Wolfen (54 page)

Now!

Aiden yanked on the wheel, hard left, slamming into the
convert ranks, broad-side, with a half-ton metal truck going ninety miles an
hour. The mule flattened them, then bounced and rolled over more. Hard fall on
the roof. Bounce off and spin. Back on wheels. Upside down again, converts
crunching on the ground. Aiden’s brains rattled around in his skull as the
force of impact tossed him around the cabin. Metal groaned, warping over weak
points and crushing down over the empty windshield, squeezing the side window
to almost nothing. Not a chance in hell of getting out through that door. Or
window. Or anyfuckingwhere else. One more roll, and the mule righted itself,
slamming down onto exposed metal rims.

Aiden couldn’t catch his breath. Ears ringing, head pounding.
Smell of burning metal searing his nostrils. He was disoriented while his body
set itself to rights, wasting precious seconds; a window of opportunity already
closing, one heartbeat at a time.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump…

A wave of trampling feet swept over the mule’s wrecked
shell, and then all hell broke loose.

The ground shudders with their approach. It’s like the
roar of a coming avalanche, and it’s going to bury us. They’re fast; they’ll be
on us in no time, trample us into dust, and then lap our blood up from the
sand.

We’re going to die.

Bryce moves fast, driving the mule up to the crest, the
highest vantage point, the better to see the horde. Only a small group is
coming for us. The rest are busy on the other side. I can’t make out what’s
happening; some sort of fight. I almost imagine a flash of white paint, but
it’s gone in an instant, the throng of gray bodies writhing together,
condensing on one side.

They’re not my problem. The five dozen screeching toward
us are. Bryce jumps out and starts strapping on his weapons while I stand
frozen. “…your bow…”

I blink. The rumble beneath my feet makes my knees
watery. I don’t know what to do.

God, there are so many of them…

~

“Sinna!” Bryce snapped.

“What?” She dragged her gaze from the converts to look at
him. “What did you say?”

“Get your bow—now!”

Sinna’s vision tunneled to block out everything but the
ground as she ran back to the truck bed. Her bow was stuck underneath a side
compartment, the quiver pinned against the cabin. Helena shoved everything
around to help her get them. “Think fast, Barbie doll.” The quiver flew at her,
and she caught it in time, but the arrow shafts smacked her in the face. It was
exactly what she needed to wake the hell up.

Training’s over. This is the real deal.

“Get up there,” Bryce said, “and remember what I told you.
Fifty yards. Anything comes closer, you drop the bow and run, got it?”

Sinna nodded and climbed on top of their supplies, because
he expected her to. Everything shifted beneath her feet, and she wavered until
she found solid footing on one of the side compartments. Helena grabbed her
other foot and moved it over to better steady her, then slapped Sinna on the
ass. “Look sharp,” she said, and pointed down the hill.

One convert, smaller and faster than the others, had gotten
ahead of the rest. Sinna nocked an arrow, aimed high, and loosed. It struck the
creature in the shoulder. Not a kill shot, but enough to jerk the convert
around, make it stumble and trip another.

Helena upended a bag, and a dozen grenades tumbled out.
“Hand grenades.” She grinned maniacally. “It’s what’s for dinner.” She took
two, yanked the rings with her teeth, and hurled them down the mountain, smack
into the middle of the horde. They exploded in fire and debris. Smoke filled
the air, and for a moment, Sinna was deaf.

But the converts weren’t stopping.

“Feed, my lovelies—
feed!
” More grenades, more dead
converts, but the survivors quickly adapted to avoid them, spreading out to
make room between them. With each throw, Helena took out fewer and fewer, while
the rest closed in fast. In a flash, she was out of ammo, and with a
blood-curdling war cry worthy of a banshee, Helena pulled her sword and rushed
forward, polished shoulder guard winking the sun into Sinna’s face.

Bryce cursed and ran after her. He turned back to shout
something at Sinna, but she was too busy laying down cover fire to bother
making out what he said. Nock, draw, loose. Repeat. No time to aim. Just guess
the distance and let the arrows fly. She watched Bryce’s back, took out
converts farthest from him, not trusting her aim enough to risk injuring him.
Wooden shafts, small metal points…the flying projectiles had little effect
except to annoy. But a stray shot could incapacitate Bryce.

Nock, draw, loose. Three seconds.

They shifted closer together on their approach.

Nock, draw, loose.

The skin of her fingers was raw from the string. With the
next shot, it gave, and her grip became slippery with blood. Sinna winced, bit
back the pain, and nocked another arrow.

