The Deadliest Bite (19 page)

The Rider screamed in pain as Cole’s improvised club and Dave’s blade battered the soft skin between its tusks. But so, unfortunately, did Bergman.

“No, Mom!” he shouted. “I’m not going to your goddamn protest!” Cole spoke urgently into his ear. “Miles! Come on, buddy, you know these suck-you-til -you-sag types. The sadder, the more violent, you feel, the sweeter you taste. So flood your head with good stuff. Your first peek at a
Playboy
. The invention that’s going to win you the Nobel Prize. The time Jaz and I had to ride those ridiculous mopeds al around Corpus Christi. Like that.” At first Bergman didn’t answer. Cole, struggling to yank one of the teeth out of Miles’s side, had final y decided Bergman hadn’t heard when Bergman giggled, “Monique! It’s the middle of the day!” The fang came free with a sucking whoosh that Cole expected to be fol owed by a rush of blood.

But the incision-like wound was already closing, the saliva stretching from the Rider’s tooth to Miles’s skin quickly drying into a bio-bandage. “That’s handy,” said Cole. “Also kinda sick. Bergman is not gonna be happy.”

Dave pul ed a fang out from the other side and sliced it off at the Rider’s body, causing it to scream and convulse even as Bergman blushed and murmured, “Sweetheart, I’m not sure that’s legal in this country!”

“Who is Monique and what the hel does she see in this brain-ona-stick?” demanded Dave as he and Cole continued defanging their tech guru, covering him, the Rider, and themselves with a startlingly rancid combination of saliva, blood, and bile.

“She’s Bergman’s girlfriend,” said Cassandra, who’d come closer to lend moral support. “He met her when we were in Marrakech.”

“She’s a little older than him,” Cole said. He added, “Watch out, Cassandra. I think this Rider’s about to hurl.”

It was shaking and heaving like Bergman’s blood hadn’t agreed with it after al . Cassandra stepped aside just as it puked up the contents of its stomach over Bergman’s left shoulder. They hit the pine needles with a wet, splatting sound that made her nose wrinkle. “This job is so nasty. They should, at the very least, send you off with your own personal bottle of Germex.”

“I agree.” Bergman sighed. Dave and Cole had nearly torn the Rider from his back. But the final connection, a pair of knittingneedle-sized ribs that seemed to shoot straight into Bergman’s back and out his chest, would not yield.

“We’ve done al we can,” Dave told him grimly. “Like I told you before, it’s stil up to you.” Bergman nodded, his head winding around in a circle like he was too tired to make a precise up-and-down motion anymore. He sighed again. Dave and Cole shared a look of round-eyed worry with Cassandra. She stepped forward to urge Bergman on to greatness, but before she could say her piece, Astral had hopped over to the open spot at his feet. Jumping up so her paws rested on his shins she said, “Learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings.”

“Tom Petty was right when he wrote ‘Learning to Fly,’” whispered Miles, his eyes so tightly shut his lashes had nearly disappeared. “And that was why Astral kept scrol ing through al those disaster videos. To show us how to reach for the sky, even though it feels like we keep crashing.” Everyone was nodding, even Jack, though he was probably only doing it to be polite. Cole said,

“Exactly! Never give up, baby! Not even when your glider dives straight into the Pacific!” Bergman’s eyes snapped open. He threw his knife into the air, caught it so that the blade now faced the Rider, performed a neat one-two sidestep, and stuck that sucker so hard that they both fel to the ground.

The last pair of ribs withdrew from Bergman’s chest. He cried out, rol ing off the Rider as it freed him. But he was back in an instant, shoving his knife into the parasite’s heart, once, twice, a third time until he was sure it would never twitch again.

For long, quiet moments everyone just stared at the corpse. Then Bergman stood up, swayed, and sat back down. “I feel like a Chinese noodle. Seriously. If you want me to move, you’re going to have to use chopsticks. And a stretcher.”

“You’re so thin we
could
pick you up with chopsticks,” Cassandra told him. “Why won’t you ever eat anything? You might be able to get through ordeals like this much easier!” He dropped his head like it was just too heavy for his neck to support at that moment, and wagged it back and forth. “Food’s annoying.”

“Not as much as dead scientists!” she snapped.

