“Sweet Jesus, Chief,” Miguel said.
“I’m guessing that’s their alarm system,” Dom said. He had no doubt that the minute they set foot on the street below, the Skulls would erupt into violent action once more.
Between the Old Town of Dubrovnik and where the Sahand was docked stood something Dom hoped he wouldn’t see again. It came out of the water, where it must have been concealed from Ronaldo’s aerial surveillance before. Once on land, it was so enormous it could damn near blot out the sun. It explained the way in which the Skulls were marching around as if being directed by some unseen force. They were being directed—by a Titan.
-33-
Meredith pressed herself tightly into a doorway that smelled of rot and neglect. The smell was nothing compared to the carrion stench of the Skull moving her direction on its mindless guard route. Its taloned feet clicked along the stone stairs with each step. Her muscles tensed as she listened for the telltale sound of crunching glass.
And then she heard her cue. She struck like a viper, catching the Skull under its chin with her knife. Blood sluiced over the Skull’s chest for a few seconds while she held a hand over its mouth, preventing it from shrieking the alarm. The monster thrashed and then went limp.
She hadn’t lost her touch.
Lowering the body, she was careful to minimize the rattle of the dead creature’s bones, letting it lie in a pool of its own blood. When she and Dom had infiltrated locations in the past, they would have to hide unconscious goons in everything ranging from a bathroom stall to a coat closet to avoid one of their comrades discovering the body and setting off the alarm. The Skulls posed no such problems. More often than not, they ignored a dead Skull. The most attention they gave to another Skull was to sniff it, nostrils flaring. Once they were satisfied that there was no fresh meat to be had, they would turn away and continue on their way.
Reaching up, she wiped her blade on the shreds of an awning over a mold-covered souvenir shop.
“Nicely done, Meredith,” Andris said.
The back of Meredith’s neck tingled as she watched and listened, ever vigilant. They didn’t want to risk a shot—even suppressed gunfire—in the infested city. Any attention drawn to them from the normal Skulls would earn the curiosity of the Titan. Every once in a while, the monster’s heavy footsteps made the ground tremble as the beast shifted.
When they had entered the walled-off Old Town portion of the city, the Titan’s shadow had loomed over the walls and spread across the central plaza and street like dark waters rolling over the shore.
The Hunters flitted through restaurants full of overturned tables and chairs and the scent of rotting food, past abandoned apartments with windows broken and bakeries with corpses instead of breads and pastries. When a Goliath lumbered down a brick-lined street, its arms swinging like a gorilla’s, Meredith signaled for the others to take shelter. She found refuge inside a nearby home. The front door swung open, rattling with the wind. Four skeletons lay strewn about the floor next to two armchairs in front of a fireplace. Two of the skeletons clearly had belonged to bodies of no more than four feet in height. It tore at Meredith’s heart to imagine the horror of the family that had died here together.
But she didn’t let her imagination take hold. The stomps of the Goliath faded, and Meredith peeked out into the alley.
“Clear,” she whispered.
Again, the Hunters drifted out of their hiding spots. Slowly but steadily, they pushed out of Old Town. There the ground trembled more violently as the Titan shifted back and forth. The Hunters gathered at the edge of a gate.
“Past that Titan, we follow that road.” Dom pointed to a thoroughfare clogged with vehicles. “That’ll lead straight to the port.”
“Looks to me like the Titan has done a nice job of showing us the way, Chief,” Miguel said.
Many of the vehicles along the two-lane road had been smashed, turned into flattened metal, broken glass. The stone buildings lining the street had suffered their fair share of Titan claw marks, too.
“All those footprints at least give us somewhere to hide,” Jenna said.
“And most of the Skulls seem to be avoiding the Titan’s path,” Meredith added.
“Even they’re smart enough to avoid being smashed like bugs,” O’Neil said. He gazed up from where they were all crouched, stealing a look at the Titan. “I can control those other bastards, but I don’t think there’s shit I can do about that one.”
