Night's Favour (37 page)

Caught under the rock.

— harder, the veins standing out on his forearms.
 
His muscles bunched under his shirt.
 
He pressed harder —

Be free.
 
Or die.

The van skidded backwards as he pushed it away with a heave, the tyres scribing a mark on the ground as they scudded back.
 
He dodged to the side as the van roared forward again and crashed into the parked car, the driver frozen at the controls.
 
One of the tyres burst from the heat, smoke still pouring from the rims as metal started to grate against the ground.
 
Val turned to the helicopter.

It had started to lift from the ground.

His legs weren’t working right, the bullets had torn something inside, but he tried.
 
The pain was ebbing, but not fast enough, as he pushed himself towards the rising helicopter.
 
Bullets chattered into the ground around him, but he didn’t hear them.
 
The helicopter rose faster above him, and he crouched down, legs bunching up.
 
He saw a face —
Adalia!
— above him.
 
Someone was trying to drag her back from the edge, but she was fighting, biting and scratching.
 
Time seemed to slow, and he saw her spitting and striking like a feral cat.

Val jumped.

His arm was stretched out above him.
 
He reached for the skids of the helicopter above him.
 
Val’s hand grabbed the edge of it as a soldier stood out over the edge.
 
He recognised the face —

Enemy.

— from the hospital, the man who’d smiled with dead eyes.
 
He was holding a rifle, a fleck of red on the clip catching Val’s eye.
 
Val could see Adalia screaming as she looked down at him.
 
The man had that same dead smile as he pulled the trigger and fired a single shot.
 
The pain was pure and bright, and smoke peeled from the bullet hole in his shoulder.
 
He clawed at the skids with his other hand as the helicopter rose higher, pulling hard to gain altitude.

The man leaned down next to the edge of the open door.
 
“Mr. Everard.”
 
His voice was raised over the sound of the rotors, almost a shout.
 
He checked his weapon, then looked back down at Val.
 
“Please, do us all a favour and just die.”
 
Then he pushed the rifle against Val’s chest and squeezed the trigger, holding it down.

Val stretched a hand up to Adalia as he fell.
 
The last thing he saw was her face, the tears leaving silver tracks in the night.

☽ ◇ ☾

The creature hunted.

Blood tracked down from its throat and chest, flowing freely as it grabbed the driver of the van in one clawed hand.
 
The rage burned inside it, bright as a new sun, brighter than the pain, as it tore the man’s body apart and tossed the pieces to the ground.
 
It ripped the side off the van, grabbing the soldier from inside as if it were plucking a chocolate from a variety box.
 
It swatted the rifle away, then slammed the man into the ground again and again.
 
The man’s body flopped like a wet noodle when it had finished with him.
 
It arched its head back and howled its rage and loss at the sky.

Then it turned lambent, yellow eyes on the crowd.

Prey
.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Danny had lost sight of Val.
 
A helicopter passed overhead, and on a hunch she turned her little car down a street in that general direction.
 
Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel, fingers gripping so hard that the blood left them.
 
The car’s engine whined as she held the gas to the floor.
 
She could smell something like smoke as she wrenched the wheel to avoid other cars.
 
The brakes were getting spongy as she stamped the pedals like some bizarre game of whack-a-mole, trying to gain speed after each brake and dodge of traffic.

My baby.
 
She had to catch up with Valentine.
 
My baby’s been taken
.

The traffic was starting to thin.
 
She wound down the window, slowing down for a moment. She thought she could hear the racket of gunfire —
there!
— and she floored the car again.
 
The sounds overlaid each other through the open window, the car’s engine, the chatter of the rifles, and the thumping of the helicopter as it blasted over the night sky.
 
She couldn’t see it anymore, but its pitch was changing.
 
Danny didn’t know much about helicopters except what she saw in movies, but she knew her city.
 
A helicopter flying low and dark over the city streets was unheard of.

As unheard of as someone snatching her little girl.
 
Or of —

Blood.

— she swallowed.
 
Danny had ducked through the open door of Mandy’s apartment after Val had —

He loves me
.

— jumped down the elevator shaft, the doors sliding closed behind him.
 
Mandy had been on the floor, blood staining her shirt, pooling underneath her.
 
Danny had fumbled for her phone, making the emergency call.
 
Mandy had whispered something she couldn’t understand before slipping into unconsciousness.
 
The guilt had sung inside her head, loud as the sound from the bottom of the hotel, and then she’d run.
 
Run out the door of the apartment, and back down the stairs, taking them three at a time.
 
She’d been able to follow Val’s path — where Adalia was being taken — by the stopped cars peppering the road.
 
Danny was glad of her car then; beat up as it was, its size let her move through intersections a larger car would have been snared in.
 
She’d climbed the footpath, hand on the horn to warn pedestrians, as she’d tried to catch up, but she’d lost them.

The helicopter was all she had left.

It was as Danny was leaning forward, trying to catch another glimpse of the helicopter through the buildings around her, that she hit the man.
 
The crump as he hit the front of her car jerked her back to the here and now as he tumbled up and onto the windshield.
 
The hit hadn’t been that hard — she’d just turned a corner — but it left a dent in the hood of the car.
 
She slammed on the brakes, the man rolling off and landing on the street.

Danny grabbed for the door handle, yanking it and stumbling as she got out.
 
“My God!
 
I’m so sorry!
 
Are you all right?”
 
She stepped towards the man, who was scrambling to his feet.
 