Dave found Bergman’s glasses and set them back on his nose. Miles peered at Cassandra over the tops of the lenses. “You are such a nag.” He looked up at Dave. “You know what you’re getting into with this one, right?”

Dave patted him on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe what kind of reward your life is worth to her, buddy. Believe me, I’m golden.”

Bergman looked at his hands, lying limp between his knees. “So, did you get what you wanted?” Cole came to stand beside them, wiping the blood off the butt of his Beretta as he moved.

“Yeah, dude. Tel us poor Miles didn’t sacrifice his vamp cherry in vain.” As Miles huffed in embarrassment Dave said, “I made the connection. Hanzi’s in Spain.” Cassandra was the first to pick up on the hesitation in his tone. “What did you see?” she asked.

“He was riding a motorcycle. Wearing a helmet, so that was good. Except that I saw him racing toward a parked semi. And there was no way, going as fast as he was driving, that he could’ve stopped in time.”

Can a group of friends col ectively shiver? Probably not mine, but they did share a moment of frozen silence. Then Cassandra said, “Did you feel like it was happening as you saw it? Or was it a future scene—you know, just potential that you pul ed from the stratus?” Dave shrugged. “Hey, I’m new at this. Plus I was kind of in the middle of a tornado.”

“You’re a Special Ops commander,” Cassandra drawled. “Give it your best bet.” He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers. “You don’t let me get away with anything, do you?”

She kissed him and purred, “Only when you deserve to.”

Cole said, “No smoochies when the rest of us only have animals to cuddle with.” Jack and Astral looked up. And if my dog looked slightly concerned, it’s only because he understands every word people say. “Don’t worry,” Cole told him. “You’re not my type. But you—” He wiggled his eyebrows at Astral, who sat down and began to lick her paws, as if she felt a bath might be in order, considering.

Dave got to his feet and helped Cassandra stand while Bergman grabbed Cole’s leg and climbed up far enough on his own that our sniper final y took pity and gave him a hand. “Why do you love messing with my inventions?” he asked.

“Jealous, I guess,” Cole replied. “Jaz is practical y swimming in cool gadgets. I save your life and what do I get?” He motioned to his gore-covered khakis and hunting shirt.

“I’l buy you new ones,” said Bergman.

“Or…” Cole began.

Bergman’s eyebrows lifted in sudden comprehension. Maybe he could be forgiven for not understanding right away. After al , he’d just fought a Rider and won. His wounds, while closing quickly under the strange healing qualities of the parasite’s weblike saliva, stil hurt like a mother.

And, no matter what Dave and Cole had done to help, he never would’ve survived the first leg of that journey without depending on his own strength. Which, he’d final y learned, was hefty—but not unlimited. Even so, he said, “I could invent you something marvelous. Both of you,” he added, catching Dave’s eye.

Dave waved him off. “Don’t bother with me, Miles. I’m comfortable using the tools I’ve been trained with.” Having cleaned off both his knives, he resheathed them and led the cemetery crew back toward the tour bus thinking that, considering he was about to become a dad and he’d like to be around a lot more than Albert had been, maybe soon he wouldn’t even need those anymore.

Saturday, June 16, 11:20 p.m
.

One of the easiest ways to infiltrate an enemy base is to let a patrol catch you and then demand that they take you to their leader. Of course, then you’re depending on the patrol ers to have some sense of honor and military discipline. This couldn’t be the case with any member of Brude’s army.

Which was why, once the Shit Sniffer had led us to an enemy patrol, we’d decided to put a slight twist on that plan.

The unit we targeted was made up of Brude’s finest and most diverse fighters. They came to him from every age of Earth’s history—their uniforms ranging from barely scraped animal skins to medalplastered dress blues. As expected, their weapons ran the gamut too. Except, since firearms didn’t function in the Thin, they’d al hung on to their favorite blades. Some had remembered them long and glittering, engraved with the runes of their personal gods. Others carried daggers so dul only the violent double-fisted shove of heavily muscled biceps would prove them fatal.

Counting Aaron, our numbers matched almost evenly. And considering we had Vayl, Raoul, and two Dogs fighting on our side (not to mention me, with a sword from Raoul’s armory that felt like it had been forged to my hand) I figured our odds wouldn’t bring huge winnings on a two-dol ar bet.

