Kane jumped in his car, tires squealing as he flew out of the parking lot. He was dodging through traffic at well over the speed limit, but he still got passed by a huge Gurkha, the souped-up version of his vehicle used by the patrolling military groups around the city. He slipped into its wake, increasing his speed. A few minutes later, both tore into the midst of the chaos that was the scavengers’ compound. Kane jumped out, drew his CZ, and reached behind the seat to grab his katana. He began running towards the compound to the sounds of a vicious firefight.
To his right, one of the soldiers from the Gurkha received a bullet to the forehead, which exploded in a shower of gore, despite his reinforced faceplate. The attacking mutants must be well armed. Kane backtracked to grab his Kevlar vest. The rest of the fallen soldier’s unit fell back and began returning fire, and Kane was able to slip by unnoticed, opening one of the side doors and cautiously moving into the warehouse. He could hear gunfights taking place all over the building, and the echoes the constant gunfire created made it impossible to hear anything else.
Stalking through the warehouse, he came up behind two people he did not recognize moving through an aisle. He crept softly along the adjacent aisle and listened in on their conversation, some of which he missed, but he was still able to get the gist of their main objectives. They had been given three years of supplies in exchange for taking the scavengers down a few pegs, plus an additional two years’ worth if they eliminated some guy. To cause a distraction, they had captured a few of the bigger mutants roaming around and had them break through the gate first.
Kane had gotten all he was going to get from them, and he had to make it to Mitchell fast; he was almost positive that Mitchell was the guy they were supposed to kill. As they exited the aisle, Kane snuck up behind them and smoothly lopped off both of their heads, recognizing one of the thugs from the mall area. Then he dashed towards Mitchell’s office, which he could now discern as the source of the majority of gunfire. As he drew closer, he ran into Rebecca and Rafael mowing down a small group of invaders. He waited for them to dispatch the remainder before getting their attention and approaching them.
“Hey, you two,” Kane began, “I overheard the plan from a couple guys I took out. They are here to kill Mitchell, and cause as much chaos as possible. They brought a group of mutants in with them to cause a distraction.”
“Dat’s no good,” Rafael said gravely. “Dey are getting thicker and thicker de closer we get to Mitchell’s office. ’ow did dey get so many in?”
Kane’s reply was lost in a huge explosion near Mitchel’s office, and they all turned in that direction.
“I’m going to go help Mitchell before he brings the whole building down on our heads!” Rebecca pecked Rafael on the cheek. “Try to keep up, seuns!” Then she lifted into the air and flew off in the direction of the explosion.
“What does seuns mean?” Kane asked.
“It’s Afrikaans for ‘boys.’ God, I love dat woman,” Rafael said with a sparkle in his eyes.
“Get your head in the game, you slack-jawed turtle!” Kane slugged Rafael in the shoulder. “I thought she was from Benin, though.”
“I’m not a turtle. For your information, I’m a terrapin, and I will outlive you by a ’undred years. I will be two ’undred and watching your great grandkids kids learn to shoot,” Rafael said smugly. “To answer your uda question, Becca knows four languages. ’er fader was Zulu, ’er muder was Beninese, and ’er granmuder taught ’er Afrikaans.”
“Wow,” Kane said, eyes widening. “Let’s catch up to your wife before she has all the fun!”
They began running in that direction when a fellow scavenger slammed into the steel rack beside them with such force that the whole thing shuddered and bent grotesquely. The scavenger did not move; Kane could tell at a glance that he was dead. Tracing the man’s trajectory to its source, they were confronted with the biggest mutant they had ever seen.
“Guess dat answers de question of how dey got in,” Rafael quipped lamely.
It was a hideous colossus with the head of a crocodile, the body of an orangutan, and a back covered in porcupine quills. As it looked their way, the unmistakable bloodlust in its eyes was startling.
“What do you think of our pet?” someone asked from behind a nearby rack. “We’ve been feeding and training him for years, but he’s still a little wild.”