Several converts to the side split off, running far left and
right.
Can’t think about them; too many straight in front of me.
So
close, she could see them drooling all over themselves. The dry, loose sand
made the hill slippery and slowed them down, but not enough. Off in the
distance, Helena cut a wide swath toward Haven, but Bryce held back, thinning
the herd closest to Sinna. He couldn’t stay there. They would overwhelm him,
and he knew it.

Three latched onto Bryce, bore him down, out of sight. Sinna
screamed and fired a volley at them, letting the front runners get closer.
I
don’t care. I don’t care!
“Bryce!”

Nock, draw, loose.

Faster!

Nock, draw, loose.

Then he roared, an ungodly sound that used to terrify her.
She welcomed it now, breathed a short sigh of relief. The pile of writhing
bodies throbbed, shifted, then exploded outward. Converts flew back, bowling
over those closest to them, and in the middle of that crater, Bryce stood tall,
raised his face to the sky, and bellowed his victory. He was bigger, his face
reformed into the visage of a merciless killer. Sinna’s hand slowed reaching
for the next arrow as she stared at him. He was magnificent. Converts rushed at
him, but Bryce fought them back one after another. He was superior. Stronger,
bigger, faster, in every way above and beyond anything they had to give—and
they gave him their all.

Bryce would not go down a second time.

Sinna kept firing, picking off those at the front. They’d be
on her soon. She needed to get out of there, but she couldn’t leave Bryce
behind. They were in this together. That’s how they were going to get out of
it, too.

With a snarl, Bryce turned to her, picking her out on top of
the mule. He waited for something—Sinna getting out of sight—and when she
didn’t move, his expression darkened, and he started back toward her. But then
his head tilted and he looked the other way, toward Haven and beyond. He made
some sort of howling call that stopped the advancing converts in their tracks.

Sinna shivered. She knew that call; she’d used it herself
not that long ago.

Somewhere in the distance, a different voice answered him,
and she froze. That wasn’t Helena.

Converts who’d rushed past Bryce to get to Sinna, wheeled
back around to charge him. He fought them off, but his attention was elsewhere,
and when he turned to her, Sinna read the indecision in his eyes. A moment’s
hesitation that would get him killed.

“Go!” she shouted. “Move!”

A dozen converts bore down on Bryce, and he just stood
there, staring at her.

“Bryce, run!”

Another call from across Haven. This time, Sinna answered
it, feeling the compulsion deep in the marrow of her bones. Their kindred
called and Bryce refused to answer, so she did it for him, making her
displeasure with him clear through a howl of her own.

Bryce didn’t hear it, or maybe he didn’t want to. His feet
were rooted, and he would not budge.

Sinna gritted her teeth, nocked an arrow, and loosed. It
struck the ground at his feet and surprised him out of his daze. While she had
his attention, Sinna raised her bow and pointed its tip past him.
Go,
she thought, desperate for him to understand. They were gunning for him, not
her. He could lead them away.
Go, get out of here!

With a snarl that promised all kinds of retribution, Bryce
pivoted and charged toward Haven, monsters hot on his heels.

Sinna kept an eye out to make sure nothing doubled back
toward her. She fired a couple of more shots, but the battle was shifting, concentrating
in the middle of the valley around Haven’s walls as if the converts were
protecting it. From so far off, Sinna could only make out shapes in varying
shades of gray, but
something
was agitating the horde. Something foreign
to them. A flash of metal caught her eye, and she squinted, recognizing
Helena’s crazy blonde head in the throng, spinning with her sword neck-level to
sever convert heads in its wake. She was good—light on her feet, quick to
change tactics, always keeping the enemy at arm’s length.

But at the same time, the spectacle she made of herself drew
more of them to her. She wasn’t going anywhere; she stayed right in the thick
of it, like the damned Grim Reaper come to collect wayward souls.

When the lone call came again, several voices answered.

Sinna’s heart thundered. There were others; many of them.
She dared to kindle the hope of surviving this, nurtured it inside her chest
until it became a roaring inferno, fueling her resolve. She hopped off the
truck and ducked inside the mule’s cabin. A quick sequence to start the engine,
and then she jammed a water canteen down onto the gas pedal. The electric
engine whirred to life, humming with pent-up power. Sinna took her quiver,
strapped the handgun holster to her belt, released the brake, and stood back.

