“No time,” Brax grunted beside me. “They’ll be on you before you complete your shift. They’ll rip you apart while you’re vulnerable.”
Frustration was evident in his voice as he kept up a staggering run beside us, using his injured leg in a way that would have caused permanent damage in a human. It should have been impossible, but I knew firsthand the stubborn persistence even humans could draw out of themselves when they felt their life was in danger. I’d seen soldiers on the battlefield force themselves to walk to safety after being wounded, so their battle buddies didn’t have place their lives in danger to rescue them.
For Brax, it would be worse, with his wolf demanding to shift so it could heal him and defend them from threats.
That he remained relatively human, fur dotting his arms and his eyes the ice blue of his wolf, was a miracle and a testament to his iron will.
“We’re not far from Lou’s Bar. If we can make it, my wolves can help,” he grunted.
Close was a relative term. I’d been to Lou’s several times before, sometimes welcomed, sometimes to stir the pot.
Nathan had turned toward the bar’s neighborhood after we’d left the Blue Pickle. As the crow flies, we were maybe just under a mile away. Not too far for a vampire and werewolf. But it would mean going back the way we’d come through the golem creatures. Something I doubted any of us wanted to do.
I looked back as Liam shouted something in Gaelic, his face creased in a slight smile as he tossed one golem like a bowling ball at its brethren. Nathan tore the head off his own golem before using it to bludgeon another.
“They look like they’re having fun,” I remarked, tightening my grip on Brax.
“I may be a wolf in truth, but Liam was once known as the Black Wolf of the Galway,” Brax said as we moved. “He was a war leader, fierce and said to have once eaten the heart of a wolf to consume its power, strength and cunning. The civilized man he presents is just a mask. At his core, he’s a killer.”
I could see that. He seemed perfectly at home disassembling the golems as they tried to swarm past him, breaking them with sharp blows before tossing them away like broken dolls.
Still, he and Nathan were only two people. Each time they took apart one golem, two more rose in its place.
We needed to limit the avenue of attack until help could reach us. I knew just the spot.
“I have an idea,” I said, before leading Brax and Caroline in the opposite direction of his bar.
The three of us limped across a yard and onto another street, Nathan and Liam battling at our rear.
The sound of pebbles skating down a roof next to us drew my attention.
A golem perched there, crouching to leap. He sailed through the air. With a nasty snarl, Caroline leapt to meet him.
She grabbed him by the throat, the tips of her fingernails hardening into claws. She raked them down his face, snarling the entire time.
The golem kept coming, the little flame of power flickering merrily.
“His chest, Caroline,” I called. “Destroy his chest.”
She listened, plunging her arm in up to her elbow and yanking her fist out. The golem crumpled into dirt in her hand.
She met my gaze with wide eyes, holding her fist out to me. She opened it to reveal a pea sized stone, one that lit up my othersight with the same flame I’d seen in the golem.
That’s how they were animating these things.
“Don’t let it touch the dirt,” I warned.
She nodded and pocketed it, not arguing with me.
“We’re not far now,” I told her, adjusting Brax’s arm over my shoulder.
Liam and Nathan had nearly caught up to us by this point, some of the golems keeping them occupied as the rest spilled around them and headed for us.
“Aileen,” Caroline warned.
“I see them. We’re almost there.”
We cut through the yard, emerging onto the next street. Hector’s bridge was a dull shadow in the distance. There were no streetlights on this street or next to the small ravine. The only light was what was provided by the houses.
