A Shot in the Dark (21 page)

“Duke, heel!” He came to me, thank God, carrying his grisly trophy with him. “Head shot, little brother.” Without a word, Cole leveled his gun at the bald head. The thing hissed at him once before its skull exploded in a rain of rotten brain matter, splattering all of us. The rest of it hung in the window, twitching spasmodically.

The sound of the gunshot in close quarters brought everyone awake, with a chorus of “What the hell is going on?” from downstairs.

“Where the fuck are Cam’s wards?” I growled to myself, but Axel had already proven that they were shaky at best. If the Yeti’s little friends were getting inside, I think we’d now passed into the realm of “completely useless.”

First order of business was to get those nasty bastards off our roof, before they succeeded in digging through to the loft. Even as skinny as I was, going out a window of that size was out of the question, so we left Marty and the dog up there with the hatchet to make sure no more made it inside from that entry point.

Will and Oscar armed themselves with a fireplace poker and a hammer, prepared to defend the first floor if it came to it, and Cameron plopped himself near Zane, eyes closed and mumbling to himself. There was no scent of cloves, so I assumed he was praying, for whatever good it was going to do us. Either that, or he was totally tapped out, and trying to do something stupid anyway. I just hoped the idiot didn’t kill himself. He was out of mojo even if he didn’t want everyone else to know it.

Lacking a ladder, our only choice was to clamber up the support posts on the porch, and then up onto the roof proper. I belted my sword on and hoisted myself up, holding my breath at every scrape and scuff I made. Cole waited on the ground, covering me with his gun, but we couldn’t see any of the demonic spider monkeys from that side and nothing came over the crest. I hoped maybe the gunshot had scared them off. The other option was that they were simply too stupid to protect their flank.

I stood guard on the roof of the porch until Cole joined me. He motioned me forward with a whispered, “After you, big brother.”

The moment I put my hand on the main roof, I knew they weren’t gone. I could feel the vibrations as something on the other side of the peak scuttled and rasped at the shingles. Crouching low, I started for the top.

The chimney bricks were warm when I pressed my back against them, and part of me just wanted to stay there, clinging to that slightest bit of heat. The nights had gotten cold, suddenly. But I had work to do. Cole stayed crouched below me, and I peeked my head around the edge to see what could be seen.

There were four of them on the other side of the roof’s peak, three scratching and prying at the shingles while the fourth would raise its head from time to time as if keeping watch. One of them was the one-handed female, and her lack of clawing fingers didn’t keep her from digging at the edges of the shingles with the jagged bone at the stump of her wrist.

Four here, and one dead in the window. Was this all he had left? The five I’d seen in the trees before? I showed four fingers to Cole, then pointed to the trees with a questioning look.

He tilted his head, listening for a moment, then shrugged. They’d fallen silent, so there was no telling if the Yeti had more waiting out there for us.

Through some very crude and highly improvised sign language, we decided that Cole would pop over the ridge and take the first shot, which would mean facing three in rather precarious close-quarter combat. In order to do that, Cole had to take my place against the chimney.

I should have remembered that some higher power somewhere hated me.

As I tried to maneuver back down the steeply sloped roof, my heel managed to find the one loose shingle in the entire structure. It slipped out from under my foot to skid down and off the edge, and sent me sliding after it with a clatter. One flailing hand found Cole’s boot, and I jerked to a halt with my legs dangling out over empty space.

Cole, quick thinker that he was, managed to brace himself to keep us both from going over, and reached his free hand down to offer me help back up.

As I looked up, reaching for the outstretched arm, I saw the first minion crest the ridge. Thanks to my less than graceful descent, they’d finally noticed us.

“Cole!” He didn’t need my warning. My brother’s shot took off the top of the thing’s head. The half-headed body took a swipe at empty air anyway, too stubborn to admit it was dead, before toppling down the slope, crashing into me on its way. The other three barreled over the top before Cole could take aim again.

With a heave, Cole hauled me up onto the roof until my feet could find purchase, and then he was forced to let go, clubbing at the vicious things with the butt of his gun. I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t shooting, until I realized he didn’t know where I was. He wouldn’t risk hitting me.