The mule flew down the hill, straight into the battle.
Bull’s eye. She grinned, pumping her fist in the air. “Take that, you sons of
bitches!
Wooo!
”

Claws on her ankle. A sharp yank. She slammed face-first
into the ground. Dazed, she rolled over, fumbling with the holster to free the
gun. It wasn’t there.

Three converts stood over her, clicking and groaning to each
other as they leaned down to block out the sun, their faces stuck in a grimace
of perpetual snarls. Sinna screamed and scrambled backwards, but her ankle was
still trapped. A foot slammed down onto her shoulder from behind, pinning her
in place, and she cried out in pain, clawing at the convert.

She was stuck, surrounded. Nowhere to run. Sinna thrashed,
gaining no ground while they watched her struggle like a bug under a magnifying
glass. They sniffed at her, jaws opening wide and closing not quite all the
way. One
whoomp-whoomped
. Another snarled in response. The third bashed
her over the head with a rock, and the bright-hot day turned to pitch-black
night.

The roof is caved in over the front, side windows pinched
down to a few inches. Arms reach through any and all openings, blocking out the
light. They can’t get more than elbow-deep, but it’s still enough to rake at
me. I break an arm here, twist another there. I’m pinned behind the wheel, and
the mule lurches and rocks. It’s like being stuck in a tumbler, heading off the
edge of a waterfall. I have no frame of reference, no sense of direction. Claws
scrape over metal, footsteps thunder over the hull of my broken shell. I have
to break the steering wheel off to free my legs. I squeeze between the seats to
get to the back. No opening there, either. I’m stuck until one of the gray
bastards figures out how to pry the sides open wider.

The way they’re going at it, it ain’t gonna happen.

Then, through the din of random noise, I recognize a
pattern.

Thump-thump-thump-bang.

Thump-thump-thump-bang.

I squeeze down onto the floor between the front and back
seats and kick the roof as hard as I can.

Two bangs answer me.

“Fuck yeah!” I kick again, and wait.

Thump-thump-thump-bang.
Three…

Thump-thump-bang.
Two…

I hunker down and cover up as best I can.

Thump-bang.
One…

Metal groans and screams as the roof peels up from the back.
I reach out. Trey grabs onto my arm and hauls my sorry ass out of there. “I
thought you were roadkill,” he says, as Spencer jumps off the mangled roof into
the thick of the action.

“ ‘chu talkin’ ‘bout, shun.” I’m slurring, and my voice
is hoarse, but at least my brain’s working right. I’m pretty sure. “I’ma be a
legen’.”

~

Aiden cracked his neck. “D’you see ‘em?” His ode-worthy Evel
Knievel maneuver had landed him too close to the wall on the west side of
Haven. He’d have to run the gauntlet east and go around for a view of the hill
beyond it.

“See a lot of things.” Trey handed him a sword, before he
hopped down to decapitate a convert about to get the drop on Kiera. “Bryce
ain’t one of ‘em,” he shouted back, already several paces deep in convert scum
and getting down to business.

Aiden scowled at the weapon, but didn’t have time to
complain before he was knocked off of the mule.
What happens when you run
out of bullets, genius?
God, he hated when Bryce was right.

He slammed to the ground, holding off fangs by sheer force
of will. Too close to use the sword. Claws dug into his arms, a gaunt, leathery
face with beady black eyes straining closer. Venom glands over its canines
throbbed. One nibble, and Aiden would not be getting back up.

The fuck that was happening again!

Rage boiled, and he let it loose, embraced the flood of
adrenaline-spiked power that came with it. He rolled the convert beneath him,
shoved his full weight onto the forearm wedged against its throat. Bones
snapped, and the creature went still. To hedge his bets, Aiden severed the head
clean off. Then he followed through, slicing another one in half from hip to
shoulder while he was at it.

He set out east, cutting his way across the battlefield
through so many converts, he couldn’t see a single Wolfen among them. But he
scented them. Through the stench of pheromones, the smoke, and the dust, he
scented his people and knew they were holding together—one unit, a pack. The
only way they would win this.

Across the clearing, a howl sliced through the din of
battle, and Aiden grinned. He knew that voice. He threw his head back and
answered. Then waited.

Nothing.

He cut down another convert and howled again, louder, more
insistent—a call Bryce wouldn’t dare ignore.

A different voice answered, softer, farther away.
Sinna.
Little bit made it! All right! Now they just had to get them home. Aiden shoved
on, listening for Bryce’s call. It didn’t come. His brother was close enough to
scent now, but didn’t deign to announce himself. Aiden howled a third time.

