Damn his uncooperative limbs!
Within the space of a blink, Caleb found himself on his knees.
Little hands grabbed at him, and he saw the wavering shape of his son’s face.
“Daddy!”
“Caleb.”
Two voices yelling for him and he couldn’t make his thick tongue answer. All Caleb could do was look up at the reptilian creature that had taken him down with mere spit.
The indignity of it.
The shame… His croc rolled and rolled in a deathly parody in his head.
Asshole.
Who will save our woman and son?
Who, indeed, if Caleb was taken out?
You are not alone.
He didn’t have to be a hero today. The important thing was that they survived. And with that thought, he managed to focus enough to blurt out the words, “Shoot it, baby.”
Chapter Eighteen
Shoot it?
Big blue eyes stared at Renny. Human eyes in the face of a monster.
The gun trembled in her hand, her outstretched arms, feeling the pressure to remain steady, to keep her aim true.
Renny knew how to fire a pistol, smaller pistols than the one she held, but same concept. Aim. Shoot. But this wasn’t a paper target or a pop can. It’s alive. Could she really kill the creature in front of her? Is it even a creature? I would swear it’s a shifter of some kind. One with too many different parts.
As if sensing her wavering resolve, the lizard beast reached out a hand, misshapen with some fingers and claws, a mash-up of human and reptile. “Nnnnno.”
The word shocked her, reaffirming the belief that this was more than just a creature. Was this thing before her the result of a shift gone wrong?
To the side of the upright reptile, where Caleb lay still, his eyes shuttered, Luke crouched. A gaze filled with moisture, he said in a tremulous voice, “Mommy. I’m scared.”
So was she, dammit, but could she shoot the thing with human eyes in front of her? What if this was a misunderstanding?
She tried reason first. “Listen, I don’t know who you are”—or what—“but I don’t want to hurt you. I just want my son back.”
The thing cocked its head. It made an odd sound, a cross between a cluck and a purr.
“I can tell there’s someone in there.” Perhaps not a sane person, given the flat chill in the eyes. “And I’m sure you have a reason why you took Luke. Perhaps you thought you were protecting him.”
“He’s bad, Mommy,” Luke cried out.
This outburst agitated the creature, and it whipped its head sideways to emit a baleful hiss. It also flicked its sinuous, scale-covered tail.
The tip of it swept across the floor in its agitation, knocking something loose from an alcove in the wall. A rock rolled and bounced, stopping at Renny’s feet.
Except it wasn’t a rock.
A perfect little skull stared up at her. A child’s skull.
This isn’t a human. It’s a monster. Now Renny was the one with cold running through her veins as she steadied her arm. The creature read her intent and lunged as she fired—Bang!—and managed to miss! Unused to a gun of this caliber, Renny didn’t expect the recoil that threw off her aim. It proved a costly mistake.
The lizard thing hit her and took her to the ground hard.
“Ah!” Renny managed a short scream and stared in wide-eyed horror at the reptilian face above hers, the jaws cracked open wide, the venom dripping from its fangs.
Struggling with the body pinning her did nothing. It outweighed her too much to even rock it.
“Let go of my mommy!” Luke cried.
Oh God, her little boy. Even as her hands scrambled to hold back the nightmare visage, she screamed, “Run, Luke. Run and find help!”
The strength of the creature was frightening. It barely seemed to make an effort, and yet it pushed toward her face as if she didn’t hold it back at all. Fetid breath washed over her. Those big blue eyes didn’t bother to hide their malevolence.
She closed her eyes tight lest she witness her own death.
Only death didn’t come. Rescue did.
“Like fuck. Get your slimy green ass off my baby!” Caleb roared.
Opening her eyes, Renny was just in time to see the body of the creature get plucked and tossed.
The lizard hit the wall hard, but that didn’t stop it. Hitting the ground, it sprang to its feet, its forked tongue flicking.
“Food plays? Fun.” The grotesque words emerged on a sibilant hiss.
“It’s a shifter,” Renny breathed, unable to hide her horror.
“It’s an abomination,” Caleb growled, standing between Renny and the beast.
Just in time, too, as the monster dove at Caleb, and the next thing she knew, they were wrestling, the muscles in Caleb’s biceps bulging as he fought to hold the fury of the creature back.