“That settles it,” Stricken snapped. “Here.” He tossed his shotgun over and I reflexively caught it. “Everybody else follow me.”
Franks gave me an angry glare for the shove, but then his expression softened because he knew I was right. Currently, right this second, he was toast. Patch him up, and he’d be far more valuable out there than I would be. With him, it was always mission first. Franks gave me a respectful nod.
That was probably one of the biggest compliments Franks had probably ever paid to anybody. If I hadn’t been concussed and scared to death, I probably would’ve gotten choked up.
Franks limped after Stricken. Sonya had reached into the wreck and retrieved the sword that Milo had given her. She looked up at me, wide-eyed, afraid but trying not to show it, as she realized I was about to sacrifice myself to save them and a bunch of strangers. “What do I do?”
“Stick with Franks.”
“No, I mean—”
“Just do what your dad would’ve done.” I put one hand on her shoulder. “I’ll catch up.”
“Sure you will,” Stricken shouted. “Move your ass, Sonya.”
“Thanks.” Then she ran after them.
The Drekavac was less than fifty yards away and coming over to murder my ass. Stricken’s shotgun was a Beretta 1301 with the shiny marine finish. I chamber-checked. Loaded. It had a sidesaddle full of slugs too. I shouldered it and put the front sight on the monster. If this final body was operating at the levels Gutterres and I had faced on the first night, what I had here should be enough to kill him. If it was like any of the later levels we’d just seen at the compound . . . I was doomed.
Here goes nothing.
I fired. The first slug nailed him in the chest. Fire squirted out the hole. The Drekavac didn’t even wobble.
He started to run. I tried to slow him down by aiming low and putting a slug into one of his legs. It took a chunk out of it. He tripped but sprang right back up. The neurotoxin designed to fry Franks did nothing to Silas Carver’s alien anatomy. His cold-fire-pumping heart didn’t care about poison. I went high and shot him in the head. It blew a fist-sized hole out the back of his metallic skull. The Drekavac kept coming. I kept shooting.
He could have materialized a gun and shot me back. The fact that he didn’t gave me some hope. Silas Carver was running on empty. All he had left was this angry husk and a desire for revenge.
The shogun went dry. I reloaded a single round from the sidesaddle and nailed him again. I got another shot off like that before he was on me.
I saw the punch coming and just barely got out of the way. The next one I wasn’t so lucky and he tagged me in the shoulder. Flailing back, Carver was on me in an instant. I hit him with the shotgun butt across the teeth. He lurched to the side and I used that moment to pluck the last shell from the sidesaddle and shove it into the open port. Driving the muzzle into his gut, I shoved him against the flipped truck, dropped the bolt, and fired. Fiery bits flew everywhere. The heavy slug ripped right through him, ricocheted off the armored plate, and back through his chest. The deformed projectile still had the energy to fly past my ear at lethal velocity.
Good thing it didn’t hit me, because if that jellyfish toxin could put down Franks, it would probably make me shrivel up and die on contact.
Carver hoisted me up by the armor and then hurled me back. I hit the grass hard, but reflexively rolled so that I could draw my sidearm . . . which was still in Alabama. Shit.
The Drekavac kicked me in the stomach hard enough to lift me into the air. I came back down on my face.
“My quarrel was not with you, Hunter. You should have let me fulfill my duty.” Carver grabbed me by the drag strap on the back of my armor, effortlessly lifted all three hundred pounds of me off the ground and tossed me through the air. I bounced off one of the tires and landed in the dirt. “It was a simple contract. Retrieve the item and punish the thief. The Hubertian shackled my gift and the Hunters wounded me, delivering me into the hands of that vile manipulator, Stricken. For this you will pay.”
Drawing my kukri, I slashed at him. He dodged aside, and then backhanded me across the face. It knocked me to my knees. Then he kicked me in the chest and launched me back into the wreck.
Desperate, dizzy, and out of breath, I looked toward the horizon, but the sun wasn’t up yet.
He knew what I was searching for. “You expect the day to save you? In moments, this form shall return to dust, sparing your allies for a time. Only I will vow that I will reverse the Hubertian’s rite, regain all my lives, and come for them when they least expect it. Every last transgressor will pay with their lives. The thief, the Hubertians, the Hunters, the plotter—all of them will die. As for you, there is more than enough darkness left to end your wretched existence.”
I’d bought them time. They’d make the meeting. Stricken would do his thing, persuade the Fey, and mankind would have a chance to strike a blow against the other factions.
