Page 48 of Blood Bearon
It felt like an hour ago that they had passed out from the edge of the downtown core, and yet still, residential units and small commercial blocks flashed by. With no lack of space around, the town had definitely decided to spread out instead of up.
A rumble of thunder from behind tore her eyes from the road. She watched in the mirror as Khove wrestled with what appeared, to her eyes, to be a minotaur. It made no sense, and her brain categorically rejected the notion, and yet there he was, locked in a death grip with the half-bull, half-man beast that towered over even him by at least a foot or more.
“Are you really going to let that itsy bitsy thing get the better of you?” she called, entirely unsure if taunting him was the best move or not. “Hold on!”
“To what!” Khove yelped as she careened to the side of the road, pasting numerous creatures between the side of the truck and the concrete wall as they passed under the rail bridge that went through town.
They were everywhere. The dark murk that surrounded the truck barely let her see more than twenty feet in any direction except forward, but Rachel knew they were horrifically outnumbered.
Metal screeched as one of the creatures dug into the side paneling of the truck and ripped it free. The metal and the inhuman shape holding onto it tumbled away, its support no longer attached to anything, but more shapes filled the void.
“Khove, they’re going to tear this thing apart before we’re anywhere near safety!” she shouted through the smashed rear windshield.
“Keep driving!” he roared, delivering a powerful kick to the minotaur’s chest that sent it flying back into the darkness. There was no time to relax, however, because two more ugly beasts hopped up to take its place, rocking the truck with their added weight.
“I am!” she called back. “But sooner rather than later, this is going to become a pedal-powered car if you know what I’m saying!”
“What? Yes! Push the pedal all the way down!”
Rachel rolled her eyes. He couldn’t hear a word she was saying.
“This is fine,” she whispered. “This is fine, everything is fine. No reason to worry.”
Something slobbering and savage slammed into the driver’s door, cracking the glass. Rachel screamed. It shattered, and teeth came for her.
“Nottoday,” she growled, left hand jabbing upward with the knife Khove had given her.
The creature—it wasn’t anything she’d ever seen or heard of—howled, the hideous sound filling the cabin and leaving her ears ringing. Rachel didn’t give up, giving the knife a twist before yanking it back just in time.
The beast sagged down onto the window frame, bending the metal as life fled it. A moment later, other hands and hooves andthingsreached in and yanked it—and the door—from the truck.
Completely exposed now, Rachel had no choice but to reduce speed, forced into splitting her attention between driving and fending off the mass of nightmares that surged closer with every mile per hour the vehicle slowed.
Not that they’d had any trouble keeping up before,she thought to herself, slicing out wildly as something tried to grab at her arm.
“How’s it going back there!” she shouted, swerving to the right.
The truck bounced wildly as she squished something beneath the tires.
“Just another day in paradise!” Khove called back, then grunted in pain.
Whipping around to see what happened, she gasped in horror at the sight of him. Khove was covered head to toe in a mixture of red and purple blood, the life-giving fluid turning him into a macabre sort of party costume.
But he never slowed. His attacks came quick and precise, and the blade somehow managed to lop off an arm. How he generated such force into a knife, she couldn’t tell, but Khove didn’t care. He dipped to the side, snagged the arm and used it to fend off one attacker for a split second while he dealt with a third.
The man was a wrecking machine. Three, five, ten monsters went down as she watched in sick fascination every second she had. None of them could stand up to him. They didn’t have his strength, speed, or training.
Yet they had numbers, she reminded herself, slicing at an elfin sort of creature, taking its pointed ear off with her wild, uncoordinated blow. The creature open its mouth to scream, but nothing came out as it disappeared into the flow.
Something landed on the hood and began pounding away at it.
“Khove,” she called. “Brace yourself, hard brake coming up!”
There was a pause, then the truck rocked. Rachel didn’t have time to look back and see what was going on, but she heard his shout. “Do it!”
She slammed both feet down on the brake pedal, and the unsecured monster hurtled forward onto the asphalt, leaving purple stains in its wake. Rachel didn’t wait to see what sort of damage she’d inflicted, because the truck was already roaring as she fed it gas, the pistons churning away mightily as it labored to get back up to speed.
“We’re not going to last much longer!” she shouted. “That idiot did something to the engine.”
