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I woke to pounding on the side of the camper and a shout from Ahura. Sitting up, I vaulted over Fin, who was mumbling groggy curses. I snatched up my blades and handgun before yanking open the door. The others were stirring behind me, slowly realizing they should grab weapons. But all my attention was on what greeted me outside the camper.
Ahura was dancing around Jenny, her curved blades drawn. Jenny took a vicious swipe at her, but didn't even come close to connecting. Ahura moved like a deadly predator, and I could tell she was just playing with the bodyguard. I still didn't know what the hell Ahura was, but whatever she was, she clearly wasn't a fuzzy little bunny shifter.
The ground rumbled and the quiet night was ruined by the sound of several motorcycle engines. The group of bikers sped toward the camper, and a spray of bullets pinged off the armored beast.
"Fuck!" I hissed, ducking into the shadows so I wouldn't be an easy target. Someone started to open the camper door, but I kicked it shut again. "Stay the fuck in there. It's bullet proof." I hoped.
I leveled my handgun at one of the bikers and squeezed off a shot, hitting them in the chest and sending them into a nasty skid that took down one of the other bikes in the process.
"What the hell is going on?" I shouted, glancing to Ahura.
Well, shit.
She held the bodyguard's severed head by the hair and gave it a little shake. "This little shit-stain sold us out." She flung the head away, wiped her hand on her pants and kicked the rest of the body aside. "From what I gathered, she was a jealous cunt, and our new sovereign has a really rich rival willing to pay her well for her revenge."
I groaned. More fucking drama and politics. The bikers raced by, peppering us with shots. But we kept to the shadows, where they couldn't see us. Thinking there was no one left alive outside, they pulled up and got off the bikes.
"Curs," Ahura whispered, her red eyes glowing in the deep shadows beside the camper. I wondered how she could tell for sure, but I didn't question it.
She cocked an arm back and threw one of her blades like a boomerang. It took off a guy's hand before embedding itself into his chest. He fell, gurgling and trying to shift into something with fur.
I squeezed off a few more shots, taking down two more goons and winging another. But now they knew where we were.
I growled, leaping into the fray with my blades. Ahura sprang from the earth beside me, retrieving her blade and using the pair of knives in a spinning dance of death that resembled a deadly tornado.
One of the guys managed to slip past us and yank open the camper door with his increased strength as the rest of his companions died. He met the end of Fin's sawed-off shotgun and went flying backward with a blast to the chest.
I glanced at Fin, and Theo behind him. "Lock the damned doors and get the camper started. We'll hop on in a minute. I want to make sure there aren't any more of them coming." And maybe see if we could identify whoever had paid them, though I was pretty sure Theo would already know.
I had a feeling his secrets ran deep.
The camper chugged to life and Theo started maneuvering it out of the sheltered parking spot. I went to join Ahura a little further away, as she riffled one of the bodies, looking for identification or other intel. I stumbled when the ground shook.
Crouching beside Ahura, I met her freaky red eyes. "What the fuck?"
She planted her hands on the ground, fingers digging into the dirt. "Vibrations in the earth."
I eyed her suspiciously. "Just what the hell kind of cur are you?"
She grinned, but her eyes weren't focused on me. "I'm very in tune with the earth."
I sighed as the rumbling increased. "Earthquake? Can you tell how bad it's gonna be?"
She hissed. "No, it's...moving. Coming at us and...shit it's under us!" She launched herself at me, wrapping her arms around me and rolling us, just as a fucking wyrm burst out of the ground.
Motherfucker. I rolled to my feet, and Ahura joined me. The fiend shot up from the earth, looking like nothing so much as a giant penis with teeth. It had a long, thick, pinkish body and a bulbous head with a round mouth full of needle-sharp fangs.
And it probably sensed fucking vibrations—like, oh, say, Godsdamned motorcycle motors. Most sandwyrm types of fiends didn't care for engine noise—they were more in-tune with the subtler vibrations made by live prey walking on the earth—but it varied. The damned thugs had probably brought it right to us. Or woken it up on accident. I glanced at the mounds of earth and the swiss cheese rock. Fuck me sideways, I was stupid.
I darted to the side, hitting the ground and rolling again, barely avoiding the wyrm as it lunged at me, its teeth grinding in a way that gave me goosebumps. Those things could probably chew through solid rock. A puny half-shifter like me would be like eating soft, fluffy cake.
Ahura threw one of her blades and it sliced deep into the fiend, severing one of the stubby little insect legs that were unfolding from its side. The thing screamed. I hit my knees, clutching my ears. The sound wave was a physical force. The ground trembled again, and Ahura cursed.
I got to my feet, fainting toward the camper, but the thing darted at me again, cutting me off.
"Drive that motherfucker like you stole it, Theo!" I yelled. "Get your precious human ass and my mates out of here!"
I could almost hear him telling me no. But in the end, the camper started to move off, slow and easy, so as not to make too much noise.
The wyrm didn't seem to notice. If I was right, it didn't have the best vision, just an overdeveloped talent for sensing the movement of potential prey through vibrations. I stomped my feet and jumped up and down to get its attention off the mechanical hum of the camper's engine.
Ahura joined me, clanging her blade against rock, and the thing came right at us.
I ducked aside and drove one of my knives into its side as it slithered by, ripping a six-foot long gash in the fucking thing.
It screamed, and the ground rumbled again, the earth splitting near where the thing had emerged, sending out jagged fissures in the dry ground. Ahura leapt up and slashed at it, but she lost her blade, knocked aside when it reared its head and tried to take a bite out of her.
I felt her power flare, way stronger than any cur I'd ever known. Then she shimmered and shifted.
I blinked at the giant scorpion-thing that stood before me, barbed tail waving and claws flashing. The wyrm lunged for her again, and she caught it, gripping it between both her pincers and squeezing, cutting clean through its thick body. The wrym fell to the ground, welling a slow gout of orange goo.
That was twice in the last five fucking minutes I'd seen her behead something. Ahura was brutal.
She inched toward me and I swallowed hard, trying not to back away from the monster that looked like something I'd usually be hunting with an elephant gun or some armor-piercing rounds. I looked up into a row of reflective black eyes. "Well, that was fun," I said, wiping my knife off on my pant leg and shoving it into its sheath. “Wanna put that away now?" I gestured at her massive monster body.
She tilted her head, chittered, then crouched low. The ground rumbled again, aftershocks of whatever the wyrm had disrupted beneath the earth's surface.
The ground beneath me split open and I stumbled backward, windmilling my arms like fucking crazy to keep from falling into the abyss I could sense at my back. But it was too late.
The giant scorpion-thing lunged at me, twisting and cradling me against its underside with its hard insect legs as we fell.