Reese and I both shared uneasy glances.
“What?” Mark charged over to us, blocking our way to the door. “I just witnessed my best friend on a murder rampage, sporting fangs and glowing yellow eyes. Okay? We’re past the point of the whole ‘you wouldn’t believe me if I told you’ bullshit.”
“Look at what we have here.”
We all stiffened.
“An appetizer, my main course, a little dessert, and the girl of the hour.” Trace sauntered his way around the pool, heading towards the bleachers with an axe brandished in hand.
Mark slammed the door shut. “Help me move the desk.”
“We can’t barricade ourselves in here,” said Reese.
“Why?”
“You don’t want to be in a confined space with him. Trust me.”
Carly grabbed her metal pole again, which I now realized was a cleaning rod for the pool, and we all hurried out the door.
Reese ordered for us to aim for Trace’s head as we reached the bottom of the bleachers.
“So, which of the three little piggies am I to eat first?” Trace beamed, twirling the axe about gleefully. It seemed someone had already tried attacking him because his sleeve was torn and blood dripped down his arm. As expected, he didn’t feel a thing.
I stepped forward.
“Kat,” Reese snapped.
“He just said it himself; he can’t kill me,” I said, raising Reese’s sword. “Isn’t that right?”
Trace smirked. “Kill? No. Maim? Well, let’s just see how things go. Shall we?”
“Screw this.” Mark suddenly flew past me, ready to nail Trace with his bat. His friend laughed, effortlessly ducking. McDowell flew past him, clumsily trying to regain his footing.
“Nice try.” Trace brought up his axe, all set to drop it right into Mark’s shoulder blades. The hatchet swung back around however just as Reese’s dagger came hurtling at him. The bit clipped with the blade, and the momentum sent the dagger flying up into the bleachers. Reese charged him. Trace parried the strike, the top of the axe connecting with Reese’s sword. Spinning the axe over his head, he hammered it down at Blackburn, and the profound force sent Reese’s fighting arm to the floor. Trace made a line drive at him, and Reese somersaulted sideways, sprawling out on the tiles.
“Just like old times,” Bolton snickered. “Only this time, I’m the one who’ll be knocking your teeth out. Right after I rip out your spine."
Mark took another swing, but Trace leveled his axe right at the sweet spot of the baseball bat. The wood cracked in half, leaving Mark with not much more than a nub. Reese sprang up from the ground, throwing another dagger at him. It lacked any real accuracy, but that wasn’t the point. It took Trace’s attention away from Mark, who was now defenseless. Blackburn wasted no time reengaging Bolton, and Trace’s blasé manner only made the magician imprudent in his strikes. He needed to pace himself. Despite his bulky build, Bolton glissaded in every step with perfect form. Meanwhile, Reese was rushing, meeting too many close calls.
Trace hurled the axe down again, primed at Reese’s head. Mark threw the remainder of his bat at Bolton’s face, giving Reese just that split second he needed to sidestep the strike. The axe barreled down into the floor, crushing right through the tiles. Reese swung at him, but Trace deflected, hauling up the axe once again. Blackburn barely managed to raise the sword in time, catching the top of the axe right on the end of the blade. Bolton pressed down further, and it proved to be too much. Reese couldn’t hold the weight. The axe dug right into his left shoulder.
Any rationality I had was gone as I ran right for him.
“No!” Reese begged me. “Go!”
Trace nailed the heel of his foot right into Reese’s chest. The force set the steel tearing out of his flesh, and the air was knocked out of his lungs before Reese had the chance to scream.
“What’s the matter, Houdini? You should be used to getting your ass kicked by now,” Bolton laughed, grabbing Reese off the floor by the front of his jacket. He threw the magician like he was nothing more than a sack of flour.
Reese’s thin frame crashed into the bleachers, and his body fell limp.
I charged at Trace, viciously swinging at him as hard and as fast as I could. Bolton only continued to laugh, somehow managing to grip the hilt of the sword. When it was made clear I wouldn’t let it go, Trace shoved me back. The colossal force sent me hurtling across the slick tile, and I only stopped upon slamming into the far wall. I tried catching my breath so I could stand, but I just croaked on a strangled gasp.