“Then we do this the old-fashioned way,” Dom said.
Meredith’s joints were already whimpering from all the sprinting, crouching, and climbing. She was older than everyone else out here other than Dom. But she mustered what strength was left. “Consider it done.”
Slowly, she directed them between the buildings and craters of the street, straight toward the Titan. With the water on one side and the mountains on the other, there was little choice. They had to go directly under it. The colossus twisted slightly to its left. Its gaze swept the low mountains, its eyes brimming with an intelligence not seen in any of the other Skulls. Huge claws waited at its sides. A rope of saliva as thick as a suspension bridge’s cable dripped from the corner of the monster’s tusked mouth. Blood vessels like sewage pipes pulsated between the bulbous growths of bony plates over its limbs.
Meredith would never grow used to the idea that a thing this big existed and walked on the land. And now, she would have to direct the others past the humungous brute.
“Andris, spot me,” she whispered.
“I will let you know before it stomps you.”
“Very reassuring.”
Meredith sprinted to the first crater, sliding under a delivery van. A skeleton lay trapped beneath the vehicle.
Hope you don’t mind if I share this spot with you, Meredith thought.
She signaled Andris to slip in next then O’Neil. One by one, the Hunters joined them. All the while, Meredith watched the Titan to make sure it hadn’t seen the snack sneaking near its feet.
They leapfrogged from cover to cover like that. The Titan’s heavy breathing sounded like the whoosh of some enormous engine. The air from its nostrils blasted out like a fall wind without any of the crispness and a lot more rot. Then they came to the moment Meredith dreaded. There was a twenty-yard stretch without any cover at an intersection. Most of the area had been flattened. On the opposite side was a host of shops with blown-out front windows. All would make for good hiding spots.
The only catch was that they would have to sprint directly by the Titan’s feet.
Meredith took a deep breath. Her muscles tensed, and she tried to ignore the burn flickering in her limbs. She glanced up at the Titan one final time. Its gaze remained fixed on some point in the distance. She stood and sprinted like she never had before in her life. Meredith was a long-distance runner by nature. Even back in her high school days, her coach had dissuaded her from the dashes because her physique was more suited for endurance races. She wasn’t a firework, able to explode with a burst of energy; she was the torch, steady and reliable.
But now she imagined her legs working like pistons. Each pump carried her closer and closer to the other side of the intersection. They took her past the bits of flattened rubble and over a fallen lamppost. Her lungs shrieked at her to slow down, and her heart thrashed almost painfully within her chest.
She kept sprinting.
Do not let me have a heart attack now, she thought.
Then she was there. Precious, precious cover. She fought to control her breathing as she panted at the doorway of a restaurant. A menu rotted in a glass panel; the mere thought of food after her exertion was revolting, and Meredith was glad she couldn’t read it.
But she was alive. The Titan had not spotted her.
She leaned against the doorway. Her pulse pounded in her ears, nearly drowning out any other sound. Her lungs yearned desperately for oxygen, and she gave it to them in deep gulps.
Andris and O’Neil dashed across the intersectio
n next, running in tandem. They made it across just as Meredith began to regain her composure. Her senses returned to her as Glenn and Dom prepared to cross the street next.
They could do this. They could actually pull this off. They were ants sneaking under a giant’s feet. Dom’s pack bumped against his back as he ran. But the Titan had no idea what was going on down here.
Let it stay that way, Meredith thought.
Then she heard the crash of plates breaking against the floor behind her. She twisted along with Andris and O’Neil. A lone Skull in the entrance of the kitchen reared back its head and prepared to howl. The whoomph of suppressed gunfire here might draw the Titan down to investigate. There was only one good solution to ensure they stayed unseen and unheard. Meredith was exhausted, but no matter how her body protested, she had to move.
She met the Skull with the cold bite of steel. The knife worked its way between the plates and into flesh like it had so many times before, moving on muscle memory. The monster dropped without making a sound.