Why had he been on the road anyway?
 
She was sure she hadn’t skipped a red —

“Lady!”
 
He grabbed her arm with both hands.
 
“Run!”
 
Then he was gone, stumbling back down the street the way she’d come.

She stared after him a few moments.
 
He must be confused from the impact, dazed.
 
Danny looked after him, then back the way he’d come.
 
The way she was driving.
 
She saw the smoke rising, and heard the sound of the helicopter fading as it pulled further away.

Where were all the other people?

Danny saw another man running for her.
 
He was dressed in black.
 
“What’s happening?”

The man ignored the question, grabbing her and roughly shoving her away from the car.
 
Then he jumped in the open driver’s door, slamming it closed, and floored her car.

“Hey!”
 
She waved her arms, but the man in her car ignored her, swerving the car in a U to go back the way she’d come.
 
Come to think of it, he was dressed a lot like those soldiers from the hospital —

That was when she saw it.
 
My God.

The creature loped up to the turning car, smoke peeling from the tyres as the man inside tried to make her car go faster.
 
The thing kept pace with the car, loping alongside as it gained speed down the street, then reached out one clawed arm and punched through the passenger window.
 
It gripped onto the metal frame of the door and pulled, slowing the car.
 
The wheels still spun, more and more smoke rising, as the creature hauled the car to a stop.
 
The man inside was shouting, screaming something, as the creature lifted the car and tossed it into the wall of a building.

It landed on its roof, the man inside fumbling for the door.
 
He stopped as he saw it coming towards the car, pacing —

Stalking.

— closer with slow measured steps.
 
Danny watched, mouth open in a silent scream, as the creature tore the door off her car and snatched the man from inside.
 
He was babbling now as the creature held him up in front of its face, turning him this way and that.
 
Then it roared, grabbed the man with it’s other arms, and —

She looked away, but couldn’t stop hearing the sounds.
 
The scream that stopped, the gristly tearing sound, the wet spatters.

The silence.

Danny looked back, then froze.
 
The creature was standing in front of her, its head tipped to one side as it looked down on her.
 
It ducked its head forward and sniffed, big chuffing sounds as it tasted the air around her with its nose.
 
It panted, then paced a circle around her as she stood still.
 
She could see the blood streaming down it, tears and holes in its neck and chest.
 
A small whine escaped it.
 
It stood between her and the smoke rising up ahead.
 
She had to go that way, around the thing, to get to Adalia.
 
To get to Valentine.
 
She needed to find them both.

“Please don’t kill me.”
 
It watched her again, its head tipped sideways again like a curious dog.
 
“I — I need to go that way.
 
My little girl.
 
I need to find my baby.”

Oh God.
 
What if Adalia was caught up in this, if this thing had —

It chuffed again at her, one clawed hand raking slowly against the tarmac, cutting grooves in the ground.
 
She watched, fascinated, as the claws cut deep into the ground, little clods of torn pavement bunching and clustering as little furrows were formed.
 
The swipe was sideways, four lines — one for each claw — running perpendicular between her and the creature.
 
It leaned back, staring at her again.

“I —”
 
She looked down at the lines.
 
“I don’t know what that means.
 
Please.
 
I need to go that way.”

It didn’t do anything except look at her, breathing deep and low.
 
Danny started to step sideways slow and careful; she walked to the left, trying to go around the thing.
 
It watched her move, its head turning to follow her.
 
As she made to step forward across the lines cutting through the ground it — quick as a fox — stepped sideways in front of her again.
 
A low growl escaped it, lips pulled back from long white teeth.

“I can’t stay here!”
 
A sob escaped her.
 
“If you’re going to kill me, just do it!
 
But you can’t stop me getting to —”

Those I love
.

“— my daughter!”

It looked from side to side, another whine escaping it.
 
Then it leaned towards her, another growl escaping it.

I don’t want to die
.
 
She reached into her pocket for her phone, holding it up in front of her.
 
“Look, I’ll show you.”
 
She swiped through her photos, pulling up one of Adalia.
 
She’d taken it just a few weeks ago.
 
She held the phone’s tiny screen towards the thing.
 
It looked at the phone, then at Danny.

The gunfire shocked her so much she dropped the phone, the screen going dark as it hit the ground.
 
The creature was on her —
God oh God oh God oh —
before she could flinch.
 
Danny squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the pain.
 
It grabbed her up, and she could smell the thing’s closeness, an animal smell as it held her against its chest.
 
She could hear the gunfire, and the thing roaring, so close and so loud that she was screaming, screaming with it and waiting to die —

The gunfire stopped, and she heard a click.
 
The gun was empty —

It dropped her to the ground, and she landed awkwardly, her tailbone hitting the ground first.
 
The pain of it made her feel sick, and she couldn’t get up.
 
Danny watched as the creature loped towards the soldier dressed in black, fumbling another clip into his weapon.
 
The helicopter screamed into view from behind a building, the noise loud and sudden, rotors beating the air.
 
It was turning in the air, tipping to bring its side to bear on the thing.
 
The creature snatched the man in front of it off the ground, then hurled the man at the helicopter.
 
The turret that was about to fire on it sprayed bullets that cut and chipped a line up a building as the pilot wrenched the helicopter sideways.
 
He wasn’t fast enough, and the soldier’s body hit the side of the helicopter, crumpling a side panel.
 
A man fell from the open side, screaming as he fell to the street.