Endworlds - Nicholas Read [43]
Realization dawned on Tucker first. “S’truth, Lion. You just made babies with that thing!”
As if on cue, the litter of teeleoths roared in unison and burst into the air, tungsten claws puncturing brick walls and shattering the glass conservatory as they bounded from one spot to the next with amazing alacrity, zigzagging around the tribe of humans. As their backs started glowing with the first traces of crimson, they left ghostly trails in the darkness, geometric lines that intersected at great speed. It looked exactly like the threads of a giant net, getting tighter with every leap.
Teeleoths were pack hunters, their perky ears serving as antennae for group coordination as much as being a large surface area to discharge the fusion their lithe bodies forged. In perfect symmetry, they were corralling their two-legged enemies.
It was now a question of whether hunter or hunted was more deadly.
Muscular cords getting stronger by the second, the slick creature in Eastwood’s grip nearly wrestled free as it twisted at his throat, razor fangs snapping open and shut hungrily. Belying its sheen, the skin tore at his glove, covered with tiny serrated scales. Scales through which a now familiar red line began to etch, like lava threading through crags of rock.
As its monstrous siblings darted and slashed at the other Longcoats, an idea began to form in Eastwood’s mind, and as he held the twisting teeleoth with a vice grip from an increasingly bloodied hand, the events around him seemed to slow, their sounds dying out into a dull thrum at the edge of thought.
The notion came through faintly at first, blowing in like the mist off an unknown sea into the crevices between his conscious thoughts, until his mind was full of that dreamy fog in which images flashed and knowledge appeared fully formed.
Was this memory? Was this premonition?
He found himself turning to the question of why he grabbed the creature. Something about its ears. Something about that glow.
Adapt to your surroundings.
Make use of what’s available.
Weapons have no effect on these things; they’re an incarnation of fire itself. There are three ways to extinguish fire. One, with water. But this downpour of rain is not enough. Two, by snuffing out all the oxygen. No chance. Three, fight fire with fire. But don’t blow it up.
In the thumb-snap of time it takes for dreams to play out, Eastwood saw himself pressing down forcefully on the back of the sun-muncher’s head, pushing its ears forward, directing the dual beams that shot out as if they were his own personal cannon. He saw the thought of carving an arc of light across the grassland, tearing into the other animals with a single slice, enough to eviscerate but not to explode.
This split second of thought had shown him how to twist and lead his targets until all would be put down, his new friends made safe. Then the pressing of both ears inwards toward the leathery skull, beams burrowing downward to lobotomize the hellish jackal until the mass of muscle ripping his arm to shreds stopped twitching and fell lifeless to the ground, to rise and multiply no more.
The fog cleared. Eastwood snapped back to the present and knew what he must do.
He looked up and saw the Longcoats standing in a circle around him, slack jawed, the teeleoth already slumped at his feet. Broadening his gaze, the steaming ruin of carcasses lay everywhere.
He hadn’t been dreaming. He had been doing.
The next few minutes were a blur. Castle scooped the teeleoth sections into his quantum pockets, or Q-Pocs, as they called them. Jax ran up the interior stairs and pronounced the building empty.
Crouching outside, Tucker spread wide two metallic sticks that stretched a thin elastic film between them. With the touch of a green button, the sheet detached and dropped to the patio’s paving, then continued falling through the ground, leaving a tunnel in its wake. Into this Hummer dropped a small grenade.
Vector sprayed