“Then we can wait for him.” Luca pulled, but Nox dragged him down the steps.
“He’s not here because he’s dead.” But not long enough for the smell to remain hidden when disturbed by raindrops hitting the ground.
A mile away, two? They hadn’t killed him close to the house.
But Nox was less worried about Dr. Markus being dead than the possibility of who, or what had killed him.
The scent of turned earth thickened as if something large erupted from the ground a few hundred feet away. Twigs snapped, leaves shifted. For a moment the rich scent of the Anubis tainted with life overrode all other smells.
Lightning fractured the sky.
“Fuck.”
Heat signatures slid through the trees, each one growing brighter as the cold spots sloughed from their fur. They must have buried themselves in the ground to keep their presence hidden.
Nox backed up.
“I thought you wanted to leave?”
“Too late.” Nox guided Luca back to the deck. “Go inside, hide. Don’t come out no matter what. I’ll find you.” Nox twisted the handle off the storm door then rammed his shoulder against the door, and the wood frame cracked. He shoved it open. “Go.” Nox pushed Luca inside.
“Nox—”
“Don’t argue. Just do what I say.”
Luca darted toward the stairs.
Hiding wouldn’t do much if they tracked him, but it would at least keep Luca out of harm’s way until Nox dealt with the other Anubis.
Metal shrieked. The black mass of the Anubis a shadow against the night as it scurried across the steep tin roof. Three more emerged from the woods. Their green-yellow eyes the only break in the darkness they’d been carved from.
The same empty feeling surrounding the Anubis at the motel encompassed these. A sensation grating Nox’s nerves playing across his skin in high-pitched chaotic tones. An unnatural state of being for the Anubis. And Nox realized why. Because these Anubis existed without an Alpha.
They closed in, but their movements lacked the surreal image created by a substance that did not abide by the laws of nature. It didn’t mean they weren’t deadly. Especially to someone like Luca. The Anubis dug their back feet into the earth while pulling their front feet under. As one, they launched themselves at Nox, becoming a wave of teeth and fur.
Nox leaped from the top step in the direction of the center Anubis. Silence snapped into place and light ceased to move.
Black threads raced up Nox’s arm, extending his reach, thickening into paws with prehensile fingers tipped in razors and a spread wider than the tires on the Jeep.
Nox swung, sinking his grip into the head of the first creature, shearing off the top of the creature’s skull.
Sound erupted and rain soaked Nox in a torrential wash. Brain tissue splattered the dead Anubis’s two companions. One locked onto Nox’s shoulder; the second sank its bite into his thigh.
The Anubis within Nox erupted in a surge of blackfleshand fur. Hisfleshsplit, the sudden mass engulfing his body and blowing apart his clothes.
He clamped his jaws over the back of the neck on the one crushing his collarbone and jerked his head, tearing its spine from the skull. The Anubis turned to defend itself, and Nox caught it across the throat. His claws opened the flesh, and ichor fanned out over the ground. The Anubis collapsed the moment its head detached.
Nox rolled, twisting around enough to reach the side of the creature locked on his leg. He had the advantage of extreme size over his opponent. That coupled with what Nox brought with him from Phase Three, it would not be a fair fight. He landed a punch in the ribs of the second Anubis driving his fist through its chest into the cavity between its ribs.
It roared and tried to retreat. Lungs and stomach followed Nox’s claws as he tore it from the hole in the Anubis’s body. It hit the ground, thrashing. The gaping wound exposing its insides stitched.
Nox hooked his arm around its neck, grabbed the top half of its muzzle, and pulled. The Anubis tried to turn. Nox yanked, and its head separated from the spine with a thick slurp. He dropped the body.
The Anubis retreated, leaving behind Nox in human form. Rain cut clear streaks through the thick ichor on his hands.
Nox trotted back up the steps and inside the cabin.
Wind tossed the long white curtains over the french doors at the back of the house. Blood droplets mapped a path to the open doors.