I ducked one of Cole’s wilder swings and grabbed the first thing I could lay a hand on, a filthy, skeletal ankle. It was a start. I yanked my sword from its scabbard with no finesse at all, reversed it, and stabbed down. The blade bit through the putrid flesh, shattered the joint, and went on through into the shingles. The foot fell away, twitching.

Now, losing a foot wasn’t going to stop one of those things, but I by God had its attention. It came boiling out of the pile on Cole, oblivious to the appendage that was no longer attached. I backed my way across the roof, leading it away from the brawl and giving myself room to swing my katana.

“I’m clear, Cole!”

My footing wasn’t ideal, and with my luck I fully expected to wind up back on the ground with a few broken bones, but I was going to take this nasty bastard with me.

It was more than happy to oblige, and no more than three feet away, it sprang at me, clawed fingers outstretched. Maybe the missing foot threw it off. Maybe it simply didn’t understand how fucking good I was. But when my sword entered under its chin and scraped against the top if its skull, there was no mistaking the flicker of surprise in those black eyes before they dimmed and died.

The body jerked and spasmed until I kicked it off my sword, sending it pirouetting off the porch roof below. Two down, two to go.

Only, when I looked back to Cole, he was still struggling to hold off three. And up over the ridge, another gaunt head poked, rotted teeth bared in a snarl.

“Oh that’s just not fair!” Numbers unknown, they were coming across the branches, reinforcing their comrades.

Another body went sailing out into the darkness, and I heard a sick crunch as every bone it had shattered. Cole got his gun up under another chin and fired, blowing putrid brains all over the place again.

My little brother’s face was frozen in a gleeful snarl, and I realized he was actually enjoying himself. Okay, have at it. I had to stop the reinforcements.

With a war cry (the situation just seemed to call for it, okay?) I launched myself over the roof’s peak, and barreled into two more minions feetfirst. One went tumbling over the edge, ending in a sick crack and the explosive smell of burst innards. The other latched claws into my pant leg and fastened teeth into my boot, gnawing like there was no tomorrow.

With my free foot, I kicked it in the face until I felt bone crack, but it still refused to let go. Our combined weight was dragging me down the sloping roof, and though my sword thrusts were finding flesh, I couldn’t manage to get a killing strike in. Just when I thought my ticket was punched, Cole’s gun sounded, and half the thing’s skull vanished.

I kicked the half-decapitated skull off my boot and watched it go bouncing down the roof and off into the night, then looked up to nod my thanks to my brother. His eyes went wide, and his mouth opened, but he didn’t have time to call the warning.

There was that split second when I knew that bad shit was coming and I couldn’t stop it, and then the thing hit me from the far side of the roof. Somehow, it had gotten behind us, or past Cole, or maybe it had been there all along. But it was on me in two inhuman bounds, and the only reason I knew I was fucked was the brief sensation of flying as we were launched off the roof.

I landed in a pile of reeking muck (what was left of one of the creatures, I realized later), and it was probably all that saved me from broken bones. All the same, the air was crushed from my lungs, and I could only gasp like a fish staring up at my brother’s face so far above me. He was shouting at me, my name by the shape of his lips, but he was pointing past me, toward the trees.

Dazed, I managed to flip over to find myself staring into the minion’s eyes. It was on all fours, shaking its head like the fall had knocked it loopy too, but it was definitely recovering faster than I. It realized that at the same time I did. I was barely able to get to my knees when the thing sprang.

I couldn’t bring my katana up fast enough, and the sword got pinned between us. Blunt, rotten teeth fastened on my shoulder, bruising like hell through my shirt, but not enough to break skin or tear muscle. Twiggy arms scrabbled to entangle me, fingers raking at my arms, my shoulders. I ducked my head to protect my eyes and shoved as best I could with my arms all bound up. My sword got tangled in the chaos, and I hoped like I hell I wasn’t about to cut my own fingers off with it.

And just as suddenly, the thing released me, an inhuman scream rising from the gaunt throat. In comparison, the Scrap demons’ screeching sounded like a five-part harmony. I could feel something in my ears vibrating on a frequency not meant for humans, and it was all I could do to clap both hands over my ears, curling up to protect my sensitive hearing against the unholy sound. Something warm and sticky trickled against my cold palms, and I realized my ears were bleeding.