Flicking the beast’s blackened blood off the knife, Meredith placed the knife in its sheath. As she looked up from the dead Skull, she felt eyes on her from behind the stainless-steel counter in the middle of the kitchen. Her own gaze traveled upward to see at least ten Skulls—heads cocked, nostrils flaring, and bloodshot eyes laser focused on her.
In unison, almost as if it had been rehearsed, they howled.
***
“Everybody, move!” Dom roared.
The rest of the Hunters charged toward the restaurant. Meredith, Andris, and O’Neil were already in there, and they needed help. Judging by the sheer volume of howling, there were more than a handful of the monsters in there. Fighting Skulls in confined spaces was never good; fighting them in confined spaces with a Titan nearby was worse.
“Almost a dozen contacts,” Meredith reported from the restaurant. “We’re engaging.”
The staccato of gunfire sounded between the growls and roars.
“Chief, we got a new friend that wants to play,” Miguel shouted.
A huge shadow swept over the pavement. The ground shook, rattling what remained of the windows in the stone buildings.
“Bravo, get the hell out of there!” Dom yelled. “Now!”
Andris and O’Neil ran out of the restaurant, pursued by four Skulls. The Titan kicked the wall of the building. Stones flew, and a cloud of dust plumed around the huge talons.
“Meredith!” The Titan was already aiming its taloned foot for another attack. If she died here, like this, when Dom was only a few yards away...
He felt sick.
A dark shape dove through a window in one of the remaining walls. Meredith rolled to her feet, her red hair the only spot of color in the haze of dust.
She sprinted toward Dom. There was no time for relief. Together, they ran down another alley, putting distance between themselves and the restaurant. Another quake nearly threw Dom off his feet. Meredith steadied him, and they dove into another abandoned storefront. Dom rolled over piles of clothing and slammed into a shelf. It teetered before spilling dozens of ceramic doves. They crashed around him, breaking into pieces. Dom pushed himself to his knees. A dull pain throbbed through his leg where it had hit the ground, and it took a moment for him to reorient himself.
Meredith stood next to him, coated in a fine gray powder. She brushed the dust from her face then offered a hand.
“You all right?” Meredith asked.
“I’m not the one who damn near got smashed by a Titan.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She peered out the front window. “Doesn’t seem to have tracked us, but it’s still raging around out there.”
“Sitrep,” Dom called through the comms. In front of him was a shelf filled with red, heart-shaped ornaments labeled “Licitar Hearts.” He leaned over them to stare out another grimy window.
“We are taking shelter in a house,” Andris said. “The Titan has left O’Neil and me alone.”
“That’s because he’s after us!” Miguel yelled, his voice ragged as if he was running. “Every goddamn time we go to hide, it just destroys the place. It’s like a toddler in a Lego city, just breaking everything in its path.”
“The FGL’s going to notice.” Jenna sounded just as out of breath as Miguel.
Dom stared hard at Meredith. They needed to do something. The mission was falling to pieces faster than the buildings the Titan was smashing. Jenna was right; the FGL had to have noticed, and they would probably want to investigate. They needed a distraction, something to get the Titan off their asses.
Outside, the Skulls’ shrieks and howls grew louder. Their claws clattered along the road as they sprinted toward the commotion.
That gave him an idea.
“O’Neil,” Dom said. “Did the Titan lose control of the Skulls?”
There was a pause over the comms. “Seems like it’s not really trying to contain them now. It’s distracted.”
“These things don’t have the mental capacity to multitask like a Hybrid,” Glenn said.
“Damn right they don’t,” O’Neil said.
Dom knew that wasn’t quite the truth, but he let O’Neil have it anyway. He’d seen the way O’Neil needed to focus to effect any real change in the behavior of the Skulls.
“You don’t think he can control the Titan, do you?” Meredith asked, still crouched near the window.
Another stomp reverberated through the store. A snow globe fell off its perch and exploded against the floor.
