Hotbloods (Hotbloods #1)(77)

“That thing has done more evil than you could even imagine,” Navan replied. “Don’t think for a second that it wouldn’t hurt you, too.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “You heard it say how they’ve been feasting on human blood, right?”

“Yeah... That part was kind of hard to miss.”

“Shifters are crafty, and they’re also sadistic. If they’re drinking blood, they’re keeping their victims alive for as long as possible, because they want fresh blood—they’re not interested in carrion. They kill slowly, dragging it out for as long as possible. Any humans they’ve taken, they’ve tortured—trust me. Think about a horde of those things taking you apart piece by piece. So jerking it around a little bit here and there—it’s not cruel at all.”

I shuddered.

We continued at a slow pace, the shifter slipping and sliding along the icy surface. Suddenly, we jerked downward, as though the shifter had suddenly gained superhuman strength and was pulling the whole ship.

“What the—” Navan started. He peered out the window, his eyes widening.

A pack of wolves had appeared out of nowhere, it seemed, and were attacking the shifter, who was trying to out-maneuver them but failing. Suddenly, one of the wolves changed into a bird and flew up before dive bombing the shifter, its sharp talons spread.

“It’s a pack of shapeshifters,” Navan said, gritting his teeth. He threw the ship into neutral, and we hovered there, above the melee. He opened the door and yanked on the chain. “They’re going to tear that thing apart if we don’t get it up here.”

I got up to help him—the bird had changed back into a wolf, though a few of the wolves had changed into their regular form, like our shapeshifter, and they were tearing at its pink flesh.

“Why are they trying to kill it?” I stood behind Navan, pulling on the chain, leaning all my weight back.

“These things don’t care,” Navan grated out, giving the chain a hard pull. “Get me one of the guns, will you? Shifters don’t have any loyalty to each other. And they probably knew this one would give up their secrets to save itself.” He lunged forward and grabbed the shifter as it came level with the ship’s door. One of the wolves had clamped its jaw around the shifter’s foot; Navan leaned over and punched it in the nose. It changed shape as it fell, howling in pain. I handed him the gun, and he took several shots.

Navan slammed the door shut once the shifter was inside. It lay there, groaning, jagged lacerations running the length of its body.

“Great,” Navan said. “I guess you’re going to have to ride in here with us for the rest of the journey.”

I looked out the window and saw that the shifters had changed shape and were now all a flock of birds, with hooked beaks and talons.

“Uh, they’re still coming for us,” I said nervously.

Navan went over to where the weapons were stored and grabbed one of the rifles. I picked up one of the throwing knives and went over to the door. There were only a few of the birds left; the rest had been killed by Navan’s rifle shots. I took aim and let the knife fly. It spun end over end through the air, the blade sinking deep into the bird’s side, right below the wing. It plummeted, changing back to its original form as it landed on the ground in a lifeless heap.

Navan gaped at me. “Wow... That was . . .” He peered out the open door at the ground where the dead shifter lay in a widening pool of blood. “Impressive.”

We didn’t have much time to admire my knife-throwing skills, though, because the ship shuddered and dropped a few feet. My stomach flipped at the sensation.

“Something’s wrong with the ship,” I said, grabbing the steering wheel. I tried to steady it, but the ship shuddered again. “We’re going to have to land.”

Our landing was heavy, and the ship slid along the ice for several hundred feet before finally coming to a stop.

“This was really not part of the plan,” Navan said. He glared at the shifter. “You stay here.”

I followed Navan out of the ship. The exterior looked all right, but there was an acrid smell in the air and a billow of smoke rising from the back of it.

“That can’t be good,” I said. “I wonder if one of those birds got into the engine or something.”

“This seems to be a recurring theme,” Navan muttered. “Did I do something to deserve being cursed with all these broken-down ships? We don’t have time to fix this!”

“We don’t have much of a choice, though, do we?” I asked. “How are we going to get anywhere if the ship is broken?”

Navan sighed. “I guess we’ll have to comm the Fed for help. Who knows how long that’s going to take.”

“Maybe I could look at it. I am going to school for mechanical engineering.”

It was a stretch, I knew, to think that I could go from fixing the drive train on a bicycle to fixing whatever was wrong with this ship, but I wanted to at least try. I wanted to feel like I was actually contributing something to this mission, other than just being a liability that Navan had to worry about.

“You can try,” Navan said. “But I doubt even I could fix it, and I have experience with these types of machines. I think you’d have to be a magician, since we don’t have any parts. The Fed will have to supply us with the parts at least.”