by Meg Collett
Our bodies tensed. We wouldn’t survive another attack. On Hatter’s other side, Thad lifted his nose to the sky and took in a long drag of air.
“Easy!” Thad called as halflings lifted their guns. “It’s just Hex’s pack on our flanks. Keep moving.”
I saw them then, our allied aswangs moving through the shadows around us as we came to the main street in front of our warehouse. They bounded along, truly guarding our sides. Behind us, some leaped from rooftop to rooftop, guarding us from above. They called back and forth with high-pitched clicks that were far different from the wild barking I’d heard in the alley.
One darted in close, loping forward with long, ground-eating strides. He was absolutely massive, the biggest ’swang I’d ever seen, including the ones who’d just attacked us. Through his dense, black fur, I saw the rigid muscles contracting and pulsing. His coat was shiny and unscarred, his eyes completely black. Curved ears swiveled around, listening to every scant sound. He drew up next to Ollie and Luke, who stiffened and tried to pull her away.
“It’s just Hex,” she said, breathing heavily beneath his weight.
I noticed the moment Hex must have said something to Ollie, because her attention snapped to him. Whatever she said back through her thoughts had some sting to it. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth frowned in disapproval, even though he came up to her shoulder, his massive snout level with her eyes. He literally dwarfed me, and maybe Ollie had the balls to talk back to him in her head, but I tucked in closer to Hatter. On my shoulder, I felt his grip tighten on me.
“Almost there,” Thad said.
In front of us, halflings were spilling through the bay door, which Ghost had rolled open, the echo of metal chains still clanging through the empty night air.
Hex’s pack peeled off and disappeared back into the night as the halflings went safely inside. With one last look at Ollie, Hex joined them, and just like that, they were gone.
As soon as we were under the bay’s rolling door, it began to lower. Halflings spread out, securing locks and taking positions at windows. They had to be beat, but they all moved with military precision. Some started reloading ammo clips from the crates lining the back wall. They started up a sort of assembly line to distribute ammo and fresh weapons. Others laid out the injured on the warehouse floor. Ghost darted between them, med packs stacked high in his arms. He’d come prepared. Along the wall with the cabinets, Lauren started unlocking the drawers and pulling out unmarked pill containers and pre-filled syringes. She was working with black and blue bruised eyes and a taped nose.
“Where’d they go?” Ollie panted and helped Luke to the ground.
“They have positions around the building,” Thad said. “Hex will probably lead a small contingent out to search for the ’swangs who made it away from the fight. They’ll terminate them by dawn.”
“And what about that thing?” I asked.
Hatter lay on the ground, his hand still in mine. I hated seeing him among the injured. It tore my heart out.
“That . . .” Thad took a shaky breath. “Will be harder to track.”
“I’ll be right back,” I told Hatter as I started heading toward the halflings laid out closest to the cabinets Lauren was working next to, but before I’d even taken two steps away, Thad pulled me back. “Help the unbitten ones. Over there.”
I frowned as I assessed the ones Thad had indicated. “They’re not critical. I need to help Lauren.”
“Reece and Ghost will help her. You help them,” he ordered, his voice clipped, but there were far too many bitten halflings over there for just three people to assist.
“Are you crazy? What’s the problem?”
Lauren injected the first halfling with a syringe Ghost had loaded for her, mixing whatever was in the pill bottles into the solution already in the syringe. As I watched them, Thad stepped in and blocked my view.
“On second thought,” he said, “you should go up to your rooms and help Hatter and Luke. I’ll have Reece help you get them up there.”
Thad motioned for help, but I stuck my head around his shoulder and caught Lauren mixing another syringe. She kept her back to us for the most part, but I knew she was doing something special to the bitten halflings. Something Thad didn’t want me to see.
Suddenly, I understood.
They were treating the effects of the ’swangs’ saliva.
The answer to Hatter’s problems was just feet away from me, but if I overreacted now, they would know that I knew.
