He had no idea what made him hit the snow.
One moment he was staring toward the plane waiting for the burst of flames. The next he was chest-down on the ground, his elbows digging into the frozen, intractable earth, his injured leg throbbing.
Pop! Pop! Pop—
The roar that interrupted the sound of bullets was so loud he ducked his head, like that would help him avoid the chronic airplane’s fireball.
Except there was no light and no heat. And the sound was overhead….
Soaring. That bucket of bolts was actually in the air. Above them.
Blay spared a second to look up, just in case he’d gotten shot in the head and his perception of reality was fucked. But no—that piece-of-shit crop duster was up in the sky, making a fat turn and taking off in the direction that, if it could stay aloft, would eventually lead Qhuinn and Z to the Brotherhood’s compound.
If they were lucky.
Man, that flight path wasn’t pretty—it was not an eagle going straight and true through the night sky. More like a barn swallow fresh out of the nest—with a broken wing.
Back and forth. Back and forth, tipping from side to side.
To the point where it looked more like they had pulled off the impossible and gotten in the air…only to quickly crash and burn over the forest…
From out of nowhere, something caught him in the side of the face, smacking him so hard he flopped over onto his back and nearly lost hold of his forties. A hand—it had been a hand that had palmed his puss like a basketball.
And then a massive weight jumped on his chest, flattening him into the snowpack, making him exhale so hard, he wondered if he didn’t need to look around for his liver.
“Will you get your fucking head down?” Rhage hissed in his ear. “You’re going to get shot—again.”
As the lull in shooting stetched from seconds to a full minute, lessers emerged from the tree line up ahead, the quartet of slayers walking through the snow with their weapons drawn and poised.
“Don’t move,” Rhage whispered. “Two can play at this game.”
Blay did his best not to breathe as heavily as the burn in his lungs was telling him he needed to. Also tried not to sneeze as loose flakes tickled his nose on every inhale.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
John was about three feet away, and lying in a contorted position that made Blay’s heart flicker—
The guy subtly flashed a thumbs-up, like he was reading Blay’s mind.
Thank. Fuck.
Blay shifted his eyes around without changing the awkward angle of his head, and then discreetly exchanged a gun for one of his daggers.
As an unhinged hum started to vibrate in his head, he calibrated the lessers’ movements, their trajectories, their weapons. He was nearly out of bullets, and there wasn’t time to reload from his ammo belt—and he knew that John and Rhage were in a similar situation.
The knives that V had hand-made for them all were their only recourse.
Closer…closer…
When the four slayers were finally in range, his timing was perfect. And so were the others’.
With a coordinated shift and surge, he leaped up and started stabbing at the two closest to him. John and Rhage attacked the others—
Almost immediately, more slayers came from the woods, but for some reason, probably because the Lessening Society wasn’t arming inductees all that well, there were no bullets. The second round rushed across the snow with the kind of weapons you’d expect to find in an alley fight—baseball bats, crowbars, tire irons, chains.
Fine with him.
He was so juiced and pissed off, he could use the hand-to-hand.
NINETEEN
Sitting on the examination table, with a frail paper gown covering her, and her bare feet hanging off the padded lip, Layla felt as though she were surrounded by instruments of torture. And she supposed she was. All manner of stainless-steel implements were laid out upon the countertop by the sink, their clear plastic wrappings indicating they were sterile and prepared for use.
She had been at Havers’s clinic for an absolute eternity. Or at least, it seemed that way.
In contrast to the rushing ride across the river, when the butler had driven like he knew time was of all essence, ever since she had arrived herein there had been delay after delay. From the paperwork, to the waiting for a room, to the waiting for the nurse, to the waiting for Havers to present the blood test results to her.
It was enough to make one mad in the head.
Across from where she sat, a print framed in glass hung upon the wall, and she had long memorized the image’s brushstrokes and colors, the bouquet of flowers depicted in vibrant blues and yellow. The name underneath it read: van Gogh.
At this point, she never wanted to see irises again.
Shifting her weight about, she grimaced. The nurse had given her a proper pad for her bleeding, and she was horrified to realize that she was going to need another soon—
The door opened on a knock, and her first instinct was to run—which was ridiculous. This was where she needed to be.
Except it was merely the nurse who had settled her here, taken that blood sample and her vitals, and made notations on a computer. “I’m so sorry—there’s been another emergency. I just want to reassure you that you are next in line.”
“Thank you,” Layla heard herself say.
The female came over and put a hand on Layla’s shoulder. “How are you doing?”
The kindness made her blink quickly. “I fear I shall need another…” She pointed down at her hips.
The nurse nodded and squeezed gently before going over to the cupboards and extracting a peach-wrapped square. “I’ve got more here. Would you like me to take you back down to the bathroom?”
“Yes, please—”
“Wait, don’t get on your feet yet. Let me get you a better cover.”
Layla looked down at her hands, her tangled, knotted hands that could not be still. “Thank you.”
“Here you go.” Something soft was draped around her. “Okay, let’s get you standing.”
Sliding off the table, she wobbled a little, and the nurse was right there, taking hold of her elbow, steadying her.
“We’re going to go slowly.”
And they did. Out in the hall, there were nurses rushing from room to room, and people coming and going for appointments, and other staff going at a dead run…and Layla couldn’t believe she had ever been as fast as them. To keep out of the crush, she and her kindly escort stayed close to the wall to avoid getting mowed over, but the others were really quite nice. As if all knew that she suffered in some grave manner.
“I’m going to come in with you,” the nurse said when they got to the facilities. “Your blood pressure is very low and I’m concerned you’re a fall risk, okay?”
As Layla nodded, they went in and the lock was turned. The nurse relieved her of the blanket, and she awkwardly shuffled the paper out of the way.
Sitting down, she—
“Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe.”
“Shh, it’s okay, it’s all right.” The nurse bent down and gave her the fresh pad. “Let’s take care of this. You’re all right…here, no, you’ll want to give that to me. We have to send it to the lab. There’s a chance it can be used to determine why this is happening, and you’re going to want that information if you try again.”
Try again. As if the loss was already done.
The nurse snapped on gloves and got a plastic bag from out of a console. Things were taken care of discreetly and with alacrity, and Layla watched as the name she’d given was written on the outside of the bag in black marker.
“Oh, honey, it’s okay.”