The beast roared at them, a disturbing mixture of crocodile rumble and orangutan scream. Kane noticed manacles around its wrists and neck. He and Rafael split up, and Kane tried to flank the monster as it lumbered after the bigger prey: Rafael. Rafael pumped his shotgun and put a few slugs into its face, but it only seemed to piss the thing off. Kane came in swiftly from the side, but as he moved to slice the tendons of its legs with his katana, a bullet slammed into his back.
Kane sprawled forward. Though he was sure to have a massive bruise, it did not feel like the bullet had penetrated his vest. He rolled to the side as another bullet cratered the concrete by his face. Getting to his feet behind the cover of a nearby rack, he tried to find the culprit behind his aching back. He spotted movement four aisles over, but he could not acquire his target as Rafael abruptly bounced off the rack beside him. Although the massive dent he left was almost as bad as the dead guy’s, Rafael stood back up, barely fazed.
“Dat de best you got, couillon?!” Rafael roared defiantly as he ran back towards the behemoth.
Kane looked around for the shooter, but he had disappeared again. Glancing at Rafael, he saw that he was holding his own, slicing a wicked gash in the mutant’s forearm as it lunged down at him again. Kane climbed up a few levels and began jumping as quietly as he could from rack to rack, the continued gunfight around them masking what little sound he made. At last, he spotted the man who’d shot him—and was surprised to find a human watching the fight between Rafael and the monster.
Kane slipped down behind him and put his bowie knife to the man’s throat. “Call it off,” he demanded.
The man stiffened but did not say anything. Kane slowly dragged the blade across the man’s throat, and a deep cut opened instantly, pouring blood. The man screamed and rocked his head back, headbutting Kane in the process. When Kane blinked the stars from his eyes, he saw that the man was glaring up at him from the floor.
“Fucking animal,” the man gurgled weakly, and Kane realized that the man’s headbutt made the cut much deeper than he had intended. “Ffffucking mutant… Mixed breed piece of shit. Bestiality is a cardinal sin, and you will burn for your sins, you demonic whelp.”
The fire in the man’s eyes did not diminish in the slightest as he gasped a last shuddering breath and lay still.
Kane looked up in time to see Rafael getting chewed on, but luckily the monster had the wrong angle; it was just breaking its own teeth on Rafael’s hard shell. Between chomps, Rafael wrenched out his shotgun and put a slug in the roof of the thing’s mouth, but his angle was off as well, and the bullet exited through the beast’s left eye. With all its might, it flung Rafael onto the floor at its feet, and Kane heard Rafael’s shell crunch with the impact.
He rushed to Rafael’s side and helped him get to his feet as the monster stumbled around trying to get its bearings. As Rafael slowly stood up, the monster gave a sudden jerk, and one of the huge, barbed quills on its back punched through Kane’s shoulder. Kane screamed out in agony. His mouth was still agape as he opened his eyes to see a giant fist heading straight for his chest—then Rafael was there, and Kane watched the fist blossom grotesquely from his friend’s chest.
Rafael looked down at the protruding fist, coughing up blood.
“Guess I won’ be seeing your pitit learn to shoot,” he managed wetly. Before he could say any more the, the beast’s mouth clamped down on Rafael’s head right above his eyebrows, and with a squelching crunch, it bit the top of Rafael’s head off. Gore and brain matter filled Kane’s gaping mouth, and he spasmed as he was forced to swallow some of it.
Kane hit his knees, and the gruesome sounds of chewing were drowned out by the pain in his chest. His lungs felt crushed by a sudden intense pressure, and his back began to itch with the sensation of a thousand needle pricks as he felt something grow through his skin. Dazedly he got to his feet, just in time to see the rest of Rafael disappear into the monster’s huge mouth.
With a roar of fury, Kane leapt to his feet and withdrew his katana, diving into the thing’s mouth along with what was left of Rafael and shoving his sword through the roof of its mouth and deep into its brain.
