Cold Moon Rising (4 page)

I decided that it would be prudent to separate myself from the snake man when his jaw opened enough to let out a low hiss. I picked up both my weapon and Will’s and slipped into the undergrowth to get a better location for shooting.

Things happened pretty quickly after that. It didn’t take any great amount of skill to aim and fire on the first guy who caught my eye at the far ring of guards. Like Ahmad instructed, a two-shot kill. That’s the rule for taking out Sazi . . . once in the head and once in the heart. Pop, pop, too fast for the body to heal. I’ve been practicing to lower my time and increase my accuracy, because you really do only get two chances with these guys—especially the powerful ones. But, as expected, once one guard went down the others got all riled up.

Sprays of bullets started firing every direction. Stupid, in my opinion, and I changed my mind about these guys being pros. Movies make it look like there’s unlimited ammo in the world. But in reality, a fifty-round clip takes about five seconds to dump with a full auto, and close to a quarter minute for even a Sazi to reload it. Sure, you can slap in another clip and keep going, but your average-joe-villain on a payroll isn’t considered worth the money to give a dozen clips to. They had the standard taped doublestack clip and probably a load more in an ammo dump somewhere. But somewhere’s a long way away when you’re taking fire.

Ahmad actually didn’t have a bad idea. Everybody was concentrating on my fire as I raced back and forth between multiple points and switched weapons so they’d think there were more of us, while he was sneaking around the edges and just . . . touching people. It was sort of hard to concentrate on my own predicament because he was just strolling up in human form and putting a finger on their neck. A guard would freeze in place with an expression of abject fear and intense pain and then they’d just drop to the ground with a glassy stare seconds later. It was like they weren’t even seeing him walk up, bold as brass. I know alphas can cast illusions to make themselves appear to be almost anything, but it just seemed really odd that they wouldn’t notice him at all.

I well and truly need to learn to keep my mouth shut around him.

Out of the corner of my eye as I was taking out another guard, I saw the woman named Tuli starting to push the other women toward the open helicopter door. Angelique wasn’t even resisting. She just looked confused, but the other woman was fighting like a . . . well, a tiger to stay on the ground and she was apparently important enough to them that they weren’t willing to kill her. But the chopper needed to be eliminated from the picture anyway, so I turned my fire and first took out the pilot through the windshield and then started to systematically fire at the base of the prop . . . between bouts of keeping my ass alive.

There was finally a satisfying spray of fluid as I cut a pressurized line and then wisps of smoke began to appear in the sky. Shortly thereafter, people started darting away from the machine as the whirring thup from the prop turned into an angry screech of tortured metal.

Unlike the movies once again, it didn’t explode. While there’s something really satisfying about watching a kick-ass explosion, helicopter manufacturers would have a hundred lawsuits a week if the unit exploded just because a coolant line went down. No, it just started smoking and then ground to a halt, all parts intact. No harm, no foul.

Well, unless you wanted to go somewhere.

Will was there in a flash, diving down in a blur of speed. He did some fancy flicking of a few feathers at the back of his wings, and suddenly he was coming out of the dive, a shoulder and arm gripped in each powerful talon as he fought to gain altitude with two-hundred-plus pounds of weight dangling under him. I’ve noticed that some of those tiger women are really dense, muscle-wise. But the birds are light as . . . well, a bag of feathers, so I’ll just bet he was having loads of fun trying to stay level.

Blood poured and the women’s screams of anger and pain were nearly equal to the panicked shouts of the soldiers as their tickets to employment were fast rising above the tree line. The few that weren’t smart enough to watch their own backs were soon on their backs with a quick succession of dual shots.

But it was getting harder and harder to concentrate on shooting as the scent of blood, fear, and anger drifted up on the rising warm air currents. Will’s cocoon was still tight around me, but I could feel it lessening as he pulled back power to carry his load.

The farther away with the women Will got, the more the moon started pressing down on me—messing with my head and making every bone in my body scream in pain. But been there, done that, so I guess it was time to put on my big-boy undies and fight off the moon myself. Fortunately, there’s a good reason for Sazi to have mates. There’s extra life energy available to draw on when it’s crisis time. And y’know, when there’s suddenly a dozen guards looking pissed and staring right at your location while flipping ammo clips, it’s a good bet a crisis is heading your way.