The Yeti’s minion was no longer interested in me at all. It thrashed and flailed in the grass, clawing its own filthy skin off in long, jagged strips. Its body performed contortions with enough force to crack its own bones, like it was trying to turn itself inside out to escape whatever was plaguing it. It slammed itself repeatedly into the side of the cabin, fleeing blindly in panic and too disoriented to realize it was running the wrong way. The screaming seemed to go on forever, no small feat considering they weren’t supposed to even have voices.

The strident sound eventually died down to a pathetic moan as the thing’s throes subsided, and eventually, there was silence. The thing smoldered a bit, the dirty skin blackened and curling around the torn edges. The reek of putrid meat roasting assaulted my nose, and I swallowed the bile at the back of my throat with grim determination.

Only then did I realize that there were no more creatures poised to rip my throat out. I stood cautiously, sword at ready, but there was nothing there. They’d retreated.

When I realized that I could see the trees around me distinctly, I knew the sun was rising. The dawn had driven them off. Is that what happened to this one? I toed at the steaming remains. Didn’t seem like a barely risen sun should cause this kind of reaction.

Once I got my bearings, I realized that somewhere in our mad tumble off the roof, we’d crossed what little was left of Cam’s holy ground barrier. The consecration had literally eaten the creature alive. As I watched it, it dissolved into a puddle of black goo, the thicker parts taking longer to disintegrate. At least I wouldn’t have to bash its head in. The last thing to go was the skeleton, and whatever they looked like on the outside, the bones were distinctly human. The skull’s dark eye sockets watched me, grinning, until it oozed into the grass.

Movement at the corner of my vision made me flinch, and I barely pulled my strike in time to avoid taking off my brother’s head. He raised his hand defensively until he realized I wasn’t going to remove important body parts, then mouthed something at me. It took me a moment to realize that he was shouting. All I could make out was a faint hum.

My lipreading skills were rusty, but I think he said, “Are you all right?”

Was I all right? I couldn’t hear jack shit, and my hands were gummy with whatever that gunk was. My left shoulder ached like a mother. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to move by morning. Yeah, on average, I was all right. I nodded, and pointed at my ears. “All broke.” I could hear my own voice rattling around inside my skull, but it was like listening through a bale of wet cotton.

Cole popped the clip out of his gun and frowned at the remaining bullets. “We can’t last here much longer.” At least, that’s what I thought he said, through the ringing in my ears.

I knew he was right. This was the last sunrise we’d see at this cabin, one way or another.

14

W
ill tried to look me over as I came back inside, but I brushed him off with a grumpy snarl. Wasn’t anything he could do about damaged eardrums anyway. I could only hope that it was temporary. I didn’t relish the idea of trying to fight demons without all of my senses up and functional.

Marty took my katana away from me, cleaning the blade with loving care while I washed the goop off my hands at the kitchen sink. There was no way I could salvage my blue jeans, however. The thick black gunk had soaked through to the skin and dried to a thick black crust, and we weren’t even going to talk about the smell. Even Duke pawed at his nose when I passed by. “Hey, you tangled with a skunk once and you didn’t smell like a daisy either.” My voice sounded like the teacher out of Charlie Brown, all “wah wah wah.”

I had to dig through the backpacks to find mine, and stripped down as quickly as I could to shuck into clean jeans. The adrenaline rush was fading, and I was quickly getting cold.

“Somehow, I figured you for a briefs kinda guy.”

I was unarmed, half naked, and I had already ducked to one side before I remembered that I shouldn’t have been able to hear that statement. Standing in the shadows under the eaves, Axel smirked at me. “You’re getting jumpy in your old age.”

“I don’t think immortal supernatural creatures get to make age jokes.” I kept my voice down (at least, I thought I did), not wanting to draw anyone else upstairs. It was hard to judge, with my own skull acting as an echo chamber. I finished pulling my jeans on, buttoning them quickly. I didn’t really want to stand around talking to a demon in my underwear.