I targeted white eyes and squeezed the trigger. Crimson misted the cloud-stuffed sky and stained the tarmac.
Roark’s sword swung to my left, slashing through aphids breaking from the fray. Arrows flew on my right. I could feel the smooth glide of Michio’s movements against my back.
“Are we surrounded?” I shouted over my shoulder.
“Eyes forward, Evie. I’ve got your back.”
The carbine popped in my grasp. Bikers bucked on the ground beneath bone-crushing jowls. Soon, the motorcycles were abandoned, and the owners lay gutted and drained, awaiting transformation.
Heaving bodies bent over their food, sucking and slurping, then raised hungry eyes to us. Mouthparts retracted, and they stood as one.
My companions backed up, all but Cliff. “Where’s—”
A few yards away, he clung to a mutated body, clenched in an embrace.
“Oh, no, no. Fuck no,” Jesse screamed, releasing an arrow.
The aphid dropped. Cliff rolled with it, his chest cavity open, hooked by the mutant’s mouth. Angling his head, his tortured eyes snared mine, his jaw convulsing in a silent scream.
I didn’t think, just aimed the carbine and pulled the trigger, ending his life before the teeth of un-life took hold.
A floodgate of nausea released in my gut. The spurting hole in Cliff’s head. Jesse’s bloodshot eyes latched on his friend. The twenty or thirty aphids, snarling and sprinting toward us. I swapped mags, choking down bile, and raised the carbine.
The windup of propellers whistled across the tarmac. The gunship rolled into view and turned. The side-firing barrels rotated as the minigun plowed through the approaching swarm. I hit the ground and cupped my ears against the deafening jackhammer noise. After a few minutes, the minigun fell silent.
The nearby fissure hissed sulfur into the air. Sheet metal rippled above the hangars. Blood soaked the turned-up snow. Darwin paced a circle around me and sat on my boots.
When the propellers slowed to a stop, I raised a brow at Michio.
“Tallis and Georges.” He slid his cane inside his leather duster. “Quick thinking.”
I gave into a much-needed swallow and found my mouth dry.
Jesse pulled me to my feet, eyes on Cliff’s body. Then he spun on his boot heel and pitched over his shoulder, “Ivar waits.”
Ivar. Jesse’s no-last-name-non-English-speaking contact spoke one word we all knew. Aphid.
We met him on the outskirts of the airfield, where he corralled a dozen Icelandic horses. The man soared at around six and a half feet. His mammoth bone structure was prominent in his square face and I bet his untamed mane kept him warm on Iceland’s cold nights.
He was mirrored by his four sons who stood next to him, taking up a shitload of space. I didn’t catch their names, but they all ended in a gruff arrr.
Michio and Jesse knew a few Icelandic words and we collectively understood the Ivar family’s terse grunts and distrusting glares.
Roark leaned down from where he towered on his mount. “Where’d your Lakota find these quare hawks and why are we hoofing it?”
“I don’t know, but look at the size of their horses. What the hell’s in the food supply around here?”
Michio sidled his horse alongside Roark. “We’re hoofing it because there are no roads where we’re going.” He stretched out his hand to me.
“Um…I counted,” I said. “There are enough horses for everyone.”
“And what will you do when we run into aphids?” Michio’s hand waited.
“Rip off my clothes and ride naked through the streets? Might get me a Yang volunteer.”
He didn’t encourage me with a response. I clasped his hand and he swung me in front of him.
A few minutes into the trek, his hand found the hems of my coat and shirt and slipped beneath. His fingers flattened over my ribs and traced the underside of my breast. “I’m making love to you as soon as we find shelter.”
“If we live that long.”
“Decide you want to live, and you will.”
A tingly feeling spread under his fingertips. “If I let myself dream, I see a long life. With you. And this guy”—I reached for horse beside us and snatched Roark’s hand from his thigh—”and maybe even with that guy up there.”
Jesse turned in his saddle and met my gaze. His grin shocked me as much as it pleased me, shooing away some of the doubt I harbored about the future.
When Michio’s hand retreated, I grabbed it, held it in my lap, and lowered my voice so only he could hear me. “I look forward to making love to you tonight. And every night after.”
His fingers flexed, clutching my waist, pulling me close.
Hooves clopped along the barren streets of Reykjavik in the dim light of dusk. Ivar and sons led, strapped with axes welded to long hafts. Darwin sprinted ahead with ears back and tongue slapping to the side. Jesse’s hired hands brought up the rear.
The cavalry grew edgy as the shadows slithered over the multicolored roofs. The darkening buildings seemed to animate with the same flux that pulsed in the air. Every time the wind creaked a door or a hoof kicked debris, an ax swooshed up.