He jumped down onto the road, dropping into a half crouch and centering his weight to keep from falling. Beneath the snow he felt a thin layer of ice. Once he straightened, he carefully placed Lilah on her feet, holding her steady until she could stand on her own. A wave of heat rose between them, and he looked down to see a puddle spreading around both of them. He attributed it to exhaust from the truck until he saw how quickly patches of asphalt were emerging into view.
Somehow Lilah was generating enough heat to instantly deice the road around them.
For the first time he made out a pile of snow-covered rock, high enough to provide good cover. The dying rumble of the engine disappeared behind the squeal of cold metal as one of the truck’s doors was opened, and then the other.
“Walker,” she whispered. “They’re coming.”
He heard the one called Joey shouting at him, and felt something strike his shoulder. He turned to see the smaller man and the gun he had pointed at them, and a slow, heavy roar filled his ears. His sight narrowed, becoming a slit edged in gray, and power surged inside him.
Ice rapidly encased Joey’s arm, freezing together his hands and the weapon. That should have been enough, but the force gathering inside him wanted more. It wanted flesh, and blood. It wanted to tear the little bastard limb from limb. Leisurely. Joyfully.
Lilah’s warm hand turned his face to hers, and her voice wrapped around him. “Don’t. We have to get away. Now.”
The power ebbed as his eyes cleared and focused on her. Taking her up in his arms again, he measured the distance to the rocks. “Keep your head down.”
As he ran for the outcropping, he heard shouting that ended in a short, terrified scream, eerie growls, and tearing, liquid sounds. He didn’t look back, and when he reached the rocks, he dropped down behind them, holding Lilah against his chest and covering her head with his arms.
Lilah clutched his sleeve, her eyes wide as she stared up at him. “What was that?”
He touched the ends of his fingers to her lips to silence her before glancing over the edge of the rocks. He could see one dark shape, low to the ground, dragging the older man’s body away from the truck and across the snow, leaving behind a dark trail. He knew it was blood from the smell carried to him on the wind. He also felt for the first time the presence of something that was not human or beast but something else. Something older, more primal. Something that felt like death itself.
And, judging by its ferocity, Death was starved.
More shadows emerged from the trees and came to join the one with the corpse. There were low, guttural sounds, and the feeding ceased. Another form emerged from the opposite side of the truck, this one bigger but lighter in color, and rose up on its back legs, at the same time seemingly dwindling.
Not shrinking, he thought. Changing shape.
The beast now appeared to be roughly the same size as a large human, although gray fur still covered its body, and its limbs remained in their oddly jointed dimensions. The huge muscles of its back stretched and bulged as it picked up the headless corpse of the younger man and walked into the snow to join the others.
He studied the beasts for a moment, trying to understand what they were, before sinking back down out of sight. This time when Lilah would have spoken, he clamped his hand over her mouth. He felt sure that whatever it was that had killed their abductors would not hesitate to attack them, and there were too many for him to fight off—assuming his strength was a match for the creatures.
One alone had killed and gutted two men in the space of a few heartbeats. There were at least seven now.
The ice around them thickened, blocking out the sounds of the storm. Lilah nestled against him, her body heat warming him, her scent driving away the metallic stink of blood in his nostrils. As he soaked in her warmth, ice crystals began to form an opaque white cocoon around them, enclosing them in silence.
He turned, putting his back against the frozen rock and shifting her, gathering her legs up so they didn’t touch the frigid ice beneath them. Gradually the sense of the other killers faded until he knew they were miles away. Only then did he allow himself to relax a little.
“They’re gone,” he told her.
Lilah lifted her head and saw the cocoon for the first time. “What’s this?”
“Ice.”
“I can see that.” With careful fingers she reached out to touch the surface of the ice bubble, scraping away some crystals before giving him an astonished look. “It’s solid. How did this happen?”
He brushed a swath of red hair back from her face. “Does it matter?”
“I don’t have the ability to make spontaneous igloos.” She glanced down at her wet hand. “Do I?”
“It is only ice, Lilah,” he assured her.
“At least it protected us.” She glanced in the direction of the truck and shuddered. “What were those things?”
