Angie shivered from more than the cold. "That's where Tavi was headed. It's a hardened settlement with a Norteno military outpost. Even if the Ferals have a mage, I can't imagine them taking a place like that."
As she spoke, the gunfire petered out, followed by several isolated shots.
And then silence.
"Maybe they chased them off," Jay offered.
"Could be," answered Rowan in a neutral, unconvinced tone.
Casey scratched his beard. "What about going back, hitting 79, and taking it north? Go around the long way?"
"Too risky," Rowan said. "We could run right into the Norties."
"They may still be marching west, thinking we're just ahead," Casey said.
"Or they could be on our ass, and we just haven't seen 'em yet. At any rate, they'll have seen the flare and heard the shooting and will be coming this way now." Rowan stroked his mustache. "I think we need to keep to the plan," he finally said. "Slip past the settlement and hit the pass. And we need to do it tonight—before the sun rises. If our luck holds, we'll be in the old Anza-Borrego Desert state park just after sunrise. Home free."
"If by home free," Angie said, "you mean alone in the wild, without supplies, food, or even a tent, hunted by Ferals and our own countrymen, then yes, we'll be home free."
"Well, there is that," Rowan agreed, amusement in his voice. "But I still prefer our chances."
"Food won't be a problem," Erin said. "Trust me."
"It's cool, Angie-baby," Casey said, his eyes flashing in the dark. "You're with the Seagraves now, the ultimate survivalist family. We'll take care of you."
Sure, Angie thought, until the full moon. Then what? Am I going to have to hide every month?
"Okay," said Rowan, the decision made. "Let's get moving before we run out of dark."
They mounted their horses. This time, Casey trotted alongside them instead of Erin as they rode east, in the direction of Pine Valley and the now-ominous silence.
Chapter 24
By the time they had ridden a kilometer, even Angie could smell the thick smoke in the air. It was at least an hour or longer until sunrise, but a glow in the eastern sky promised it was coming. The horses became skittish, which was unnerving because they had almost certainly been trained to be calm around smoke.
"Something's got 'em spooked," Jay said, reaching down and patting his horse's neck with his good hand.
"Blood in the air," Erin said simply, as if talking about the weather.
"Not just blood," said Rowan, sniffing the air. "Same beast smell as the Nortie base. Eyes everywhere, people. We've got supernaturals out there."
The Seagraves began to scan their surroundings, their postures erect. "You want to turn around?" Casey asked softly, his gaze sweeping the trees.
"Wait," said Angie, her skin crawling as she peered into the darkness. "Queen Elenaril's chupacabras? How is that possible? The desert is far to the south."
Rowan, not looking at her as he scanned the woods, shook his head. "Don't have a clue, but no way I can get that scent wrong. They're here."
"Best keep the hell away if they know what's good for them," Casey said.
"Don't get cocky," Rowan snapped. "They took down a company of Norteno soldiers—and the were-jaguar, and he was no pushover."
"His name is Tec," said Angie. "And we'd all be dead without him. You too."
"Didn't mean anything by it," Rowan said. "Just stating a fact."
They kept riding, carefully watching their surroundings. The horses became more skittish, and Angie could tell Cobble wanted to be anywhere but here. Less than an hour later, they saw the flames rising above the pine trees with a red glow. Rowan met Erin's eye and gestured ahead with his chin. Erin dropped out of her saddle and handed her reins to Angie before trotting silently forward, keeping low, her rifle butt tight into her shoulder. In moments, she was out of sight. Rowan led the others through the trees after her.
Some tense minutes later, they came to the edge of the woods and found Erin kneeling and watching the burning settlement. Rows of farmland, wheat and corn, stood between them and the walled settlement built upon a hill less than five hundred meters away, the fires illuminating it. The settlement was protected by a fifteen-foot-high log wall atop a raised earthen mound. As far as farming communities went, this one was moderately sized, and judging by the length of the wall, it must have held several dozen buildings. Flames shot into the night behind the wall. At least some of those homes were burning.