It collapsed instantly, and Kane tumbled out of its mouth as it hit the floor. Rafael’s upper torso landed nearby with a wet thud, and Kane forced back the urge to vomit at the sight of it. He got to his feet shakily, but he did not get to rest for long; another explosion and the shrill screech of a falcon drew his attention away from Rafael’s corpse and towards Mitchell’s office. With a forlorn glance back at his fallen friend, he ran off in that direction.
As Mitchell’s office came into view, he saw corpses scattered everywhere, many of which were fellow scavengers. Rebecca and another scavenger were protecting someone lying on the ground, and it looked like everyone was out of bullets; Rebecca had her rapier out, and with deadly precision, she was skewering anyone that got close enough to challenge her. The other scavenger, whom Kane thought was named Kyle, stood beside her, awkwardly wielding Mitchell’s heavy broadsword. Kane produced his CZ and rapidly dispatched the last three attackers with clean shots to the head, then ran up to Rebecca. She was looking around cautiously, then quizzically as she registered the absence of any threats—and the absence of her husband.
“Where is Rafael?” she asked halfheartedly, as if she already knew.
Kane looked into her eyes for a few seconds, ignoring the figure of Mitchell lying behind her. “He saved my life … but it cost him his.”
With a sob, she slumped to the ground. Kane squeezed her shoulder reassuringly as he moved past her to check on the unconscious Mitchell.
Kyle was pressing a wad of gauze into the gaping hole in Mitchell’s abdomen as he looked up at Kane. “It’s bad, but if we get him to Rosa in the infirmary soon, she should be able to save him.”
Rebecca continued sobbing softly as more scavengers started filtering in from other parts of the warehouse and Kane assumed control of the situation.
“You two!” he barked at the two closest scavengers, who came towards him at his call. “Find some materials and start making stretchers. The first available should take Mitchell to the infirmary. You three, start looking for wounded, then start a triage list to see who goes next. You four over there, resupply and start clearing the warehouse aisle by aisle, until we’re secure again…”
So it went, long into the night.
. . . . .
Many hours later, Kane woke up in a chair as the figure lying in the nearby bed shifted and groaned. Kane glanced over to find Mitchell looking at him groggily.
“Wha … happened?” he slurred.
Kane released the breath he had unknowingly been holding and smiled. “You took a bellyful of buckshot to save Kyle’s life.”
“Feels like I’m still missing half my belly,” Mitchell said with a wince.
“You pretty much are. The doctors had to pull out half your guts and stitch them back together, but Rosa was able to get you stabilized before they transported you here. They had to use a special needle to get through that thick rhino skin of yours. My sister, Amy, has been in a couple of times to check up on you, and she seems to think you will make a full recovery, if you take it easy for a while.”
“Where is Thomas?” Mitchell interrupted, looking around.
“Thomas just left to get some coffee. He’s going to be pissed that he wasn’t here when you woke up,” Kane answered with a smile.
Mitchell did not smile back. “Who did we lose?” he asked gravely.
“Reports are still coming in, but we lost close to two dozen scavengers and eleven support staff.”
Mitchell winced, covering his face with his hands.
At that moment, Thomas came back in. Dropping his coffee when he saw Mitchell covering his face, he rushed to his side as Kane got to his feet and left the room to give the two some privacy.
After Kane returned with his own cup of coffee and a refill for Thomas, Mitchell began grilling him about everything he knew. Kane informed him of the mall compound’s involvement and the bounty on Mitchell’s head, which deeply upset Thomas. After Mitchell sent Thomas out to get some fresh air, Kane continued his retelling of the events and Rafael’s tragic end. Mitchell was worried about Rebecca, but Kane assured him that she was keeping herself busy by taking over in Mitchell’s absence.
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“It was always going to be either Rebecca or you,” Mitchell said suddenly.
“Rebecca or me for what?” asked Kane curiously.
