Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

Alex’s eyes flicked to Nathan’s rifle, the one Jess had forced him to give her. She’d dropped it when she’d come upon the skulls and vomited her guts out, and now the weapon was on the snow ten feet to her right. She could go for it, but even if her aim was true and she managed to squeeze off a shot, she’d be dead a second later.

Because four of these Changed were packing. A small Beretta for the runty middle schooler; a scoped big-bore lever-action for the wolf-boy, who was so maddeningly familiar. Slash, the girl with the scar, held a bolt-action, but it was Acne’s rifle that really snagged her interest, because it was outfitted with a gas piston to prevent jams. That made complete sense when you were someplace where a weapon might get fouled pretty easily: say, Iraq, Afghanistan—or the deep woods in winter. So, chance? Had Acne simply lucked out? Grabbed the first rifle he saw? She didn’t think so, not from the way he held that weapon. Hang around enough people who know their guns and you learn to spot someone who is really comfortable versus a person who’d be happier with a live cobra. Besides, this was the U.P., and she’d once lived in Wisconsin, where everyone hunted. So she bet this kid knew guns. They all must.

She got where this was going, too. Her end was inked in blood and a motley scrawl of shredded clothes and hacked bones.

Well, no use being coy. She tugged off her gloves with her teeth, keeping one eye on Spider as her shaking fingers fumbled with the bindings of her snowshoes. When she stepped out of them, the snow squealed beneath her weight, but she only sank an inch. Good. Still moving with care, she thumbed off her backpack. There was a jackknife with the rest of the gear Jess had stowed, but the blade was a toothpick against that corn knife. Still, the pack had some heft. Maybe ten, fifteen pounds. She choked up on the straps with her left hand. Might be useful if she got close enough to—

Her thoughts derailed as the air suddenly thickened, and another odor, a complex pop of fresh sap cooked with green pine, wormed into that roadkill reek. What was that? She saw Spider shoot a glance at Wolf, and then, a second later, that stinging charry smell got stronger. All the Changed were tossing looks back and forth now, and they were grinning, like they shared some private joke.

Her mind flashed to that long, awful road into Rule—and the instant she’d realized the wolves were there because of how heavy the air grew as the alpha’s scent bloomed: still wolf but also no threat.

So was this communication? Complex thoughts couldn’t be conveyed just through smell, could they? She didn’t know. Bees danced. Birds sang, but entire flocks moved as one and with virtually no sound at all. Those wolves hadn’t so much as growled, and now these kids were looking at one another as the air boiled.

Like there’s something suddenly here that wasn’t just a few seconds ago. The air’s crowded. Alex’s head went a little hollow. But that can’t be. They can’t read minds.

Could they? No, that was crazy. Still, was it less crazy than her funky super-sense of smell? She’d changed, just not the same way.

Well, she knew a way to find out—about the telepathy, anyway. Because she had two choices: let Spider kill her, or—

Her questing fingers closed over that hay hook and twisted it free: eighteen inches of cold-rolled steel as thick as her thumb, as sharp as an ice pick.

Or—

2

She exploded, catapulting across the snow, unfurling, leading with the hay hook and aiming right for Spider’s face because that wicked curve of steel was what she wanted the girl to see. Deadly enough, but only if she got a good, hard slash that snagged something: an arm, a leg. Not going to happen. Spider’s corn knife was a longer, bladed weapon with a lot of cutting area. One good chop and the fight would be over.

She drove for Spider, saw the other girl’s flinch and look of utter shock—and that answered an important question. The Changed might read each other, but they could not read her.

Breaking from her paralysis, Spider brought the corn knife up and around in a wide, curving arc. At the very last second, Alex flicked her wrist and changed her line of attack, driving for Spider’s chest now instead of her face. Spider tried to adjust, but momentum was her enemy now. The corn knife whizzed past and sliced only air.

Alex bulleted into her. The blunt curve of the hook speared Spider’s chest, dead-center and hard enough that Alex felt the impact shiver up her arm and ball in her shoulder. Spider let out a loud ungh, and then she was backpedaling, trying to bring the knife down again. Alex saw the blade coming, and she uncoiled, swinging the pack in a deadly roundhouse, the weight of it like a heavy stone. Her eyes never left the corn knife, and she had just enough time to think how lucky she was that the blade wasn’t double-edged.

There was a hollow thud as the pack hammered the girl’s chin. Spider’s head snapped back, and then the girl was spinning away in a swirl of blonde hair and wolf skin. Off-balance, Alex tried to pivot, but the tamped snow was slick. She felt the slide start; fought to regain her balance but couldn’t find it. The snow blurred, rushed for her face as she fell, the hook driving into hard pack. The snow had some give but not a lot, and she screamed as the impact shuddered through bone and wrenched her right shoulder. She lost her grip on the hook, and then she was gasping, on her side: left hand still knotted in her pack; her right hand on fire, the wrist singing with pain, the fingers already numb. Oh God, oh God, is it broken, did I break it . . . where’s Spider, where . . .? She pulled in a frantic, sobbing breath. Her right elbow bawled; she couldn’t move her fingers. Broken or cracked or maybe the nerves, and oh God, where is Spider, where is she?

Her head swirled with panic and pain. Both nearly killed her. As it was, she only just felt the attack coming, sensed it before she knew what was happening: a shuffle, the scuff of a boot in snow, a sudden rush of air. She snatched her head back just in time to catch a blur of white and black.

Spider: on her feet, rearing up, looming. Her lips curled, baring teeth that seemed very white and impossibly sharp. That girl could tear a person’s throat out with those teeth.

Where’s the knife, where’s the knife, where is it? Her eyes jerked to Spider’s right hand. Empty. Nothing there, no knife, no knife, where is it? Had she dropped it? But Spider’s stance was all wrong; she was leading with her right shoulder, shuffling forward, her silver eyes flitting to a spot behind and to Alex’s right. What? The knife was behind her? Alex started to crane around for a peek. If I can get to it first—