Adrenaline kicked my heart into overdrive.
I had to figure out what was in those pill bottles. No matter what it took.
T E N
Ollie
“Can you help Luke?” Sunny asked me, distracted as she looked across the warehouse.
“I’m fine,” Luke snapped as he struggled to his feet.
My eyes locked on Thad, who was already moving toward a group of halflings gathered by the bay doors. They were going back out to hunt.
“I’m going to help them hunt,” I said, already moving toward them.
“Ollie—” Luke choked on the word and sputtered into a coughing fit.
I didn’t glance back as I jogged toward the group. Thad had already reached them and was issuing orders. They moved outside, the bay door rolling closed behind them.
I ducked under and nearly ran into Thad, who shouted, “Bravo Team! Get ready.”
“What’s happening?” I put a hand to my stitches to make sure they hadn’t torn. My hand came away free of blood. A relief.
“We won’t leave Hex’s pack out there alone,” Thad said as six halflings gathered around him. They wore no armor, unlike the university hunters. No throat guards were wrapped around their necks, but they all carried heavy artillery. Fully automatic assault rifles were draped across their chests, and they kept their fingers alongside the trigger guard. They also all had night-vision goggles atop their heads.
“Ready, sir,” one guy said. He was all muscles and caramel skin, with blazing bright eyes. He had to be almost seven feet tall.
“Thanks, Simon.” Thad nodded at his attack team. “We’re heading out. Get ready. Watch the sky out there tonight.”
“I’m going,” I said before I’d thought it all the way through.
Thad shook his head, his eyes falling to my chest. I still wore the red jacket, buttoned up beneath my chin, but I knew he meant my stitches. “You’re not a hundred percent yet, and we move fast.”
“I move faster. Can I have a gun?”
He leveled me with a long look, evaluating me, but finally said, “I can do you one better.”
“What?”
“How about this?” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a stingray whip. At my questioning glance, he smiled softly. “It belonged to Irena.”
With my heart in my throat, I took it from him, expecting a catch, but he let it go freely. I examined it, the scaled grip like heaven in my hand. I’d held a few whips before, since it was my weapon of choice, but never one as nice as this—or as special. I coiled the length around my wrist and took a shaky breath.
“Thank you,” I said to him.
“I’m not your enemy, Ollie.”
Not knowing what to say, I just nodded, but it was enough for him.
At Thad’s signal, Bravo Team jogged out, and I followed behind, the tails of my red coat flapping around my legs. For a brief second, I thought my mother might have done this often, hunted with her attack team. Maybe she’d been a leader like Thad, going out into the night to have the back of Hex’s pack, human and aswang hunting together.
For the first time since leaving Max and the hell cabin, my heart pumped with something other than hatred and fear.
It pulsed with the thrill of the moment, with the thrum of adrenaline from the hunt.
We slipped into the night and took off south. Everyone stayed silent. Though Thad’s team all wore boots, they moved soundlessly. There were too many clouds in the sky for much moonlight to break t
hrough, but slowly, my eyes adjusted, and I made out more than I thought I would.
Thad used his senses to lead us into the thick of ’swangs. I caught sight of gleaming fur slipping in and out of the buildings around us. Through broken windows, I spotted two ’swangs tearing through the stomach of another ’swang. I stiffened, ready for a fight, when they looked up, snouts bloodied, but Thad lifted a hand in signal, and the creatures went back to their gory meal.
They were on our side, hunting down and devouring the rogues who’d attacked my friends tonight.
We skirted around the alley where the fight had taken place. Leading us through a burnt building, Thad eased from a jog to a low crouch. The team shouldered their guns, and I let the whip’s coil slide down from my wrist and into my palm, where I could unfurl it with an easy flick.
Thad wove deeper through the husk of the building. Slipping outside and back inside, we went from one building into another until I lost count and all sense of direction. Thad followed his senses, and we kept pace behind him. Simon and I had the group’s left flank as we went, our formation tightening and expanding as the space around us changed. It felt natural, fluid, like we were just an extension of one body.
