Paige dropped to the ground and rolled until she bumped against the SUV’s front tire.
Boots thumped against the packed dirt to her right.
Gunshots blasted through the air.
Another Half Breed dropped dead, several close-range gunshot wounds still smoking in its fur.
Gunari rushed to Paige’s side, reloaded the .44, and then offered a hand to her. “Back to the plane,” he said. “There’s no more we can do right now.”
She accepted his help but wasn’t happy about it. “What the hell does that mean? We didn’t come all this way just to turn around and go home!”
“Quiet and do as I say,” he scolded before firing another couple of rounds into Minh’s chest. The bullets thumped against the Full Blood, causing the fur to rustle as each bullet snagged within her coat. “Do you see Ktseena?”
Paige circled around Gunari so she could retrieve her weapon and then bury its blade into the shoulder of another Half Breed. After the wretch dropped, she finished it off. Kawosa was nearby, shifting into his gangly human form. “I see him. Don’t you?”
“No.”
“He’s right there!” she said while pointing to him.
The shapeshifter was dressed in filthy rags that barely covered his human form, his face almost completely hidden by long stringy hair. Tilting his head, Kawosa showed her a sympathetic expression while gently shaking his head.
“He told me I couldn’t see him, and I cannot,” Gunari explained.
Since Milosh was still crawling toward her and Nadya was backing away from the SUV amid a steady spray of automatic fire, Paige didn’t waste any more time before grabbing Gunari’s arm and pointing his .44 at Kawosa. “Just fire, goddammit!”
He did as he was told and they both sent their last few rounds through the air toward Kawosa. The shapeshifter dropped straight down, shifting into a nightmarish equivalent of a coyote before scampering away on all fours.
“Back to the plane!” Gunari shouted.
Nadya nodded and quickened her steps through the field toward the airstrip.
“We’re just gonna run for it?” Paige asked while fending off a Half Breed with her machete.
“We can make it,” he replied.
“If you believe that, then you’re screwed up too much to be of any use to anyone. We’re only alive because that bastard’s toying with us.”
Gunari’s eyes drifted to Liam. The Full Blood squatted on his haunches with his elbows perched upon his knees, grinning wider than a jack-o’-lantern at the Amriany.
“I’ll give a five second head start,” Liam snarled. “That’s only sportin’, eh?”
Of the Half Breeds that Paige had spotted when she first climbed out of the SUV, only one was still standing. Another was doing its best to crawl despite having caught a significant amount of gunfire. Liam’s coat was slick with blood that may or may not have been his own, and Minh had already shaken off wounds given to her by Amriany steel as well as Nadya’s MAC-10. In addition to that, Half Breeds crept in from farther down the street and from the far end of the field. As they drew closer, the sound of panting breaths and anxious yelps drifted upon the stagnant air.
“One …” Liam said.
“Head for the street,” Paige snapped as she began jogging in that direction.
“Two …”
A few choppy commands in a foreign tongue were enough to steer Nadya toward the street. Gunari scooped up Milosh and looped the smaller man’s one remaining arm across the back of his shoulders so he could be dragged away from the SUV.
“Three …”
As all the shapeshifters waited impatiently, Paige and the Amriany made it to the street. Paige rushed over to a car that sat just off the shoulder of the road. She circled around, pulled the driver’s door open and checked inside. Judging by the shredded interior, dented door panels, and shattered glass, the driver had probably been twisted into one of the Half Breeds attacking them. She had never seen werewolves created that quickly, but now wasn’t the time to think that over.
Liam’s voice grew into a thundering roar that exploded from a body swollen into a mass of muscle nearly twice as large as it had been a moment ago. “Four …”
“Come on!” Paige shouted. “The keys are in the ignition. Let’s go !” She didn’t waste any more time or breath on the others. If Gunari or Nadya weren’t going to get in the car she’d found, they deserved whatever they got. The Amriany piled into the Mazda by the time Paige had settled in to the driver’s seat.
“Five!”
Paige started the car, slammed her foot down on the gas pedal and cranked the steering wheel to get the car pointed in the opposite direction. Packs of Half Breeds emerged from behind the few buildings along the side of the road and were quickly joined by more werewolves that tore through the little town in her rearview mirror.
“How come your Dick Jango didn’t see any of this ?” Paige asked while steering toward the building with the big garage door they’d passed on their way from the airport.
“It’s Dikh Chakano. And …now you want to criticize?” Gunari roared in an accent that thickened with every agitated syllable.
She jerked the wheel to the left and sped toward a group of Half Breeds that had raced around the garage. “Where is everyone? Where’s the panic? Where’s the chaos?” she asked while ramming the two lead werewolves with the Mazda’s front bumper “Where’s the freaking cops?”
“No time to worry about that,” Gunari said. “Just get us to the plane. What about your arm?”
Milosh forced a breath through gritted teeth. “My arm is all right. We can save it.” His shirt was soaked through with blood. Nadya had pulled the belt from around his waist and used it to tie a tourniquet around the short stump of his left arm. There was barely enough left to fill the sleeve of a T-shirt.
“I’m talking about your arm, Paige,” Gunari said. “You were attacked by the female Weshruuv.”
“The Full Blood?”
“Yes. She cut you with claws that had to have gone down to the bone and then licked the wound. She wanted to turn you.”
“Speaking of turning …” It was a clumsy transition, but served its purpose when accompanied by a hard swerve to the right so she could drive off-road and avoid a blockade of encroaching Half Breeds. Liam’s massive ebon frame approached from behind and to the right, forcing her to turn sharply again.
The Full Blood trotted to the street and then alongside the Mazda.
He actually trotted.
In her years of being a Skinner, Paige had never thought she’d see something like that.
“Are you listening to me?” Gunari asked.
After faking Liam out with a quick swerve to the left, she steered in the other direction and hit the gas to speed around the back side of the airport. “No!” she snapped.
“I asked you if the Weshruuv bit through to the bone. Tell me if she did or didn’t.”
“Save it for the plane.”
“No,” Gunari snapped as he lifted his .44 to point it at Paige’s temple. “Tell me right now. If you’ve been turned, it’s better for everyone if you die now.”
“While I’m driving?”
“Yes.”
When Paige blinked, her vision was obscured for a fraction of a second. That was enough time for her to catch a remembered glimpse of Minh’s narrow snout as it formed the words, Enjoy your Breaking, Skinner.
“Tell me,” Gunari insisted.
“She didn’t get through to bone,” Paige said while holding her arm out to him. “See for yourself. She did want to turn me, just like it seemed they turned the rest of this town. The only one we need to worry about now is Milosh.”