They oozed up the wall toward the gargantuan frog.
The frog continued munching its meal, either unaware or unconcerned. She almost wanted to warn it since it hadn’t tried to harm her, but she didn’t want to risk drawing any attention.
Besides, the leeches were only a third the frog’s size, and there was no way…
Before she could finish the thought, the closest leech parted down the middle, like a sleeping bag being unzipped halfway. A red maw of gums lined with barbed teeth clamped around one of the frog’s hind legs.
The creature gave an alarmed croak and jumped. It succeeded in escaping its attackers, but at the cost of a severed limb.
The frog hit the beach, leaking blood from the stump. All three worms dropped to the sand, moving astonishingly fast toward the scent of blood.
A ball of rubbery black skin consumed the frog.
Nearly falling, Ada ducked into her boat. From beneath the overhanging hull, she watched as the leeches fed. The crunching made her queasy, and she resisted the urge to take off her helmet and place her hands over her ears.
The noises of death felt like a foreshadowing of her own fate, and for a fleeting moment, she thought of ending it her way, painlessly, instead of being eaten alive like the poor frog.
The feeding was soon over. The wormy creatures, plump and slower now, squirmed back toward the foamy surf, vanishing in the next wave that lapped the shore.
The bloodsuckers hadn’t left a drop behind. In fact, they had left nothing. No skin, flesh, or even bones remained. The only evidence of the frog were several webbed footprints.
And a moment later, the surf washed those away, too.
SIXTEEN
The small armada pushed away from the Hive, toward the capitol tower. Other boats sped to the Hive, to help put out the fires and evacuate civilians.
X sat in the bow of a speedboat with Michael while Sergeant Wynn piloted the craft as fast as he could between patches of burning debris floating on the choppy water. Ton and Victor stood in the back, staring in disbelief.
The refugees had seen more death in their lives than some Hell Divers. So much for bringing you to a safe place, X thought.
He looked over the gunwale at the flotsam from the destroyed submarine, but much of the burning debris had come from militia and Cazador vessels.
He choked up when he saw the burning pyre on the funeral boat. Smoke billowed into the sky as the flames consumed General Rhino’s mortal remains.
X wasn’t sure how the boat had been set ablaze, but without a proper ceremony, Rhino probably wouldn’t get into Valhalla or wherever it was Cazador warriors went after death.
“Fuck!” he yelled. A wave of dizziness brought him to the seat, where he tried to contain his anger. But part of him didn’t want to. He was going to need the anger to fight the Sirens.
He remained sitting, looking in all directions.
The skinwalkers had hit the Vanguard Islands hard in a well-coordinated attack. And it was Colonel Moreto who had orchestrated the whole thing.
X should have known she was up to something when she requested that the fight take place on the Hive rooftop.
The boat weaved around more wreckage, where several militia soldiers held on to pieces of a boat, waving and shouting at crews moving out to pick them up.
X still didn’t know where Lieutenant Sloan was or where Magnolia, Rodger, and half of his most trusted divers were. He turned back to Sergeant Wynn to ask for an update, raising his voice over the motor’s racket.
“Last I saw them, they were on the rooftop of the Hive!” Wynn yelled back.
“Victor, did you see them?” X said.
Victor shook his head, then asked Ton in their native language. Ton also shook his head in reply.
“And Lieutenant Sloan?” X asked.
“She’s still not picking up the radio,” Wynn replied.
X looked back to the airship, fearing the worst for the divers and the woman in command of the militia. Thick smoke wafted away from the flames lapping the curved beetle shape of the home that had kept much of humanity alive for over two and a half centuries. More flames billowed out of the gaping hole from a missile impact.
To leave the airship now felt like fleeing, especially without knowing where his friends were, but X had to deploy their limited resources to try to save the capitol tower, too. The damage was severe, but his people would do what they must to salvage the ship.
If anything in this world was immortal, it wasn’t X. It was the Hive. And it would survive.
He turned back to the capitol tower and kicked himself for leaving Miles sleeping in his room. If something happened to his dog, Carmela Moreto would die slowly…
“Look!” Michael shouted. He pointed his robotic hand at the tropical forest topping the mounted airship. A winged beast flapped over the tops of the palms, then dived.
It emerged a moment later with a soldier in its claws. The man kicked helplessly, fighting to get free. He succeeded, but he didn’t fall back to the rooftop, instead plummeting all the way down to the ocean.
Water splashed from the impact, and X didn’t see the soldier resurface.
Tracer fire followed the creature into the clouds. More of the abominations circled the tower. One squeezed out of a window on the third level, spread its wings, and took flight.
“Faster!” X yelled back at Wynn.
The boat accelerated, jolting over the waves.
“Sir, I’m picking up some radio chatter,” Wynn said. It sounds like there are over a dozen Sirens inside the tower, most of them at the top.”
“How is that possible!” Michael yelled back.
They would find out soon enough, but X hoped to God the monsters hadn’t started from the bottom and worked their way up already.
Michael loaded a spare assault rifle that Wynn had given him, and X unstrapped his rifle. He struggled to load the shotgun shells from the bandolier into the hybrid weapon, and Michael reached over to help with his robotic hand.
“Guess we’re twins now,” X said. Feeling helpless and embarrassed, he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Neither of them laughed.
“Here,” Michael said, handing the weapon back.
X took the loaded assault rifle–shotgun combo, though he had no idea how he was going to fire the damn thing. It was too heavy to hip fire, especially with his left hand, and his stump was too short to rest the stock on.
Slinging the weapon, he grabbed his sword. He had killed Sirens with less in the wastes.
The boat closed in on empty docks in the open marina. X had a feeling this was where the skinwalkers had released the Sirens.
Wynn took the radio off his vest and held it to his ear while guiding the boat to the dock.
“Sir, it’s Captain Mitchells. He wants to talk to you.”
X took the handset. “Tell me you took out all those subs,” he said.
It was hard to hear over the chug of the motor, but X did make out that Discovery had taken out one sub; then the transmission broke up.
“Les!” X shouted. “Les, do you—”
“Sir, I copy,” Les replied. “I was saying there are still at least two submarines left, and they have gone back under.”
“What about Raven’s Claw?”
“Not picking it up on radar,” Les said. “We’re continuing to scan.”
X doubted they would find it. Chances were good the warship had launched the subs from a distance, and one of those subs had somehow unleashed the Sirens.
“Stay out of view, and take out those subs if they resurface,” X said. “I’ll take care of the Sirens.”