A chorus of voices rose up in protest; a song of pure
annoyance that if put into words, said,
Unless you’re in trouble, quit
making all that goddamn noise.
It lost some of its elegance in translation.

Finally, he caught a glimpse of Morgan’s mule. The dogs were
making a stand around it—one man on the top as lookout, the others surrounding
the truck on the ground. Ten in the innermost circle, fifteen more several
yards out with the rest cutting outward and thinning convert ranks as they
pushed in.

The hair on his nape prickled and he turned, sword up to
meet the juggernaut. He almost speared his own brother through the heart. Aiden
swept the blade sideways a millisecond before Bryce collided with him and
forced him back several steps. Bryce had a feral gleam in his eyes as they
pushed against each other.
Fuck
, the bastard was strong. Aiden braced
one foot behind him and shoved with all his might, gaining a few inches of
breathing room. Bryce came at him again, snatching Aiden by the back of the
neck to bring him in. Aiden dropped his sword and mirrored him, slamming his
forehead against his brother’s. They snarled a challenge at each other, poised
on a dangerous edge between a brotherly welcome and bloody carnage.

“Pull it back,” Aiden growled.

Bryce snapped his fangs at him.

“
Bryce!
Pull it back, man!”

Kiera shouted a warning.

Bryce broke off and took a convert down by the throat, then
bent over it and, after a panicked squeal, its head rolled past Aiden’s feet.

“Right.” Aiden picked up his sword and dived back into the
fight. Bryce needed to stay feral; the shift back took too much out of him.
Instead of forcing his brother to make himself vulnerable, Aiden put his back
to Bryce’s and did what he did best: exterminate. He didn’t stop Bryce when he
moved, just checked him with an elbow to steer him in the right
direction—toward the others.

They slowed as they neared. Something wasn’t right. This was
too easy. With the Wolfen outnumbered by at least fifty-to-one, they should
have been convert feed by now. Why weren’t they? Aiden hooked an arm through
Bryce’s and turned them around so he faced front.

He gave Spencer a hand and bumped shoulders with Kiera so
they’d make room for Bryce. With a running leap, Aiden replaced the lookout on
Morgan’s mule to get a better view of the battle. Off to the east, a clump of
converts circled a blender of gleaming swords, and Aiden raised an eyebrow at
the strange female making minced meat of them. Definitely not human. She
screamed like a banshee, fought as if it was the only thing she lived for.
Covered in convert blood from head to toe, she didn’t pause for a second.

Even with her making a considerable dent in the enemy
forces, they were surrounded by far too many of them.

But the horde held back, keeping the Wolfen busy enough to
stay put, but alive. What the hell were they waiting for?

The blonde female gave an ululating squeal and launched into
the air to land on a convert’s head. She broke its neck, then leaped again,
making her way toward the mule.

“Who the fuck is that?” Morgan had to shout to make himself
heard.

The female disappeared in the throng, and when converts
closed in over her, Aiden thought it would be the end of her. But they started
dropping one by one, cut down at the legs, and the warrior princess reemerged.

“Ever seen anyone fight like that?”

“Like killing was air?” Aiden looked across to the other
side where Bryce was tearing converts limb from limb, no weapons necessary.
“Never,” he replied. Bryce moved on instinct, yielding to an overwhelming drive
to protect. Xena over there was different. She was fully in control of her
senses; she
chose
to kill. And it looked like she enjoyed it.

Suddenly, between the inner and outer circle of Wolfen,
psychotic gaze trained on Aiden, Xena stopped and turned south. Aiden’s old
mule, battered and stripped to dull metal, rolled down the hill and rammed into
the convert horde, burying deep in their midst before coming to a stop.

“
Sinna!
” Aiden jumped down and shoved through the inner
circle. “Hold formation!” he ordered, running for the wreck, the blonde falling
into step on his right, Bryce on his left. The blonde was smaller, faster. She
pushed ahead between them, clearing the way when the going got thick. They
speared through the horde, against the current part of the way, and with it the
rest, when those closest to the crash realized there might be a meal inside.

The female ran up the hood, over the roof, and across to the
back, ducking down on the truck bed while Bryce dived for the glass-less front
and Aiden for the driver’s side door.

All three looked in at the same time, and Bryce let out an
agonized wail that accompanied his rapid, involuntary shift back to human
shape. He met eyes with Aiden, desperate, confused, silently pleading for help
Aiden didn’t know how to give.

Sinna was gone.