The Prey (The Hunt 2)

Glass shatters behind us. It’s Krugman’s office. Naked duskers a

re scaling the walls, pouring into his office through the broken window. Like rotten milk down a sink. I can’t hear Krugman screaming above the squall of the duskers, but I don’t need to.

The light haloing out of the office is suddenly snuffed out, lightbulbs inside smashed, throwing everything into an even deeper darkness around us. The power is still running—I see sparks leaping inside the darkened office.

An idea turns on in my head.

My eyes snap to the top of the corner tower. There: the long power cable connecting the office tower to the main generator in the village. It crosses high above the meadows, over the swarms of incoming duskers.

Heart pumping furiously, I grab Sissy’s hand, pull her along. No time to explain.

Behind us, as if enflamed by our attempt to flee, the duskers wail with fury.

We sprint. Our eyeballs bounce wildly in their sockets, mercifully blurring the sight of pale bodies emerging on both sides of the wall, like waves smashing up against the fortress walls. The duskers perch, eyes swiveling around to locate us; as we whisk by they jump onto the strip and bound after us.

“Your dagger belt,” I shout at Sissy.

She hands me the belt as we reach the power line. I loop the belt over the cable, holding one end as the other end swings around. I tug down on the belt. It’ll hold. It has to.

Facing me, Sissy drapes her arms around my shoulders, then leaps onto me, cinching her legs around my waist. I feel her head nod against mine, her lips pressed against my temple.

I leap. Into the night air, the ends of the belt looped around my wrists, Sissy clinging around my shoulders. The jolt of gravity as the belt takes the full brunt of our weight almost rips my arms out of their sockets. We bounce, once, twice, and the double impact causes Sissy to lose her grip; but her legs squeeze tighter around my hips, and she’s able to link her arms around my shoulders again.

And then we’re zip-lining down the cable with greater speed than leather on metal would seem to warrant. Sparks are shooting off like crazy from the belt, and only when I look up do I see why: a dagger is pinched between the belt and metal cable. It’s metal on metal. We’re flying. And sparking.

Far beneath us, duskers sprinting toward the wall stop in their tracks. Their upturned faces glare at us in surprise and fury. We soar safely over their outstretched, leaping arms.

Sissy, facing behind us, gasps. I turn my head to look. A dusker is chasing us down on the cable. Perfectly maintaining its balance on the high-wire, it’s trotting along with surprising speed, its legs and arms working in careful, balanced synchrony, as sure-footed as a stallion on the widest, flattest green meadow.

It is horribly disfigured. Perhaps, desperate to gain an edge over the hundreds of other duskers, it had left the darkness of the caves prematurely and been exposed to lingering dusk light. Whatever the reason, it now has the appearance of a hairless cat on a balance beam. Half its face has melted, giving it a lopsided lunacy. It opens its mouth, jaws separating well beyond the point of dislocation, and screams. And still it widens its mouth, until the corners tear into its cheeks, splitting the skin like stretched cheese and exposing lines of fangs and teeth.

This brutish creature, with cheeks gone and incisors exposed, appears to be smiling at me in wonderment.

A flash of silver light. Sissy’s removed a dagger from the belt and thrown it. At the dusker.

It’s a direct hit. The dagger sinks into the hunter’s chest cavity. Disappears.

Then splatters out the other side of its chest, having met little resistance.

The dusker stops momentarily. It—almost literally—doesn’t know what just hit it. It seems only briefly surprised, as one might be by a sudden, embarrassing burp. And as unaffected. It fixes its eyes on me, continues its pursuit.

Another flash of light, another dagger thrown. This time at the hunter’s face, at its eyes, a throw meant to deface and eviscerate.

But the dusker sees the throw. It slants its head at an angle; the dagger whizzes past. But the movement throws it off balance. It teeters for a second, trying to regain its balance. And in that second, Sissy throws another dagger. It slices right through the dusker’s leg, at the ankle. The dusker blinks, once, twice, then loses its balance. Its arms spiral wildly as it plummets, its scream silenced when it splatters on the meadow floor.

Sissy and I glide into the village a minute later. By then, the power line is running low and almost parallel to the ground, and it’s an easy landing. And not a second too soon. My arms are about to fall off.

The attacks in the village have only intensified. Screams come loud from darkened corners of the village, and from nearby cottages, wet sounds slip out of the shadows.

“The train’s leaving any second now,” Sissy whispers. “We have to hurry.”

“Hug the walls,” I say. “Keep your arms by your sides and as stationary as possible. Duskers are drawn by swinging motions.”