Thad led us to the front of a building. As we came forward from the back, shadows, large and prowling, came in from the left and right. I couldn’t help the tension rolling down my shoulders at the sight of them, but I picked out my father easily enough at the head of the pack. His head swiveled toward Thad and then me.
I noticed the little details I’d missed earlier, when I first saw him change. He had a nick in his ear, probably from some long-ago fight. His shoulders were wider than his hips, his tail higher set. His coat was so black it almost looked purple when it caught the moonlight. For a moment, I thought he might tell me something, but he turned away.
Thad brought us up to a collapsed door leading out into an abandoned parking garage. We were so far south of the city that I couldn’t see its lights, other than the occasional glimmering haze in the sky. After a quick barrage of signals to Hex, Thad glanced back at us, his eyes running across our faces, and held up three fingers.
A section of the pack split off and went into the garage’s first floor. They spiraled out, keeping to the outer edge until they disappeared in a silent wave of dark grace.
Two fingers from Thad.
More aswangs split off, aiming up the ramp for the second floor.
One finger.
Hex led a group to the exit ramp, skipping the second floor and going straight to the third.
Thad closed his fist.
As one, we moved forward. Instead of going into the garage like I’d expected, we headed around to the front. As we passed between buildings, I looked up. Dark shadows jumped from the nearby roof onto the fourth floor of the garage. More ’swangs. We were flushing out whatever was inside this building with ’swangs on top and coming up from the bottom. I expected that Thad’s Bravo Team and I were meant to catch whatever came out the front.
I adjusted my grip on the whip.
As we moved along, we heard the occasional scuffle inside the garage, claws on concrete, but no clicks. No other communication. At the front corner of the building, Thad paused. Behind me, Simon swiveled forward and nodded at Thad before resuming watching our backs.
Thad broke out into a jog, and we slunk across the empty street to cover across from the garage. It wasn’t much, just a few large dumpsters filled with foul smells that made my eyes water. I figured that was the main reason Thad had chosen it: to keep our scents covered. I pushed my nose into my mother’s jacket and grimaced.
I spotted the occasional dark form slipping by above the garage’s concrete barrier. There was just enough of a gap between the floors to see across the level.
Behind the dumpsters, Thad cocked his head sharply, turning his ear toward the garage. The instant tension in his body traveled like a zap of electricity through us all. Fingers slipped alongside trigger guards, ready. Stocks were pressed tight against the crooks of shoulders, ready. The muscles in our legs twitched, ready.
Barely a second had passed before a series of barks cascaded down from the top floor. We stayed behind the dumpster, guns resting along the metal lids and trained at the door. I hovered at the back, loosely holding the coil in my fingertips.
More barks were followed by a yelp from the third floor. They were moving down. A smattering of claws sounded against the concrete and then more barks came from the second floor. A warning howl and then another.
“Ready,” Thad said, voice low.
A ’swang flipped over the barrier on the second floor, head over tail, and hit the ground on its side. From inside the parking garage, a gossamer, bat-like wing flashed by. The ’swang on the ground stood shakily and shook its head. He had a series of hatch-marked scars along his right shoulder, and when his gaze landed on me, I noticed his eyes were a warm brown instead of the normal black of most aswangs.
Stay back, the aswang told me as it took a spot directly between us and the door. Don’t get too close to the other ’swangs.
I didn’t have time to respond before a series of barks bled out from the first floor. We were low enough to see the burst of activity and hear the snap of teeth and the slam of bodies against bodies. Through the low front door and over the lopsided metal arm, the winged creature burst free with a screech, her wings batting wildly as she dipped and swerved.
A ’swang was latched onto her anklebone, with another on her arm, and more still pulling at the flesh around her hips.
Hex, his sheer size separating him from this pack, lunged for her throat.