“To take over for me when I leave…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Kane interrupted. “What do you mean?”
Mitchell scratched absently at the horn protruding from his forehead before clearing his throat. “Thomas wants me out of the field, and I have to agree with him. I’m tired, and I need a more laid-back position. I’m trying to move up into the president’s cabinet, and General Osmond has been grooming me to become Secretary of Defense when he retires.”
“I didn’t know you had such high aspirations,” Kane said, trying to school the shocked expression on his face.
Mitchell laughed, then grimaced in pain. “Ow. Don’t make me laugh.” Abruptly, the smile died on his face, and he stared blankly into the distance for a few moments.
“I need you to wrap this up for me, Kane,” Mitchell said soberly. “Something doesn’t feel right, and I might need you to go off the grid. I will issue a full reprisal with no quarter given. I just have to talk to General Osmond to get his permission. We have to get to the bottom of this and find out how they slithered through our defenses and got so many people into the city under the radar.”
Kane frowned deeply and shook his head slightly. “You know I don’t do wet work anymore. I don’t like killing indiscriminately.”
“I know, but you are the only one I trust not to get yourself killed in the process,” Mitchell interjected.
“Rebecca is more than capable,” Kane countered. “She did not become the first female Navy SEAL just because of her good looks.”
“Yes,” Mitchell said calmly, “but she is not thinking clearly at the moment, according to you.”
Kane hated when Mitchell cornered him with logic, but he had a point. Mitchell knew he had Kane on the ropes, so he pushed on. “And since you mentioned it, I think it would be good to allow Rebecca to shadow you. She’ll hate you anyways if you avenge her husband’s death without her.”
Kane was still fuming when he left the hospital a little while later. He did not have the energy to stop by his sister’s office and catch up with her, so he vowed to do it another time. He drove home slowly around lunch time, and his stomach rumbled as he approached his house. Inside, Miranda was waiting for him with tears in her eyes.
“I’m so glad you’re okay!” she said while engulfing him in a tight hug. “How’s Mitch?”
“He’ll live,” Kane replied softly as he hugged her back. Then his stomach rumbled again, and Miranda laughed gently.
“Come on. I’ll warm up your dinner from last night,” she said as she led him by the hand into the kitchen.
After Kane was done eating, he decided to go ahead and broach the subject. “Mitchell is sending me on a mission, and I don’t know how long it will take. I have to follow the attackers’ trail back to their base and gather information,” Kane said without mincing words. She hated it when he beat around the bush.
Miranda gazed at him for a long moment, and he saw she was struggling to ask him something. “Something happened to you, Kane. You are walling a part of yourself off, and I can’t seem to get past it. I don’t know what happened, but you’ve been withdrawing into yourself. I imagined it would get better after your visit to see Tieng, and it did for a few days, but last night reset you again. Your eyes… It’s like you’re dead inside. I can’t see any light in them, and it’s starting to scare me.”
Kane did not say anything for a long moment, then he stripped off his shirt and turned his back to Miranda. She gasped, running her fingers down the ridges of his hard, shell-like skin.
“It’s like a turtle’s shell!” she said, a look of wonder in her eyes. “When did you start consuming, and what did you eat to get this?”
“I did not eat an animal,” Kane said hesitantly. “When Rafael died … some of him got in my mouth.” He wore a look of disgust at the memory.
Miranda’s eyes widened, and she covered her mouth with her hands. “I’m so sorry, Kane. That must have been horrible … but how is this even possible?”
“I don’t know, Miranda … but it’s not the first time, either.”
He proceeded to tell her of Tommy, his lesson with Tieng, and everything else that had happened over the past few weeks. After a pot of coffee and many, many questions, Miranda began cleaning up the kitchen, and Kane went downstairs to spend some time with Harry before retiring to bed.
The next morning Kane, headed back to the scav compound and found Rebecca in the break room, staring out the window.