Angie's throat tightened. If the settlement was burning, then no one was alive to fight the fires. A weight settled on her heart when she thought of all those families. Why had those monsters come this far north? There were dozens of other settlements and outposts between here and the desert. Why attack this one?
"This doesn't look promising," whispered Casey.
"I don't see anyone," Rowan said. "No farmers, no Ferals—no goat-sucking chupacabras." He sniffed the air. "Scent is getting weaker. They've moved on."
"What are you thinking?" Casey asked.
"That Angie was right earlier, and we're going to need supplies."
Casey sighed, staring at the walled community. "If the Norties are close behind us, we could get stuck inside."
"Let's take that chance."
"We need to look for survivors," Angie said.
"There's that too," admitted Rowan. He nodded, deciding for them all. "Okay, Casey and I go in first. If it's safe, we'll wave you in—Jay, with your injury, I want you to stay near the gates with the horses. You see someone coming, you fire three shots, preferably right through the center of visible mass of whoever or whatever you see."
Jay bit his upper lip but nodded.
They dismounted and moved forward, leading the horses. As they crossed the fields, they came upon the first carcass, a cow lying on her belly, her entrails trailing behind her where she had collapsed. Something with big teeth had ripped her open.
"Definitely not Ferals," Angie said, her revulsion rising.
"No. No, it wasn't," Rowan whispered.
As they moved, the Seagraves often paused and sniffed the air. Much of the corn had been trampled, as if a herd of horses had run pell-mell through the fields.
Rowan dropped to a knee, running his fingers over the ground, finding dozens of paw prints. "Definitely the same monsters. Must be dozens, maybe more. Maybe even fifty or sixty. Big pack."
"And you're sure they're gone?" Angie asked.
Rowan shrugged, his face betraying his indecision. "Think so."
He thinks so. Perfect. Angie's nerves were so tightly stretched she feared they'd snap.
They came out of the fields and into a cleared length of ground a hundred meters wide and stopped in front of the closed entrance on the settlement’s wall, double doors reinforced with iron and almost certainly barred from the inside. The stench of death—blood and feces—was just as strong as it had been at the military outpost. Her stomach clenched, and she had to force away thoughts of women and children.
Jay took the reins of all four horses, securing the animals and watching their rear while Angie joined the others near the barred gates. Subconsciously, she ran her fingers over Nightfall's hilt, but if the chupacabras—or Nekomil, the barbed ones, as the elves called them—were still here, she sure as hell wasn't going to fight them with a sword. Please, be gone, she prayed.
"Angie," Rowan said softly, touching her arm. She almost flinched. "Can you … you know, do your thing?"
She closed her eyes and reached out with her life-sense magic, feeling nothing at first, but then she detected the slightest glimmer of life on the other side of the log wall. "There's someone or something alive, but it's small. Could just be an animal, a dog or even a pig."
"More than I expected." Rowan moved to the gate and cupped his hands. "Get these gates open, brother," he said to Casey, who nodded and then placed a boot in Rowan's cupped hands. With no more effort than if he were tossing a toddler, Rowan hoisted the large man
up and over the wall. They heard him land on the other side. A moment later, he unlatched the bars and swung the gates open.
She had mentally prepared herself for the worst, but the onslaught to her senses was like a punch to the gut. Bodies and parts of bodies lay about in front of the gates, many with their entrails lying beside them in pools of blood. The smoke was thick in the air. The faces of the dead stared in horror at Angie—half-dressed farmers and Norteno soldiers.
"They put up a stand here," Casey said.
"These monsters can get over walls," Rowan explained. "They must have hit 'em from multiple directions."
Casey shook his head. "I don't see any dead beasties. Lots of brass on the ground."
"It was the same at the base. Don't know if they're invulnerable. Maybe we need silver bullets ... or wooden stakes like with the vamps."
Casey spat onto the blood-soaked ground. "That's some unfair bullshit."
"They're not invulnerable," Erin said. She pointed to a large blood pool—too large for a man—and then the thick blood trail a foot wide that led to the walls, running up its side. "They're taking their dead with them. Literally dragging them over the walls. They're not dumb animals."
