He could no longer see the man beneath their numbers.
But the man’s voice still called out. His war cry rang against the tumult.
O’Neil had a feeling, for the rest of his life, no matter how short, he would continue to hear Hassan’s cries.
-36-
O’Neil never looked back as he ran. There was only one direction to go on the pier. Skulls and men continued to stream off the sinking ships. Both damaged freighters groaned. The pops of metal buckling and bolts giving away as the vessels listed hard into the water blasted over them.
Each time one of the beasts made it to the pier, either by scuttling down the massive chains connecting the sinking vessels to the structure or by simply throwing themselves from the ship, O’Neil, Loeb, and Tate tore through the beasts, slashing at them, clawing at them, and tossing them into the water, letting them sink beneath the oily surface.
Toward the end of the pier, a group of Russian soldiers were stranded behind crates and oil drums. Skulls from the sinking ships ran at them in groups, shrieking. Bullets tore from the Russian’s rifles in response and ripped into the monsters.
When O’Neil hopped onto a crate to get a better view of what lay in wait for the last hundred or so yards down the pier, he saw that some of the sailors from the ships had joined the soldiers. They were fighting with pistols and pipes and knives and anything else they had gotten their hands on to make their last stand.
Problem was that while the Skulls appeared to be slowly winning this battle of attrition, they weren’t winning fast enough. Soon someone was going to get the engines started on the last freighter, and it wouldn’t just be drifting. It would be churning out toward the sea. It would escape with all those Skulls, destined to slaughter innocent people who had no idea what horrors were traveling the oceans.
O’Neil was a good swimmer. He knew Tate and Loeb were. That came with the job.
But they had never tried to navigate these murky waters with the bodies of Hybrids. He feared the dense bony plates and claws, the lack of body fat from the agent eating away at his body, would mean he would struggle to stay afloat. A long swim just simply wasn’t in the picture. Might even be more suicidal than running headlong at those Russian fighters.
“Those people are our last obstacle to the ship,” O’Neil said. He could feel the rage emanating off the Skulls as they threw themselves at the Russians. “We can’t calm them, but we can make those Skulls work harder. Fuel their anger.”
He stood beside Loeb and Tate. The three of them falling into a trance. O’Neil focusing on the shrieks of the beasts, of his imprisonment, of everything that had been stripped from him, including his humanity, thanks to these bastards.
That anger seemed to penetrate the monsters, making them in turn more ferocious, more desperate to get at the Russians. If there were any Russian Hybrids left around Tangier, they weren’t strong enough to overcome O’Neil and his team. And it was far easier to enrage these monsters than trying to calm them. After all, it was simpler to push a boulder faster downhill than to try stopping it and rolling it back up.
He hoped that would be enough to rip the entrenched Russians from their positions. But as determined as the Skulls were to slaughter the people, those soldiers were just as determined to keep themselves alive.
“We can’t wait forever,” O’Neil said.
“I wouldn’t want to,” Tate said.
“Then we force our way past them,” O’Neil said. “Loeb, you still ready with that charge?”
“Always.”
“Follow my lead.”
O’Neil sprinted between crates and oil drums. He leapt over the bodies of monsters who lay crumpled across the pier. Some were barely more than torsos and limbs, shredded by gunfire. A few were still alive. They pulled themselves across the concrete, leaving a blood trail behind them. Hissing and swiping, they reached out as the SEALs ran past.
Gunfire rang out into the monsters charging the Russians. Shots pierced through the beasts and cut right over O’Neil’s head. One of the rounds slammed against his overgrown right shoulder blade. Bone chunks flew off from the impact.
He heard a thump, then a yell.
Glanced behind him. Saw that Tate had taken a shot to the abdomen. Blood was already trickling out from the fractures in the bony plates. Tate’s dry, cracked lips curled back into a snarl, and he let out an ear-splitting roar.
Another round hammered into Tate’s shoulder. Sent a spray of blood and bone shards flying.
Loeb cursed when an errant round lanced through one of his horns.
They wouldn’t survive the onslaught. Not like this.
But they had no cover. Nowhere else to go.
There was only one way O’Neil could think to shield themselves.
He picked up one of the dead Skulls.
The weight of the beast threatened his flagging strength, but he would not relent to the pain coursing through his muscles.
He held the dead creature in front of him as a monstrous shield.
Tate and Loeb picked up corpses of their own. Tate nearly stumbled, trying to lift his beast. More blood poured out of the wound in his abdomen, and he yelled out in pain with the effort.
“Hold on, brother,” Loeb said. “We’re almost there.”
O’Neil ran ahead, barreling between the other clawing, snapping monsters. Each time a round slammed into the Skull’s body he carried, the impact shook through his limbs. The heavy beast seemed to grow heavier the longer he held it up.
But the thought of stopping that ship full of Skulls was more than enough to fuel him. If he succeeded, he might be saving countless lives. Might be protecting the country he loved and, for that matter, other countries around the world just barely struggling to survive the Oni Agent outbreak.
All of that hinged on holding this Skull up long enough to shield his body from the brunt of the Russians’ attack. Loeb seemed to have made a similar calculation, storming through the mess of Skulls beside him, avoiding the occasional claw that sliced their direction.
Tate, though, could not.
With every step he took, more dark blood pumped from his gut wound. Crimson trailed from his mouth too. It bubbled out from the corners of his mouth as he screamed. Another burst of fire crashed into the beast he held, and finally, Tate could endure no more.
He dropped the monster and shrieked, his voice rising above the Skulls.
“Tate!” O’Neil roared.
But the younger operator was no longer listening. He sprinted through the Skulls, then lunged over their numbers, landing right in the gaggle of Russians sheltering behind the oil drums and crates. Rounds tore into him, each sending up a cloud of red mist, bone fragments flying as his armor was torn apart.
Tate never stopped slicing and clawing at the Russians. He picked up one of the soldier’s rifles, bringing it to bear against a few of the sailors. One of the men rushed him with a rusty pipe in his hand. The man’s face was promptly erased by a burst of rounds. Another started firing at Tate with a pistol. Each blast chiseled into Tate’s bony plates. But just as quickly, Tate swung the rifle on the man, bullets tearing into the man’s body, sending him tumbling backward into the water.
Another soldier tried to backpedal from Tate, adjusting his aim to end the operator. But Tate was quicker, lunging at the man, digging his talons into the guy’s chest and driving him to the ground. As he squirmed under the SEAL’s weight, Tate fired on another soldier with a rifle. The man’s body jerked as the rounds crashed into him. He fell over another of his dead comrades. His head cracked against the concrete.
But when Tate twisted to fire on another man, his rifle clicked. Empty.
“Help him!” O’Neil roared, dropping the Skull he had been using as a shield. He shoved his way past the mess of creatures still fighting with each other to be the first to feed on the soldiers. Loeb stuck close to O’Neil.