Chapter 35
White noise roared in Lucas’s ears. Static shocks needled his skin. He swayed on the edge of the gateway beneath a shower of light. One step was all it had taken to walk from one realm into the next but it felt like he’d just taken a plunge off a thousand-foot cliff.
He blinked, squinting against the light, registering two things simultaneously: that he was standing in a garden and that a wolf was baring its teeth not fifty metres away from where he stood.
Behind the wolf he saw Flic, blade out, in a fighting stance. The wolf was Jamieson, no doubt about it. He was slunk low to the ground in a defensive posture, ears flat to his head and teeth bared, growling at three figures standing unmoving as statues before them. They had their backs to him, but Lucas knew what they were.
From behind they looked like humans. Two men and a girl. All tall, powerfully built, wearing clothes that wouldn’t have been out of place on any street in LA – the girl in a pair of cut-off denim shorts and a cropped T-shirt, the one on her left wearing jeans and a shirt, and the one on her right looking only slightly strange in a suit. The three of them were unnaturally still, not even the breeze seemed to ruffle a hair on their heads. They seemed to be waiting for some kind of signal to move.
Lucas took a silent step forward. Flic hadn’t seen him. Her focus was locked on the Originals, her hand shaking slightly as she readied her blade and raised it to chest height. Lucas could see the fierce determination on her face barely masking the fear. He forced himself to bite his tongue, keep quiet, when all he wanted to do was yell at her to get the hell out of there. What was she thinking trying to fight these things? He felt suddenly furious at her for being there. For putting herself in so much danger.
Just then the girl in the shorts – the Original in the shorts – twitched. Her chin jerked upwards and her head turned fractionally in his direction. She’d sensed him. Damn. He needed to distract them and draw them away before it was too late – give Flic and Jamieson a chance to get out but there wasn’t time to figure out a plan. He opened his mouth to yell, to distract them, but Jamieson moved at exactly that moment – lunging at the one in the suit with snapping jaws.
Everything blurred. Lucas registered only the sound – a deadening thump, a crack of bones; and then he saw Jamieson flying through the air – a ball of fur. He smacked into the far fence and it splintered under the force. With a whimper the wolf dissolved in a ball of shimmer and Jamieson appeared – his body crumpled at an odd angle, his face pressed to the dirt. A trickle of blood oozed down his temple.
Flic let out a guttural scream – not of fear but of anger and rage – and threw herself forward, her blade dicing and swinging, her face a snarl.
Lucas sprinted towards her letting out a yell of his own. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl in the shorts spin around, see him and throw herself towards him, but at the last moment she faltered, spun, turned away from him and launched herself at someone else. Lucas kept moving towards Flic, only conscious that there was someone else in the fight but with no time to figure out who.
Lucas launched himself at the one stalking his sister – the one in the suit – his blade hacking through the stone hard flesh of the Original’s shoulder. The Original paused, glanced over his shoulder at the tear in his suit and then, with a furious bellow, swung his fist at Lucas.
Lucas darted out of range, but the thing was on him instantly – a blur, teeth sharp as hypodermic needles smashing and gnashing in his face, driving him backwards. Lucas stumbled and the thing launched himself at him - a tonne weight, as heavy as a marble statue crashing down on top of him. In the split second before he was crushed beneath it, Lucas rolled, drawing his blade in a wide arc above him, feeling it slide through flesh.
The thing paused for just a moment, a hand pressed to its neck, buying Lucas enough time to scoot backwards out of reach. But then it was on him again, stalking towards him across the lawn. Lucas kicked his way backwards, willing himself to time things right. He would have only one shot.
The thing stopped, looming over him and Lucas forced himself to hold steady, to not panic. But then the thing suddenly pitched forward and a waterfall of cold blood cascaded over Lucas, drenching him from head to toe.
He was on his feet in the next instant, gripping the hilt of his blade in both hands, ignoring the blood dripping into his eyes and mouth. He spun and with one blow slashed his knife across the Original’s throat.
The severed head rolled halfway across the lawn even as the body sagged in a heap to the ground.
Lucas leapt over the body and started sprinting towards Flic. His brain registered that someone else was fighting alongside her at just the same moment that he saw a flash of pink flying at him.
The one in shorts came at him from nowhere – blindsiding him. Lucas barely managed to somersault out of the way before she was on him again, snarling and panting. The two of them circled each other warily, her gaze falling to his blood-slicked blade then to the body of her friend lying headless on the lawn. She showed barely a trace of emotion. She didn’t look much older than twenty, though Lucas knew he shouldn’t let that fool him. She had a good thousand years on him.
There was only one way to play this, Lucas thought. He stopped circling and tilted his head to the side, exposing the length of his neck, feeling his pulse jerking frantically beneath the skin.
It worked. The Original’s focus snapped straight to his neck. Her lips parted, her gaze clouded over and she lunged, coming at him with the speed of a freight train. Lucas waited until the split second before she was on him before he brought his hand up, holding the blade in his fist like a dagger. She hurled herself onto him. Lucas staggered backwards under her weight, feeling his blade pierce the granite-hard surface of her skin before sliding slick and smooth into her heart.
She gave out a small gasp of surprise, and then looked down at the hilt of the knife embedded in her chest. She collapsed to the ground, her hands tugging at the blade, trying to pull it free. Lucas drove his boot into her chest, pinning her to the ground and yanked the blade out. With his spare hand he reached for the paraffin in his bag, pulling off the lid with his teeth and dousing the girl even as she struggled beneath his boot. She spluttered and screamed as he sprayed the rest of the contents across the lawn, tossing the bottle towards the body of the other Original.
Then he took off, running, throwing his lighter over his shoulder and watching the blue flame ripple out with a whoosh, igniting the girl in a ball of shrieking flame, before snaking across the grass, sending great black clouds of smoke into the air.
Lucas dodged the wall of flame and dived towards Flic.