Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

“I’ve been up here before,” Kismet said. “It’s not as fast, but I can run the mountain, and I know a shortcut to the road. I’ll go until I can get a signal.”

“You can make it in the dark?” Wyatt asked.

“Yes.” No hesitation. To me, she said, “You can’t do everything, Stone. Even you have limits.”

And I had no business testing those limits with someone else’s life. She was right. I could get us farther down the mountain in seconds, but given the dense foliage and unfamiliar terrain, I was more likely to materialize with my legs in a boulder.

“First things first, though,” Milo said. “Gina can’t get help until we take care of the hounds outside.”

“Back at Olsmill we hit them with a mix of frags and a-c’s,” Kismet said. “Underbelly is the softest hit when they’re standing. But they’re strong and they’re fast.”

Wyatt nodded. “We also can’t just open the door and rush outside shooting, because they could get in here.”

With Felix, who couldn’t defend himself.

“So we need to ambush them,” Kismet said. “Or at least distract them enough so I can slip out and get help.”

“Without being followed,” Milo added.

“Right.”

As I gazed at our stock of weapons, an idea began to coalesce. My right hand still wasn’t healed enough to hold a gun and aim properly. That left the men to handle the heavy offensive. And it left me as bait.

Kismet had one of the guns in her hand, her cell phone tucked into her pocket, and she bounced on her heels by the front door, ready to make a run for it. We’d closed Felix into the bedroom and blocked it with the dining table for good measure. Milo and Wyatt had their guns locked and loaded, and they flanked either side of the front door.

I’d tucked a hunting knife into my shoe and another into the back of my jeans for good measure. In my hands I held one of the flash grenades, a second in my front pocket. Rain still pattered gently outside, but the thunder was soft and far away. The raw electricity was barely there—a gentle caress across my skin that was easy to ignore.

Next thunderstorm, I was hiding under my bed for the duration.

“We’re sure there are just two of them?” I asked.

“Pretty positive,” Kismet replied, as though I hadn’t asked the same question four times since we’d agreed to my plan.

On impulse, I took a step closer, lowering my voice. “You know, I never did thank you.”

“Thank me? For what? After everything that’s happened these last few weeks, I figure you’d rather punch me in the head than thank me.”

My mouth twitched. “Thank you for bringing me here to fight off the infection.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You could have killed me and gotten me out of everyone’s hair.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. “I don’t think my friendship with Wyatt could have survived killing you twice. Even if the first time didn’t take.” Her voice held a hint of teasing, but nothing in her expression was amused.

“You did it for him?”

“Yes.” Her gaze flickered over my shoulder. “I’ve known Wyatt for a long time, Stone, and I was trying to protect what he’d helped build for ten years. Bringing you here last week? That was for him, because he believed you could fight it. He never stopped believing you’d win, and he believes you’ll win again now. So let’s use his faith and do this.”

I nodded and faced the door, adrenaline surging through me. My heart sped up and a metallic taste filled my mouth. I clenched my fist around the grenade. Bounced on my tiptoes. “Here we go,” I said.

Milo and Wyatt took new positions by the sofa, prepared to shove it out of the way as soon as I disappeared. I closed my eyes and felt the spark of the Break. It was fainter than it should have been, and harder to grab. I struggled for my emotional tap, but loneliness wasn’t coming easily.

I thought back to earlier in the day—a lifetime ago in some ways—that moment in the bedroom when I’d flinched and Wyatt had walked away. I tried to imagine if he’d kept going, driven out of my life by guilt. My guts clenched. Tears stung my eyes, and the power of the Break flooded through me on a sea of loneliness. I was moving, willing myself out of the cabin, to a spot ten feet from the front door. An open area of mud, according to Wyatt, and my best destination.

Rain passed through me with the oddest tickling sensation, then spattered on my skin as I materialized. Mud squished around my shoes. I immediately pulled the pin on the grenade and spun in a careful circle, looking. Waiting. Tiny shafts of light spilled from the blocked windows and closed door, barely enough to see.

A roar rattled the quiet, a terrible bass rumbling in my chest, followed by an answering growl. One on either side of me, closing in. Footsteps smacked the soaked ground. I held on to my tap. Listened. A flash of black in my peripheral vision was enough. I dropped the grenade and fell into the Break. Heard a snap, then cries of pain.

I hit the cabin floor on my knees, disoriented by something—had I been caught in the blast? I shook my head, blinking hard, aware of rapid gunfire ahead of me. Cool air wafted inside from the open cabin door. Kismet was gone. Something inhuman shrieked in agony. Wyatt shouted.

I rushed outside, into the chilly rain. One of the hounds was dead, its hulking form limp on the ground by the front half of Kismet’s car, bleeding from a dozen holes. Even above the odors of wet earth and ozone, I could smell the stink of its blood.

The second was trying to crawl away with one clawed hand. Its legs dragged behind it, covered in blood from two wounds in the center of its back. It gurgled and growled, leaving a trail of brackish blood in the mud as it slithered. Milo and Wyatt trailed behind it for a few feet, fascinated by the thing’s attempt to escape.

Milo circled in front of the wounded hound and stopped. It raised its head and growled. Milo squeezed off a round that shattered the hound’s face. It fell, dead. His hand was shaking as he lowered his arm to his side. Rain slicked his face and hair.

“That was for Felix,” he said, almost too softly to hear. He looked up, first at me, then past me. Up. His eyes bugged out.

I didn’t ask, just pulled the knife from the back of my pants and started to pivot. The mud made my move awkward, and the undetected third hound slammed into my left side.

The hound and I toppled to the ground and skidded a few feet, my knife buried in its guts. Claws slashed at my back. Teeth snapped at my face. I thrashed like a beached fish, desperately wrenching at the knife, trying to inflict maximum damage.

Gunshots popped. The hound screamed, deafening my right ear and numbing my senses. Silver flashed above us and sliced downward. Its weight collapsed on top of me, smashing me into wet earth. The hilt of the knife jammed under my ribs so hard I expected one or two to break.

“Come on, pull!” Wyatt’s voice was muffled, but no less welcome.

The body was lifted enough for me to scramble out and, finally free, collapse on the ground, breathing hard. Noxious blood coated my skin. My ribs were on fire from my left breast to the small of my back, and I could imagine the furrows that thing’s claws had left behind.

“Dammit,” I said. “Should’ve expected that.”

“Can you move?” Wyatt asked, kneeling beside me in the mud.

“Yeah. Any others?”

“None so far. Milo’s scouting around.”

Wyatt tried to be gentle about helping me stand, but there was no way not to disturb my new wounds. We limped into the cabin. He steered me straight to the bathroom, leaving a blotchy trail of mud, rainwater, and gore behind. The hound’s blood felt like acid in my open gashes. I clenched my fists, grateful for the ache in my still-healing right wrist. It gave me something to concentrate on while Wyatt turned on the shower. He helped me undress with the clinical detachment of the Handler he’d once been, and then he left and pulled the bathroom door shut behind him.