There’s no way to know that for sure, but I can’t think of a better explanation for a Golyat that is equal parts man and monster in a sealed facility, where Lew’s own journal revealed he was here alone, transforming into the thing he spent a good portion of his life trying to defeat.
“You’re right,” Salem says, and his voice echoes through the suddenly silent space. We’d been shouting to be heard over the sounds of battle, but the clang of weapons, the screams and the snarls have all stopped.
Lew stands in a field of dismembered bodies, his black skin now red with blood and unidentifiable bits of Micha’s men. Not one of them remains standing, and aside from Micha himself, not one is left alive.
That’s not true. There is one man still living. He’s suspended in the air, his quivering feet dangling six inches above the floor, dripping blood and piss. Lew’s hand is inside the man’s gut. When the man is lifted higher, I understand what’s happening. Lew has punched through the man’s insides and grasped hold of the man’s spine. The wound is fatal, but not instantly.
Lew stares up into the dying man’s eyes. Then he grimaces, clenches his eyes shut.
His stomach flares with a violent gurgle, his hunger fully awakened.
When Lew opens his eyes again, all hints of the man that was are gone.
His teeth chatter—desperate and excited—and then open.
If Lew has been down here all this time, by himself, then he’s never eaten anyone as a Golyat. Perhaps that’s why there is still a vestige of the man left?
“Lew!” I shout.
Dripping teeth pause just inches from the dying man’s neck.
Lew’s black eyes shift toward me.
A dry hack catches in his throat.
“We’re here for the cure,” I tell him. “To stop the Golyats. We want the same thing.”
His stomach responds for him, burning bright, the color working its way downward. How long can he resist it? I wonder, and then I realize that he is resisting.
With a rigid, jittering movement, Lew turns his head and stares at something behind us. Despite the danger Lew presents, I look back along with Salem. Is he looking at the lab? And then I spot an aberration—a door.
Salem looks back at me. “Do you think?”
“Go,” I tell him, and then to Bake I say, “Go with him. Keep him safe.
She resists the request for a moment, looking between Lew and the door he pointed out. I sense the battle in her, between curiosity and the desire to fight. Her dual nature is both intellect and warrior. In the end, she decides to follow the path without which even the warrior cannot prevail.
Salem and Bake sprint off toward the door, just as Del’s bow releases an arrow.
“Del!” I shout. “Why did you—” I have my answer when I look at Lew and find the arrow poking out of the now dead man hanging from his arm. The arrow was an act of mercy, and despite the situation, I adore her all the more for it.
Lew cranes his head to the side, looking at the now lifeless eyes.
His stomach growls, the brightness spreading.
He fights it, but only for a moment. His skin shrivels as his insides begin to melt inside himself. Hunger awakened by the presence of so much food, he’s finally begun to eat himself and complete the transformation.
His jaws open again, and this time there’s no stopping him. The dead man’s skin stretches beneath Lew’s teeth and then gives way. A fist-sized lump of meat and sinew is wrenched away from the neck. Lew throws his head back, snapping at the chunk and then swallows it whole. His excited roar is cut off when he dives back in for a second bite.
“What should we do?” Shua asked, and I’m a little surprised he’s asking. But his father did put me in charge of situations like these…not that there has ever been a situation like this.
“Follow Micha’s orders,” I say. “Take his head.”
Despite knowing exactly how to kill Lew, Micha’s men aimed to disable before cleaving off the man’s head. I’m not sure I could pull it off either, being shorter than most men, but Shua has the height, strength, and skills.
As does Micha, who is climbing to his feet behind Lew and is reaching down for a dropped sword.
Lew groans in monstrous ecstasy as he devours his prey, the meal stopping his own body from further eating itself. For no reason I can discern, he becomes discontent with his meal, tossing the corpse away and focusing on me once more. But this time, the near-intelligent eyes are gone. All that remains is the single-minded focus of a Golyat.