"Shit," said Casey. "I missed that." He hung an arm around Erin's neck. "Good job, eagle-eye."
They found several other blood trails leading to and up the walls. They even saw thick mats of dark animal fur stuck to splinters of wood. "Okay," said Rowan in a thoughtful tone. "Why are they hiding their dead?"
Angie's gaze swept the community. Only two of the homes were on fire, but the fire would soon spread and consume the settlement. There were a dozen farmhouses, all built close together around the interior of the wall. Several small stables, community shelters for the animals, sat removed from the homes. From here, she saw at least one building that looked like a storage shed.
Casey, his rifle on his shoulder, stepped inside one of the homes, the front door broken into splinters. He returned moments later, his face gray. "Stay out of the homes, Angie-baby," he said in a hard tone. "Trust me."
She swallowed but nodded.
Rowan's face was grim as he scanned the surroundings, focusing on the stables and storage sheds. "I want to be gone in ten mikes. Salvage what you can—bullets, food, horse feed—horses if any are still alive."
"Don't imagine there will be," Casey said. "These things seem to kill everything, dogs, cats…" His voice trailed off, and Angie suspected he had been about to say children.
She shuddered. A community like this must have sheltered at least a hundred people. In the Home Guard, they had all seen this sort of carnage before in the aftermath of a successful Feral attack, but never had they seen bodies ripped apart, the pieces left lying about. Ferals killed for food and supplies. These chupacabras killed for savagery. What animal does that? It made no sense.
None of this did.
"Come on," Erin said, pulling on Angie's elbow. "Let's check the storage shed. Let Casey and Rowan search the stables for feed."
Angie took a step and then froze, feeling the unmistakable aura of a life-form, the same one she had sensed earlier but more clearly now. It wasn't a dog. It was a person. "Someone's alive," she said, pulling free of Erin's grip and facing the direction the trace of life had come from.
"You're sure?" Erin asked.
She closed her eyes and concentrated, snapping them open a moment later. "Yes. There." She pointed to one of the homes, a wooden two-story building thirty meters away, near the fire, which had now spread to two more buildings. The fire lapped at the roof of the building Angie pointed to.
"Shit," Casey said, changing direction from the stables and sprinting to the house.
Rowan and Erin were blurs right behind him, leaving Angie alone. She ran after them, but by the time she reached the house, Casey had already entered the smashed-in doorway, followed by Rowan and Erin. Smoke poured from the doorway, but she took a deep breath and ran inside.
Smoke stung her eyes and burned her throat. All three Seagraves stood in the home's kitchen, staring down at a monstrous carcass lying on the kitchen floor, blood pooling from large, gaping wounds. A dead man with a beard, wearing only underwear, his chest ripped open so that it exposed his ribs and lungs, lay before the beast, a double-barreled shotgun still in his hand. Behind the man was a woman's corpse. She looked as though she had been shoved into a corner of the kitchen with unimaginable force, her limbs splayed outward, her face a rictus of horror.
Angie stared at the beast, having never seen anything like it. Shaped like a monstrous canine with four legs, it was easily two hundred pounds of gristle and dark fur. It lay on its belly, its legs stretched out to the side. Rows of long, glistening black spikes, so many they looked like spiky hair, ran down the monster's spine to a long, black tail that looked like it belonged on a lion. Its misshapen bald head sported two large ears sticking out to the sides, reminding Angie of a monstrous bat. Sharp canine teeth filled its long muzzle, the top two so big they'd have stuck out even when the beast's muzzle was shut. The four powerful legs ended in paws tipped by inch-long black claws. Its small dark eyes the size of dimes seemed to watch her as she moved.
"They missed one," Casey said. "Fugly bastards."
"Definitely not werewolves," Erin said in disgust.
"They're smaller than us," Casey said, a trace of scorn in his voice, as if size made them any less dangerous.
"Only when we change," said Rowan. "And that won't be for a week yet."
Rowan looked to Angie, urgency on his face. "Where?"
