He was right, of course, but she still didn't like it. "I know it's crazy, but I just have a bad feeling about going to your angel doctors for this. Like a dangerous feeling." There. She'd said it. No more hiding, looking like a contrary crackpot.
He drew back a little and gave her that look again, the one that said he didn't quite know what to do with her. "Tell me—"
The pain that cut into her leg interrupted his words with a scream. The dim cavern went even darker around the edges while the muscles of her leg felt like they were being shredded from the inside out.
Kassern caught her as she started to fall. "Karly? What is it?" The panic in his voice spurred her own.
Despite the need to tell Kassern what was wrong, agony stole her strength as thick darkness devoured her consciousness.
** ** **
Toren’s mercury was going nuts. Something was wrong. “Head back to the house. Now.”
“What? No, look, it’s right there, I can’t turn around now, I have to…what the hell?”
Toren jerked his gaze right. What he saw seemed impossible and he had to stare for several seconds before he realized it was definitely real. “STOP!”
Sam slammed the break several hundred yards from the surreal horror before them. The second she did, the two beings working over a cow right in the middle of the field jerked their heads toward them.
“What…on earth?”
By Samantha’s tone, she wasn’t seeing what he was. The beings were too far for human eyes to see what he did. One of the monkey mongrels and clearly a reanimated human were performing abominations on the animal. The whites of the steer’s eyes showed all around as the reanimated human performed bestiality from behind and the monkey man slowly mutilated the poor creature where it stood. Muscles strained as the cow tried laboriously to flee the torment, but it remained stuck fast, caught by some invisible supernatural restraint.
“Turn the truck around. Now.” Toren’s voice flowed, silky with his mercury thinning rapidly, preparing his body for violent action.
"Oh my God, oh my God!” Samantha hurried to comply when the two beings began walking toward them.
“Take your time baby, keep it steady,” he whispered, keeping his eye on the beings as they approached. They suddenly broke out into a hard sprint toward them. “Okay, hurry!” he ordered.
She got the truck turned and gunned it, throwing a look over her shoulder as she did. “Oh God, oh God, what the fuck are they?”
“I don’t know, just drive as fast as you can. Don’t slow down. Not for anything.”
Shit. He couldn’t let the things follow them to the house. Damn. “Sam?”
“What! Oh my God,” she whispered checking the rear view mirror. “They’re running too fast! Toren!”
“Sam!”
“What!”
“I need to tell you something and I need you to not freak out.”
She flashed glances at him.
“Eyes on the road sweetheart.”
“Tell me! What the hell is going on? Are you a-a-a psycho criminal?”
Toren looked back at the beings closing in faster now, both running like cheetahs. “Aww hell,” he whispered as the monkey one landed on the hood of the truck and the human in the truck bed. Sam screamed and Toren slammed his palm on the dashboard in frustration. Without the support of a bound quadumvirate, his powers were limited. He'd have to do this the human way.
“Stop the truck,” he yelled. “Now!”
She slammed the breaks and both the creatures fought to maintain balance. Toren rolled out of the truck to land in a wary fighting stance.
“What are you doing? Toren!”
Toren hopped onto the hood of the truck and the mongrel lunged with its teeth bared. Toren slammed his palm onto the beast’s face, his fingers spanning the muzzle and clamping the mouth shut. He kept squeezing, crushing jaw and nasal bones as the thing emitted a high pitched scream in its throat.
It lashed out at Toren, hands and feet sporting surgical looking talons for rending flesh. Moving with supernatural speed, Toren launched off the truck, holding the thing by the muzzle and slamming it to the ground. Not wasting a second, he pummeled the creature over and over until it flopped limp.
“Toren!”
Toren spun to see the reanimated Farmer-Brown looking man yank at the drivers side the door. She screamed and braced herself in the center of the seat, rifle to her shoulder cocked and ready to fire. He sprinted for the creature as it ripped the door off the hinge. A loud boom exploded from the truck and Toren realized she’d fired a shot. The thing bucked back a little only to charge again, even angrier. Sam screeched, officially freaked that the huge hole in his chest didn’t faze him.