Chapter 46
Vero felt them first. She spun away from Ash, her hand moving straight for her blade.
Cyrus felt them next. He ran to the window and yanked back the curtain.
Ash was at his side in the next second. ‘How many?’ he asked, scanning the yard over Cyrus’s shoulder.
‘Enough,’ Cyrus murmured, spying a flash of movement in the bushes at the front of the house. A pathway led up to the house from the sidewalk, bushes providing a screen of cover between the house and the street.
‘What? What is it?’ Selena asked, raising herself unsteadily from the ground. ‘Is it them? Have they found us?’
‘Mixen and Scorpio,’ Cyrus said turning to face the others. ‘Let’s go.’ He took hold of Selena by the arm and whisked her towards the door. ‘Now!’
Victor had beaten them to it. He was in the hallway already loading up on weapons. He threw a sword to Cyrus. He caught it and passed it to Selena, then reached for the second sword Victor tossed at him.
At a sign from Cyrus, Ash pulled open the door, only to slam it shut straight away. ‘We’re surrounded,’ he announced.
‘Damn,’ Cyrus kicked the stair.
How had he let this happen? He should have known they would track them here eventually. He stared at the sword in his hand, trying to assess options.
‘We’re sitting ducks in here. We have to fight our way out.’
It was Victor speaking. He was the only one of them who didn’t seem nonplussed by the situation. He was standing casually by the door, testing the keenness of his blade against his thumb. He looked up at Cyrus and their eyes met.
Cyrus nodded at him almost imperceptibly.
‘Are there any Originals out there?’ Selena stammered.
‘No,’ Cyrus answered. He would have felt them if there were.
‘They’ll leave this to their army of unhumans,’ Victor added. ‘They’re more interested in guarding the gateway.’
A sudden scream made them all jump. It cut off unexpectedly, replaced by a wet gurgling noise.
‘We need to get out there,’ Cyrus said, elbowing Ash aside.
He threw open the door and bounded down the steps onto the lawn. Something flew at him. He jerked hard to the left, diving to the ground, bringing his sword up as he fell, feeling it slice easily through flesh and jar against bone. A scream and a hot spatter of blood sprayed his face. He rolled and was on his feet, thrusting and cutting at the next unhuman in his way.
He was yelling, the battle raging inside him as well as all around. The others had joined in. Cyrus caught sight of Ash, grunting as he landed blow after blow on a Scorpio’s tail. Victor was fighting three Mixen at once. Cyrus paused an instant before going to help him, coming up behind and running his sword through the neck of the nearest one. It vanished with a little shriek of outrage. Victor finished the second with a short thrust up through the rib cage. The third one backed out onto the sidewalk, her head twisting left to right in panic as she tried to figure where to run to.
A car screeched to a sudden stop in front of her. The door flew open with a bang and the head of the Mixen exploded like a detonating mine.
Cyrus ducked, shielding his face, feeling the burn as acid blood spattered over his forearms and the backs of his hands. He hissed through his teeth at the pain, lifting his eyes and squinting through the red mist that hung in the air.
Evie was standing in front of him, holding a gun. She strode past him, still firing.
He stared after her, grinning in wonder. A girl who could shoot. And look fiercely hot while she did it. And then he felt the cut. His arm was suddenly on fire, hot liquid sluicing down his sleeve, soaking his T-shirt and the waistband of his jeans. He glanced at his left shoulder and saw the blood pouring in waves down his arm, and then out of the corner of his eye he saw a tail arching above him.
He dropped to his knees and rolled instinctively, his head smacking the concrete path, his hand losing a grip of his blade. He looked straight up, seeing the dark coiling shape of a Scorpio tail lashing down, heading straight for his face, the razor-sharp edge glinting, and then he heard a whooshing sound and the Scorpio, a guy in a long trench coat and a Clash T-shirt, went spinning backwards, a dark stain spreading over the Clash, his mouth a gaping pit.
He disappeared a second after he hit the ground and Cyrus stayed staring up at the sky, blinking at the clouds. Someone had saved him. He rolled to his knees, his hand going to his shoulder, feeling the flesh flapping free, his fingers soaked in warm wetness. He had a brief moment of dizziness when he staggered to his feet and looked around.
There were piles of bloodstained clothing, discarded shoes, a few swords lying glinting in the grass. They had to have killed three dozen or more of the things. How had they managed to survive this?
Ash and Vero were standing back to back, their weapons still raised, breathing hard and fast. Vero was covered head to toe in blood, like she’d taken a shower in the stuff, though the fact she was still standing told Cyrus it wasn’t her own.
Selena was on her knees, panting. There was no sign of the Mixen she’d been fighting off. Victor was grunting as he tried to tug his sword out of the writhing body of another Mixen. He pulled it free with a shout and rammed it through the its chest, finishing it off.
Flic stood on the other side of the garden, wiping sweat from her brow as Evie fired her last bullet into the head of a Scorpio lying on the ground still groaning. For a brief moment, as he watched them both, Cyrus pondered the sheer luck that the two of them had shown up just when they had.
He was distracted from the thought by the sight of Evie’s legs. She was wearing a dress and her legs were all he could focus on – the lithe, pale length of them, the point where they disappeared under the skirt … but then little black dots started to dance in front of his eyes.
Evie turned just then, bringing the gun slowly down to her side. For a second he saw the worry in her face.
And then he pitched forward and fell into blackness.