52
The facility rumbles as Lew takes his first step toward me, but the shaking has nothing to do with the lone subterranean Golyat and everything to do with those above. I thought the violence above us had peaked, but I was wrong. Despite being under a mountain of solid granite, vibrations move through the floor and everything upon it, including the laboratory. Everything not locked down or too heavy to move jitters over the hard table tops. Somewhere behind us, glass shatters. And despite all the noise and the potential for a cave-in, Lew continues toward me, picking up speed with each step.
I back away, weapon raised. “Lew! Don’t do this!”
He keeps on coming, closing the distance. I have just seconds.
“We can stop this, but you have to let us!”
“Vee,” Shua says, voice quiet, but urgent. He stands to the side, sword drawn, not foolish enough to get in Lew’s path, but ready to strike. “It’s not thinking anymore.”
It’s more of an observation than a strategy, but it’s something. Lew had fought Micha and his men with a high degree of skill. He’s still strong, immune to pain, and ravenous, but the mind that guided his previous attacks appears to be clouded.
A shriek and flare of orange sends me diving to the floor. Lew’s outstretched arms and open jaws sail over me. His airborne legs collide with my side. The weight and speed of his body, bends and snaps two of my ribs, but it’s a small price to pay. The alternative was to have a piece of my body sliding down his throat.
Lew catapults head over heels. His face impacts with the hard floor. Something cracks. Still in motion, his limbs bend up and over his face-planted body, and for a moment, the sickening angle of it makes me hope his neck will snap. But then he tumbles over onto his back. With a whack of his arms against the floor, Lew flips over and then shoves himself back to his feet. His sneer reveals black, shattered teeth.
Shua’s sword sings through the air, the blade biting into Lew’s neck. For a moment, hope exists, but then is blotted out, first when I see the blade has only cut an inch deep, and second, when a spritz of Lew’s blood slaps against my arm.
The pain is instant. The three dots of blood are small, but the agony they trigger is system wide, and for a moment, it undoes me. I drop to the floor, vaguely aware of Shua shouting and Del responding.
I force my clenched eyes open in time to see Lew charging me again, unfazed by Shua’s attack. I try to move as the pain becomes more localized, but my muscles are twitching. Feet scrabble, useless on the floor.
Lew reaches down, his hunger unwavering.
A blur barrels into the Golyat, tackling it to the side. I didn’t see much, but the clothing was definitely not Shua’s.
I roll over, trying to push myself up, and watch my rescuer roll away from the sprawled Golyat.
It’s Micha.
“Don’t make me regret saving you,” he says, climbing to his feet in time with Lew.
I push myself up, enraged at the idea of being indebted to Micha. My arm throbs with the effort, but it’s once again under my control. I glance at my skin. Three small points on my forearm are smoldering, hairs of black already snaking out.
Is Lew’s Golyat blood somehow more potent, perhaps refined by the inoculation that failed to save him?
If so, we can’t risk any more of his blood touching another person.
“No blades!” I shout, stopping Shua mid-swing. The interruption keeps him from making a killing blow with his now shrunken blade.
But with Lew’s decapitation would come a spray of poisonous blood that would either kill us on contact or transform us into Golyat far faster than the few flecks on my arm.
Micha lets out a battle cry, slamming his fist into the side of Lew’s head. The impact sends the Golyat reeling. I don’t think it hurt, but the force of Micha’s meaty fist was enough to knock Lew off balance.
Micha presses the attack, driving his fist against the monster’s body, never in the same place twice. The attacks are unpredictable, and for a moment, unstoppable. Then, as though growing impatient, Lew snatches the front of Micha’s shirt and tosses him to the side, all the while looking at me. Despite having several options for who to eat first, it’s still locked onto its first target, perhaps drawn to me because of my arm’s singed flesh.
Shua rushes in, but the Golyat sees him coming. A vicious backhand sprawls him to the floor.
Lew comes at me again, and though I’ve regained my feet, I have no idea how to defend myself. I could dodge his charge—maybe—but that will only buy me a few seconds. I could use his momentum against him, flipping him up and over me, but again, it wouldn’t do much more than delay what now seems to be inevitable.
