Ambushed (35 page)

I
felt Jack and James shift forms in twin surges of power and then
joined them. My beast rose eagerly to the surface with a pulse of
energy that forced me into my hybrid form with a flare of shadow pain
that was gone almost before it even got started.

The
semi-truck was almost even with me when I abandoned my cover and
started sprinting towards the road. A hybrid was no match for a wolf,
not across any kind of longer distance, but for short bursts it was
hard to beat the sheer explosive power of a hybrid's muscles,
especially when combined with the traction provided by the talons on
our feet.

It
took me only two steps to match speed with the huge truck, and then
on the third I was overtaking it. The odds were that the driver was a
shape shifter, but events were happening too fast even for one of our
kind to process everything.

Carson
and the rest had stepped out of concealment as soon as they felt the
three of us shift forms. That combined with the panicked reports
coming from the two lead vehicles had directed the truck driver's
attention up ahead rather than right next to him where the danger
actually was. Even if that hadn't been the case, it probably wouldn't
have made any difference, the cab of the truck was too small to allow
him to shift with any degree of safety.

I
put my right fist into the back panel of the cab. There wasn't any
way to know for sure what was underneath the shiny exterior, but it
was a good bet that there was some kind of structural steel member in
the corner.

My
claws went through the thin metal like it was paper and then I closed
my fist around something hard. I'd found the frame and I used it to
give myself extra leverage as I pushed off the ground and spun
clockwise so that my left fist went through the driver side window in
a spray of glass shards.

The
way his body moved as my claws hit his chest told me that he hadn't
been wearing a seatbelt, so I pulled him out of the cab through the
window that I'd just destroyed. I didn't look to see where he landed,
he was already dead.

Hybrid
claws hadn't exactly been designed with the idea of being capable of
fine manipulation, but that didn't matter this time. I grabbed hold
of the door and threw my weight against it. The back end of the door
popped free with a squeal of overstressed metal, but the hinges on
the front held just enough to save me from losing my hold on the big
diesel entirely.

I
rocked backwards and then threw myself into the cab as I shoved my
beast down far enough to trigger another shift in forms. I hit the
driver's seat in my human body and then made a grab for the wheel as
I started to slide back out toward the road. A second later I had the
brakes and the clutch depressed as far as they would go.

There
was a sickening crunch and jolt from behind the truck as one of the
tailing vehicles crashed into the back of the trailer, and then
another black SUV pulled up next to me. Nothing about this operation
would have worked in a world where my enemies used firearms, but
luckily that wasn't the world I lived in.

I
spared a thought to hope that James and Jack had been out of the way
when that other car had crashed into the back of me, and then I threw
the wheel hard to the left. Even moving as slowly as it was, my
diesel slammed into the SUV with enough force to send it off of the
road.

I
hadn't put on my seatbelt either, and the force of the impact nearly
sent me flying out of the cab. The metal of the steering wheel
deformed slightly under the pressure of my grip and the stress of
keeping me in my chair, and then the massive semi-truck finally
ground to a halt.

I
cut my arm on a shard of metal as I dropped down from the cab, but it
didn't matter. I shifted to hybrid form before my feet even hit the
ground and charged towards the closest SUV. Each of the black
vehicles would have between three and five shape shifters inside
which meant that we were facing somewhere between twelve and twenty
of the Coun'hij's enforcers.

Depending
on how many hybrids we were up against, it might still be a stiff
fight if Grayson's ability didn't come through for us. Because of
that it was vital that we kill as many of them as we could before
they managed to get out of their cars and transform.

Hitting
the SUV had slowed the big diesel faster than I'd originally planned.
We wanted to get it to a stop as soon as possible so that James and
Jack could get the trailer opened up and Agony out of there, so that
was good except I was still a couple dozen yards away from Carson and
the rest.

The
driver of the SUV I'd hit was already stumbling out of his ride. He
saw me coming and shifted forms, but I was already airborne. I
cleared the twisted black collection of wreckage in a single bound
and hit the driver like a ton of bricks.

He
was a hybrid by the time I collided with him, but he didn't have any
momentum on his side and I'd been moving at a full sprint. I led with
my feet and my talons sank into his chest as my weight bore him to
the ground. He got off a couple of weak slashes to my hip and side
before hitting the ground hard enough to shake up even a hybrid.

I
never gave him a chance to recover. As half a dozen wolves streaked
past me, headed for the SUV that had crashed into the tractor-trailer
from behind, I reached down and ended his life with a couple of
well-placed slashes of my own.

I
lunged back to my feet and threw myself at the SUV. The windows on
this side hadn't been broken and the tinting on them was too dark to
tell if anyone was still inside so I just put my right hand through
the back window and my left hand through the middle window.

I'd
been hoping to catch
someone
still inside the vehicle, even though that would tend to mean that
there were more hybrids in each vehicle rather than fewer. The claws
on my left hand came up empty, but my right hand tore through a frail
human body. I closed my fist around the enforcer I'd just wounded and
tried to pull him out towards me. The angle wasn't as good as it had
been with the semi driver.

The
crunch of broken bones and crumpled metal told me all I needed to
know. I let go and spun around to block an attack as one of the other
hybrids finally made it around the SUV and tried to engage me.

I
could see another hybrid out of the corner of my eye. He was headed
towards me from the other direction. I was about to be surrounded and
outnumbered. I jumped up and backwards, landing on the top of the SUV
as the first hybrid who'd engaged me sheared through the side of the
vehicle with one swipe of his claws.

With
the structural integrity of the SUV now having been compromised, the
roof I was standing on started to give way. I threw myself off of it,
but the roof wasn't sturdy enough anymore to give me a very stable
launch platform.