She nodded, closing her eyes. The life-form was weak, and at first, she feared they had run into the wrong house, but then she felt it—beneath them. She met Rowan's eyes. "Below us."
The others broke into action, spreading out and looking for a basement or pantry entrance. "Got nothin'," Casey yelled, coming back from another room.
As the roof burned, the smoke became thicker, and Angie dropped to her hands and knees in search of clean air. That was when she saw that the blood was dripping through the floorboards in the kitchen. "Here," she yelled, pointing at the dead beast, or rather, below it. She started coughing.
Rowan and Casey gripped the carcass by the back legs and dragged it away, leaving a bloody smear on the floorboards. Then Erin was there, stamping her boot. "Got it!" she yelled as she bent down and found a seam to grip. She wrenched a section of the floor up, a trapdoor designed to fit in with the other boards, exposing an opening beneath the kitchen—a secret bolt-hole.
Angie's vision blurred as Erin dropped into the hole. The heat was becoming unbearable. Rowan grabbed her, hauling her slumped body along as he rushed her out the front door. Outside, clean, fresh air filled her lungs, and she coughed, trying to clear her throat. "What … what about … Erin?"
And then Erin came through the doorway with Casey behind her, the flames licking at the interior walls of the homestead, black smoke billowing out. In her arms, she held a child, a girl eight or nine years old, although it was hard to tell because she was covered in so much glistening blood that Angie almost missed her long blond hair. The girl's chest rose and fell.
She was alive.
Chapter 25
Angie trailed at Erin's elbow as they regrouped outside the settlement. Jay's eyes widened in surprise when he saw the child in Erin's arms, but he didn't ask questions. Erin lay the unconscious child down and placed her ear against her chest. "Sleeping." She ran her fingers over the girl's body, checking for injuries. "I don't think the blood is hers."
"We can't leave her here," Angie said.
"Nobody was gonna," said Casey. "We're werewolves, not monsters."
Rowan grabbed Casey's arm, pulling him along. "You're with me. We still need those supplies. Rest of you get ready to ride." With that, both men bolted back into the settlement. The smoke was getting thicker, and the flames were spreading.
Erin looked up from the child and met Angie's eyes. "Search the bodies at the entrance. Look for ammo."
<
br /> Angie hesitated, her gaze on the child.
"Go. I got her."
Angie nodded and hurried to the settlement's open gates. As badly butchered as the corpses were, she didn’t see Tavi among the dead, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t here somewhere else. She began to strip the dead of ammunition, finding a dozen full magazines among the Norteno soldiers. They already had rifles, so she left those, but she did take a pair of nine-millimeter pistols, stripping the weapons and shoulder holsters from the bloody bodies as well as a pair of hunting knives.
And then she saw a scoped bolt-action Winchester Model 70 hunting rifle lying beneath a corpse. "Well, hello there," she said as she pulled the rifle away. She drew back the bolt and ejected the magazine, seeing that it still held the three .375 magnum bullets. Could stop a bear with these, she mused. Or a barbed goatsucker. More bullets would have been useful, but even after searching the pockets of the man who had been lying atop the rifle, she found nothing.
She slung the rifle over her shoulder and resumed her search, stopping in her tracks when she saw the M32A1 multi-shot grenade launcher lying beside a severed arm. The grenade launcher was an old U.S. Marine Corps support weapon with a six-barrel revolving drum magazine that held 40mm grenades. She picked up the heavy weapon and noted it was still fully loaded with six 40mm fragmentation grenades. She stared at the weapon for long moments before shaking her head. "Hell no," she whispered to herself as she put it back down again. The weapon was too heavy, too awkward to use without practice, impossible to find ammunition for, and useless for just about anything other than suppressing enemy machine gun positions.
She had been tempted, though.
Angie turned away and, eyes stinging from the smoke, hurriedly wrapped the pistols, holsters, knives, and magazines in her Brujas cape and carried the awkward bundle, with the Winchester rifle slung over her shoulder, to Erin.
Erin, the child’s head on her lap, pursed her lips and nodded approvingly at the Winchester. "Why don't I take that off your hands."
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