A pair of shots rang out from behind me. It was only my paranoid nature and slightly hyperactive survival instinct that made me dive and roll the moment I heard the first shot, so the chunk of hot lead only grazed my neck and shoulder instead of splattering my brain across the landscape. I fired multiple shots toward the blur of light through the leaves and was satisfied to smell the scent of new pennies join the anger and pain on the wind. It didn’t make my arm feel any better, but at least I had company in my misery.

Of course, now everybody knew where I was, so I didn’t really have time to tend to my boo-boo. It was all I could do to grab my two weapons, race toward the fallen scout to grab his extra ammo . . . kicking him sharply in the head first, so he didn’t get any bright ideas about following me, and dive face-first into the wall of green in the approximate location of the cliffs. Ahmad was going to have to be on his own, but he’s been around for a very long time, so I was betting he was fully capable of handling his end.

Thankfully, most of the trees in the area were tall enough that even the lower branches were over my head, so I could see the cliffs looming ahead of me without having to constantly readjust my path. It made escaping a lot easier, since the guys after me probably knew the terrain better. It also helped that they considered their guns to be an asset. They’d actually be quicker in their snake form, and could probably overtake me and take me down by sheer force. But having no arms really limits ranged weapon opportunities in case there was more than just me out here, or I was a tougher opponent than they expected.

The trouble was that I was getting out of breath quicker than I should and the rifles felt like they were getting heavier and heavier. A glance down told me that the slick on the metal wasn’t sweat. It was blood, and there was a lot more of it than there should be. I slung the Mac-10 over my neck and reached up with my left hand to feel distinct spurts of wetness that matched the beating of my heart.

Crap. The bullet had nicked the carotid artery. I was bleeding out.

Chapter Three

NO WONDER THE snakes weren’t bothering to speed up. In a few minutes, they could stop running altogether and leave my corpse for the animals.

One of the worst things about being a three-day dog is that even though I heal better than when I was human, it would still be hours before I’d recover. Still too slow of a process to make up for the loss of blood.

I had limited options. If I kept running from the snakes and kept my heart pumping hard, I’d die just that much quicker. If I slowed down, instead of a relatively painless descent into oblivion from loss of blood, I’d die in agony from a snakebite or torture. These Sazi snakes are really into torture, and that’s not a road I cared to go down.

So, running it was.

I pressed the palm of my hand against my neck to slow down the escape of the blood and raced for the relative safety of the cliffs after throwing a few sprays of bullets behind me to keep heads down for a moment. I didn’t think that Will or Ahmad would be overly appreciative of me painting a scent trail right to the prisoner’s hidey-hole, since it sort of defeats the whole purpose of the rescue. But a cave is more easily defended than open air, and I was pretty sure that the blood from the shoulder wounds Will had inflicted were being tracked as well.

The sounds of rifle fire and the occasional shotgun blast as I neared the cliffs told me I was right. It was a pleasant surprise that the majority of weapon fire was coming out of the cave. Either Will had picked up some artillery during the flight, or Ahmad had already stocked the cave in preparation of a firefight. Magic against magic is fine when it’s one on one or even one on six, but the best alpha will wind up toast against a dozen or more other magic users. Ranged weapons are a good thing, which is why my skills have become valuable to the Sazi command.

I hoped that his eyesight was as good as he claimed, and he’d been to the range recently, because I was starting to get gray flowers erupting in my vision and my left leg was starting to drag every time I lifted it. “Kerchee! Incoming!”

The clearing right before the cave was going to be a problem, but at least if I was shot, it would be quick. I pulled on the cord of energy inside my mind until I could feel Sue’s heart speeding up to match the adrenaline-laced one in my chest.

The cave mouth was looming as I raced forward and I hoped that the tiny bursts of light from the darkness were aiming at targets other than me. With a primal yell, I threw my last bit of energy to lifting the AK-47, the only gun that still had ammo, and pointing it upside down over my head before pulling the trigger. I probably didn’t hit much more than dirt, but I thought I heard at least one scream before I flung myself face-first into the cave with an appalling lack of finesse and disturbing flash of pain.