“Who’s next?” Bolton looked to Mark, seeing him still without a weapon. He snickered, actually tossing aside his axe. “Come on, McDowell. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
The linebacker rushed at Trace, preparing to tackle him with an annihilating blow that left even the best players on the football field buried in the ground. He extended his hands and drove them upward across Trace’s chest, ready to demolish him with maximum leverage. Instead, it was like he hit a brick wall. The moment Mark collided with Trace, neither moved. Mark’s feet scraped against the ground, trying to gain an inkling of momentum, but Trace still didn’t budge.
Bolton raised his arms above Mark’s hold, driving his elbows down onto his friend’s upper back. The impact sent Mark crumpling into the ground with a wheeze. Trace booted him over with a snicker, effortlessly snatching a hold of the metal pole that came hurtling right at the back of his head. He turned around, twisting the pole right out of Carly’s grasp.
He howled with laughter. “Really? That’s the best you’ve got?” Trace grabbed the bar with both hands and snapped it over his knee like it was made of straw. “‘If she only had a brain,’” he singsonged.
“Speak for yourself,” I sneered, finally staggering back up to my feet. I swung the blade at him. The weight of the steel made me undoubtedly clumsy, but I kept slicing it through the air every time Trace teased us with a step closer.
He pounced forward and I swung Reese’s blade as hard as I could, hearing him howl. Trace staggered back, pressing his fingers tightly into his palm. Blood seeped out. It may have only been a scratch, but hell, it was better than nothing.
Trace’s eyes flashed an all too familiar yellow, and a low, guttural growl rose from the back of his throat as his canine teeth lengthened. He lunged at me.
Not good.
I frantically flung the sword up at him, and it cut into his arm, but he didn’t stop. Trace’s hands were suddenly clasped around my throat as he slammed my body against the wall. Tiles broke all around me, and my vision blackened from the devastating impact to my head. I tried keeping hold of Reese’s blade, but the impact rattled me hard enough that it fell from my fingers. Metal clamored behind us, and glass shattered somewhere else, but I couldn’t make anything out.
A sickly squishing sound suddenly filled the quieted space, and Trace immediately dropped me. My vision recovered just as he turned around. Reese’s dagger. It was buried in the left side of his back.
“You,” he sneered. Bolton knelt down, revealing the culprit. Mark was crumpled on his knees, still struggling to regain his own breath. Trace grabbed him in one fell swoop by the neck, prying him right off the floor. McDowell was sent catapulting across the room, his body airborne before he plummeted into the water.
“How’d you like me now?” gritted Carly. Trace barely managed to turn as a heavy metallic wallop reverberated across the space. His features fell in confusion, traveling down to the blonde’s hands. She brought up the fire extinguisher again, nailing him square in the face. The hit literally spun him around, and he toppled over right into the pool. “Bastard.”
Mark broke the surface of the water, still on the other end of the lanes. “What the hell happened?” he gasped, seeing blood fanning out across the water where Trace’s motionless body bobbed.
I left Carly to explain as I hurried over to the bleachers, shaking Reese’s frame. He groaned as he came to, his hand immediately pinning to his sho
ulder. Trace wasn’t the only one bleeding. Reese’s shoulder was drenched, and I could see the mutilated flesh peeking out between the slashed fabric of his jacket.
“I’m okay,” he assured, woozily climbing up to his feet.
“Don’t scare me like that,” I sighed, planting a kiss to his cheek. We ambled down from the bleachers, but we both froze.
“Get out of the water,” Reese muttered.
Carly and Mark turned to us, and now I was screaming.
“Get out of the water!”
Trace’s tanned body was lost beneath a growing black mass of fur developing under the water. He was shifting!
Chapter 29
Mama
I grabbed Carly’s hand, forcing her to follow us as we all bolted to the other side of the pool. “Mark, get out!”