Screams funnel toward us. We move in a ragged line, staying off main paths where we’d be more exposed, and sidle along narrow gaps between cottages. Sissy suddenly stops.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

She’s gazing around the corner of a cottage, eyes sweeping across the village square. “We can skirt along on this side of the street, then cross about a hundred meters up where the street’s much narrower. Or we can just race across now. But we’ll be a lot more visible and exposed.”

“There’s no time,” I say. “The train’s about to leave. We cross now. Stay low.”

We slide across, crouching. Halfway across, Sissy freezes. She’s staring down the street, her eyes transfixed.

I turn my head slowly to look. Up the street, no more than a mere speckle, is a person. Clothed in white and bathed in the whitewash of moonlight, it stands like a marble statue before me. Even before I can make out its face, I know who it is.

It’s Ashley June.

43

THE ORANGE-RED OF her hair drapes down her white body in a fiery curtain. Her eyes, twin specks of green diamond, pierce deep into me. She starts moving toward us, slowly. On all fours.

Sissy grabs my hand, tugs me forward. But I stand fast. It’s too late for that.

“You go,” I whisper to Sissy.

“No.” She stays next to me, her hand still in mine.

“Go.”

“No.” She grips my hand tighter.

Ashley June saunters toward us, her shoulder blades jutting out her back with each stride. Her form is relaxed, like a zoo cheetah lazily pacing inside its cage on a hot summer night. Yet her eyes are raw and intense with desire. A small pouch bag is strapped tightly against her back.

Thirty meters away, she hisses; her hind legs bunch, and she is suddenly all coiled muscle and charged energy. Her arms shoot out as she bounds forward, grabbing the ground under her, thrusting her long sleek body upward and forward. Her eyes spear into mine with as much obsession as desperation.

“It’s me!” I shout. “It’s me!”

Not a flicker of recognition. Not a hint of a slowdown. She races toward me, her lips now snarling to reveal the bottom of her fangs.

Sissy reaches down instinctively for a dagger on her belt. But it is too late for that.

Ashley June comes, her legs and arms a blur under her loping body. Ten more bounding strides, and she will be at my throat.

“Ashley June!” I shout.

A flicker of recognition in her eyes. She snaps her head violently. Her eyes meet mine again, but there is a sliver of confliction now. She slows to a stop. Saliva dangles from each corner of her mouth, ropy and gelatinous, almost touching the cobblestone. Her head half cocks to the side. She frowns.

“It’s me, it’s Gene,” I say.

She examines my face as if trying to place me. Something flits across her eyes, softens their gaze. Her lips tremble. She’s beginning to recall.

“Ashley June.” Despite my fear, I speak with tenderness. And with guilt.

A low growl rumbles from her

throat. Her feet kick at the ground but she does not close the distance between us. Light suddenly blazes in her eyes, jolting her. She remembers me. Suddenly self-conscious, she wipes at the drools of saliva.

“Gene?” she whispers. The sound flutters out, girlish and shy.

I flinch back. The clash between her savage body and the gentle utterance of my name is almost too much. I turn my eyes away. Now she stands, rising off her arms and hands until she is upright on two legs. As if trying to reclaim her humanity. Yet a battle rages; every fiber in her wants to pounce me cheetah-like. I can see it in the saliva dripping off her still-exposed fangs, in her quivering thigh muscles. She wipes at her mouth again. And then her eyes latch onto something.

My hand. Holding Sissy’s hand. Ashley June’s eyes snake up the length of Sissy’s arm and when her eyes lock onto Sissy’s, it is as if she has noticed her for the first time.

Ashley June suddenly drops down to all fours again. A hardness coarsens her body, marbles her eyes. She shakes her head, sending ropes of saliva looping around her head, splattering in her hair. She crouches down, quivering with building energy, caving in to animalistic urges. Then explodes toward Sissy.

She is a blur, a dart flung with force. Thin, tight muscles bulge out of her arms, waves of muscle ripple across her thighs. And then she is springing herself.

At Sissy.

She rips Sissy away, flinging then pouncing on her fallen body. I’m knocked to the ground. By the time I’ve picked myself up, Ashley June is pinning Sissy down, her mouth clamped around Sissy’s neck. Her teeth, her fangs, sunk deep, only her red-stained gums showing. Her eyes gaze languidly at me as she sucks and sucks and sucks.

Sissy is trying to squirm out but her arms are pinned. Her legs kick uselessly, strength draining out. She writhes futilely underneath. Ashley June’s flaming red hair is splayed all across Sissy’s prostrate body, like fingers spread wide, possessing and claiming her.