Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(56)

Three things happen at once. Rissa screams and falls to her knees, trying desperately to hold her guts in place. The tsé naayéé’ winds his arm back for another swing, this time at Rissa’s neck. My obsidian throwing knife flies through the air before my brain can even process that I’ve thrown it. And it’s a combination of instinct, training, and clan-power speed that makes that blade fly true, right into the monster’s eye. He, or it, screams, drops the sword it’s carrying, and clutches at the small knife. But its fingers are thick and clumsy and it can’t dislodge the hiltless blade.

I’ve got my B?ker out and I’m on top of the tsé naayéé’ in seconds. I use my hunting knife to hack at its neck until it stops moving. Out of the corner of my eye I see Clive swing his rifle forward, scanning the dark for more creatures. And he’s not disappointed. I count two—no, three—hurtling toward us from out of thin air. I curse as Clive lets loose, raining a hail of bullets down on the creatures. They slow, and one actually stumbles, but then they are up and moving toward us again.

“Fire!” I scream. In the panic, Clive’s forgotten what I said about bullets. He keeps on shooting and I realize I’m not making any sense. He is firing. I mean he needs to use the flamethrower.

Kai is next to me. “Go!” he yells. “Go help him! I’ve got Rissa.”

Rissa. I was so intent on bringing the monster down, I forgot about Rissa. She’s lying on the ground less than a yard away, hands clutching her middle. She’s not making much noise, just a low whimper. Blood and other things glisten dark and wet and bulging in the starlight.

“Maggie!” Kai screams. “To Clive!”

And I’m up and moving. I reach Clive’s shoulder just as the monsters are on us. I only have a second to cry, “Burn them!” and reach for Clive’s arm. He flexes his wrist, releasing the spray of fuel, just as I hit the lighter switch. Fire blazes to life in the palm of his hand, and Clive reaches out and smacks the monster’s face as it tackles him to the ground. The creature shrieks as its thick shaggy hair goes up in flames, its skin crackling like kindling.

The next one is on me. I can’t see it, but I can sense it coming. I duck and pivot and feel the terrifying breeze its machete makes as it passes over my head. But I’m where I want to be. I run the B?ker across the back of its Achilles tendons.

And I’m moving, meeting the next one as it comes. This time I sweep the head clean off on my first pass.

Clive’s lurching back to his feet. The tsé naayéé’ whose face he set on fire is still smoking, the one who I crippled is trying to drag itself away on legs that don’t work, and two others no longer have heads.

“Are there more?” I shout, eyes straining wildly into the darkness to see anything at all. I can feel my strength lagging, the aftereffects of Honágháahnii already dragging at my muscles. “Can you see any more?”

No one answers me, so I limp over to where Kai has Rissa cradled in his lap. He’s made some kind of field bandage from the hem of her shirt and wrapped it tightly around her stomach. It smells faintly of cedar and I realize it must be coated in salve.

“She needs medical attention,” Kai says, voice tight with worry. “More than I can do here. We need to get her home.”

Clive has joined us, his face so pale his freckles stand out like blood splatter on his skin and his eyes are too bright. But he’s calm when he asks, “Can you help me carry her to the bikes?”

Kai’s head jerks up. His eyes go huge as he fixes on something in the distance. A muscle ticks in his jaw, and the look on his face sends cold fingers down my back. I turn to see what he sees.

There’s a dozen more tsé naayéé’ climbing over the rocks and headed our way.

I drag myself upright, muscles protesting. “Clive, I’m going to need your flamethrower. I’m fast, but they’re too spread out and I don’t think I can take all of them before they get to us.”

Clive lifts his palm and flexes his wrist, but the mechanism jams. He rotates the clear tubing connecting the fuel source to the face of the watch, but it’s clear something’s wrong.

“It’s clogged,” he mutters. “Or it broke when I fell.” He slams the whole thing against his thigh, trying to get the tube to catch. But it’s no good. The fuel won’t flow. And it’s all we got.

I swallow and those cold fingers reach deep inside me and clamp down. I’m exhausted, crashing hard from using my clan powers, but I know what I have to do. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can,” I say. “You’ll have to make a run for the bikes.”

“We won’t leave you,” Clive says.

“Yes, you will, unless you want your sister to die.” I’m thinking about what Grace said to me back there on the porch. About how she’s lost half her family already, and there’s no way in hell I want to be responsible for her losing the rest.

“She wouldn’t want me to run away.”

“Dammit, just go!”

“Wait.” Kai stops us. He lays Rissa’s head gently on the ground and comes to stand between Clive and me. The smell is stronger, choking, and the monsters are getting closer. Fifty feet, forty.

“Give me the lighter,” he says. Clive frowns but pulls the lighter free from the broken contraption and hands it to Kai. “Have your knives ready,” Kai says to me. “Just in case. And Clive, go to your sister and be ready to run on my say-so.”