82
Aura crawled out of the wreckage, stunned and squished, pinned like a sardine in a can much too small. Her side felt like Trent had run that letter opener clear through her.
But she didn’t have time to worry about wounds. They had to move.
“Everyone okay?”
She got faint nods from each of the Shines. Bruises abounded, but no one appeared to be seriously hurt. The right side of the chopper was scraped, but overall the damage was relatively light.
“That’s a miracle.”
“Not really,” Tank explained. “A top of the line model like this is heavily reinforced and designed to withstand serious impact.”
“Is it designed to withstand monsters?” Dream asked, gazing out the window.
“I don’t know.”
“I think we’re about to find out. Aura, tell me you have a plan.”
She unstrapped herself and looked out the rear window.
The creature they’d seen before lumbered toward them.
She gazed at the grotesque homunculus marching toward them. It was twice as tall as Tank and about three times as large, which pushed it well beyond any human parameters. It was hairless and its skin bore a gray tinge. Facial features were all but gone. She was completely unable to read its expression, so she didn’t know if it was angry or nasty or if that was how it looked all the time.
“Monster” was the right word. If this had ever been human, it wasn’t any more.
The Creature roared. It pounded a huge foot against the street and the intensity rocked them so hard she teetered as she crawled out of the wreckage.
Twinge stood beside her. “Is that…a Shine?’
She gazed at it, dumbfounded. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
The Creature howled as it barreled toward them, shattering concrete and metal as it moved. The thin layer of skin on its face shifted as if something were moving beneath the flesh. It was grotesque and inhuman—but that wasn’t the most frightening thing about it.
The Creature reminded her of her mother. The last time she’d seen her. The black bugs burrowing under her skin. The throbbing limbs. The harrowing expression.
Please God. Please. Don’t let it be true.
She noticed something else. Something protruding from its left temple. Some kind of implant.
That looked familiar, too.
“What the hell is that thing?” Dream asked.
“Organic or mechanical?” Gearhead asked.
“Or a little bit of both?” Mnemo murmured.
“I have no clue. But I think it wants to kill us.”
Twinge pursed her lips. “Welcome to the boss level, ladies.”
The Creature destroyed everything that came within its grasp. It grabbed the end of a car and tossed it sideways as if it were nothing. Police officers opened fire, but the bullets didn’t seem to hurt it. Not because the Creature could heal so quickly. But because they simply couldn’t pierce its skin.
“Attention Shines!” The voice was amplified as if it came over a bullhorn, but she couldn’t spot the speaker. A barricade of police cars subdivided the street. “Surrender immediately. Do not resist arrest. We will take you to safety.”
“Seriously?” Twinge said. “That gray golem is on the loose, and they’re worried about us? I think they need all the help they can get.”
“We’re sending an agent to take you into custody,” the disembodied voice continued. “Do not resist. This is in your best interests.”
“Look,” she said, pointing. “Something isn’t right.”
Three police officers crested the hill walking side-by-side, almost in lockstep. Their eyes were wide and glassy.
Then they opened fire.
“What?” She grabbed Dream and tugged her back behind the choppercar. “I know we’re fugitives, but that’s a bit extreme.”
“They’re being controlled,” Harriet said.
She jumped. “Harriet! Where did you come from?”
“The lobby. You weren’t hard to find. Crashing choppercars tend to attract a lot of attention.”
The Creature broke through the police barricade like it was walking through toilet tissue. The police retreated. A few brave souls hunkered down behind open car doors and fired, but it did no good. The Creature kicked away another auto, sending it skittering down the street like it was a Matchbox toy.
“What is that thing?” Twinge asked.
“I’m not sure. But I think it may be the twisted product of something called…Project Intensify.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“Maybe I should try to reason with it.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, sister, but it doesn’t appear to be a member of the debating society.”
“There must be some way to get through to it.”
“You’ll get yourself chainmailed.”
“I’m still gonna try.”