A snarling muzzle roared as it breached the surface of the water, and all the blood drained from Mark’s face. He immediately plunged under, sculling beneath the lane dividers. His head reemerged not two feet from us, and we all reached for him. The black mass of fur shot through the water and charged the surface like a great white. The hound’s teeth were as equally ferocious, each canine at least three inches long. Everyone grabbed hold of Mark’s arms, hauling him up. We all fell back on the sidelines, losing our footing as the hound’s muzzle sprang up onto the tile.
“Holy shit!” Mark thrashed the heel of his foot, clocking the impending beast right in the snout. He scuttled back just far enough to evade the snapping jaws as they repeatedly clamped together, the curved canines begging to tear through flesh down to the very bone. The hound’s slick paws slipped on the tiling, unable to haul its body up onto the poolside. It continued snapping up at us, only to slip back under the water.
I grabbed Mark’s arm. “Come on!”
We climbed back to our feet, hearing tiles shatter behind us as we bolted for the nearest door. Trace had found his way out of the water. Reese yanked the heavy metal door open, and the four of us piled into the locker room. The hound struck the closing door in full force, inadvertently slamming it shut in the process. Razor sharp claws tore into the barrier, unable to pry it back open. Howling and thrashing resonated from the other side of the door, and we all bolted through the aisles of lockers to the side exit. Mark ransacked the shower rack, snatching up a handful of bath towels on our way out. His waterlogged sneakers squished and squeaked with every step, forcing him to abandon them not ten feet into the hall.
Footsteps galloped from an adjoining passage. We pressed our backs to the wall, trying best to melt into the darkness as we slid over to the stairwell. Mark cursed under his breath, seeing the blatant trail of water he was leaving behind. A guy called out down the corridor, and we all froze. Laughter immediately followed.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Piss off,” barked Trace. A fresh set of squishing footsteps pounded down the hall right for us.
We bolted up the stairs, checking each of the classroom doors along the way as we darted through the main hallway on the second floor. Everything was locked.
Bolton’s voice boomed from the lower level. “Check all the exits!”
“We already did,” replied his companion.
“Do it again!”
Carly motioned to us, pulling one of the dual doors open.
The library.
All the lights were off, so we only had the small flashlights from our phones to help illuminate the vast space.
“Waterproof, my ass.” Mark hit every button on his cell to no avail. It was clearly dead. “Well, there’s four-hundred bucks down the toilet.”
Silence greeted us as we headed through the computer lab department. Mark motioned to a nearby cubicle, but Reese shook his head. “EMP knocked out the internet too.”
Taking refuge in the librarian’s station, we locked ourselves inside Mrs. Hastings’s office. Between the hysteria and wasted energy, we either collapsed into empty chairs or right onto the carpet.
Mark ambled over to the wall, sliding down to the floor. Reese and I came to his side, immediately seeing the blood coursing down the nape of his neck from his hair.
“I’m fine,” McDowell grumbled, cringing as he dabbed the beaten spot on the back of his head. “Some of us are worse off.” He nodded to Reese, noting his gashed shoulder.
“Thanks,” Blackburn muttered, “for everything back there.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Reese nodded.
“Seriously, don’t mention it. I can’t have people thinking Bolton bested me. I have a reputation to uphold.” The two chuckled as Reese took a seat beside him.
Catching my breath, I snatched up the landline receiver sitting on Mrs. Hastings’s desktop, dialing in the phone number for Mr. Reynolds’s bar. It was the only other landline I knew that could be reached.
“….Hello?” A thick wave of static overwhelmed the voice on the other end.
“Adam?” I tried speaking as loud as I could without shouting. “Adam? Can you hear me?”
“K…Kat? Is that…?”
“Adam, we need help. It’s Daniel. He’s a Hellhound. We’re trapped in the school-”
“Hello? Hel...”
The static roared, drowning out Adam’s voice entirely. “Can you hear me? Hello!” I bellowed. “Hello?” The call cut out. It took everything I had to not slam the receiver down.
“What the hell’s going on?” asked Mark. “What happened to Bolton in the pool?”
“He’s a Hellhound,” muttered Reese, applying pressure to his injured shoulder. “He and Daniel were infected with a demonic virus. It’s kind of a long story, but the cheat sheet version is that they’re raving, shape-shifting lunatics now controlled by an even worse raving lunatic who wants to kidnap Kat.” He handed Mark his only other longer blade and instructed on what to do with it before giving Carly a small dagger.
