Chapter 11
“What the hell are they?” I raced after Veyyr, down an alley that forced us to go sideways. Why was he running and not fighting? I mean, it wasn’t like he’d been hit with the guard’s magic killing weapon.
“Slicks. Bleeders. Hollows. Pick a name, they have a hundred.” He leapt for a ladder leaning against a building and I followed, scrambling up until we were on the roof, dragging the ladder with us, effectively cutting off pursuit. For the moment.
Before I could ask more questions, he yanked me down into a low crouch, so we were hidden behind the edge of the roof. He put his finger to his lips as the sound of whispering cloth, and the faint scent of death curled up to us. I wrinkled my nose, tasting the rot in the back of my throat.
Slowly he tipped his head so he could look over at the wider street, and I followed suit.
Peering out over the edge I watched in horror as a swarm of bleeders, hardly making any noise other than the shuffle of their clothes.
They were amazingly light footed, almost comical in how they pranced down the street, their arms out wide, their heads tipped back as they scented the air.
A chill swept through me, and I was sure to my bones I’d faced them before. I found myself touching a divot in my right thigh, just above my knee. A bite from one of them. But when? And how had I gotten away?
Because no amount of fighting skill would keep you alive against these indefinitely.
There were just too many, like a swarm. Their bodies were angular, bone and muscle, black veins and sharp teeth.
Eyes sunken so deep in their heads I wasn’t sure how they were seeing, and yet as predators, they saw every single movement.
The flutter of a curtain drew them.
A cat scuttling across the street.
A few of the bleeders peeled off from the main pack with each movement, but it wasn’t like the group was any smaller. If anything, it seemed to grow with each step. There had to be at least a hundred, maybe more.
And all that was why Veyyr had run.
I looked up to see Sorrow on an updraft, wisely not landing. He tipped his head, giving me a serious side-eye and I couldn’t blame him. At least he didn’t let off a fucking caw.
Veyyr pressed his mouth close to my ear, his whisper low.
“They hunt in massive packs, and they don’t die unless you remove their head completely.
They don’t eat flesh they come for the blood, their own having been leeched away by the Necro King.
He set them on the world, in retaliation… for the loss of his woman.”
Necro King. Another name that meant nothing to me and yet I felt like I should have known it.
I looked down at the creatures hurrying, fucking prancing, through the alley below us. They didn’t shuffle and they sure as shit weren’t slow. They moved with amazing speed, faster than any human for sure. Not quite as fast as Doran had moved but close.
The kept their heads tipped, nostrils flared as they scented the air, hunting for their next meal. “Blood scenting?” I whispered understanding now why Doran and Veyyr had not wanted me to cut the guard.
He nodded, shifting his weight. “They can pick it up miles away. Animal blood doesn’t always draw them. But once they are in an area, they go into a frenzy and kill anything that moves. Two legs or not.”
Screams erupted from the building across from us and there was a tug on my heart as a child wailed. A little girl. My heart hammered, fear lacing through me not for myself but for the child.
There was a flash of a bright red shirt, of tight dark curls as the child fought to get out a small window barely big enough for her tiny body.
She was on the roof across from us, her dark skin pale, slashes across one cheek.
She ran to the edge and looked down, but there was no ladder. And below were only more bleeders.
Her eyes were wide, panicked. There was no escaping what waited for her, death by monster. A fate no little one should ever face.
I didn’t realize I’d stood until Veyyr tried to drag me back down. “No, we don’t save anyone but ourselves.”
“I cannot leave her.” The words were tight in my throat, squeezed past the urge and need to protect a soul that couldn’t protect herself.
The door behind her began to splinter, groaning against the weight of her inevitable death. A bleeder stuffed itself through the tiny broken window, hanging up when a second monster tried to stuff itself through at the same time.
We had moments before there would be no turning back for her, no saving her
“We can’t leave her,” I repeated. The girl looked across to me, golden brown eyes liquid, tears trickling down her cheeks, mingling with the blood from the scratch.
Her tight black curls were tugged in the wind as she stared at me. She didn’t scream, she didn’t beg for help.
Because in this world…no one was coming to save you. Not even if you were a child.
