Gunmetal Magic(28)

The first runner made it to the tent and collapsed behind me. The rest followed. Finally Felipe and the dark-skinned guard made it in, both splattered with gore.

The Mother Beast spun toward us. Finally found the enemy, did you?

“Form a perimeter!” I barked. “Time to fight for your lives! Use whatever you got.”

The workers scrambled to form a line.

The monster ducked her head, and I saw a narrow slit in her carapace, located high between her eyes. Soft pink tissue expanded and contracted, filling the foot-wide slit and then retracting. Hello, target.

The beast swung her head again and bellowed in my direction. The wave of sound hit me like the roar of a tornado. I’d have to take the mother out or none of us would get out alive.

“Can I shift now?” Ascanio asked.

“Yes. Now.”

Ascanio’s skin ruptured. Powerful muscle wound about his skeleton, skin sheathed it, and pale brownish-gray fur sprouted through it. A dark mane grew on his head and dripped down the back of his neck, over his spine. Pale stripes sliced his forelimbs, ending in five-inch claws. His face, like his body, became a meld of human and striped hyena. His eyes flashed with red.

The Mother Beast lifted one colossal front paw and took a step forward. The ground shook.

The bouda opened his mouth and roared back, breaking into bloodcurdling hyena laughter. My hackles rose. There’s my pretty boy.

“Keep her occupied!” I barked. “Make her face this way.”

Ascanio leaped over the workers’ heads and dashed down to the monster. He swatted a smallish beast out of the way. It yelped and the behemoth swung in his direction.

I drew my bow. Not yet.

Ascanio backhanded another creature.

Not yet. I had time.

The behemoth ducked down, snarling.

Not yet…

The huge teeth snapped at Ascanio. He ducked, escaping by a couple of inches.

I let the arrow go. It sliced through the air, propelled as much by the bowstring as by my will, and sliced straight into the unprotected area of her head. Yes! Nailed it!

The arrow whined and exploded. Blood shot out of the behemoth’s nostrils. She shook her head…and charged Ascanio. He leaped up and left, bounced off the glass, and jumped behind her, slicing the behemoth’s leg with his claws on the way.

Damn it. It didn’t even faze her.

Ascanio and my arrows weren’t doing enough damage. Neither would machetes. We could hack at her all day, and we’d do no good.

The behemoth chased Ascanio. The boy jumped back and forth, dashing like some mad rabbit. He couldn’t keep this up forever.

If only we had something, some weapon, something…

The monster swung her tail, right over the heavy jackhammer laying abandoned on the glass. It was still attached to the tank by the hose that pumped enchanted water into it. The hose was way too short to reach the beast.

I spun to Felipe. “Will it work without the hose?”

It took him a second. “Yes!” He jerked his hand up, fingers spread. “Five minutes.”

I threw down my bow and sprinted to the jackhammer. My paws slipped on the glass, slick with beast blood. I slid, jumped, landed by the jackhammer, and heaved it off the ground. A heavy bastard.

A tree-trunk-sized monster leg loomed in front of me. I leaped and clawed my way up the beast to the top, hauling the jackhammer with me. The freaking thing must’ve weighed three hundred pounds, and I had to drag it one-handed. My right arm felt like it would wrench out of the socket. I pulled myself up, digging into the monster’s hide with my left hand and my hind claws.

The creature moved, chasing Ascanio. Her muscles bulged under me. I clung to her, like a flea, and scrambled up.

I made it over the shoulder and ran toward her head. She roared again and I planted the jackhammer right at the base of her neck, the only spot unprotected by the carapace.

I flipped the jackhammer’s ON switch.

Nothing.

Below people were yelling something. I flicked my ears.

“Chant! Chant it to start!”

Aaaargh. I chanted, praying it would start faster than our cars did.

Ascanio dashed around the work site, buying me time. Below, the smaller monsters attacked the line of workers.

Work, I willed, chanting. Work, you blasted stupid tool.

Work.

Work.

The jackhammer shuddered in my hands. I dug my foot claws into the beast’s back and plunged the jackhammer deep into the behemoth’s flesh. The chisel pounded into the creature’s muscle. Hot blood drenched my feet.

The beast howled in agony, deafening me with the sound of her torture. The jackhammer ate its way down, into her body, and I clung to it, sinking in.

The behemoth shook like a wet dog. I gripped the jackhammer and drove it deeper and deeper. It pulled me in. My arms sank into wet flesh. I took a deep breath and then my nose and my face connected with bloody mush. Pressure ground me. I heard a dull rhythmic sound and realized it was the beast’s heart beating next to me.