“Now!” Thad shouted.
She screamed and veered upward. As she went, bullets sprayed from the guns around me in careful bursts.
Hex missed and slammed back to the ground, his leg buckling beneath him, but the others had dragged her down, close to the ground. She reached a skeletal foot down and tried to shove herself back in the air. Bullets pinged off the bones of her lower half and connected with the rotting flesh of her torso. She hissed, unfurling her long, pointed tongue. Beside me, Thad leaned his cheek against the stock of his automatic rifle and peered down the site. He fired. The barrage of shots tore through her cheek and neck.
Still, she pushed back into the air, and I knew we were going to lose her. A second before she swerved right to avoid the gunfire, I loosened my grip on the whip. I lunged to the side, aiming for the direction I thought she might go, and cracked my whip. The length curled out through the air in one long hiss of leather, bowing in a delicate arc right as she caught flight again.
I’d aimed almost perfectly. The last foot of the whip wrapped around her neck twice.
She screeched as it tightened. Her wings swept downward, pulling her upright, and she screamed and thrashed.
The length snapped tight. As she swerved back, my hold on the handle catapulted me forward. I stumbled. My shoulders cracked in their sockets, threatening to dislocate, as I leaned back, fighting for traction as she flailed.
Thad came up beside me and took hold of the whip a few feet in front of me to help. He heaved back, and together we nearly brought her down.
She turned and looked me straight in the eye.
I knew we were screwed then.
Though her eye sockets were empty, gaping holes, I sensed a piece of her in them staring back at me. I nearly released my grip on the whip from the sheer sensation that overcame me from looking in her eyes. She seemed so sad—and enraged.
With a piercing scream, she dove. Instead of pulling against us, she came straight down. The ’swangs holding on to her crashed into Bravo Team and bodies scattered. Losing our footing against the sudden slack in the whip, Thad and I fell back. He landed half on top of me, and I cracked my elbow against the concrete. A sudden wet warmness slicked across my skin and drew a tickling, itchy path down my arm as I tried to scramble back to my feet.
“Get her!” someone shouted.
The ’swangs c
ommunicated with clicks and barks as they tried to rally. Hex bounded onto the dumpster. My whip’s length fell to the ground, useless.
She was free and gaining air on us.
Hex leaped from the edge of the dumpster, straight at her.
Peeling her eyes from mine, she spiraled around. Her wing collided with Hex and knocked him out of the air.
As she disappeared into the night’s clouds, Hex landed in a crumpled heap a few feet away. To his credit, he didn’t cry out in pain, though I knew something must have broken from the fall.
“Follow her!” Thad shouted, already back on his feet with his gun drawn.
Around him, Bravo Team collected themselves into separate tracking units without being told. With a few hand motions, Thad sent them off into the darkness with ’swangs running alongside them.
Hex, Thad, and I took the direct path after her.
We sprinted to the edge of the warehouse district and to the very edge of Anchorage’s far reaches, heading toward the Chugach State Park. A deep copse of trees, thick and seemingly impenetrable, stood like a wall before us, but Hex cut through it, brambles and briars tearing at his coat. Thad and I kept close behind him. We reduced our speed to a nearly silent crawl, with Thad holding back every branch and letting them silently swing back into place as I passed by. I tried to mimic his impossibly quiet footsteps, but my boots still cracked over frozen twigs and solidly packed snow.
Every so often, Hex paused. He and Thad lifted their noses in the air and breathed in deeply. A damp chill permeated the air, and, in front of our mouths, our breaths condensed in the air.
But we heard only silence. Hex and Thad smelled nothing. I saw only the dark sky above us and the tree-shadowed ground around us.
We’d lost her.
But something told me she wasn’t far away. An instinct deep in my stomach, like a whispering voice in my ear, told me to look behind me.
I glanced back right as a cold breeze blew my hair forward. I swept away the strands in time to see a shadow pass just above the edges of the tree limbs.