Madhouse (Cal Leandros, #3)(50)

"You know, I'm not quite sure she'll need the rest of us after all," Robin remarked.

She had something beyond what her mate had possessed—more speed, more decisiveness, more of a predatory nature. I'd thought how our past informant had been content to sit and wait for his prey to come to him. This boggle, she wouldn't be. I'd made an assumption that all boggles were happy to dwell in their mud until dinner wandered by to be mutilated. It wasn't true. She would range, she would hunt…she chased down her prey, and having seen her in motion, I didn't think she would have it any other way.

It'd be f*cking fantastic if she were the answer to our Sawney problem, but I knew better. Things were never that easy. And insanity, like Sawney had in spades, carried you a long-ass way.

We found that out in less than an hour. The tunnel we ended up in was long abandoned and most likely long forgotten. The lights had gone dark who knew when and remained that way. No one had come to replace burned-out bulbs. No one came for anything as far as I could tell. Niko, Robin, and I carried flashlights. No one else needed them. The wolves and Promise got by easily on our reflected light and I didn't know if the boggle needed light at all. As for what the revenants required…bump into it in the dark. If it's not cold and clammy, take a bite out of it. You didn't need light for that. Revenants weren't smart, but they didn't have to be, and the fact that Sawney had somehow lifted them an IQ point or two only made things worse for us. Worse being?

They came out of the water.

I thought the massive swell was the boggle at first, because they rose as one. Boggle was what my mind expected and so for a split second that's what I saw. Then reality—at least forty more revenants, six inches from us. Six inches. They couldn't have surrounded us as at least one of us would've felt them under the water as we passed them, but this…this was right up there with being the next best thing. I couldn't have smelled them separately from the ever-present rank decomposition already in these unused tunnels anyway. The wolves might have, though, if those revenant sons of bitches hadn't been covered with several feet of sluggishly flowing, horrifically ripe water. Now that several feet had become six goddamn inches and we were beyond screwed.

Niko and I were in the lead, having just traded off with Delilah and Promise ten minutes ago. The four other wolves were strung out loosely behind their silver-haired Alpha, and Robin was pulling rear guard.

Six inches. I kept thinking it, but it bore repeating. I was so close to the revenant that I could see the poreless stretch of pallid skin stretched across bone. I could see that behind the thick coating of white that covered their eyes was a fine tracery of purple veins, the size of a stream of spider silk, and that the lips had no lines in them. Lastly, I saw that every tooth in every yellowed grin was flecked with dried blood like speckling on a quail's egg.

Such a short distance, and it let me see more detail than I wanted. It also let me jam the Glock in the belly of the revenant before me and blow his spine in half. Six inches … six miserable inches, it isn't the space you want between you and a hungry foe, but at least you don't have to aim. Unfortunately, the same was true for them. They passed over us in a wave. No specific attacks on individuals—tidal waves don't do that. They just take you the hell down. Drowning in the ocean's version of a sucker punch wouldn't be pleasant; drowning in tainted tunnel water and moistly putrid flesh wasn't any better.

I lost the flashlight. I lost the Glock too, but that was purposeful. I let it go and went for my blades. One was the serrated knife, a mercenary magazine special, and the other a kukri. Niko had shown me how to be effective with the minimachete. Now I was ready to give the same lesson to a revenant or ten. I came up from the water, the thrashing bodies, and ripped through everything solid around me. Everyone in our temporary quasi team was experienced enough to give everyone else their room. Personal space, it's yours—kill at will.

It wasn't easy getting back up to air—air to breathe, air to slash metal through. It was a process of clawing and stabbing and biting. If you wanted to give a label to something that already had the perfect one: Survive. Process. Method. Survival. When I surged upward, I was spitting out something other than water. They weren't dead, they weren't decomposing, but damned if they didn't taste as if they were.

I kept both hands in motion, doing my best to clear the area around me. The serrated knife took out one throat; the kukri did the same but with a cleaner slice. All around was…what? The dimmest flickering of illumination from flashlights dropped underwater, a horde of white-eyed zombie wannabes, five giant wolves leaping and sending shredded intestines spilling through the air, a soaked and bloody puck and human with sword and axe, a vampire ripping an entire head from a revenant's shoulders. What did you call that?

Hell. You called it hell, because chaos was far too pretty a word.

And where the f*ck was our boggle?

"Travelers."

Once again, they said it as one. And, I was sorry to note, that with repetition, it did not get any less freaky. It was still wrong and unnatural, even for a revenant.

Delilah catapulted over my head as I dodged one revenant's rush and permanently ended another's ability to move at all. I recognized her as she was the only white wolf among the minipack. The silver-blond fur was a startling glow as she soared over. Her brother Flay managed about three-fourths wolf when he changed. He could run on all fours but could walk on two as well. Delilah, as far as I could see, went all the way. Wolf through and through and big as hell. When she landed, she did what Promise had done. She removed a head, but she did it using her jaws. And then she did another and another and another. The other wolves, one with the remains of a hooded sweatshirt still tangled around his neck, were cutting their own swath, and doing the job we paid them for. All except one. Whether he was a shade slower, slightly less agile, the reason didn't matter. What did was that he got caught. Several sharp-nailed hands managed to fasten on to him, and even more mouths bit through brownish fur to flesh and didn't let go.