Malia was knocked off course, to land on her side upon one of the few tables that had yet to be overturned. Although some of her fur was bloodied and singed, the Mongrel wasn’t about to be put down by a single shotgun blast. Christov stood in the hallway behind the shattered mirror, still grasping the smoking weapon in his hands. “What the fuck’s happening here?” he screamed, as though on the verge of tears.
“Come on!” Tristan said as she pulled the employees’ door open. Kate rushed through, immediately followed by Paige.
Rico fired his last shot at Malia, sending the Mongrel darting under a different table. “There’s a few more of Christov’s boys back there,” he said to Cole. “Some big black dude and a preppy kid. If that old man’s still here, those bouncers will need all the help they can get.”
The Mud People shifted their attention back to the Skinners, and several were knocked off their feet as Malia charged through the group. Careful not to bite any of the Mud People, she scurried beneath a table and lunged at Rico. In the time it took for him to reload his .45, his arm was grabbed by two of the mud-faced customers. Both of them were dressed in plain shorts and T-shirts. No more details than that could be seen through the stains smeared into their clothes. More of the diseased customers grabbed Malia, causing the Mongrel to swipe at them with her claws.
One of the Mud People closest to Rico turned to look at him. She was one of the human dancers, but now her face was slick with dark bile. When she opened her mouth, she coughed so violently that it snapped her head to one side, which was followed by the wet crunch of breaking bone. “Pestilence will make the world new again,” she said. “Maketheworldnewagainmaketheworldnewagain!”
The other muddied customers may have tried to say those same words, but they couldn’t get out more than gurgling croaks since their throats were now full of blackened paste. As one, all of the Mud People shifted their eyes toward the employees’ entrance.
When Cole ran to help Rico, he found himself quickly looking down the barrel of the Sig Sauer. “I’m covering you, damn it!” Rico barked. “Now do what I fucking told you to do!”
“We’re all back there, Rico! How about you move your ass and come with us?”
The bigger man thought about that for as long as it took to crack the side of his pistol against the temple of a Mud Person who tried to close his hands around his throat. As soon as the would-be strangler was down, Rico followed Cole to the door.
No matter how many Mud People had piled onto Malia, there weren’t enough to keep her pinned. She slashed her way through them amid a wailing, feral snarl.
“Shit,” Rico grunted as he stopped just short of the door, then waited for a clean shot and fired a round that dug a bloody trench down Malia’s back.
Pain, desperation, and fury gave Malia the fuel she needed to shake the Mud People loose and charge at the true target of her aggression. “Out of my city!” she snarled through a mouthful of teeth that looked like sharpened icicles.
After everyone had made it through the door, Rico filled up the entrance with his body and lowered his head as Malia ripped into his back. Cole grabbed onto the lapels of his patchwork jacket and tried to pull him in, but Paige shouted, “Leave him!”
A rotund man wearing khaki pants and a flower print shirt stepped through the broken mirror while filling the back hallway with a wet groan. Christov fired another blast from his shotgun, which liquefied the former customer’s legs and stopped the rest of the Mud People in their tracks.
“Hang on,” Rico growled. “Almost…got it.” Gripping the door frame as well as the hand Cole offered, he pulled himself into the hallway as the sound of tearing flesh drifted through the air. But the flesh being torn wasn’t Rico’s. Instead, Malia’s teeth had clamped around his jacket, and she tugged at it like a dog trying to claim its end of a knotted sock. Though she shredded a good portion of the protective layers, her teeth didn’t make it through the Half Breed body armor.
Using the blunted end of his spear just in case he hit Rico by mistake, Cole reached over the other Skinner’s shoulder and cracked the bridge of Malia’s nose. She opened her jaws, shook her head wildly and snarled at the clawing Mud People behind her. She must not have liked her odds any longer because she crossed the room in one jump to land upon a partition separating the restrooms from the rest of the club. One more jump took her to the front of the club, where she darted out the front door.
Rico shoved past Cole and slammed the door shut. “Thanks,” he said while twisting the lock above the handle.
“Will you be safe in your office?” Paige asked Christov.
“My guys are already in there,” the bald man replied.
“Fine. Just dig in and stay there.”
Christov didn’t need any more coaching before pressing his back to the wall and shuffling past the broken mirror. The Mud People may have seemed mindless, but the sight of the infected customer squirming on the jagged shards of glass after getting his leg blown was enough to make the rest of them hesitant to pass that line. When Christov scooted past the dressing rooms, the hobbled Mud Person snapped his head to one side and pulled himself over the razor-sharp glass.
“Dr. Lancroft don’t wanna be interrupted!” Henry said through the Mud Person’s slimy lips.
Henry nearly eviscerated himself to crawl over the glass. Kicking frantically at the possessed customer, Christov ran to his office and almost rattled the door off its hinges before the bouncers inside finally let him in.
Paige, Cole, and Rico formed a barrier between the Mud People and the remaining dancers. Somehow, Tristan and Kate had kept their wits about them long enough to bring two of the human girls away from the main room as well.
Cole could hear Shae’s screaming, but couldn’t quite place where it was coming from.
“Did they get out through the side exit?” Paige asked.
Tristan turned to place her hands flat upon the wall at one end of the hallway. “No,” she replied. “They’re in here.”
Some of the Mud People grew brave enough to crawl over the shell Henry had left behind. The slaps upon the employees’ door grew not only in number but in intensity.
“They’ll break through before too long,” Paige warned.
Rico double-checked his .45 and took steady aim at the broken mirror. “So will the cops.”
“Christov won’t call the police,” Kate said.
Cole stood so everything was in front of him. “Some people got away from here, and they’ll sure as hell call somebody!”
Tristan pressed one hand on the wall at waist level and reached up with her other to press a spot just over her head. Both panels clicked at the same time, allowing a portion of the wall to swing inward. She squeezed in through the opening as soon as it was big enough. “Shae!” she shouted.
As soon as Tristan was through, the Skinners and the other girls followed. All Rico had to do was give the secret door half a shove for it to slam shut and seal itself with whatever mechanism kept it from being discovered in the first place.
Lancroft and the blond nymph stood in a room that was a little less than half the size of the VIP area. It was divided by a curtain made of hundreds of strings of beads that hung from the ceiling. As he backed toward the beads, the bearded man held his wooden staff to Shae’s neck. “Make her release the energy,” he demanded as the weapon creaked to form a narrow blade directly under the blonde’s chin, “or I kill this one.”
Cole stepped forward with his spear held in front of him. “God damn it, can’t you see we’re Skinners too?”
“Yes,” the old man said. “And you should be grateful for what I’ve done.”
“Taking a woman hostage is nothing to be proud of.”
“This isn’t a woman,” Lancroft said. “She’s a thing wrapped in a package that’s appealing to human eyes. A carnivorous plant that smells good to flies just so it can lure them in to be eaten. Since fools like you and Miss Strobel are content to hand our world over to the beasts, I’ve taken steps to rid it of the shapeshifters and Nymar.”