Crunchy. Meat. Slippery. Sweet.
Nick gagged at the unexpectedly vivid memory of something the bird had eaten, peeled off the frozen corpse of a sheep. He’d thought he’d gotten used to the bird’s appetite, but apparently that was one of the bits they shared. Now that it was quiet, his stomach had turned fastidious.
A flash of black humor reminded him that he’d see the sheepsicle again if he puked. That helped to choke back the bile.
Nick ran his hand through his hair, ice-matted knots cold against his knuckles, and wondered if that dark thought was him or ifmaybehis gran’s bitter liquor had worn off.
Or started to, he reminded himself, which wasn’t going to be any help over the next few hours. He shifted his weight and kicked away the snow that had built around his feet. The rumble of the ATVs’ engines rattled under the howl of the wind with a deeper note, but it carried oddly through the snow-dense air, and Nick couldn’t tell where the noise came from.
“Where are they?” he muttered to himself.
He wasn’t sure if Gregor heard him—for all his complaints about the loss of his wolf, Gregor’s ears were still sharp enough—or if the gesture to catch Nick’s attention was just well-timed. When he looked over, Gregor pointed down the road and then pressed his finger to his lips in silent direction.
Nick nodded and strained his ears. At first the noise was lost in the wind, but then he caught the low growl of an engine in the stillness.
A moment later two ATVs bounced through the trees and up the hill, snow spraying out behind them with waves. Two men sat on each ATV, heavy black guns slung over their backs and gloved hands wrapped around the handlebars of the machines as they jarred to a halt in front of the wall.
Boyd made a muffled howl of protest and yanked at the door until the reinforced wood rattled in the frame. He threw his head from side to side to try and dislodge the hood.
“Hands up,” one of the men shouted as he scrambled off his bike. He moved stiffly after an hour in the saddle in the cold, but his hands were steady as he raised the gun. “Get away from that door.”
Two of the other men followed his example, guns cradled ready in their arms as they fanned out around the house. Nick didn’t have a wolf’s sense of smell, except for the ripe, red threads of carrion, but he could read tension in tight shoulders and jerky movements. Gloved fingers twitched on triggers as Boyd kicked at the door with black-booted feet and swore through his gag.
“We should just fucking shoot him,” the man on the left yelled over the wind as he hiked the gun up to his shoulder. “Shut the fuck up!”
The last man stayed in the saddle of the ATV. He pulled his gloves off, hands very pale at the end of his thick-cuffed sleeves, and tucked them into his pocket as he turned to search the white-blanketed landscape. The crest of phantom feathers that weren’t there on the back of Nick’s neck bristled as he felt the man’s attention linger on him. Even hidden behind smoked glass goggles, the weight of his attention felt… heavy, thick with something that sucked at the pain in Nick’s head like it could taste it. That was his grand—Nick’s brain stalled over that idea, the word weighted down with a leaden ball of panic. He let it go. The prophet, he corrected himself as the man turned his attention back to the soldiers. That was the prophet.
“I told you to—”
The flat retort of gunshot cut the ranting short. Blood sprayed through the air as the prophet shot him in the back of the head. It splashed a gory red against the faded white walls of the cottage. Boyd stayed upright for a moment and then pitched over, face-first into the snow. Blood seeped out from his head, watered down from scarlet to a faded pink as it filtered through the crystals.
One of the men flinched in surprise and his finger tightened on the gun. It spat a short judder of bullets that studded the door and caught Boyd in the shoulder. The impact smacked Boyd into the door with a grunt. He slid down the door onto his knees and Nick started to his feet. It was instinct, years of training taken over from the lessons learned in the last few weeks. Gregor growled loudly enough for Nick to hear and impatiently gestured “stay.”
“Wait,” Gregor mouthed as the prophet put a bullet through the shooter’s throat.
Nick flinched at the noise, his heartbeat loud in his ears. After everything that had happened—the monsters, the dead, the strange things—it was the sound of a gunshot that still hit every socially installed, pop-culture-panic trigger he had. His breath caught in his chest, hot and anxious, and he covered his hand with his mouth to hide the steam as he panted.
The last soldier realized where the shots came from and spun around. He didn’t bother to ask why, just pulled the trigger and pumped two bullets into the prophet’s gut. One spat out his back, just above his ribs, but the other caught something inside. The prophet groaned, pressed one hand to his gut, and hunched over.
“What the hell?!” the soldier got around to. His voice was ragged, and he swung the gun in quick, unsteady arcs to threaten shadows in the snow. He shot one in a quick spray of bullets, and it burst apart to reveal nothing but ice and emptiness. Nick flinched again as his ears reacted to the noise with a hot whine of feedback. “What thefuck!”
The prophet slouched to the side, nearly off the ATV. There was no blood on his jacket, absorbed by the thick stuffing, butthatNick could smell on the wind. With his head slumped down toward his chest, he muttered something.
“What?” the soldier shuffled forward warily. He poked the prophet with his gun, which made the slumped man moan and drop his gun from weak fingers.
Nick cursed through his fingers but obeyed Gregor’s glare to stay where he was.
The soldier kicked the gun out of the way and reached out to grab the prophet’s shoulder to push him upright. His fingers dug into the mottled gray fabric, and the prophet came up with a thin, over-sharpened knife in his hand.
From where Nick crouched, he couldn’t see him cut the soldier’s throat, just the flash of the knife at as it started the stroke under one ear and then ended it at the other, but he could imagine the damage. A short, oblique cut that sliced neatly through the carotid artery, split the windpipe and larynx open, and maybe nicked the jugular on the way out.
Neat. Professional. Unusual in presentation, since a forward slice to the throat was usually in a fight and the victim would have more hesitation marks and defensive injuries. Most killers couldn’t open a throat as deftly as the prophet had.
Gran had always been good at getting the meat off the bone too, Nick remembered queasily.
The prophet pulled the soldier close for a second and then pushed him roughly away. The man staggered back a couple of steps and turned, one hand clutched to his throat as though that would be enough to pinch it closed. He stumbled toward the other quad bike and almost reached it, but his legs gave way in time to leave him draped over the black plastic seat. Blood dripped down the side and puddled on the dredged-up snow beneath the tires.
“You could have helped,” the prophet said, voice pitched to carry. He wiped the knife on his sleeve and made it disappear again. “I don’t relish murdering my own.”