In the end, I decide to handle Lew the same way I would any predator I came across in the wild—matching its lethal violence. Ignoring my own advice, I raise my machete and swing it toward Lew’s neck. The cut probably won’t sever the head completely, but I just need to get it through his spine. If I’m successful, Lew’s blood will spray all over me, but Golyat bacteria has already worked its way into my skin.
With Shua and Micha a safe distance away, I put all my strength into the strike. But I’ve misjudged Lew’s speed. Instead of the blade striking flesh, my fist collides with Lew’s shoulder. The machete is wrenched from my hand at the same time Lew collides with me.
When I was a girl, chasing Bear through the woods, he dodged hard to the left and when I watched him go, I collided with a tree. Being struck by Lew is worse. I’m flung back to the floor, sliding for several feet before rolling to a stop.
More ribs are broken. My head feels like it has been caved in, though I know it hasn’t been because I’m still conscious. But the hurt caused by Lew is small compared to the agony wrought by his blood. It feels like a hungry rat has been let loose inside my body, tearing at me, trying to escape. Instead of checking over my body, I glance at the arm. Black lines streak up under my clothing and down to my hand.
Damn it, I think, but then I realize it doesn’t matter what I’m turning into, because long before the transformation is complete, I’m going to become a meal.
What I’m not going to do is die lying on my back. I get to my feet and brace myself. It’s all I can do. When his open, drool-dangling mouth approaches my face, I close my eyes and wait for the suffering to end forever.
Only it doesn’t.
The pain ravaging my body from the inside and out remains just as poignant.
When I open my eyes again, a black arm is stretched out in front of my face. It’s long and slender, the skin rough and textured like bark. It’s a Golyat’s arm, but it’s not Lew’s.
“Hey, Vee,” Dyer says. She’s clutched Lew by the throat and lifted him off the floor. He’s holding onto her wrist, but shows no sign of concern. “I got this.”
Lew’s black eyes with even blacker pupils shift toward Dyer. Something in his expression shifts. The mania is gone.
“Dyer,” is all I get out before Lew drives his foot into Dyer’s still human body. Good news: the inoculation appears to have worked, stemming the Golyat bacteria’s advance before it reached her heart. Bad news? She’s knocked to the floor.
But not for long. Gasping, she rises to her feet and stomps toward Lew. With some part of his human mind returned to deal with Dyer, who he must see as a challenger—something no Golyat ever lets stand—his single-minded focus on me fades. That’s a good thing, because I can barely stand, and not because of my physical injuries.
My legs wobble and I fight not to fall again. The pain increases, but then something else does as well—my strength. It’s like the rush I feel before facing off with a predator. How can I be growing weaker and stronger simultaneously? I think, and then I realize the truth. While the human part of me is growing weak, the Golyat part of me is getting stronger. How long until my skin shrinks in and darkens? Until I crave my friend’s flesh? Until Lew sees me as competition? Until I digest and shit out my own insides?
My legs give out. I don’t feel my knees slam into the hard floor.
For a moment, I forget my pain, as Lew tumbles past me. His rolling body is pursued by Dyer, who’s bleeding from three slices on her cheek, but she looks undaunted as she throws her partially Golyat body into battle.
Beyond the fight is Micha, back on his feet, bewildered by what he’s seeing. I don’t know if he’s ever met Dyer, but he no doubt recognizes her humanity—and is probably already plotting to kill her if she defeats Lew. Hell, several weeks ago, I would have, too.
As bad as Micha is, I’m loathe to admit that I was once not much better.
Of course, I’m soon going to be much worse.
Shua catches my eye. He’s moving toward me, but cutting a wide circle around the action. As skilled a fighter as he is, he doesn’t stand a chance against Lew. The best thing any of us can do is stay out of the way and hope that Dyer’s newfound strength combined with her brutal fighting style is enough to defeat Lew…who is equally strong, if not stronger, and whose combat skills are uncanny, for a Golyat, or a human.