And then
he
stepped out from behind the tree line that had separated us.

We’d been hiding behind a long line of scrub interrupted by piles of fal en trees and mounds of ivy-strangled branches that’d al flame like a hairspray-soaked wig the second somebody thought to bring a match to the game. Stil , good cover, until I got my first real look at the blemuth lumbering toward us. And then I reminded myself to write thank-you notes to every one of my trainers, who’d once again done such a good job that despite the shock of seeing a creature I had been sure never existed outside Sandy’s Bar (where the stories always outsize the hangovers), I managed not to give away our position with the gasp of awe that had shot up from my quaking stomach. I didn’t even break the twig sitting right next to my foot, despite the fact that my knees had begun to shake so badly that my pants would probably have ridden right down my thighs if I hadn’t been wearing a decent belt.

I rol ed my eyes toward Vayl, who’d thoughtful y clapped his hand across Aaron’s mouth and wrapped another steel-muscled arm across his chest before he could accidental y betray us.

Can’t be
, I mouthed. He nodded. Which was as close as he’d ever get to
Can too, Jasmine.

Now wrap your mind around this before all your moving parts freeze permanently
.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, feeling the air of a rarified plane slide in and out of my nostrils as I accepted the inevitable. I’d just seen one of the most twisted creatures ever created. According to legend the first blemuth had begun life as a dragon’s egg, but once the sorcerer Aliré had shoved his wand and a huge glob of ogre slime into the guts of the poor thing’s DNA, it had very little chance of hatching into anything but what it became: A war machine, programmed to decimate every living thing it encountered. What surprised me was that it had enough soul left to get itself trapped in any sort of afterlife. Most creatures like the blemuth managed to incinerate themselves completely when their time came. The fact that this one had remained to rampage through the Thin worried me more than I liked to let on.

I caught Vayl’s attention and mimed shivering and then breaking spaghetti between my hands.

He understood that I wanted to know if he could freeze the blemuth long enough for us to attempt to hamstring it. When he shrugged, I understood we’d be winging this one. Vayl might be überexperienced, but even he’d never had to face a creature with the reputation for being resistant to attack. As in every. Single. Kind.

I wondered how keen the Dogs were to complete their mission now they’d seen how much tougher the blemuth was going to make it. They didn’t leave me curious for long. Pointing to each other and then making huge circles with their hands, they let us know that they wanted to be the ones to tackle the creature.

Hey, the dumbasses wanna be heroes. That’s so damn sexy
, said my Inner Bimbo. She spun around on her bar stool, singing, “I think I’m in love, and my life’s lookin’ up.”
She should let Eddie Money do his own songs. She’s just butchering the hell out of that piece
, Granny May murmured. What she real y wanted to say was that Bimbetta was sick and twisted, so that was the issue I addressed.

I said,
If not for you it could’ve been worse
.

So true
. Granny looked at me, then she pointed to the needlepoint of the cowboy, Zel Culver.

Once you’ve unchained Aaron Senior, don’t let him go until you ask him about the cowboy
.

Wow, that was kinda out of the blue, Gran, but okay
.

Sometimes it pays to listen to the voices in your head. Sometimes you end up looking like a complete loon. Soon I’d get to see which category I’d be playing for. But for now I watched the Dogs get into position to take down the blemuth. It wasn’t pretty. Later I figured their lack of good judgment was caused by the fact that they’d been forced to leave their uniforms behind. Some people just don’t think wel in civvies. Like the Dogs. Who stood up. Barked. And charged.

“Why does it always seem like our team is heavily seeded with dumbshits?” I yel ed to Vayl as I fol owed him into the melee.

He grinned over his shoulder at me. “You are only saying that because we are outnumbered, outsized, and outvicioused.”

I felt my lips draw back from my teeth, the pre-battle smile brought to life by my lover’s excitement. “Vayl! Did you just make up a word?”

“Perhaps I did at that.”

And then we were too surrounded to talk. Vayl and I stood back-to-back with Raoul and Aaron just to our right. Brude’s mercenaries came at us randomly, their attacks as disordered and chaotic as the realm they defended. It worked to our advantage. A foe who fights out of pure emotion leaves plenty of openings for the clear-minded defender to exploit.