urgency in his (my) voice that I hadn’t heard before. “Your Yeti will be back as soon as he can marshal his strength. You need to go now, or you won’t leave here alive. I can’t protect you anymore.”
So many things to ask, “Why?” being only the first in a very long list. And there was no time.
“I feel weird saying this, but… be careful, okay?” He’d helped, okay? For his own reasons, yes, but he’d helped. A little. Don’t judge me.
Axel paused a moment, then smiled, and I could almost believe it was sincere. “Thanks.” A whiff of sulfur and he was gone. I knew he wouldn’t be back. Not until this was over.
I shook my head when Cameron tried to speak. “No time. Grab your shit. We’re outta here.”
Somehow, now that Axel was gone, I felt like a real little worm on a big damn hook.
15
“I think there better be time, Jess.” I’d fully expected the guys to jump when I said jump, but instead they faced me in a semicircle, Marty’s dark brows drawn together in the deepest frown I’d ever seen on him. “Who the hell was that? Don’t give us shit about him being a coworker. I think that ship has sailed.”
Oh yeah. I’d been hoping they’d miss that part. “I don’t know his name. I call him Axel. He’s a demon.”
“You knew that. You knew that, and you let him around our families. Our kids.”
“He’s…” Harmless? Not dangerous? Like Marty had said, I thought that ship had sailed. “Can we do this later? We need to get the hell out of here.”
“Why are we leaving at all? Isn’t his magic protecting us?” Oscar pointed at Cameron, and the priest shook his head.
“It isn’t magic, it’s faith. God has chosen us to-”
“Look! We seriously don’t have time for a lesson in semantics!” Even Duke flinched when I raised my voice. “First, Cam, you can call it whatever the hell you want, but my wife can do all that you just did, and she doesn’t even believe in your god. In fact, I’m pretty sure your god and her goddess aren’t even on speaking terms. So chew on that before you start spouting off about being the ‘chosen of God.’
“Second! The wards here are blown. The consecration is gone, and Cam can’t even keep Axel out, so we need to go and we need to go now. If anyone wants to further discuss this, submit it to the committee and I will have an answer for you in six to eight weeks. Provided that we live! Now move your asses!”
I didn’t have to tell them twice. Well, technically, yeah, I did, but there wasn’t a third time. We grabbed everything that remotely resembled a weapon, shrugged into our backpacks, and were out the door in five minutes.
I gotta say, I was impressed with every single person there. I mean, we were voluntarily leaving a semi- secured position, to take a stroll through woods teeming with pseudozombies. I guess bravery is really just the ability to shout louder than the little voice in your head that screams, “Run, stupid!”
Marty, ankle wrapped so he could walk on it, tied Duke’s lead around his waist to keep his hands free, and we walked in tight formation, keeping Zane in the middle. I’ll give the kid credit. As sick as he was getting, he kept up, marching out of the clearing in grim silence. I hoped he’d make it at least to the truck, ’cause there was no way in hell we’d be able to carry him and fight at the same time.
Cole took point with what few bullets he had left. Being right-handed, I stayed on the right side, scanning the trees as we walked. Marty and Duke had our left flank, and Cam stumbled along at the rear (more to keep an eye on me than anything, I suspected). Oscar was armed with the one and only hatchet we had, and he and Will walked on either side of Zane.
Without Duke, we’d have been toast in the first rush.
Barely ten yards into the trees, they dropped down on us from the branches above, and the only reason we had any warning was Duke’s raging bellow. In fact, the big dog yanked Marty right off his feet, lunging at the nearest threat.
The creature on that side-the handless female, I realized, which meant she’d fled the roof last night instead of being slaughtered with the rest of her kind-hit the ground on all fours and immediately sprang back into the brush, vanishing from sight. Duke, roaring like a grizzly bear, did his damnedest to drag Marty with him, chasing after it.
And while we were all looking that way, three more hit us from the other side. Even as I turned belatedly, cussing at myself for falling for the ruse, one of them leaped at Will and I knew I couldn’t get there in time. I shouldn’t have doubted my buddy. For all that he pretends to be a bumbling doofus, his mind is sharp and his reflexes were even better. The creature skewered itself on Will’s fireplace poker, then went flying into a tree as Will gave a huge heave and flung it off. It wasn’t a killing wound, though, and the thing went scurrying off into the trees again before we could go after it.
Cole did manage to take out one with a clean shot to the head, but the other was into us too fast, and he couldn’t risk the shot. I saw Oscar brace himself for the oncoming charge, and knew he just didn’t have the skill to take the thing down in close quarters. “Oscar! Down!”
I couldn’t use my sword without hitting someone friendly, so I just lowered my head and met the thing in a full-out body block. I felt its ribs crack against my shoulder, the decaying bones fracturing wetly. I also felt it sink its long fingernails into my many layers of T-shirts and hang on for the ride. Did not count on that.
We went down in a heap of raking nails and clacking teeth as the thing tried to take a bite out of me and only got my pack. There was more shouting, dimly heard through my damaged ears, but with my face pressed into the muddy grass, I wasn’t exactly in the best position to see what was happening.
The minion wasn’t heavy by any means, and I got myself up to my hands and knees at least by the time it reversed itself to make a lunge at my neck. I jerked my head back and smashed its face, feeling the sticky goo creep down the back of my neck.
“Don’t move!” It was Cole’s voice, and I froze immediately. The heavy metal clang that followed reverberated in my teeth. The creature fell off my back, and the gunshot after made my head throb. I raised my head to find my little brother standing over me, gun in one hand and one of the CO 2 tanks in the other. Let’s hear it for improvisational weapons.
Unfortunately, two dead wasn’t even going to stop them. In and out they darted, testing our flanks, moving too fast for us to even get a count. It didn’t help that, aside from the handless female, it was hard as hell to tell the nasty things apart. They moved in unison like the first time, coordinating to snap and harry us on all sides.
We couldn’t move like this. Marty was fighting Duke more than anything, struggling to keep the dog from barreling off into the trees, and it was impossible for us to hold a tight defensive formation while in motion. Face it, we weren’t trained soldiers.
“Cam, if you know any tricks that won’t kill you, this might be the time to use them.”
He said something that I couldn’t quite hear, not looking at him as I was, but it sounded affirmative. The next time the beasties made a try for us, he raised one hand in the air, opening his fist as he shouted, “ Prima luce! ”
Light burst all around us, lighting up the underbrush like high noon. There was a crash in the trees as the things retreated in a panic, and then all was silence. Cameron sank slowly to the ground, panting. Fresh blood stained the bandage on his head.
I did a quick glance around, but no one else seemed to be hurt. A few bumps and bruises maybe, and Zane of course was looking more like death warmed over the farther we went, but we were upright. Mostly.
And what the hell was up with the Yeti’s pets? I thought they were supposed to be animalistic, wild, but they were obviously thinking, planning. They weren’t supposed to be able to do that, without the Yeti to guide them. Which meant… they had another leader?
The handless female had left the roof last night, rather than face Cole and me. She’d left the others to fight and die, but she’d retreated. She was smarter. Cunning. Their tactics were just like Marty’d said, like a pack of wolves. A pack could bring down something the size of a moose, just by constantly darting in and out and wearing it to exhaustion. I didn’t think my little group stood any better chance in the condition we were in.
Cole popped his clip, shaking his head at his dwindling ammo. When he caught me looking, he frowned. “We can’t keep fighting these things hand to hand, and I’ve got half a clip left.”
