The last thing he needed was someone else dying. “Get back.” Some of them did; others took out their phones.
The Anubis was on its feet again. It tore gouges in the concrete as it fled.
A door in the breezeway reopened, and a dark-haired guy stepped out. “Where’s Luca?” The hallway was empty.
“Get out of here, now.” Nox didn’t wait to see if the guy obeyed. He exited the other side of the hall and lifted his chin. The rich musk belonging to the Anubis was unmistakable, but there was the scent of human sweat instead of the earthy aftertaste of fertile ground.
Nox headed across the parking lot, following the vibrant trail of particles Luca left behind. A solid mass of night emerged from the darkness beyond the halogen lights.
Moving like a being connected to the world, built of atoms, constructed out of life. Now Nox understood the strangeness of the Anubis he’d encountered at the farmhouse.
These creatures were not born from the death of another. Where the vibration of recognizing his own should have been, there was silence.
How the hell was that even possible?
The Anubis within Nox swelled in response to the approaching creature. Hairs on the back of Nox’s arms stood, his skin prickled. What preceded the monster in front of him prodded awake a wariness sleeping in the back of his mind.
The Anubis vaulted, blurring in the puddle of light but not detaching from reality. It slammed into Nox, taking him to the ground. Asphalt grated the flesh on his arms and back. He didn’t fight the momentum, rolling with the beast.
Razor claws sank into Nox’s ribs, severing bone. The nerves along his spine screamed, and he jerked back. The Anubis’s grip slid from Nox’s stomach, taking a string of entrails with it. Black threads spiraled out from Nox’s skin, stitching his damaged flesh, filling his insides with fresh tissue, sucking away the pain as he came to a stop, landing on is feet.
Nox leaped at the same moment as the other Anubis, meeting the other beast half way, their bodies colliding in an explosion of strength. The deep boom rolled across the parking lot, bouncing off the sides of the building, rippling reality. Nox’s limbs popped, his skull elongated. As quick as the other creature hacked at Nox’s body, the Anubis inside him countered the attack with a surge of mass that shredded his clothing and twisted his form into an identical creature almost twice the size.
They broke apart. Nox rolled up his lips, flashing teeth, the other Anubis did the same while taking a step back. Nox stalked forward. The Anubis spun away in the direction of the trees.
Nox sprang after it, only to be knocked out of the air by another animal. Ivory daggers sank into Nox’s throat, and he shoved his clawed hands up under the other monster’s rib cage. Black ichor flared over the ground, following them as they spun through the air, bodies entwined.
They hit the asphalt, Nox taking most of the impact across his shoulder. The jolt shoved the creature’s body farther down his grip. Ridges of spine brushed the tips of his fingers. The Anubis let go and attempted to tear away.
Nox slid his claws through the bone without resistance. The Anubis screamed, and the lower half of its body separated from the torso. It wouldn’t be enough to kill it. Nox moved in. A burst of pain shot down his back, and he was pushed to the ground by the weight of another Anubis. Nox rolled, hurling the other creature into the blacktop, leaving behind wads of flesh and fur in his grip. The other Anubis widened his eyes, and its shock gave Nox the millisecond he needed. He swung his clawed hands, catching the other creature across the side of the head. Bone parted in a gentle swish, and the beast hit the ground twitching once.
Flesh stitched on the injured Anubis. The rear limbs had just begun to take shape when Nox came down across its back, severing the head, spine, and flinging a string of flesh and entrails across its dead comrade.
The black fur covering one split revealing their human form.
The other didn’t purge.
Nox didn’t have the chance to even think about what that meant before Luca’s scream cut through the green space behind the motel.
Rage propelled Nox into the night with only a single goal.
Protect Luca.
Protect the Alpha.
*****
Luca turned just in time to see the massive shape of the Anubis slam into Nox, sink its wicked claws into his gut, and eviscerate him. Bile choked Luca’s scream. But as the Anubis rolled, what emerged from under it was a second creature expanding in waves of black threads until it outmatched the other monster in size.
And that creature could only be one person.
Nox.
It hadn’t been a mixed-up memory. It hadn’t been a lie.
He was one of the monsters.
A growl snatched Luca’s attention. An Anubis slipped through the space between them, its movements liquid yet different from Nox’s. It was useless to run, but Luca couldn’t stop himself from diving into the woods and tearing through the brambles. Sticks snapped underfoot and the bed of litter shifted. A dip in the ground pulled Luca in a slide to an open place at the bottom of a shallow ravine. Runoff from the recent rains had pushed garbage into clumps. A black plastic bag clung to the wheel of a buggy where a pile of abandoned diapers lay next to the handle.