Silent tears trailed down her cheeks. “What’d we do now?”
“We go to the north wing,” muttered Mark, using the other towels in his hands to mop up his dripping frame as best he could. “If we can find a way inside one of the classrooms with a window, the bushes lining the building just might help break our fall.”
My throat double-clutched. “You want us to jump?”
“You have a better idea?”
We all startled, instinctively ducking down as the main doors to the library slammed open with an ear-splitting bang. Everyone buried their phones into the carpet and shut off the lights. Windows lined the whole front of the office, so Reese was able to steal a quick look between the slatted blinds at the bottom of the sill.
He held up two fingers, signifying how many people he had seen. “We have to move,” he mouthed.
Things crashed and slammed and banged and boomed in the front departments of the library as whoever ransacked the place. By the sounds of it, they were toppling over bookshelves.
“The Boss is gonna flip shit if we don’t find her before he gets here,” one of the intruders barked.
A female sighed. “It wasn’t our job to babysit her. Daniel’s the one who let her get away. But regardless, he already called in the rest of the troops for support. The whole gang should be here in ten minutes tops. We’ll find her.”
“Gang?” Mark mouthed. We all shuddered. It was hard enough fending off Bolton, let alone an entire mob.
Reese waved at us, slowly easing the office door open as the voices trailed off into what sounded like the computer lab. We each slinked out, keeping ourselves low to the ground. Stalking over to the closest aisle, we froze. The talking had abruptly stopped. The four of us practically army crawled into the History section, ducking behind the towering shelves. We strained to hear anything, but the entire place was silent with the exception of our panicked breathing. Carly even pinned a hand to her mouth to try and suppress the sound.
The main door was wide open. If we made a break for it now…
I didn’t have time to finish the thought. A wisp of shadow zipped p
ast the shelves, and Mark was suddenly airborne. His body crashed right on top of the checkout counter.
“Come on!” He groaningly rolled off the tabletop, collapsing onto the carpet. “Why am I always the one being treated like a human keg-toss?”
“Well, well, well. Look who we have here,” purred the female, standing over us. We scrambled to our feet, and the strange woman immediately bellowed. She staggered back, gripping her stomach. Reese sliced his blade at her again, and she recoiled with a hiss.
Carly and I blindly stumbled backward, only to hit a solid wall of flesh. We whirled around. The shadows made it impossible to see anything distinctive about the towering man, but his glowing yellow eyes were unmistakable. Beefy mitts ensnared both our throats.
“Which one is she?” the man barked, exchanging glances between Carly and me.
Things clanged and crashed behind us. Clearly Reese was keeping his partner busy. Sadly, the two of us couldn’t say we were putting up much of a fight. We kicked and thrashed and clawed at the brute, only to be thrown against the bookshelves beside each of us.
Reese screamed, and I could see him out of the corner of my eye. The woman had him pinned against the wall, digging her clamped fingers into his wounded shoulder. Vibrations rippled up my arm, and I suddenly threw my fists forward. They connected with the man’s chest, and he rocketed backward, hitting the adjacent bookshelf so hard that it toppled over, causing a domino effect across the entire library. I was instantly at the woman’s back, pinning my hand against her throat. In one swift movement, I sent her skidding backward across the carpet.
“Damn, Montgomery,” Mark choked, staggering up to his feet. “Remind me to never piss you off.” Snarling immediately erupted from behind him. We didn’t need to be told twice. Our new acquaintances were shifting. The four of us bolted out the door so fast that we all nearly lost our footing from sheer momentum.
Twenty feet down the corridor, and everything ruptured behind us. I stole a look over my shoulder, seeing the splintered fragments of the library door explode across the hallway as two massive hounds burst out of the entryway. Within seconds, they were right on our heels. Reese whirled around, throwing one of his silver stars. The metal buried right into the animal’s snout. It immediately came to a halt, thrashing its paws up at its face in an attempt to rip it out.
Insidious: (The Marked Mage Chronicles, Book 1) Page 28