Shua is shouting something at me, but I can’t hear him. My heart is pounding, blood rushing past my ears.
I focus on his lips, trying to forget my pain.
The words slowly resolve. I…love…you.
My face screws up with disbelief and pain. What? Really? Now?
I try to call him an idiot, but then collapse in on myself. When I do, his voice reaches my ears, delivering a three-syllable message that is very different from the first, which I now realize I misread.
“Be…hind…you.”
I turn to look and catch sight of Del for just a moment before she plunges something sharp into my back.
53
The pain in my back is nothing compared to the anguish of Del’s betrayal. It flares far brighter and hotter, but lasts only a moment. With my newfound strength, I fling Del away. Before she hits the floor, I see the now empty syringe clutched in her hand.
Del was not my betrayer. She was my salvation.
But perhaps, like with Lew, the cure has come too late?
My insides twist, curling me in on myself. I can feel my muscles tearing and knitting themselves together, the transformation continuing undaunted.
A shout that is equal parts anger and pain draws my eyes open in time to see Dyer sail past and crash to the floor. She’s breathing, and then moving, but she’s not going anywhere fast. As strong as her arm might be, the rest of her is still human.
Lew on the other hand…
He roars toward Dyer, but he doesn’t pursue her. He searches the space for new threats. With Micha and Shua no longer pressing the attack, he turns his attention back to me.
Shua takes a step toward Lew, and I manage to thrust a hand out at him. “No!”
I push myself up, fighting the pain. If I’m becoming a Golyat, my life is already over. If Lew kills me, it will be a mercy. And if he eats me alive…
He won’t, I decide. I’m too far gone. I can feel it, the hungry itch, the ravenous drive.
Shua must see it, too, because he obeys my command.
On my feet, Lew faces me, and for a moment, he looks confused. He doesn’t know whether to eat me or kill me as competition.
Then he attacks, mouth closed, claws extended.
Competition, then. Even he knows I’m too far gone. Golyats are many things, but they’re not cannibals.
I face him head on. Knowing my skills as a fighter—against people—are lacking, I try for an unconventional
approach. While he swings a hand, I launch my whole body, locking my arms over my head and curling up. We collide hard, and I’m surprised when I’m not the one flung backward.
When I open my eyes again, I’m on the floor and Lew is sliding away, his black skin squeaking over the smooth surface.
I get to my feet again, moving fast.
“Vee…” Shua says. He’s looking at me like I’m a mountaintop sunset. Or am I misreading him again? When he smiles, I know that I’m not. “Look at yourself.”
I don’t get the chance. Lew leaps from his position on the floor, tackling me around the knees. Before I can recover, his strong hands grasp my ankles and pull. I’m yanked off the floor, spun in a half circle and flung.
This is it, I think, tumbling who knows how far. There’s no time to think anything else, or ponder my regrets. I slam into something solid, but it gives under my weight with a metallic crunch that hurts my ears more than the impact does my body.
I sit up inside a crater created by my body on the aircraft’s wing.
And I barely felt it.
I look at my arms now. My dark skin is still intercut by veins of black, but it hasn’t spread, nor has my body become desiccated. If anything, I simply look…stronger.
I feel stronger.
The inoculation worked.
I’m not going to become a Golyat!
But there is still a very good chance I’m going to die here and now.
Lew roars as he leaps into the air, following my course. When he crashes into the plane, leaving a dent of his own, I’ve already fled. I land on the floor, twenty feet below, without needing to roll. It’s no harder than if I jumped up and down. And I’m fairly certain I could leap back up. But there’s no time to try.
Lew is upon me, and he’s still more savage, and less human than me. Claws slice through my clothing, catching the side of one breast and enraging me in the process. I drive a knee into Lew’s crotch and discover the blow has far less effect on Golyat men than it does the standard variety.
As trails of blood race down my torso inside my shredded clothing, Lew drives a fist into my gut and then the side of my head. The blows drive me forward, and then sprawling to the side, but they hurt far less than they should.
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