Alterant (Belador #2)(60)

She snatched her senses away from the misty cloud and searched for another route.

A new patch of fog had begun filling in the street behind her, floating her way.

Trapped.

Her palms were damp. That fog was not natural.

Could she hold her breath and drive fast enough through the yellow cloud in front of her and reach clear air without shifting into her beast form?

If I sit here another minute I’m not going to have a choice.

Sucking in a deep breath, she rolled on her throttle and raced ahead but slowed when visibility dropped to ten feet in front of her. She couldn’t risk hitting a pedestrian, with so little line-of-sight distance.

Fifty feet into the fog she started seeing fallen bodies, no . . . pieces of bodies. What had attacked them?

Across the street on her left, a teenage boy wearing a hoodie and carrying a backpack rushed along in the same direction Evalle rode. A woman in a business suit walked just as quickly toward him, both obviously in a hurry to get through the fog. But when the woman reached the boy, the woman slowed as they almost passed each other and swung her briefcase, knocking the kid sideways.

Evalle’s lungs were crying for air, but she hit her brakes. She’d have to breathe if she got involved in that fight.

The kid jumped up and shoved the woman against the granite wall of the building along the sidewalk.

Crud.

Shoving down her bike stand, Evalle yanked off her helmet and gasped for air. Sulfur burned her throat. Her beast sent a tremble through her body. Before she could dismount, the woman had coldcocked the teenager.

As Evalle rushed over, the woman just walked away casually, as if she’d only stopped to ask directions of a passing stranger. When Evalle reached the young man he turned out to be in his early twenties.

She coughed from the sickening sulfuric air and bent down to give the kid a hand, asking, “You okay?”

He shoved up and swung a fist at her.

She caught his arm. “Whoa. Stop it.”

“Screw you. Get your hand off me or I’ll kill you.” He swung another punch she knocked away. His eyes were crazy wild.

She let him go with a shove to create space between them.

This fog was affecting humans.

Her first thought had been to warn him to stay away from the fog, but this guy was out of his mind. Instead, she pulled her glasses off and let him have a look at something really scary.

His eyes practically popped out of his head. He turned and ran.

Any other time she’d protect her nonhuman identity, but with this kind of insanity going on no one was going to believe him if he told them about glowing green eyes.

He was lucky she hadn’t shifted.

She paused, taking stock of her emotions. Her beast wanted to battle, but she had control of her urge to change. So the fog didn’t bother Alterants?

A flash of energy swatted her skin.

She wheeled around to find a person in the last stage of changing into a beast.

The thing was hideous, with hair across its arms and legs. The distorted head on top of his shoulders had a mouth full of fangs, beaked nose, huge ears and patches of hair on his head, plus a single horn that stuck straight out of his forehead.

And brown eyes.

An Alterant? Not green eyes like hers or black like Tristan’s eyes had been in his cage.

Was this a new type of Alterant?

Could this be what had been shifting across the country and killing? If so, the fog had to be behind the outbreaks.

The thing snarled and raised stubby arms with clawed fingers, coming for her.

Evalle took a quick look for humans. None . . . that were still alive. She lifted her hands and shoved a blast of kinetic energy at him.

He backed up a couple of steps and cocked his head at her.

He should have been knocked into the roll-off construction Dumpster twenty feet behind him.

She didn’t want to kill him if she could figure a way to contain the beast and throw him into the Dumpster to hold him. Then she’d have Storm get word to VIPER. Capturing one of these things might help them figure out what they were, why the fog triggered their change and how to stop this from happening.

Based on her line of work, she reasoned that some preternatural being had created this fog to make the beasts shift, but why?

The beast stomped forward and lifted a fist he shook at her.

She laughed. “You don’t scare—”

Something that felt like a bowling ball launched from a cannon hit her in the abdomen. The kinetic punch knocked her off her feet and slid her backwards ten feet.

She sucked in air and shoved up on her elbows.

A man in thrift-store clothes, an unkempt beard and ratty hair came riding up from behind the beast on a rickety bicycle. He rode past the beast without a glance, as if it didn’t exist, but gave Evalle a long, curious look before pedaling past her.

He hadn’t seen that beast?

But the beast saw the man on the bike and started after him.

That’s it. VIPER would have to catch another guinea pig.

Evalle shoved up to a crouch. “Hey, Badass. You want to play? Bring it.”

The beast stopped and swung eyes rotting with evil at her.

She lifted her dagger and waited for him to charge.

Didn’t take long.

Leaping to her feet, she moved forward. In the first stride, she used her kinetic power to shove off the sidewalk, onto the wall, running horizontally for two steps that put the beast at her left shoulder.