“No chance,” Dom said. “But we don’t need him to control the Titan. That thing’s attracted to the action as much as the Skulls are. If he can get a few Skulls charging off in some other direction, maybe it will have a snowball effect. Get a critical mass going that sends the others running. And if we’re really lucky, the Titan is going to think they’re running after us.”
“And this time, instead of playing leader, it’ll be just another dumb Skull following a false trail. Only problem is O’Neil is going to be competing with the Titan for control.” Meredith turned from the window, stepping over a pile of sodden travel books. “He can’t run from Skulls while trying to convince them to go off on some wild goose chase.”
“He needs cover.” Dom slammed a fresh magazine into place. His crew was in immediate danger. They couldn’t run from the Titan all day. Eventually that huge bastard was going to get lucky and smash the rest of them like insects. They’d already lost Spencer and four other crew members back on the Huntress. He couldn’t stand to lose anyone else. “We can rendezvous with O’Neil and Andris then get the Titan off our asses.”
Meredith opened her mouth to speak. A thundering roar cut her off.
Once the Titan’s frustrated yell dwindled, Meredith said, “We don’t have time.”
“We have no choice.”
“We do,” Meredith said. “No good plan survives contact with the enemy. This one’s no different. Let me take Bravo and distract the Titan.”
That caught Dom off guard. “I’m not leaving you out here with that monster, Mere. No fucking way.”
“Yes fucking way,” Meredith said. “Look, Andris and I have survived a Titan or two before, and this time we’ve got O’Neil. You and Alpha have the most crucial role. If you guys don’t succeed, a whole lot more people are dying. I don’t want that blood on my hands because I was too chickenshit to do something about it.” She leaned in close, her angry green eyes locked with his. “And I know you would feel the same way.”
Dom wanted to argue. At that moment, with the Titan breathing down the team’s necks, all he wanted was to pull Meredith close, to keep her next to him.
But he also knew she was right.
“Take Bravo closer to the walls of the Old Town,” Dom said. “There should be more than enough places for you to lose him in there. See if you can get the Titan to head toward the mountains. God willing, I’ll see you at the bridge of the Sahand, and then we’ll celebrate on the Huntress.”
&nbs
p; After the funerals, he thought but didn’t say.
“Deal,” Meredith said, holding out a hand as if to shake.
Dom took her hand then pulled her in close. He pressed his body against her, and their lips met. For a brief second, electricity flowed between them. The sounds of the Titan and screams of the Skulls muted. And as much as Dom wanted to live in that moment, he couldn’t delay any longer.
“There’s more where that came from after this is over,” Dom said.
“Then I guess I better hurry.”
They spilled out the front door. It was easy enough to spot Alpha. They were sprinting over a sidewalk with the Titan bounding after them, along with a horde of Skulls. Andris and O’Neil beckoned Dom and Meredith from another storefront. There, Dom and Meredith told them of their plan.
“That sounds like a good time,” Andris said. He unstrapped his MK11 and pointed at his eye. “Let me pull the Titan off Alpha. I happen to know a very weak spot on these Russian monsters.”
“You think you can manage at least a handful of the Skulls?” Dom asked O’Neil.
“I know I can,” the Hybrid responded, his eyes glowing red.
Dom bid them one final goodbye before rushing toward a line of smashed cars. “Alpha, get back to my position. Bravo’s covering us. We’ve got a ship to board.”
Alpha rerouted themselves, and the Titan turned, lumbering after them. The beast unwittingly set itself up for the perfect shot. The report of the MK11 pierced the air. The Titan paused suddenly, its mouth going slack-jawed. Then a devastating roar exploded from its tusked maw. It clamped a huge claw over its eye. Blood trickled out between its fingers, and it turned toward the sky, still screaming in agony.
It was just enough to give Alpha the chance they needed to sprint for the port.
Dom glanced one last time behind him, hoping to catch Meredith’s eye. But she, O’Neil, and Andris were already focused on the Titan and the mob of Skulls milling about its feet.
A final thought flitted through his mind, and he had no choice but to utter it aloud over a private channel to Meredith.
The Tide_Ghost Fleet Page 25