“Rebecca,” Kane said quietly so as not to startle her, but she jumped anyway as he walked over to her. “Mitchell gave me some orders to pass on to you, if you’re willing?” When she did not respond, he continued, “He gave us orders to follow the attackers’ trail and gather information. After we have exhausted all our options, we are to scorch the earth with our reprisal.”
Rebecca perked up at the last part and nodded. “After the ceremony?” she asked cautiously. “I would like to bury what’s left of my husband first.”
It was Kane’s turn to wince. “Of course, Rebecca. Take as much time as you need.”
“No, I don’t need much time; I need to grind them to dust beneath my boots, as soon as possible,” she said, fire raging in her eyes.
. . . . .
They held the ceremony that night, and after Rebecca said her piece, Kane stepped up to the mic on behalf of Mitchell.
“I will try to keep this brief, but you never know with these things. I knew many of the fallen, most of whom I did not know as well as I wished, and that is my fault. Even though most of you have military backgrounds and fall easily into friendly and familial bonds with your fellow scavengers, I have always been too standoffish. Until recently, Rafael and I held a deep dislike for each other over a simple misunderstanding. We grew close after we discovered our mutual stupidity—and then he gave his life to save mine. I don’t mean to make light of the subject, but I bet each and every one of us could work harder to establish better relationships with each other, and I am going to push myself and each of you to do just that.
“You could have a future friend sitting beside you right now and not even know it. At the dawn of this new era, we need to strive harder than ever to overcome our petty differences, and learn to work together better than ever, because going forward, we’re going to need each other more than we know.” He stepped back and swiped a tear from his eye, then saw many more being wiped from cheeks than he would have believed possible for this crowd.
The rest of the ceremony went by in a blur, and after many handshakes and stories of the bravery of the fallen, the crowd began to break up. Rebecca found him then, and with a nod, he told her to meet him there at dawn tomorrow.
The next day, Rebecca and Kane loaded their supplies into Kane’s SUV, and they headed toward the Holland Tunnel Gate.
They were past the wall before Rebecca finally spoke. “That was nice, what you said up there yesterday, Kane. I never would have assumed you were one for speeches, but that was a good one.”
Kane did not respond for a while, then he slowed to a stop and looked at Rebecca. “I know we haven’t been friends for long, but I hope you know that I will do anything to make this right.”
Rebecca held up a hand. “There is nothing to make right, Kane. Rafael knew what he was doing, and I guarantee he would not change his actions if he had a second chance. Don’t belittle his sacrifice by thinking you could have changed anything.”
Kane stared at her for a while, and she returned his stare with that signature fire in her eyes. It was a little dulled, but that was to be expected, given she had put her husband in the ground only the day before.
“Just promise me one thing,” she said, breaking the spell. “Help me get the revenge I need. I’m a brutal woman by nature, and I know their deaths won’t bring me any closure, but I will sleep better at night knowing that the people responsible are in the ground as well.”
“I promise,” Kane said, and the conviction in his eyes was all that Rebecca needed.
Kane had sent four scavengers with expert tracking abilities to follow the trail, and they marked a spot on Kane’s map where they had all converged outside the wall. Curiously, three figures had come out of the water near the scavengers’ compound and slipped back in after the fight. They had found no aquatic life forms among the corpses of the attackers, so they must have all escaped. He knew it was possible, but the horrors now living in the oceans were normally enough to keep all but the sturdiest boats out of the water, not to mention swimmers. So, after they put a new patrol in place on that side of the compound, he and Rebecca had headed to the marked spot.
Kane parked well outside the area indicated, so as not to obscure any tracks, and he began to scout around to make sense of them. Rebecca lifted into the air to get a literal bird’s-eye view of the area. After twenty minutes, they met back at the vehicle to discuss their findings.
“There were at least forty of them, which means one of two things,” Kane explained. “One—the least likely option—is that the mall compound has a subterranean structure, where they hid a lot of people from my survey of the area. Or two: more than one group is involved.”
