2. Aliana
ALIANA
At least thirty tongues appear in a swarm, flying over a blasted glass skyscraper next to us and swooping down to hover above the street in front of our pharmacy.
They’re night visions, named that because their blobby, green forms with multiple gloved hands light up the sky like an aurora.
They wear the black sashes across their chest that mark them as traders in the Ebony Kingdom.
I’ve only ever seen them at a distance before, soaring above the canopy of the forest. When I was young, I used to secretly think the swarms were beautiful because they can fly through the sky so quickly they look like an aurora, dancing green streaks of light.
Now, I know I was young and na?ve, because they’re not beautiful but downright terrifying when they stop and hover in front of us.
Resembling giant emerald cockroach wasps with wings on their backs, green scaly skin, and humanoid legs, their faces are so bug-like that they don’t look like the kind of monsters who’d be sentient.
But when they train their oversized, bulging black eyes on us and their mandibles spread apart, their hissing voices are clear as day.
“Ssssssurrender.” The word slithers out simultaneously from their long forked tongues and skitters down my spine, making me shiver.
I glance over at Bella, who looks as white as a sheet. Our peacemaker’s jaw twitches once in fear, before an unnatural calm settles over her features. Her deep brown eyes turn to stare at me, and for a second, she looks far younger than her sixty years of age.
“I’ll distract them,” she says. “You get out.”
“No—” My words are cut off when she tosses down her binoculars, leaving the valuable tool behind as she vaults over the broken windowsill before I can stop her. She darts into the patch of sunlight between the two buildings, her hair streaking out behind her.
Shocked disbelief plops down in my stomach, like the first warning drops of an impending rainstorm. Shit’s about to get real.
“Move,” Lucas immediately orders in a low, gruff tone from behind me.
I stay crouched, reaching for the binoculars and refusing to look out the ruined window.
A scream slices back to us. My shoulders hunch automatically, but I don’t look outside, because I can’t.
If I do, I’ll want to shoot every last one of those fuckers.
But there’s no way I’ll be able to take out thirty of them.
Not to mention the fact that doing so would completely negate the sacrifice Bella’s making for us.
“Hurry up, Aliana,” Chase snarls, already halfway across the pharmacy.
I want to tell him to shut the fuck up, but that might draw attention to us. He should know better than to talk right now anyway.
His anger immediately goads me into moving twice as fast as before, hurrying through the aisles, avoiding those near the windows where I can hear the buzz of night vision wings. They’re so loud, they sound almost like the hum of a car engine.
I hurry toward Lucas, who’s crouched in the middle of the room, staring down at a map he used to navigate us here—a map of NYC before the end of modern civilization.
I stand shoulder to shoulder next to Eon, who’s clutching his rifle in his thin fingers, his shallow breathing revealing his fear.
Lucas squints down at the map and moves the paper back and forth underneath his eyes. He’s becoming farsighted, and we’d hoped to snag him a pair of reading glasses on this trip if we could find some. He’ll be going home without them now. If we get home at all.
“I think there’s a subway entrance on the corner,” the big, lumberjack-looking fellow whispers to us. “We’d have to run for it, but if we make it, they can’t fly well in there.”
“Plus, it’s dark in there,” Chase adds, stating the obvious, but I know what he means. The glowing monsters will be easy to spot. We won’t be. Ironically enough, night visions don’t have night vision.
I nod my agreement instead of speaking, trying to ignore the strange chattering sound erupting from the night visions outside.
Though they can speak English to command us, a lot of monsters prefer to converse in their native tongues, and night vision language has a lot of insect-like clicking and clacking.
They’re probably giving out instructions about how to collect us.
That thought squeezes my gullet and makes it hard to breathe.
I try to rein in the fear pressing against my chest. I won’t let myself be taken.
I won’t become one of those simpering fools with a chain on their leg who bows before their monster like he’s a king.
I’ve seen too many people waste away at the clawed feet of cruel, inhuman creatures, and I refuse to be one of them.
And I’m not going to let this mission go to waste either. There are people back home counting on us. I shrug my quiver and backpack from my shoulders and hand the backpack strap to Eon. Slight and skinny, he’s the least competent fighter among us. But he’s fast.
