Monster Mine (13 page)

“
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

“
C
an 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 through, 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.