To her surprise, Twinge did not disappear. “All right then. I’ve got your back, homeslice.”
She swallowed hard, then stepped out from behind the choppercar. “We mean you no harm.”
The Creature made a strange, almost purring sound. It tilted its head to one side, as if studying them.
Its eyes lit up.
The Creature strode forward, even more urgently than before.
It slammed a fist down against the pavement, creating a tremor that thundered down the street. She fell to the ground, and the others flew all around her. She scraped her face on a dislodged chunk of concrete, then fell sideways, reopening the wound Trent had given her.
Damn. She would have to be more careful if she planned to survive this.
“We should work together,” she shouted at the Creature. “I think the same people who are after us have done something horrible to you.”
“Get back,” Tank said, already back on her feet. “I’m the only one who has a chance against this thing.”
“Tank, you can’t—”
“Watch me.”
Tank swung hard, but her blow landed with a thud on its chest. The Creature grabbed Tank by both shoulders and squeezed.
“Tank!”
She thought it was going to throw Tank across the street. It shook her hard, several times. Then abruptly, it pulled her close.
A long black tongue emerged from the Creature’s mouth.
The tongue slithered into Tank’s ear.
Tank tried to resist, but she couldn’t get free. The tongue pressed harder and harder, penetrating her.
“What’s it doing?” Twinge asked.
“I don’t know. But we’ve got to stop it.”
“How?”
She thought she saw something—maybe one of those bugs—travelling through the tongue.
Into Tank’s ear.
“Get back!” Gearhead shouted. She held a glass jar—like the homemade bombs she’d concocted before. Apparently she’d been cooking again.
She lobbed it just behind the Creature, presumably to give Tank the most cover. The bomb exploded, shattering their ears and raising a huge black cloud over the street. The surrounding buildings shuddered. Rubble flew through the air. She heard screaming. Everyone ran for cover.
The Creature toppled backward, throwing Tank clear. More rubble fell from the surrounding buildings—what was left of them. A cloud of debris and dust filled the air.
She peered into the smoke. “Please,” she whispered. “Just this one favor. Please.”
The next ten seconds were the longest she’d ever experienced, even counting her long stint in the torture chamber.
And then Tank crawled out of the smoke.
She ran forward and pulled Tank to safety.
Tank looked shattered. She had never seen the strong girl appear so vulnerable.
“What did that thing do to you?’
“I…don’t know.” Tank’s eyelids flickered. She could see Tank struggling to remain conscious. “I don’t seem to have my full strength.”
She wanted to help Tank somewhere safe, but she didn’t know where that would be, and she wasn’t strong enough to move her much anyway.
“Oh. My. Gandhi,” Twinge whispered.
She looked up.
The Creature strode out of the smoke cloud, still making the hideous howling sounds.
“It wants to kill us all,” Mnemo whispered.
“No.” Harriet’s voice was faint, but still audible. “It wants to eat us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I picked up a transmission. Someone trying to talk sense to someone named Estes.”
The name triggered her memory. “When you say ‘eat’—”
“This monster has been engineered to devour flesh.”
“Any flesh?”
Harriet shook her head. “Shines.”
“And we’re the only Shines in the neighborhood.”
She looked up and saw the Creature thrashing its bizarre claw-like hands in the air, salivating. Looking at them with hungry eyes.
Harriet continued. “The police are being controlled by someone communicating on a frequency like nothing I’ve ever detected. Tank is losing her strength because—” She dropped her hand. “Another Faraday cage. Only more powerful and blanketing the city. Soon none of us will be able to Shine at all.”
“We have to shut that down,” Mnemo said, staring at the rampaging monster.
“How?” Dream said. “Tank was the strongest by far, and it tossed her aside like a kitten. What chance do the rest of us have?”
“We have to try,” Harriet said, hands dancing before her eyes. “That thing won’t stop till it’s devoured us. And every other Shine on the face of the earth.”