“I could not see them clearly through the storm.” He suspected that even if he had, he wouldn’t have recognized them. They had moved like nothing on this earth. “Did you hear their minds?”
“I don’t know if they had minds, exactly,” she said slowly. “What I felt was something that was completely focused on killing.” Her throat moved. “And eating.”
His own belly clenched. “Then they hunt humans as food.”
“No. At least, I don’t think they do.” She thought for a moment. “Killing prey for food is a learned behavior. When predators in the wild are young, their mothers teach them how to kill and what to kill. Humans are never on the menu, which is why most of them try to avoid us. We’re not prey to them, so we’re just not that interesting.”
He recalled how quickly the creature had crossed the snow. “This one took interest.”
“That’s the other thing I don’t understand,” she admitted. “It brought down two healthy men by itself, which is rogue behavior, or what an animal that lives on its own does. Only after the men were dead, other adults joined it, and it didn’t try to drive them away from the kill. It let them help drag off the bodies. That’s cooperative behavior.”
“A starved rogue cannot cooperate?”
“Unless it and the rest of its species are schizophrenic, no.” She frowned. “I don’t think it was starved, either.”
“Perhaps it was defending its territory.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
“Walker?” When he glanced down at her, she said, “We should take the truck and go before they come back.”
He lifted his hand to punch a hole in the ice, but she caught his wrist and stopped him.
“Let me try something first.”
Lilah placed her free hand on the ice, holding it there as she concentrated. After a few minutes, she took it away and examined the spot. “Nothing.” She brought up his hand to the ice. “Put your hand against it next to mine.” When he did, she focused again. He felt something coiling and uncoiling down the length of his arm, flaring hot and cold along the way. Water began dripping through their fingers, and the ice beneath their palms began to shrink outward, until their hands pushed through the bubble.
“It’s not me. It’s coming from you.” She regarded him with troubled eyes. “But I’m making you do it, aren’t I?”
He shifted their hands to another spot. “Again.”
By the time they had repeated the experiment three times, there was a gaping, dripping hole in the ice cocoon. While he remained unaffected by the heat, Lilah’s skin had grown flushed and damp, and sweat trickled down from her hairline.
“Whew.” She tried to smile. “I could use a cold shower.” She inspected him. “You’re not feeling the heat, though.”
“I feel it.” He wouldn’t tell her that what burned inside him wanted only to push her down, spread her legs, and mount her. Instead he used his fist on the ice, widening the holes enough for them to crawl outside.
Once they emerged from the remains of the bubble, he helped her to her feet and turned toward the road.
“The truck’s gone,” she said, staring at the splatters and pools of blood, now frozen and quickly being covered by fresh snow. She tugged him over to the road. “How could they take the truck? I didn’t hear the engine.”
Neither had he, but he smelled burning fuel and saw some faint marks running across the road. “They didn’t take it.”
He guided her over to the other side, and they looked over the edge. A swath of broken trees and flattened brush went down several hundred feet, and stopped at a huge twisted pile of metal. All around the smoldering wreck lay torn, smashed boxes marked with the GenHance logo, some spilling out their contents on the ground.
“They must have pushed it over,” Lilah said, her voice blank with shock. “Like it was nothing but a toy. But they’re animals. How could they do this?”
Speculating over what the creatures had done was as useless as the truck was now. He drew her back and studied the road again, and then caught the faintest trace of warmth in the air.
“Walker?”
“I smell something.” He breathed in, ignoring the stink of blood and violence and ferreting out the subtler scent beneath it. “Woodsmoke.” He turned his head toward the point where the road split in two. “It’s coming from there.”
“That’s the direction they went,” Lilah said, nodding toward the dark smears still visible in the snow.
He filled his chest again, this time focusing on the smell of death. “No. They went west.” He pointed to the lower peak of the pass. “That way.”
Something flickered in her eyes. “You can smell their trail.”
“Yes.” He was frightening her, he realized, but if they were to survive this, he would have to do whatever was necessary—even lie to her. “It must be part of how they changed me, with the drugs.”
Her expression cleared. “I didn’t think of that. Sorry.” She glanced over at the trees and shuddered. “We really need to get out of here.”