Wildfire (Hidden Legacy #3)(108)

It had to be seventy feet tall.

The huge hand reached down. The claws caught the corpse of the dead kidnapper, pulled it up, and the creature tossed it into its mouth. Bones crunched. It looked down onto the sea of cars and took an enormous step. The overpass shook.

It was heading down to the traffic below and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. I glanced back. People were running between the cars. The creature focused on them. Its mouth gaped open, and an eerie, high-pitched shriek rang out.

Rogan's chopper hovered above the abandoned vehicles. The quick staccato of a machine gun echoed. The bullets ripped into the creature. It didn't even notice.

There was nothing for Rogan to throw at it. Chucking cars at it would be like throwing pebbles at a bull.

Rogan's chopper swung to the side, where an empty field and the big rectangular building of a Cinemark theater bordered the highway.

The creature took another massive step, crushing several cars that had been waiting to merge into the middle lane, and shrieked again.

"Nevada!" Bern screamed at me. "What do we do?"

I don't know.

"Nevada!"

I never felt so helpless in my whole life.

Something fell from Rogan's chopper, a dark flash that plummeted to the earth and exploded into a colossal shaggy shape. Oh no. No . . .

A monster landed by Cinemark. Stocky, huge, covered with long strands of jet-black fur, with muscled arms armed with talons, and a blunt head, shielded by a bone carapace. Two thick horns shielded the sides of its head, curving forward as if someone had taken two enormous ram horns and turned them sideways. Thick meat-eater's fangs filled its mouth. Its two round eyes glowed with yellow.

"Fuck!" Bern spat.

People stopped running and gaped. Everyone had seen the footage. Everyone recognized this.

The Beast of Cologne that was my sister roared a deafening challenge, lunged at the grey creature, and jerked it off the overpass into the field. The creature fell. An earthquake shudder shook the overpass. The red C in Cinemark fell off and crashed down.

The grey thing clawed at Arabella, trying to fight back. She landed on top of it, a huge, muscled, shaggy nightmare filled with rage, and ripped at it in a frenzy, punching, smashing, clawing, throwing wet chunks of it wherever they would land. The terrible temper volcano that powered Arabella had erupted and there was no stopping it.

Mom would kill us. Mom would kill all of us. We could never go home.

The grey thing screeched again, desperate now. My sister squatted on it, clamped its head with one arm, its right shoulder with another, and bit its neck. I didn't want to see, but I couldn't look away. She gnawed at it, severing muscle and tendon. The grey giant flailed, kicking feebly, weaker and weaker. My sister bit one last time, jerked the head she had chewed off into the air, tossed it behind her, and roared.



       
         
       
        

And dozens of people recorded it on cell phones.

Arabella rocked back, sat on her butt, stuck her claws into her mouth, and pulled a long fleshy strand out. She spat it, her mouth wrinkling, spat again, her muzzle twisted as if she'd just bitten into slimy fruit.

Under control. Everything was under control. She hadn't gone crazy. I turned. A few feet away Vincent stood frozen, his mouth hanging open.

I raised the gun. He saw me and jerked Kyle in front of him. He was holding an enormous handgun, so big it looked like a movie prop. The barrel had to be ten inches long.

He pointed the gun at me and began backing up.

The concrete barriers behind him slid together, cutting off the narrow space the workers used as a clear path. A heavy construction vehicle scraped across the pavement, joining the barriers. I didn't have to look to know Rogan was walking up the overpass behind me.

Vincent turned pale and chanced a quick glance behind him. Yes, you're trapped.

Rogan loomed next to me, a handful of coins hanging in the air in front of him. I'd seen him launch these before at a near-bullet speed.

The coins didn't move. He'd come to the same conclusion I did. If we had any chance at all against Sturm, we'd need Vincent alive.

"Stay where you are," Vincent called out.

"It's over," Rogan said. "Put down the gun."

"Don't come any closer or I'll shoot you." The barrel of the enormous cannon trembled.

"You're holding a Magnum BFR," I told him. "Big Frame Revolver. Otherwise known as Big Fucking Gun. It weighs over five pounds loaded and has horrible recoil. The only way to fire it is to grip it with both hands and brace yourself. Your hand is shaking from the weight. If you try to squeeze the trigger, you'll miss and hit yourself in the head with your own gun. Then I'll shoot you where it counts."