I flexed my hands, my adrenaline ramping up as I gauged the distance.
She was a ten-foot jump away, I could do it.
The bleeders slammed into the door again, and half of it shattered, allowing them to push through. She never looked away from me, lower lip trembling as she closed her eyes.
I couldn’t leave her. I dropped the guard’s spear and my bag, and shook off Veyyr even as he tried to grab me. “Stop!”
I took a running leap and landed easily on the far roof, putting myself between the little girl and the monsters. “Stay down!”
The bleeders were fast but there were only three of them—so far. My body fell into a pattern that it knew and I trusted. The first lost its head as it pranced right into my falcata, wobbling on its toes and falling less gracefully to the side.
The second came at my left and I spun, cutting its body in half, the clawed fingers raking across my forearms and I dropped to a knee, to avoid blood being drawn. The skin pulled, but no cuts. As the monster slid in half, I took a back swing from my knees to remove its head.
A whimper and I spun. The girl still stood at the lip of the roof, shaking.
Her death was so very close as the bleeder reached for her, long fingers outstretched. I arched my hand to throw my weapon, but someone beat me to it.
Veyyr leapt across the space between the rooftops, his sword slicing across the neck of the bleeder, dropping it with ease.
“They trace their own blood as well, which is why we don’t fight back,” Veyyr snapped.
The bleeder fell backward, away from the child.
He shook his head, cleaned his weapon on the bleeder’s ratty clothes. I did the same.
Veyyr glared at me, turned and leapt back to the far roof, almost as if a wind caught him and helped him across. Probably did, the cheater.
He didn’t offer to help me with the child. As if he thought we were going to leave her here.
What a fool to think that I would do that.
The little girl looked up at me, her eyes liquid gold more than brown. “I…they killed my parents.”
She covered her sob with her hands, catching it before it completely slipped out, her thin shoulders shaking.
The girl couldn’t have been more than ten—no older than the child I’d seen at the fountain, a child that I was certain had been me.
I’d had someone to teach me, to protect me, to train me. “You can come with us.” The words slid out before I could catch them. Not that I would have left her here, but still.
Her eyes flicked up, blinking away tears, and she whispered a yes.
I scooped her up, her frame light and underfed and turned to the far rooftop. “Veyyr, catch.”
He braced his legs and caught her—not that he had a choice as I threw her across the opening, right at him. I followed, landing in a crouch, grabbing my bag and the guard’s weapon. “We should put some miles between us and them. Yes?”
Veyyr said nothing, he didn’t have to—his lack of words was enough to say it all. His anger vibrated the air, and I could almost see the storm gathering around him.
He turned and I held a hand to the little girl and made sure he saw.
I wasn’t leaving her behind.
Of course, Veyyr didn’t look back after that, which meant by the time we reached the rest of the crew and the vehicles, the town was overrun by the bleeders, and he’d not acknowledged I’d brought the kid with us. Or maybe he’d chosen to ignore the fact, which was more likely.
I handed her up to Harrison, who stared hard at me and shook his head. “He’s not going to like this.”
“He helped me save her. So, he can get stuffed if he has an issue now.”
Lucky’s jaw dropped but just motioned for me to get on the bike behind him and for Sorrow to drop from the sky and tuck in close to me.
“Good save.” He clucked at me.
I shouldn’t have been pleased that the sorrowbird was happy with my saving of the little girl, but I was. Because no little girl should have to try and fight through this world alone, no child.
And as Helayne had said, children were precious, especially here, and so fucking fragile.
Dave and Isla were back, though she didn’t realize that I’d brought an extra soul with us—her eyes were too rooted on Veyyr. Hungry, like she’d been without a meal and was looking for a snack.
Fine by me. I grabbed hold of Lucky’s bright red shirt and hung on tight as we sped away from Bone Town, leaving the screams of whoever was left there, and the bleeders that fed on them, far behind us.
You can’t save them all. This world doesn’t allow for it. Save who you can and be content with that.
I wasn’t sure I liked that advice as it whispered through my mind, but I also couldn’t find fault with it. There had been no way we could have saved more—even Doran was on his own.