“From the sky, I can clearly see the paths of two large groups converging. I think I can easily follow both trails, but one clearly heads in the direction you said the mall lies in,” Rebecca added.
“I say we follow the trail of the unknown group, so that it doesn’t go cold,” Kane said.
“Agreed. The only potential problem is that the three behemoths that were part of the attack force came in with that group.”
“Shit” was all Kane said as he got into the vehicle and Rebecca rose back into the air. She flew overhead while he followed from a distance below. They traveled this way for a few hours before they halted for a lunch break. Afterward, Rebecca took off, and they went back at it.
Later, as the sun began to set, Kane was just about to blow his horn to signal Rebecca when a gigantic shadow passed over him. He blew his horn anyway, but it was too late; the silent, massive figure slammed into Rebecca, and they plummeted from the sky.
Kane floored it and came upon the writhing mass that was the two, winged beings, flipping on his brights in the quickly fading sunlight. What looked like an owl-bat-eagle monstrosity let out a screech at the blinding light, and Rebecca used the opportunity to draw her rapier and plunge it into the thigh of the leg that held her. Released, she rolled out from underneath the beast, then screamed as her roll brought her oddly bent wing under the weight of her body. She clenched her teeth as Kane leapt from the vehicle, drew his CZ, and shot the thing once, center mass, before it launched into the air, Rebecca’s rapier still lodged deep in its thigh. Kane rushed to her side but kept his eyes on the sky; he knew it would be back.
He helped her to the back of the vehicle, and she sat down carefully. Her clothes were nearly shredded, and scratches crisscrossed her body where the creature’s talons had raked across her downy feathered skin, some shallow, some deep. Reaching past her for the first aid kit, he popped it open beside her.
“We have to get you bandaged up quick, before it comes back,” Kane said as he began rubbing ointment into the worst of the wounds and wrapping them with gauze. “We don’t have time to clean them properly, but we can do this better later and hope no infection takes hold in the meantime.” He finished with the worst of the lacerations and examined her wing carefully.
Rebecca looked up at him. “Only downside to being a bird is the brittle, hollow bones. I might be sturdier than most other bird species, but I still break easier than I would like. You’re going to have to set the bones and bind the wing to my back.”
He had her stand up and turn around, then he tore open the back of her shirt. There was not enough fabric left to keep it together, and the shirt pooled in ribbons at her feet. He tried not to blush—but he was a man, after all.
“Kane…?” Rebecca chided as his hands grew still on her back.
“Right,” he grunted. “This might hurt a bit.” With no further warning, he snapped the bones back into place.
Her piercingly shrill scream was bitten off quickly as Rebecca clamped her mouth shut. Kane folded the wing into place and began binding it to her back. He was wrapping up when his cold hands brushed her bare breast, and she gasped. The light down that covered them was so soft that he had forgotten she was naked.
“Sorry,” he said, plucking a blanket out of the back and draping it over her shoulders.
The sun was fully set now, but Kane and Rebecca were still able to see clearly, thanks to their enhanced vision. Rebecca got redressed as fast as she could with her wings bound awkwardly behind her, then they took turns holding defensive positions as they set up camp for the night. No fire was lit, as they could see better by the light of the moon and stars, and they ate their meal briskly and silently before deciding who would take watch. Rebecca quickly drifted off to sleep.
Two hours later, he nudged her awake as the thing began circling overhead. She was instantly alert and ready, and Kane nodded towards the circling mass with a finger to his lips.
It was watching them watch it, and it landed noisily in a tree nearby, its huge glowing eyes reflecting the light of the moon. The tree popped and creaked ominously as the creature settled its full weight on a relatively small branch. Then it sat there, unmoving and unblinking, for almost half an hour before Rebecca was forced to shift her weight and change position. Its head slowly swiveled in her direction, and Kane shifted as it looked at Rebecca. Instantly its head swiveled back towards him, and he was still.
