lay flat against her head and I could feel her emotions. She wanted to fight. That was what she’d been trained for. To sink her teeth into flesh.
“Better hurry, Peter!” I yelled.
The Magelore launched out of the darkness and took two soldiers down at once, rolling across the ground with them. My stomach turned and I struggled not to turn the gun on him. But if I was going to have him with me, he needed to feed regularly. Which meant I needed to ensure it happened.
“Exploding rounds,” I said and the inner workings of the gun gave a click. I fired on two soldiers lifting their guns toward Peter and his prey. The new bullets hit them and their tactical gear shredded; they fell back screaming.
“I wanna see!” Dinah whined. “And I wanna shoot something!”
“You’ll get your chance, but I have to see what Diego can do, and if he’s worth taking with us,” I said.
“What the fuck? I’m the best you’ll ever have, baby,” he growled.
“Heard that before,” Dinah said. “Usually two minutes before they groan and say they’re done.”
I couldn’t help it, my lips twitched. “You know, Dinah, you’re right about that. No stamina these days.”
“WHAT?” Diego yelped as I ducked below the window. “I’ll show you two ladies what you’ve been missing!”
Return fire was on us now, the humans finally pulling their shit together and taking out the glass above, sending it all over the room like sharp confetti. I dropped and slid backward, crawling across the floor to the hall, the dog following on her belly. Once there, I stood and headed back to the dining room, snapping my fingers for her to keep up. Silently she kept pace at my side. The door in that room was a glass slider, open about ten inches to let the night air in. I kept Diego raised as I swept toward the backyard and stepped out into the cool air of the night.
Screaming ripped through the silence, then cut off.
Peter was done feeding.
I picked up my pace. We needed to move. There would be backup coming as soon as someone got smart and radioed in that they were in trouble.
Movement to my left swung me in that direction and I squeezed off a round at close range. The soldier’s face exploded, bone and bits of his helmet spraying in every direction.
“Booyah!” Diego yelped. “That was a good one. I didn’t even see him!”
I kept moving, not bothering to wipe the blood and bits of the soldier’s brains from my skin. By my count, we had a half-dozen soldiers left scattered about. Should have been easy, but the prickling of my skin said we had more to worry about than a few humans with guns.
A knife slashed at me from the darkness, and I stepped back, the blade just missing my face. Another step, and another as the blade kept swinging. “You killed my friend!”
“Oh dear,” Dinah said. “You should not bring a knife to a gun fight.”
I yanked her clear and shot him point blank as he brought the knife down. It cut across my arm, but the strike lost momentum as he died and fell to the side.
I tucked her back into the holster. “Happy?”
“It was a good line,” she said. “I’ve been waiting to use it.”
Another time, I would have rolled my eyes, but the job wasn’t done. My dog gave a low rumbling growl as we cleared the side of the house. That was how I felt too, but there were no soldiers standing and Peter was the only one I saw.
Danger screamed through my body, making my skin prickle, hair standing at attention along the back of my neck and arms. Peter grinned at me, but I shook my head. “Something’s wrong.”
His grin faded and I moved carefully toward the big army vehicle that had brought the soldiers.
Soldiers who had died easily.
Soldiers who had kept us pinned down for the last ten minutes.
“Fuck,” I whispered the word as I swept the area, searching for what was coming. My dog butted her head against my thigh and gave a low whine. I glanced at her and saw she wasn’t looking at me.
She was looking straight up.
I looked up with her.
“Peter. What kind of abnormal flies with wings?”
“None that I know of—Jesus Christ, what are those?”
Which was what I’d thought he’d say, because I was with him on this. I knew all the abnormals out there, that was part of the job I’d had. I’d never once heard or seen anything like what was coming at us. Which meant they weren’t abnormals. They were something else.
They were the fallen.
Three creatures dropped from the sky, leathery wings spread wide, bringing the stench of death and rot with them. They landed as a trio, hard enough to dent the concrete and send a ripple out toward us. Each one had four arms, foot-long claws dangling from their hands, and legs that looked like tree trunks bent at odd angles, like a horse’s back legs. Their mid-sections rippled with muscle, but their faces looked human, and even had a vestige of beauty that made it seem as if their heads had been photoshopped onto their incredibly monstrous bodies.
“Dinah, you’re going to get your wish.” I pulled her from her holster and tossed her to Peter.
“Jesus,” he muttered again as the creatures rose on their strange legs, easily ten feet tall, and started toward
