CHAPTER
ONE
Washington, D.C., was a graveyard.
The city—once loud with life, politics, and protest—was now quiet, but for the soft scrape of boots on broken concrete, and the distant groan of a broken skyscraper threatening to give.
Gabriel crouched low behind the crumbling shell of a city bus, raising a clenched fist. His team froze instantly.
Up ahead, the Monkey Cat was moving slower than before. Its hind leg was dragging, leaving a bloody trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow. Its ears were drooping a little, tail listless as it stumbled into a brick wall, scraping its thick hide hard enough to leave a rust-colored smudge against its shifting scales.
Gabriel didn’t care about any of that—just the bright pink splash on his hindquarters.
Without turning, he signaled to his team to move. Victoria and Judd rounded the bus, silent as they crept forward, guns trained on the lumbering alien. Phin positioned himself over the hood of the bus, his newly acquired M16 leveled and ready to provide cover fire.
Gabriel waited by the back of the bus, his breath pluming in front of the black gaiter he had pulled up over half his face. It didn’t help much with the cold. It had been days since he couldfeel his nose, but it kept the rank stench of Monkey Cat from choking him. Small mercies.
The Monkey Cat stumbled over a curb and pushed itself north, head down as it doggedly walked on. It had been over six hours since its little antenna had quivered, and since then, it had been aimless, almost despondent. Gabriel grinned, the fabric pulling taut against his lips.Almost there,he thought as he stood, following behind Judd and Victoria keeping an eye behind them.
The first time they’d tried this, it had been a disaster. One that had nearly cost them their lives. They’d learned the hard way that Monkey Cats were pack creatures, and taking on one was a whole different fight than taking on a swarm of them. But this one had been isolated for hours—a long time for these things—and he could feel it. This time it would be a success.
And they could go home.
Finger twitching on the trigger, he scanned the streets, carefully stepping over a battered 7-11 cup. He used to think it was ironic. The city was a graveyard, but parts of humanity still lived on. Even when the weeds poked through the cracked concrete and the snow went unplowed, some things didn’t change.
The Monkey Cat made a soft keening noise. Gabriel stiffened. They rarely made noise, relying on the silent communications they picked up with their antenna. But when they did make a noise, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and his skin crawl. Like nails on a chalkboard, it triggered a fight or flight response.
Blake had a theory that they were supposed to be silent. Good little soldiers taking orders without a thought, so when they vocalized, it was like they were expressing themselves—perhaps pain or rage? Gabriel was beginning to think he was right. He often was.
Gabriel watched as it began swaying, taking two unsteady steps before it made a soft clicking noise, and then collapsed onto its side.
Ahead of him, Victoria and Judd froze. Bundled up as they were, if it wasn’t for their difference in height, Gabriel wouldn’t be able to distinguish who was who. But he watched the shorter one, Judd, move to the left and crouch behind a bent light post while Victoria moved forward. She took a couple of cautious steps before stopping, watching the downed beast.
Gabriel was watching too. He hadn’t been close enough to see how often they breathed; it made sense that they had to do some kind of respirations, but it was difficult to tell when those little scales were shifting around. They weren’t shifting now.
After a few minutes, Victoria poked it with her gun. She was tense, knees bent and ready to run, but after the first poke without a reaction, she did it again. And again.
“I think it’s dead,” Victoria called, her voice rough with cold.
“About fucking time,” Judd snapped, rising from his kneeling position. He lowered his gun, but didn’t drop it, walking over to the alien to kick its side. “I’m tired of freezing my goddamn balls off waiting for this thing to croak.”
Gabriel wasn’t sure what Judd hated more, the aliens or the cold. He complained about them both enough, but even with his icy discomfort, he’d managed to tag the Monkey Cat with a paintball as it had raced through a four-way intersection.
Phin joined Gabriel; his big gun slung over his back. “Wasn’t aware you had any.”
“If you wanted to lick my balls, all you had to do was ask.”
Gabriel held up a hand. “Enough. We have a mission to finish.” The last thing he needed was for these two to go for each other’s throats. Again.
Three weeks of suffering the cold. Of running on nothing but spite and whatever pre-packaged crap they could scavenge,and everyone’s nerves were fried. Phin’s, especially. He hadn’t healed right after his injury, and even though he tried to hide it, Gabriel could see him limping. Lagging behind when he’d never had trouble keeping up with them before. They’d been surprised by how well his shrapnel injury had healed after he’d been hit during their escape from DC, but it had apparently done much more internal damage than they realized.
With a snort, Judd hopped up onto a sedan where he could watch their surroundings. Phin moved stiffly to face the opposite direction. Unlike Phin, Judd had been very vocal about how difficult his recovery had been. It was only after Victoria told him she was going to risk rebreaking her leg to kick his ass that he finally settled into the stretches Blake told him to do. He hadn’t seemed to have any issue since.
Victoria dropped her gun and slid the backpack off her shoulders. Kneeling in the slush, she unzipped the bag and pulled out a Polaroid camera. She began snapping photos of the Monkey Cat.
The camera had been one of their last successful raids. Circa sometime in the 90s, the thing wasn’t necessarily low-tech, but it didn’t have many computerized components, which meant that despite the EMP, it was still working. At least enough for their purposes. Which was a whole lot better than the scribbled sketches from their first attempts. Irving nearly had an aneurysm trying to decipher those.
Stepping back, Gabriel let himself lean against the broken lamp post, just for a minute. He was tired. Had been tired for months, really, but they couldn’t quit. Not when this mission was so important.