Out of the Black - Lee Doty [175]
Hawthorne jammed her foot down and the van skittered ahead, riding the ragged edge between torque and traction. She hoped that Kaspari had been right and that his death would be enough. He obviously wasn't going to be able to get his magical doohickey together in time.
"Wait!" Miranda shouted from the passenger seat, but Hawthorne knew what she had to do.
The big Irish cop took a painful fist in the face and went down hard. His partner twisted toward him, gun tracking through a tight arc, but before he could get a bead on the wreck that had hit his partner, what used to be a bouncer from the club tackled him, knocking him from his feet. Ashok brought his gun up, but couldn't help Rodriguez, who was now wrestling with the bouncer on the concrete.
Repeated clicking drew his attention to the Harm who, now holding Malloy's weapon was trying to use it to kill him- thank heaven for lock rings. Ashok swung his gun and fired twice, but the creature was gone, lunging toward Malloy, open mouth full of what looked like dragon's teeth. Ashok's third shot found the leaping creature's leg, and the monstrosity's stride broke and it tumbled and rolled like a wounded tiger before lunging again at Malloy's unconscious body.
Ashok breathed out, settling further into his shooter's stance, and drew a bead on the back of the creature's head as it raised Malloy's right hand to its mouth. He pulled the trigger and the night sky filled with stars and a wounded peace he shouldn't be feeling. Ashok's vision narrowed to a short, dark corridor looking up into the starry night sky, partially occluded by the devil reaching over him for his gun. He'd never seen the thing behind him until it was too late... until now.
Alex and Rae had moved in front of Kaspari for no reason beyond stubborn resolve not to be completely useless. Rae was holding a tire iron like a baseball bat. The act was futile, but not in matters of the spirit, where the only victory is over fear. As always, she was his inspiration. He raised his inexpert fists, hoping maybe to give one of these monstrosities a bloody nose or maybe even a blacker eye before the end.
Here in their last stand, Alex's mind lingered on Rae as she stood blazing bright beside him. Not enough time. If this was the end, then it was way too soon. If they died of old age on their one-hundredth anniversary, it still wouldn't be enough time. This dream was sweet, but it would end too soon.
Just on the other side of Kaspari, Rae stepped away from Alex and raised her tire-iron like a baseball bat. Hawthorne hoped she could miss them after she killed Kaspari, but she didn't think so.
Then something big changed.
It was like reality had received a sucker punch on the nose and saw stars. There may have been a flash, followed by blurry turbulence that filled all the senses from touch to taste. When Hawthorne was next aware, it was of another shock as the microvan plowed into a support pillar several meters to the right of Kaspari's position. She wasn't so much aware of the collision with the pillar as she was of the harsh embrace of the airbag that exploded out of the steering wheel. It forced her arms apart, shoved her back into her seat and drove her backward into darkness.
Ashok was punching the creature dead in the face as hard as he could and as fast as he could with his right hand. He was using his left forearm against the thing's neck to keep its teeth away. He'd used his left hand to shove the thing back as it tried to bite his right index finger off, and had lost a tablespoon-sized chunk of flesh from his left hand for his efforts.
The air around him was