Ashes (Ashes Trilogy 1)

“Alex! On your left! Look!”

The shepherd was working its way onto the tree as the collie watched from the safety of solid ground. Then she saw movement to her right, and there was the very big mutt. The animal put a tentative paw on the wood, and then the dog took a step, and then another.

No. The dogs were coming at them from both sides, and she knew she couldn’t do this forever. If only Ellie hadn’t lost the Glock, she might have—

Something rocketed from the woods, something very fast, charging so quickly that Alex caught only a brown blur, and then she saw, with a start, that it was another dog.

No, no, not another one. And then she caught its scent and thought, Wait. Isn’t that—

“Mina!” Ellie crowed. “Mina!”

19

The hound sensed something wrong. It began to turn, but it was already too late.

Mina slammed into the other dog, a solid body blow that lifted the hound, upending it completely. Squealing, the hound turned an awkward somersault, coming down on its back, legs thrashing, neck exposed. Mina’s head darted quick as a snake, and the hound’s squeal cut out as Mina’s jaws clamped around its throat. With its windpipe cut off, the hound made no sound at all. Its legs thrashed and pedaled air, and then, with a single violent twist, Mina ripped out its throat. An enormous fountain of blood erupted from the hound’s neck—

“Alex, look out!” Ellie shrieked.

Startled, Alex whipped around just as a monstrous black shadow loomed. The mutt surged forward, jaws wide, and if Alex hadn’t had just enough time to bring up her right arm, the dog would have had her. As it was, the dog caught the club between its teeth, ground down, and gave the club a vicious twist.

Gasping, Alex let go and felt herself slip, and then the world tilted on its axis. Frantic, she made a last grab for the trunk—heard Ellie shout again—but she wasn’t fast enough.

She crashed into the water, the blow hammering the air from her lungs in a sickening whoosh. The roaring water, so cold her skin burned, closed over her head, and then a white jag flashed across her eyes as her head struck against unyielding rock. Shocked, dazed, she opened her mouth in a huge, involuntary, reflexive gasp. A torrent of frigid water poured into her mouth, rushing down her throat. In a swirl of horror, Alex felt the muscles of her throat seize, close off, and clamp down, and then the flow of water into her lungs shut off like a spigot twisted shut. The water was gone, and she wasn’t choking anymore.

Instead, she was suffocating.

A deep red bled across her vision. Disoriented, her lungs on fire, she churned water in a wild, frothing panic, and then she was lunging for a distant glimmer, what she thought might be the surface, kicking desperately even as the water fisted her heavy boots, greedily fingered her clothes, and tried to pull her back.

She shattered through the water, felt the slash of air knife her face. Coughing, Alex threw her head back, her mouth wide open, and inhaled a single, shrieking gasp. Her blood roared, but her vision cleared, and then she realized that she was turned around, facing downstream, and still moving, the river carrying her in a dizzying sweep. A monstrous tumble of rocks and debris loomed directly in her path, rushing for her face. Too late to flip onto her back, too late!

The river flung her against stone. She felt the impact as an explosion in her left shoulder that scorched a sizzle of electric shocks all the way to her fingertips, but that was also when she realized two things at the same time.

Jammed up against the rocks, almost horizontal, she felt the water’s suck and grab, but saw that she was in the shallows, in less than a foot of water, and that she was staring up at the sky—

And the mutt.

20

Water streamed from the mutt’s flanks. Blood bubbled from a slash on its shoulder where it had struck a rock or snagged a branch. But it was there and it was alive, and now the animal went for her face with a flash of fangs, white and deadly.

Screaming, Alex pressed back against the rock, her only working arm—the right—flying up to protect her face. It was instinct, pure and simple—and saved her life. Crabbed on her back, unable to get to her feet, she felt the dog batten down, waited in a slow-motion dread for the jaws to grind and for her bones to break … Or maybe it would go for her throat next, or even push her under the water, hold her there until she drowned. But then her arm did not break, and she realized the dog had misjudged and that all it had was a very big mouthful of sopping wet sweatshirt. The pressure around her arm lessened for an instant as the dog let up and shifted its jaws, trying for a better grip—

Mina sailed across her vision. In an instant, the mutt had let go of Alex and whirled, incredibly fast for such a large dog. The dogs crashed against one another, fangs clashing against fangs, a snarling ball of fur and muscle.

Move, get up, get up, get up! Alex broke from her paralysis and scrambled on hands and knees over slippery rock, trying to get her footing. She made it to one knee, pushed to her feet, and very nearly fell again. There was blood in her mouth, her head clanged with pain; her left arm felt dead. The foaming water grabbed at her legs and tried to pull her back in.

Ellie let out a piercing, terrified scream. Sick with horror, and still dazed from the fall, Alex saw that the shepherd had reached the V. As Alex watched, the animal took a cautious step and then another. On the third step, it slipped, its tail pinwheeling as it struggled to keep its balance.

Fall, Alex thought fiercely. Fall! But the animal did not fall. In a second, it had righted itself, and Alex knew she would never make it to Ellie in time.

She looked back at the dogs just as they broke apart. Mina was panting, the dog’s chest going like a bellows. Blood flowed from a rip in her neck, and as Mina danced back, Alex saw that the dog was limping, favoring her left flank. The mutt was also bloodied, but it was a bigger, more muscular dog, and Alex thought this was a fight Mina would lose.

Then Ellie screamed again, and for a precious, fatal second, Mina’s attention wavered. The dog’s head snapped around to search out her mistress—

And the mutt saw its chance.

Lowering its head, it rammed Mina, driving its shoulder into the smaller dog’s chest, knocking Mina head over heels. Writhing, vainly trying to twist in midair, Mina landed with a mighty splash flat on her back. Before she could right herself, the mutt was there, its fangs curving like the slash of scimitars. At the last second, Mina flailed upright, but the mutt adjusted the arc of its attack. Its jaws closed around Mina’s left foreleg. There was a loud, grinding crunch, and Mina let go of a high, eerily human shriek, and then she was on three legs, struggling to keep to her feet.