“No good,” Kane whispered. “I don’t see your rapier either. Do you think you can make it to your sniper rifle?”
“Possibly, but I don’t know if I can shoot in this condition. My Sako has quite a bit of kick. I might be able to get one shot off, but if I’m being honest, my second shot will probably go wide because of the pain from the first,” Rebecca explained.
“That’s our best option. I’m going to rush it and try to distract it long enough for you to get a shot off,” Kane said as he slowly climbed to his feet.
The creature in the tree shifted its enormous weight, ruffling its feathers. Its huge bat-like ears flicked in his direction, then it closed its eyes, trilling so quietly that Kane would have missed it without his enhanced hearing. With a shock, he froze, pivoting slightly to see if Rebecca had noticed as well. She nodded slightly. The beast was using echolocation to scan the environment around it, which eliminated the possibility of getting out of its line of sight.
He unholstered his CZ, and the thing trilled again. The four talons on its left claw flexed ominously as it loosened its grip on the branch. Kane hated dealing with the more intelligent creatures that populated the world now. As he stalked slowly closer, it leaned towards him, and without warning, it toppled out of the tree, throwing its wings out and swooping towards him as it opened its eyes again. He barely had time to roll to the side, and its claws raked his left thigh as it passed over him.
“Dammit,” he swore as blood began pumping from the gashes in his thigh.
Hearing a crunch from behind him, he turned and saw that the monster had tried to land on top of his SUV, blowing out the rear glass. Rebecca had been trying to open the back hatch, and the beast had crushed it. She was darting around the side of the vehicle when it landed on the roof again and raked its claws at her. Another window shattered. Kane tried to shoot the winged beast in its wing near the lighter-colored alula feathers. He hit his mark, leaving a massive hole where its wrist had been.
The massive oddity tried to lift into the air again with a piercing screech. It failed, landing awkwardly on the ground on the other side of the SUV from Rebecca. Kane hastily circle around the vehicle but did not get any closer. Wounded beasts were twice as deadly, and he wanted to keep well out of its reach. Making eye contact, he was shocked to see fear mixed in with the anger and intelligence of its eyes. He raised his CZ to put it out of its misery, knowing it probably could not survive with a broken wing. But he hesitated for just a second, lowering his pistol.
“Kane, what are you doing?!” Rebecca hissed as she came up beside him.
Kane did not respond. He cleared his mind as he looked into the creature’s eyes. As he entered his zen state, all he saw was its glowing gaze; everything else had blurred to nothing around him. In the back of his mind, he vaguely sensed a huge, vicious terrapin trying to smash through the cage that contained his inner rat, but he quickly released the distraction; he would deal with that later. Willing his body to close the distance, he felt his hands make contact with the feathers on the creature’s chest. Now physically and mentally connected with the owl, he saw the eagle and bat as well. They were three separate entities, but they were layered on top of each other so that they almost blurred together. Owls really were wise, and with the heightened intelligence from the eagle and the bat, the beast nearly possessed the intelligence level of a young child. They were warring with each other though, each one’s instincts trying to overpower the others.
Kane mentally reached towards the blurred outlines of their souls, and they became still beneath his touch. He pushed peace into them, trying to connect with them more deeply. But as he connected with the bat, he felt a sharp pain and was wrenched out of his mind space as Rebecca pulled her rifle from the backseat and pointed it at the creature. In a shower of feathers, the beast’s wings went from that of a feathered bird to those of a leathery bat, and it launched itself into the air, disappearing into the night.
Rebecca fell hard on her ass at the sudden transformation, almost dropping her rifle. “What the fuck did you just do?!” she screamed at Kane. “You gave it time to heal itself, and now it’s going to start hunting us again! How in the hell did it heal itself like that? I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“It won’t start hunting us again,” Kane said calmly.
“How do you know?” Rebecca asked as she got to her feet, still in shock.
“I just do.”