Incisors. Sharp. Filed to a point. Other teeth made sharp with a rasp or similar tool, perfect for cutting through tough flesh.
His stomach churned. The man wriggled away, leaving Drake grasping at thin air.
Until now, he hadn’t truly believed.
Another sprang at him, leaping off the ground and hitting his legs. Then another, striking his midriff. Drake went down beneath the combined weight, still struggling to believe all he had seen. A knife appeared low down, thrust up at his abdomen. The tactical vest caught the worst of it, but the blow still hurt and brought Drake back to the real world. He kicked out at the covered, faceless head, saw it jerk back and fall away. The figure grabbing his midriff slid up his body now; it was the same man whom Drake had already exposed.
Teeth came fast at his face, blood tipped.
Feeling the same revulsion as if a giant creepy-crawly had landed on him, Drake gripped the throat and smashed the man again and again, bloodying the teeth even more and the nose too. Squirming, spitting and snarling, the man forced his head closer, fighting like a furious animal, his weight a deadly restriction. Drake saw more coming, their masks up, teeth and noses and eyes exposed, crawling at him from left and right, grinning with feral pleasure, limbs twisting in awkward angles as they crept in their unnatural way. Chilling faces filled his vision.
Then a boot came down inches from his nose, a trusty, worn, old boot that he recognized. Alicia stomped on the head of the closest, kicked another in the teeth, booted a third’s skull from behind, burying his face in the earth. She jumped among them, striking down at the crawlers, forcing them away. Drake rolled into space, staggering up. Blessed cold air and sky filled his senses. Alicia fell to one knee as two creatures caught her right leg.
Drake stumbled as an arrow bounced off his ribcage and pain exploded from the impact.
Kinimaka was a train. A pounding, runaway juggernaut of a man, stomping and ramming his way through the crowd of attackers. An arrow struck his chest but made no visible impact. Those that crawled, he broke their bones; those that crouched, he made them fly and stagger and stumble into brick walls and ungiving sidewalks and each other, turning the melee inside out.
Alicia pointed her gun. “Fuck this shit.”
Drake watched her back. The attackers scattered as she fired. Kinimaka threw three into nearby walls, then watched them crawl brokenly after their brethren. Drake now saw first-hand how strong they were. Two reached down to pick up their fallen and drag or carry them away.
A dozen of the creatures then crouched, poised, and leapt up at the three soldiers. Drake braced for impact, determined not to go down under the impact. But as they waited, as they prepared to make like a formidable wall, the town’s villagers came screaming past them, picks, spades and shears flashing and smashing down. They hit the creatures head on before they could leap, forcing them back, breaking them this way and that. Some screamed in fear as they fought, others in release — at last they had found the courage to fight their nightmares.
Drake took a moment to survey the rest of the street. Creatures were being beaten back. Hayden fired close to them, still reluctant to kill. A flurry of arrows fell among the SPEAR team, striking Smyth’s and Mai’s shoulders and driving them to their knees. Mai spun on a knee as a blade flashed at her, caught it at the handle and twisted it from its owner’s grip. Then she returned the weapon, point first.
The man’s companion shoveled him up as another engaged with Mai. Smyth headbutted a creature, then came up staggering, forehead crossed with four large spots of blood. His flesh had met sharpened teeth. The blood began to flow and Smyth brought up a hand to wipe it away, still reeling.
Mai protected him, pushing him away toward Hayden. The boss spun three times, firing on each rotation and hitting her enemies center mass. The battle was well and truly engaged. Black-clad figures fell and groaned and were dragged away.
Drake saw Yorgi use his buildering skills to leap from a garden wall to a trashcan and off a drainpipe to land on the back of two aggressors, bearing them to the ground where Mai finished them off. Then the Russian thief employed similar skills to escape a set of fangs. Drake fought down disbelief once more. An arrow sent Yorgi to the ground but bounced away, bruising being the only outcome.
What the fuck have we landed ourselves in the middle of?
Never in all his years of world-weary labor had he experienced anything like it.
Blackness separated from blackness to his right like two items glued together being pulled apart. It was something incredibly tall. Seven feet? And it pointed a bow and arrow at his heart.
Drake drew his Glock and fired, a gunslinger against a demon; his bullet striking as the arrow flew; the shaft nicking a scrap of flesh from his arm. The tall figure disappeared back into the darkness from whence it came.
Drake fought off two more, shot another, then saw the bulk of the attackers beaten back by the villagers. Men traded blows, catching knife thrust on spade blades, using shears to force bodies backward, a garden fork to thrust away a scuttling spidery attacker at ground level. The creatures hissed endlessly, like steam escaping a narrow vent. Alicia kicked at one that snapped at her feet, but it only kept coming.
“For fuck’s sake!” she cried. “Why can’t you fight like normal people?”
But they were backing off, vanishing into the shadows one by one, melting away toward the mountain passes and the ghostly hills. They took their arrows and their secrets with them; and they also took their dead.
Drake stood in the main street of Kimbiri, glad to be alive, surrounded by villagers who talked happily of their win and tended to their wounded. Shouts came up that nobody had been taken.
The SPEAR team assembled, walking over the shafts of arrows and cast-off knives, picking their way between pools of blood, embarrassed at being thanked by the villagers and hugged until their chests hurt.
“You don’t have to thank me,” Drake said for the dozenth time. “We want to be here.”
Alicia peeled a woman away from him. “He’s taken,” she said. “All the other guys are free if you fancy one. Oh, and the women.”
Mai stared with venom. “One day you will regret all this.”
“One day.” Alicia glared back. “Maybe.”
More people came up, shaking hands and clapping shoulders. The villagers chatted away, happy, and Brynn translated where she could — though most facial expressions were translation enough.
Drake felt more than a pull, a tug of compassion toward them.
They were fast turning into an extended family.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
He woke the next morning with a naked Alicia wrapped around him. There might be better ways to awaken, but right then he couldn’t think of any. Their house had no heating, but the duvet and their bodies kept them warm well enough. It was still dark outside the uncurtained window but a quick glance at his wristwatch reinforced what he already knew.
Slowly, he stroked Alicia’s naked flank, letting his fingers travel from waist to thigh and back again.
“We have ten minutes.” He leaned in close.
Alicia spun around and locked his neck in between her thighs. “Then make yourself useful. Tap twice on the bed when you need air.”
Drake performed satisfactorily enough to be ridden hard for four of those ten minutes, which then satisfied both of them. They rose together, washed, dressed and threw down some rations before pouring coffee. Yorgi and Smyth were sharing one of the other rooms and wandered down just as Alicia rose to refill her cup.
“Hey guys,” she said. “Who—”
“Quit it,” Smyth growled as he stumped by.
“Whaaat?” Alicia tried to play the innocent.