I
hit the ground, tucked my shoulder, and rolled. I came to my feet
after the first full revolution, and spun around just in time to
intercept another attack that would have probably severed my spine.
I'd bought myself a second or two, but I couldn't turn and run again
and two more hybrids were nearly within arm's reach of me.

I
backpedaled furiously, trying to buy myself enough room to flee, and
then suddenly Carson was at my side. He blocked another slash, but he
didn't
just
block it, he blocked with enough force and the perfect angle to open
up the entire left side of the other hybrid. Reflex took over for me
and I stepped in and drove my claws into the enforcer's side.

It
wasn't a clean blow. My claws penetrated, but they grated on ribs
that were nearly as strong as steel and the angle wasn't quite right.
I could feel his heart pulsing just out of reach, but he'd already
recoiled from me. He reeled away, injured but not dead, and then it
was Carson and I against two more of our kind.

At
that moment I wished I'd argued with Carson and kept hold of my
sword. There was a decent chance we could defeat two enforcers, but
the third one would be back in just a couple of seconds. I hadn't
killed him and that was going to cost us.

The
enforcer on the right charged forward, juking at the last second to
avoid my attack, and hit me with his shoulder at the better part of
thirty miles per hour. It should have leveled me, but luckily I'd
already been turning slightly to the left.

I
felt muted stabs of pain as two of my ribs broke, and he sent me
spinning away wildly out of control, but he hadn't managed his
objective. I dropped down on all fours, claws and talons digging into
the rocky ground in an effort to stop myself, and then it happened.

More
than half of the enforcers suddenly seized up. I was positioned
perfectly to see it. I'd been knocked over to one side of the battle
and I'd come to a stop looking over at everyone else. We were
outnumbered by a greater margin than I'd expected even in my
worst-case scenarios.

They
hadn't just packed five hybrids into every vehicle, they'd put
another five hybrids in the trailer with Agony. We'd been up against
twenty-five hybrids and they were some of the best the Coun'hij had
access to. The wolves had made it to James and Jack in time to save
them from being killed out of hand, but it had been a close thing.
Even with the additional help, they'd been losing, but Grayson's gift
leveled almost every hybrid from the battle that had been raging at
the back of the convoy.

James
and Jack each stumbled over to an enemy hybrid so that they could
deliver a coup de grâce, but it was the wolves who really
mopped up the enforcers back there. Carson's opponent hadn't been
incapacitated, but both the hybrid opposite me and the one I'd nearly
killed a second ago were down.

As
I darted over to finish off one of the two downed hybrids I saw that
our hybrids from the front of the caravan were dealing quite handily
with the enforcers up there. Grayson's power hadn't knocked as many
of them down, but Carson's people had been less heavily outnumbered
to start with and the wolves he'd brought were gleefully pouncing on
the incapacitated enforcers while the rest of our people held their
own against the unaffected hybrids.

I
ended the closest hybrid with a single clean blow to his neck, and
then started towards the one I'd stabbed in the chest a few seconds
previously. I wanted to go help Carson, but it would have been
foolish to pass up the chance to kill two hybrids in exchange for
entering what could still end up being an extended fight. I was just
going to have to hope that Carson could hold out for long enough for
me to make it over to him after the second hybrid was dead.

It
turned out that I shouldn't have worried, about the larger battle or
Carson either one. Something as massive as a hybrid takes several
seconds to bleed out even from a lethal wound, but by now some of the
enforcers who'd been injured first were dead, which apparently freed
up some of Grayson's capacity.

As
I killed the second hybrid, a scattering of additional hybrids at the
front of the convoy were dropped to the ground by Grayson's ability.
Carson had indicated that once Grayson's power was working that the
biggest concern was that he'd lose his focus and the seizures would
stop, but even if that happened right now the battle was ours. The
Coun'hij forces had simply lost too many people to have any possible
hope of winning.

I
turned towards Carson and found that he'd wrapped his opponent up in
some kind of complicated hold. I'd never seen anything like it, and
apparently the enforcer hadn't either. It was like someone had
modified human-style grappling and turned it into something that
worked with a hybrid's unique joints and musculature. The enforcer
was still struggling, but his efforts were more and more ineffectual
with each passing second.

Before
I could make it over to Carson he casually released his enemy and
repositioned again. This time the hold left Carson's right hand free.
Less than a second later Carson was rolling away from the other
hybrid, but not before opening up several key arteries in the
Coun'hij's enforcer. There wasn't any need to worry about that
particular hybrid ever again. He might manage to struggle to his
feet, but he'd be dead before he took two steps.

Carson
took off towards the rest of his people, but there wasn't any need to
hurry. As I watched, the last enforcer was dispatched and then it was
only Grayson who was still thrashing about in the throes of the
seizures that his power inflicted on him.

I
hurried to the back of the trailer and as bad as things were back
there I knew they could have been so much worse. James and Jack were
both bleeding from dozens of wounds, some shallow, others not. Two of
Jack's wolves had shifted back to human form and were doing their
best to staunch the bleeding while their surviving fellows ran back
into the trees to grab the first-aid kits that we'd left there.

Unfortunately
two of Jack's wolves hadn't lasted long enough for first aid to be
applied. Jess, Alison and Jasmin were all hurt too. They weren't
bleeding as badly as Jack and James, but they'd all shifted back to
human form already in an attempt to kick-start the healing process.

"Carson,
we need some help back here if you've got anyone you can spare!"

I
probably hadn't needed to yell, not considering how acute shape
shifter hearing was, but it was gratifying to hear Carson instantly
detach two of his people to come back and help with our wounded.
Under other circumstances I would have simply stayed in hybrid form.
I'd already shifted twice today, but I dropped down next to Jasmin,
shifting back to human form so that I could help apply pressure to
the nasty gash in her arm that was dripping an alarming amount of
blood.