Bodies lay in the streets. Laborers. Mothers with their children. A group of men armed with crossbows, probably just passing through. A cop, a short blond woman, her uniform pristine, lying face down on the pavement two steps away from her police horse.
Oh my God . . . We drove through it all, surrounded by death on both sides, as if gliding through Armageddon.
On the far right, a man stumbled, walking through the street, with a lost look on his face, trying to come to terms with his world ending. A child cried in the distance, a thin uncertain sound.
This wasn’t just bad. It wasn’t just criminal, or cruel; it was so deeply inhuman, my mind had trouble comprehending it. I’ve seen death and mass murder, I’ve seen people slaughtered out of bloodlust, but this had no emotion behind it. Just a cold clinical calculation.
Another howl broke the silence. Closer this time and to the east. Andrea swiped the map off her lap.
“They’re probably hitting Fayetteville Road. Turn left at the next intersection. Church Street.”
I made a hard left at the next intersection. In front of us a crumbling overpass barred the way. I steered the Jeep on the side, over the overgrown hill, praying the tires didn’t blow up, and rolled over the hill. The vehicle plunged down, its seat springs squeaked, and we landed back on the road. I stepped on the gas. The Jeep hurtled forward.
A subdivision popped up on our right side. I stared straight ahead. I’d seen as much of the dead as I could take. Now I just wanted to make some of my own.
The road veered left, cutting through a dense patch of forest. I took the turn. Something black and large lay in the road.
“Look out!” Andrea yelled.
I swerved, catching a glimpse of a massive equine body. A mad amber eye glared at nothing, now dull, from a head crowned with a single sharp horn.
The woods ended, jerked away suddenly like a green silk scarf pulled out of place. A ribbon of straight road unrolled in front of us, before diving into the woods again in the distance. On the left side, two giant open A-frames covered by tin roofs housed rows of flea market stalls. The stalls lay deserted. Half of their owners had fled. The few who remained sprawled in the dirt, their eyes dull and lifeless.
A group of riders emerged from the woods in the distance, pushing their horses hard. Behind them a pair of bays pulled a wagon. At least ten people. The forest on both sides of the road was too dense for the wagon to pass through. They were heading away from the magic and toward us, back into the blast zone.
I turned the Jeep sideways, blocking the road. Andrea eyed the nearest A-frame. It would give her a good vantage point. But the moment she started shooting, they’d turn back. We had to keep that cart from moving.
I held my hand out. “Give me a grenade.”
Andrea pulled open her backpack and slid a grenade into my palm. “Wait until they start shooting the Jeep. Boom comes first, shrapnel flies second. Count to ten before you run in there. And don’t blow the device up.”
“Yes, Mother. It’s not my first time.”
“That’s the thanks I get for trying to keep you alive, Your Highness.”
I slipped out of the Jeep and dashed down through the undergrowth on the right side of the road.
Andrea leaped six feet in the air, caught the edge of the tin roof, and pulled herself up.
Twigs and branches slapped me. I kept moving, light on my toes. If Curran had been there, he would’ve chewed me out for making more noise than a drunken hippo in a china shop, but with the thudding of hooves the riders wouldn’t hear me. Ahead the ground leveled off, the undergrowth of fuzzy pines thick enough to provide good cover but thin enough to power through in a hurry. About a hundred yards from the Jeep. Far enough. I dropped into a crouch.
The lead horseman rode past us and stopped a dozen yards ahead. The rest of the riders halted, forming two loose lines along the road, staggering themselves to minimize the target area. The cart came to a stop with a creak right across from me. A large canvas bundle bulged in the middle of it, secured with ropes. Wooden partitions protected the device from the back and front. Perfect.
“Miss Cray,” the lead rider said. “Please remove the obstruction.”
A woman rode up to the leader. “Sir?”
“Ride down to the vehicle, shift it into neutral, and push it off the road. Burgess, go with her. Santos, cover them. If things look suspicious, shout.”
The three riders advanced toward the Jeep, two ahead, one lagging behind, his rifle ready. I waited until they cleared half of the stretch, pulled the firing pin, and lobbed the grenade behind the cart. The metal clanged on the asphalt two hundred feet away from the cart. Far enough. Heads turned. I dropped down and pressed into the forest floor.
The explosion shook the trees. Horses shied, panicking. The device showed no intention of exploding.
“Protect the machine!” the leader screamed. “Form—” His head jerked. Andrea’s bullet took him in the back of the skull and came out just under his eyes, disintegrating his face into a mush of bone and bloody flesh.
Shots rang out like firecrackers popping—they fired blindly to the front and to the back. I charged through the pines. They were packed too densely for the saber. I drew a throwing knife. Another rider dropped, cut down by Andrea’s shot.
A rider loomed. I jerked him out of the saddle, stabbed him in the kidney, grabbed a woman off a horse, slit her throat, and pulled another man out of the saddle. The black barrel of a .45 glared at me. I shied left. The gun barked. Heat grazed my shoulder. I stabbed him through the heart.
The cart driver snapped the reins, turning the cart around. The horses neighed and plowed through the brush, skirting the crater left by the grenade. The cart hurtled back down the road, out of the blast zone and into the magic, heading away from the Jeep. The remaining riders chased it. Damn it.
A huge gray lion leaped out of the woods, barring the cart’s path, standing almost as tall as the horses. The great mouth gaped and a deafening roar shook the trees. The horses reared in sheer terror.
The driver surged up and slumped over, as a red wound from Andrea’s rifle blossomed in the back of his head.
The lion morphed, his fur melting, and Curran grabbed the loose reins with his human arm, calming the horses.
Shapeshifters spilled from the woods, swarming the riders. “Alive,” I yelled. “We need at least one alive!”