Human screams died away in the distance, leaving the island in silence. Even the gunfire had stopped.
X searched for Magnolia again but still didn’t see her.
The lonely wail of a Siren shattered the stillness, and another monster answered the call. Hearing that sound, X still felt a shiver. They were once again the alphas in control of the outpost.
He zoomed the binos in on the refinery. Bodies of ITC slaves lay crumpled, gutted, many of them missing limbs. He had never seen one of the cryofrozen humans outside their chambers, and he couldn’t help but feel pity for them all.
But he was more worried about Magnolia.
Where the hell was she?
Victor pointed his rifle north, toward the harbor. “Men,” he said quietly.
X panned the binos to five men in armored suits. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw that the metal wasn’t covered in human skin.
These weren’t skinwalkers. They were the remaining Barracudas he had ordered to flank along the shoreline. Several limped from injuries, and the biggest man of the team had an arrow in his chest armor, the end already snapped off.
X didn’t want to leave without Magnolia, but he had a feeling she was hunkered down, waiting to make her move. Another fear crossed his mind: that a Siren had gotten to her.
X took the same ladder back to the ground with Victor. They joined the team of Barracudas in the boatyard.
The man with the arrow jutting from his chest armor walked over. It was Willis, the English-speaking Cazador X had talked to on the beach.
“King Xavier,” Willis said, “we cleared a patrol from the shore.”
“Good work. Victor and I took out the skinwalkers here, with a little help from the Sirens.”
“The demons.”
X nodded. “There are at least fifteen still out there.”
Willis nodded.
“Shadow is sailing east,” he said. “We saw Raven’s Claw to the northeast.”
X looked back out to sea but couldn’t distinguish much beyond the scrapyard. The warships would meet, eventually.
In the meantime, he had to do his part. It was not ideal and not the way he had planned it, but six able warriors stood in front of him and Victor. Once they linked up with Magnolia, he would take them into the outpost to clear the buildings and root out the rats.
X explained the plan to Willis, who then relayed it to his soldiers.
Pulling out his blaster, X led the way back through the scrapyard, hoping Magnolia was somewhere out here, waiting.
The Barracudas fanned out, weapons shouldered.
X went back the way he had come, all the way to the fence he and Victor had cut through after disabling the power.
Several sheds and abandoned structures provided cover from the fences to the building where Magnolia had laid down covering fire. He raised his binos to the window where he had last seen her. Nothing moved behind the opening.
X pushed forward. She would have seen him by now. Something had happened to her.
You should never have left her, you old prick.
The abandoned building was one of several outside the outpost and refinery. The others were just long warehouses. He kept low, eyes up, forward, then down—where he spotted Siren tracks. They led to the building on his left where he had last seen Magnolia.
The sight turned his gut to ice.
Another pair of prints angled toward the warehouse on his right.
He started running toward the larger building’s back entrance. The first set of Siren tracks led right to it.
Victor and the Barracudas followed him to the back wall, where they could see a wide alley between the buildings. He halted when he saw a flatbed truck parked diagonally at the other end, with a shipping container on the back. He hadn’t seen it before, but then again, he hadn’t checked the alley for anything but contacts.
X continued to the exit door that opened into a stairwell. Ash tracks led up into the dark building.
He stopped to listen for the prowling monsters. The other soldiers set up along the back wall.
A rattling sound rose over the wind. It wasn’t coming from inside the building.
Victor started to move around the corner to look into the alley, but X stopped him and went first.
A Siren had perched on the adjacent warehouse, all the way down by the parked truck. The eyeless head tilted like that of a curious bird on a branch. Its mouth opened into what looked like a macabre grin. Then it lowered its bald white head and tore into a body it had dragged up to the roof, where it could eat in peace. A bloody arm hung over the edge.
X swallowed, hoping to God it wasn’t Magnolia. He pointed his spear at the monster.
The Barracudas followed him into the wide alley, past rusted trash bins and piles of bricks.
Halfway down the alley, he stopped. The rattling came again. But it wasn’t coming from the rooftop as he had suspected.
His eyes flitted to the container on the truck. This wasn’t some abandoned vehicle. It had inflated tires. The back end was much lower than the front, indicating much weight in the container.
X looked back to the Siren and saw that it was chewing on an ITC worker. Relief filled him—it wasn’t Mags.
The beast suddenly shrieked and arched its spiked back, grasping an arrow in its side.
A second arrow and a third struck the creature, knocking it off the side of the building. It landed with a thud on the back bumper of the truck.
The shipping container shook violently, and a roar sounded inside.
X took a step back as the container door clanked open and a hulking figure emerged, glowing in the green hue of his optics. He flipped his NVGs off, expecting to see the orange visor and battery unit of a defector, but instead he saw a gargantuan monster.
Bones formed bars over the bulging muscles across its body. Barbed spheres protruded from the double-jointed elbows and kneecaps.
This was no machine, but a bone beast, or what the Cazadores also called a demon king. A metal halo was bolted onto its bony head, like some sort of evil crown.
The creature went down on one spiked kneecap, hunching slightly. Jutting from its back were the long, sharp bones that X had seen other bone beasts use as spears. But unlike those abominations, this creature seemed strangely docile.
X motioned for the Barracudas to get back. They all knew what it was, and needed no encouragement. Victor was the only one to step forward.
Whoever had shot the bolts at the Siren still had not emerged, and several Barracudas had run over to the warehouse to flank.
A buzzing sounded, and the bone beast reached up with a paw to the crown on its head, letting out a raucous cry that scrambled distant birds into the sky.
The monster jumped out of the container and landed on the ground, exposing a skinwalker in the back of the truck, who held a long black rod that connected to the metal crown.
“No!” X yelled when Victor went to shoot the man.
It was too late, and the burst hit the soldier in the chest. He released the rod, and the bone beast looked over its spiked shoulder.
Roaring, it grabbed the soldier and ripped off both legs like chicken bones. Then it whirled, flinging the limbs at X and Victor.
“Aim for the eyes!” X yelled. “Open fire!”
Rounds lanced into the creature as it bounded forward.
X almost tripped as he turned to run with Victor.
Two Barracudas were on their knees, firing assault rifles at the abomination, but X knew all too well they were going to need luck.
He ran past them, almost skidding in the dirt when he saw that a group of skinwalkers had flanked them from the scrapyard. The ten soldiers held rifles, spears, and bows, but none of them aimed their weapons yet.