Katryzna raised an eyebrow. “If you want them to kill you? I’d better come with you.”
“Absolutely not. If you knew this Eyes, I assume they know you?” She didn’t deny it. “I’ll get my people on this. You can . . . lay low here for now.”
“I relax while you do the boring work?” Her face shone at the offer, and she took in the room anew. Her hand was suddenly in front of Tasker, dirty skin cracked. “Deal.”
“I just washed,” he reminded her.
Katryzna wiped the hand quickly on her jacket and held it out again. Possibly dirtier. But it was earnest enough. Tasker shook and she squeezed hard before backing off with a wink. “Great, this is going to be fun.”
It would be something, he was sure enough of that. His best bet was probably to get a couple of local agents to watch her in the meantime, run background –
“Oh!” She raised a finger. “Don’t tell anyone you met me. Even your friends. Especially your friends. That’s for your safety, more than mine.”
7
When she was done needling Stomatt, Leigh-Ann moved from the kitchen to crouch in front of Zip, whose little legs dangled over the edge of a stool. “Well, little miss, how you hanging in here?”
“I’m fine,” Zip said, going still at Leigh-Ann’s proximity.
“You don’t gotta be scared, okay? Get past Sto’s loudness and everything else about us is pure charm. I, for one, am glad to have another woman on the team.”
“Are you Reece’s girlfriend?” Zip asked, so blunt it made Leigh-Ann back off and laugh. The kid looked hurt, not sure what was funny.
“No, nope, never,” Leigh-Ann said, summarising a complicated relationship in three simple words. Not all true; they’d had a fling when they were, what, fourteen? Awkward, fumbling shit – on account of they knew each other too well. All the girls loved Reece, but it didn’t click for either of them – and that was the start of Leigh-Ann having all sorts of Doubts she wasn’t entirely resolved on yet. But she gave Zip the simplest explanation: “We like family, okay? All of us. Now, do I hear a tinge of the English in that accent? I’ve got some British in me – Leigh’s spelt all funny with the g and the h – my dad wanted me to have an old country name.”
“It’s pretty,” Zip replied. “Zip’s from the Bible. Zipporah.”
Leigh-Ann snickered. “Wow. And your God-loving sadistic-child-naming mommy, where’s she right now?”
That flummoxed the poor kid.
“Your mom, Zip? She home with Daddy?”
Zip chewed her lower lip.
“Don’t you wanna go home?” The child nodded vigorously. “Then what’s this hang-up? You can trust us, we’re your crewe now. Even though Sto smells like garbage and Caleb would give up a kidney for magic beans, we stick tog –”
A roar shook the room and Leigh-Ann shot upright. A great raw sound, not machinery but something alive, something massive. Zip’s eyes got bigger as Stomatt stumbled in – then the kid shrieked, so loud Leigh-Ann had to cover her ears: “They’re here!”
“Damn hell!” Stomatt shouted, and the noise outside came again.
Leigh-Ann turned towards it, about to run for the door, but Zip latched onto her, crying, “Don’t let him get me don’t let him get me!”
“What in hell, kid?” Leigh-Ann barked, pushing back at her. “What is that?”
“Who’s coming?” Stomatt demanded, as though they’d been keeping something from him. “Sounds like a damn dragon!”
“Please please please!”
Leigh-Ann struggled to disentangle Zip’s clawing grip. Every time she got a couple fingers free the others snapped back into place. The roar came again, closer, a battle cry. Leigh-Ann shoved, hard, and Zip stumbled with a gasp.
“Leigh!” Reece’s voice cut through the room. Suddenly staring from the door. Hell of a time to walk in.
“She wouldn’t let go!” Leigh-Ann snapped, not about to apologise with some devil beast out there. She followed Stomatt’s example, going for the weapons bag, and pulled the big guy out of the way. He dragged his stumpy shotgun with him as Leigh-Ann got a hand on the old familiar MAC-10.
“What is it?” Reece said. “Anyone see –”
“It’s them, Reece, it’s them!” Zip said, running terrified to embrace him.
“What’s she talking about them?” Stomatt yelled. “That’s something inhuman!”
“Something in the field!” Caleb skidded into the room. “Think it’s Steers? Sto?”
Stomatt ran out the door, pounding for the back porch. Slipping free of Zip, Reece moved right behind him, pistol twirling out the holster. Leigh-Ann and Caleb exchanged a dumb look – the child trembled worriedly in the middle of the room. Leigh-Ann said, “You got those trucks going?”
“Was just –”
The roar came again, undulating as whatever made the sound moved up and down, quickly approaching. Stomatt shouted back at it, loud and harsh and without meaning. Leigh-Ann said, “Fuck it, load up! Grab the kid!”
Caleb swooped to lift Zip, as Leigh-Ann hoisted the weapons duffel over a shoulder and snatched the other bag. Weighed down like her knees might buckle, she charged through the living room away from that awful sound.
A gunshot boomed, Stomatt’s shotgun shaking the windows.
“Go go go!” Leigh-Ann screamed and Caleb raced ahead. She burst into daylight and skidded over the porch, twisting to see Stomatt and Reece running to the side of the building. “What in damn hell is it?”
“Damned if I know!” Reece shouted. “Ran right past – quick as a snake, big as a bull!”
“I’m getting it!” Stomatt disappeared around the corner. He fired again.
“We’re leaving!” Leigh-Ann shouted, and Reece backed up, nodding. Caleb was already halfway to the trucks. Leigh-Ann moved on, throwing a look back at the door as Nina emerged, pale and uncomprehending. “What kind of animals you got on this fucked-up farm?”
Nina’s mouth moved wordlessly, shocked as the rest of them.
“More messed up by the second,” Leigh-Ann muttered, then shouted to Reece’s back, “What’s the worst that can happen! What’s the worst, he says!”
A huge crash of metal and snapping wood came on the other side of the farmhouse, spurring them all to move faster. Caleb threw the first truck’s door open and gently, for all the urgency, lifted Zip in.
“Whoa!” Reece warned and Leigh-Ann twisted to see the beast tear into view, breaking through the far corner of the house and ripping chunks of wall with it.
“Holy hell,” Caleb gasped, stepping back from the truck.
“The fuck . . .” Leigh-Ann added.
It was a creature of size and ferocity to match the noise that carried it here. Its skin was black as pitch where it wasn’t patterned by clumps of grey fur, and its eyes shone mad, murky yellow, within a flat face of wrinkled flesh and bared fangs. Though hunched, with its hind legs doubled and back arched, its shoulders stood tall as the truck and the front-arms that supported it were wide as pillars, ripped with muscle and jointed in more places than looked natural. Breath came out its big nostrils in steam as it reared up.