She stood perfectly at peace, seemingly unaware of the dark formation of masked guards approaching with their rifles raised.
“Get on the ground!” one near the front snapped. “Nice and easy.”
She didn’t move. Even then, they didn’t open fire. Maybe they were under threat about damaging such a rare and valuable asset.
As she tilted her head back, Róisín’s eyes fluttered like she was in a trance or ready to drop into a dead faint.
The ground began to shiver like a mounting earthquake. Murmurs of uncertainty flitted among the guards. Just as suddenly as it started, the shaking paused.
And then all hell broke loose.
I was thrown off my feet as the concrete beneath us exploded with multiple ruptures. Vegetation burst through the openings, entire trees climbing high toward the ceiling in a matter of seconds, roots and bark destroying the flooring in its path. As I got my bearings, I watched as the rapidly growing trees speared several guards with branches. Others were devoured entirely by the trunks that were morphing into existence. Viscera clung to wood, bones snapping and creaking like the branches themselves. Strangely, none of it felt vindictive. They were just in the way, and the environment taking form was too ancient to notice the lives it was mowing down.
The chaos spread, an earthen humidity and scent taking hold around me. Nearby vans were turned onto their sides and swallowed by foliage, glass shattering and cages bursting open from sheer impact.
Cursing, I bolted in time to avoid being crushed by the van that had housed Róisín.
An earsplitting shriek came from my right. I fired my weapon, immediately catching the shaggy monster charging at me offguard. The howler staggered, then lowered its head to charge at me with its pointed horns.
Wheeling around just in time, I yanked a silver knife from the body of a fallen guard and drove it into the creature’s neck. My fractured arm trembled with shockwaves of agony, and the creature’s dying cry was deafening enough to rattle my vision.
As my senses cleared, the cacophony around me only grew.
Róisín’s pale form was up ahead. She took slow, light-footed steps along the row of vans, the forest spreading in her wake. Any guard that dared get in the way of the growth swiftly became part of it, and the ones wisening up enough to stand clear were soon overwhelmed by the creatures bursting into violent freedom.
Overhead, I swore I heard screams amongst the cracking of the ceiling, but I was too concerned with what was happening on the ground.
Bullets punched and whizzed among the trees. Lee moved from tree to tree amidst the chaos, trying to regroup with me. Behind him, a guard raised his gun, but he didn’t have an opportunity to fire.
An ahool swooped down, plucking the guard from the ground. Lee flinched from the screams, but kept his eyes on me as he made his way in my direction. A second ahool leapt from a branch and tried to lay claim to the screaming guard. The monsters’ predatory struggle ended in a rip of flesh and half the body being thrown against one of the trees with a sickening crack.
“Don’t look,” I breathed as Lee finally staggered to my side.
“No need to tell me,” he said, shuddering. “I’m already about to puke from the fuckingsound.”
The ahools swept out of sight, but a couple of ghouls approached the fallen half-corpse hungrily. I shot them down at once and urged Lee to follow behind me in search of Róisín.
As howls of pain popped in all directions, an unsettling sense of satisfaction burned through me. The guards weren’t the wealthy invitees upstairs making a game and profit of these nightmares, but they were more than complicit. And every guard alerted to come in here was one less that could point a gun at Cliff and Sylvia.
But as the forest became redder, I had to wonder—can we contain this?
As though reading my thoughts, Lee panted beside me, “What the fuck did you unleash?”
Something to bring this place to its knees.
Stunned, I drank in the destruction. Perhaps it was more like sheer, unfathomable creation. I would have never known this place was a loading bay constructed from concrete. It was pure woodland with a canopy so thick that I couldn’t even make out the ceiling. The only sign of its true form came from the fluorescent lights peeking through the branches—the ones that were still operating at least.
For all I knew, the entire hotel would soon collapse on us. And then how far would it spread? Past the hotel, into Aspen, the entire fucking state of Colorado? I would have to kill Róisín before allowing that, but was that even possible?
“Mierda! Stop here.” I pulled Lee to a halt, hiding in the shadow of a tree.
A monstrous snake was fighting with a pair of harpies over a guard’s corpse. One of the winged beasts divebombed with gnarled claws, catching one of the snake’s eyes and ripping it apart. With a shriek, the snake snapped its jaws around its attacker. The other fled in search of an easier meal.
Just as the serpent was starting on the guard’s body, I swung out partway and put a burst of bullets into its brain with my pistol. It didn’t have time to screech again before it collapsed dead on the forest floor.
Further ahead, an alp shapeshifted into a wildcat and launched itself at a guard whose armor was already shredded. The creature found the guard’s throat. A nearby crocotta mimicked the gurgling screams that ensued.
Before I could take aim, bullets flew from elsewhere and took out both creatures in quick succession.