Will spoke without even looking back toward me. “About time you got here, wolf. Grab something from the arsenal and give me a hand picking these guys off.”

I flipped over with effort and then scooted on my butt until I was sitting against the wall. The left arm was completely useless now and it was hard to keep my head upright. My voice came out way threadier than I liked and I also didn’t care for the pants for air it took to even get the few words out. “No . . . can do, flyboy. I got . . . tagged. Just felt like . . . dying from something . . . other than a snake . . . bite.”

He turned his head then and took me in with an up-down flick of his eyes. “Well, shit. Rayna, you got anything left to stop that bleeding? Lucas will be pissed to no end if I let him die.”

I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and forced my head to flop so I could see. A pale blond woman who smelled of cat knelt down beside me. She moved my head to the other side so she could see my neck and let out a low, concerned rowr. “The bullet went right through it and part of the vein is missing. It’ll take more skill, or at least more power, than mine to fix it. But you’re a shaman, right, Will? Can’t you heal it up? I can man the entrance until Ahmad gets here.”

The bright light behind Will began to fade to gray as Rayna stood and hurried forward, and the retort from the muzzle seemed to grow fainter as my heart slowed down. Really, if I had to go, this wasn’t so bad. I just wished I could find Sue in my mind. I could feel her body, but it was like her voice was muffled behind a brick wall. I could only hear the tiniest sound, but her voice too was fading fast.

I’d like to say I dreamed, but that wouldn’t be quite right. It was more that things were happening around me, but I wasn’t a participant. There were female voices now, and the sounds of quiet chanting in a language I didn’t recognize. Fire appeared in the form of a torch and the cave was suddenly brightly lit. I was looking back toward the cave entrance and it was farther away, like I was deeper in the cave, and standing.

The standing part was nice. It gave me hope, however false.

Shadows appeared at the cave entrance, but instead of panicking like I should, it felt good . . . right that they’d finally arrived. Like they should be here. Both men and women walked carefully into the cave, their bodies painted and covered with feathers and fur. They smelled of more than just skins, though. They were shifters, like me. Some were wolves, some cats, and a few raptors and snakes. They walked with quiet deliberation deeper into the cave and I moved with them, like I was floating overhead. Or sometimes beside. There was a path worn smooth in the stone from a thousand other treks like this one. But this visit was more important. There was a sense of something nearly sacred about these people. Maybe they were priests or shamans or even seers.

They could fix the corruption that was to come, could mend the damage already caused. The chanting started again and one man stepped from the middle of the procession and raised a book high over his head, turning as he spoke. The book was fuzzy and had the sickly pattern and color of the science experiment you’d find in a cup of sugared coffee forgotten for a week. The faces of the others turned from placid to angry and the few people willing to glance at the book wore an expression of loathing.

Now a question. I only knew because of the lilt of the words at the end of the sentence. The others met his eyes as he turned and they all nodded assent. The man turned again and now I could see the blackened hole that had been dug into the cave wall. The book was lowered onto a flimsy patterned skin, like a python shed from a man-sized snake. Over and over it was rolled until it was encased, sealed from the humidity of the cave. There was a sense of relief that permeated the small room. As firelight flickered across the wall paintings of squat men with fierce faces offering food to their gods, the man with the book put the book in the hole. Not with a sense of ceremony, but with the same disgust reserved for roaches found under the fridge.

Darkness, and then the scene changed. Hands were reaching for the book in the hole and I couldn’t stop it. But I knew it was a bad, bad thing. The scent of the shifter who was in the cave was a creosote so strong that it burned my nose. Stronger than Bobby, stronger than Ahmad. This was a force to make the world bow. And somehow I knew the book couldn’t leave the cave in his possession. Bad things would happen and everyone would suffer. Yet I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. I could only watch as the man smiled at a second, shorter man, his thin face familiar, but not enough to put a name to. They left in silence, not a word spoken. Yet the stench and fear they left in the cave would last for years.