He looks at me curiously as I put my quiver of bolts back on.
“You should hide in the pharmacy room,” I tell him. “The pill-powder residue in there will keep most teeth away, and we’ll lure these tongues out of here. I’d wait a couple hours to make your move, but then book it for home.”
Eon opens his mouth, and I can see the protest forming on his lips.
I shake my head to cut him off. “Don’t. People need that shit. This is the plan.”
I leave no room for argument. He’s got a backpack full of monster-detection devices and meds. He has to make it out.
The skinny man gives me a brief nod and clutches the bag to his chest. I turn to the other two men.
Chase is giving me a look that I can only assume is disapproval.
Stupid shit probably thinks I should have sent him back instead.
If he were the better runner, I might have because he’s definitely not the last person I want to see before I—
Nope. Not even gonna think it.
Eon breaks off from us and heads to the right, where a metal door and some long abandoned registers mark off the prescription section of this pharmacy.
Then the rest of us turn and head down the center aisle to the back of the store on the west side.
Lucas, Chase, and I all pause before a metal loading dock door and prep our weapons.
The guys check their guns, releasing their safety locks.
Lucas tucks away his map into his breast pocket and unsheathes a machete so he holds a gun in one hand and the oversized knife in the other.
Meanwhile, I load a bolt into my crossbow before opening my switchblade and sticking it into the pocket of my pants. Dangerous, yes—but I’m guessing we’re going to have some close encounters of the monstrous kind, and I’m not going to want to waste a minute opening my knife then.
Lucas makes eye contact with both of us before he gives a solid nod. A second later, his meaty boot smashes the door open, and we rush outside.
The swarm immediately descends, wings zizzing all around.
I spot the metallic guardrails for the subway system not twenty yards off and yell, “Left!”
Our boots pound against the pavement as six night visions swoop down toward us. I don’t stop running as I aim and shoot my first bolt, hitting a fucker square between the eyes.
Back home, under the canopy, I might have done a victory dance, but right now, all I do is swivel my gaze, looking for more. My hands automatically load another bolt, a motion that’s nearly as familiar as breathing for me.
Lucas shoots one fucker in the shoulder, but Chase misses a shot, sending a bullet spiraling uselessly into the sky.
“Goddammit!” He wastes breath on complaining.
I swear to any God left that if his face is the last thing I see, I’m going to rain down fire in the afterlife.
I dart forward, jumping a fallen trash bin and taking the stairs two at a time, crossbow aimed down as I search for any threats that might be lingering in the shadows. The night visions might not like the tunnel, but that doesn’t mean other monsters won’t.
I search the darkness below me as I start down the steps, but I don’t see anything.
Lucas bellows from behind me, and the sound echoes down in the subway station.
His voice draws out two teeth that skitter along the tracks.
He shoots them while I turn and cover his six.
I back sideways down the stairs as twenty night visions land on the sidewalk that leads to these stairs and start marching towards us.
I pick off two in quick succession, but the others keep coming. I decide to save my bolts for down in the tunnel, see if I can take up a strategic position somewhere and pick them off since I’ve got limited ammo.
The night visions don’t wield weapons, but most monsters don’t need to. They’re born with the power to torture humankind.
When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I wrack my brain as I load a new bolt, trying to remember what it is that these bastards can do, but my memory fails me. There are thousands of types of monsters out here.
I shoot another one that’s getting close while yanking off its black gloves.
A hiss escapes him as he falls to his knees, and I retreat a few more steps down towards the dark, arching tunnel of the subway.
Chase stays in position near the entrance as I glance over at Lucas.
Our lumberjack shoots up at a night vision that’s trying to hop down the stairs.
But even as he shoots, he’s signaling with his machete.
Two shakes with the nondominant hand between shots means you’re low on ammo.
Fuck.
We need to get all of them in here so Eon has a chance. I press my lips together and then do the one thing certain to lure traders.
I speak.
“Come on, fuckwits!” I yell, before I turn and barrel down the tunnel, heading towards the tracks.
Traders love women because they fetch a higher price at the auction.
Chase’s outraged face flashes by my side as he runs next to me.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he snarls.