Contagion (Toxic City, #3)(49)
Jack flipped, but without success. For a moment the scene around him slowed, but then staggered onwards like a film with frames removed. The bat-thing jarred and jerked, and other movement sent sharp shadows dancing across the restaurant's tables.
Shivering, feeling hopeless, trying to gather himself to use his powers as they were meant to be used, Jack could only watch as Sparky leapt across tabletops and powered into the bat monster, grasping its hair and pulling its head back, wrapping his legs around its torso and trapping its wings.
“Sparky!” he shouted. But Sparky was grimacing, his spiked hair spattered with Fleeter's blood from the creature's mouth as he brought up his knife and slashed it across the monster's throat.
It screeched and pulled back, launching itself back through the shattered window with strong, long legs. Human legs, Jack thought, and on one ankle he saw what might have been an Ironman tattoo. Sparky went with it, attacking with the knife and trying to get past one waving wing that the thing had worked free. It struck Sparky with it, and the sound of leathery wing against his head was like a palm against a brick wall.
Hayden was hunkered down beneath the window sill, whimpering.
“Help her and stay safe!” Jack shouted at him, pointing at Fleeter. He could see more blood than skin on the girl's face. But it was his friend who needed him most.
He heard more gunfire, and the sound of a helicopter coming closer.
Taking a deep breath and struggling to settle the turmoil of his talents, Jack leapt out through the window.
As Sparky jumped on the thing and started hacking with his knife, Lucy-Anne heard breaking glass from the kitchen at the rear of the restaurant.
If something gets in behind us…she thought, and Jenna obviously had the same idea. She tapped Lucy-Anne's arm and led the way back towards the kitchen doors. She glanced back only once, looking past Lucy-Anne at where Sparky fought the thing. Her eyes went wide. Then they were at the swing doors into the kitchen, and Lucy-Anne pushed them open first.
Weaponless, defenceless, she stormed into the kitchen.
The thing stood at the back of the large room, and for a moment she thought it was Shade. Right then she'd have welcomed him with open arms, even though he spooked the hell out of her. At least she mostly knew what he was.
But it was not Shade. And when the thing charged, Lucy-Anne had no idea what was about to kill them. It moved without sound, long limbs waving like fronds and lifting it over food preparation surfaces, body and head kept level and straight and focussed on them. It had dark, fluid eyes. Like a shark. And when it opened its mouth there were too many teeth.
Lucy-Anne darted left, ducking down and frantically scanning for something to use as a weapon. But it was Jenna who saved the day. She swept something from a work surface and hefted it at the advancing creature, and the meat tenderiser impacted its head with a dull thud.
It paused and shook its head, and in a shockingly human gesture it brought one long, delicate limb up to touch its face. It looked at its hand—long-fingered, thin, feather-like—and saw blood.
“Lucy-Anne, use anything!” Jenna said, and she started throwing other kitchen objects. Several glass jars, metal ladles, a wooden chopping board, some hit the thing on its head or dark, upright body, some were knocked aside by its thrashing arms.
Lucy-Anne moved along the side of the kitchen, pulling drawers open and heaving a handful of knives and forks at the creature. She knew that they had mere seconds. It might be surprised, perhaps even a little shocked at the sight of its own blood and the willingness of these people to defend themselves. But if it was as hungry as the other things they had met, and as dismissive of those still relatively normal, then in moments it would come. And bite.
She tripped over the body. It was shrivelled and dry, still dressed in kitchen whites that were now stained an autumn of browns. It rustled and whispered as she fell, and she kicked out in shock, feeling her foot pass through something dry and brittle. The head rolled. Hollow eyes turned to her. And then she saw the knife in the dead man's hand.
Jenna shouted, anger and fear feeding her voice. “Come on you bastard, stupid, stupid thing! You want to eat me? What would your mum say, eh? Would your dad be proud?” Lucy-Anne couldn't see her—the central food preparation area was in the way—but she heard the pots and pans, plates and glasses, cups and cutlery that she continued to throw at the thing, keeping it at bay. The shadows of its waving arms and stalking legs passed across the ceiling above Lucy-Anne as it lifted itself up to leap, and then she stood.
It was ready to pounce on Jenna. Had her in the corner, pressed against the closed walk-in fridge with nothing left with which to protect herself. But it was Jenna's wide-eyed glance past the thing at Lucy-Anne that saved her.
As the creature turned, Lucy-Anne jumped onto the work surface and leapt at it, dead man's knife sweeping around in her right hand. Who were you? she thought. Who did you love, and are they still alive somewhere? But she could not distract herself with thoughts of lost humanity. She was still human, and loved, and she loved others. That was why she was as prepared as any of them to kill.
It lifted one long arm to ward off the knife, but the keen blade had remained untouched by time. It sliced through the light limb and Lucy-Anne's weight drove it forward, burying the blade in the creature's neck. As the thing fell, she fell on top of it.
Its shriek of pain was the first sound they'd heard from it, and it was horrible. Lucy-Anne closed her eyes as she and the thing tumbled to the floor, and she could have been hearing a baby crying out in pain. But then it lurched her aside and fell across her, teeth gnashing, head butting at her even as she brought her left arm up to protect her face.