The edge of the shield had tossed me all the way out of the garage through the hole they’d blasted in their own wall. I tumbled and rolled, my skin sizzling and burning from where it had come in contact.
From inside the garage came a new scream. Lipstick the gremlin was pressed against the back wall of the garage, pinned between the shield and the barricade. The gremlin suddenly exploded, the gore held aloft by the shield and spread in a red flowerlike pattern against the wall like a drop of blood pressed under a piece of glass.
I started to get back up, wondering if myWraith Phasewould work.
“Stop,” Imani yelled, grabbing me by the shoulders, pulling me back. Jacobus the reverse tooth fairy buzzed around her head, laughing maniacally, clapping his hands.
“Carl, stop!” Donut cried at the same time. “Please, stop. Goodness, Carl. You can’t fight a car. And you’ll hurt Penelope!”
I just sort of missed what happened next. They’d walked me out of sight of their garage, and I sat at the curb, in front of the remains of our mercenaries. The two remaining camels dragged their now-dead friend away as they rushed back to their garage to look at their frozen bus.
I just sat there, breathing heavily. I stared at the splattered remains of the mercenaries on the street. Quemada had just poofed out in a flare, leaving a scorch mark. Finley’s legs were gone. Olga’s head had been caved in.
It had happened so fast. I was taken with how unfair it was. For weeks, months now, we’d been on the precipice of death.Crawlers I knew were dying left and right, and NPCs like these mercenaries were falling by the thousands.
But there was something about that simple act of defiance that Finley, an NPC I didn’t even know, had shown, protecting his two friends. He had been on his way to help them, and then all three of them had just been snuffed out.
“Fuck!” I cried out. I was so angry, so overwhelmed. After all that, for them to be hit and killed right there on the street? “Fuck!”
Jacobus buzzed near my head. He whispered in my ear.“Jeg hader også tigre. De har kun tredive tænder. Hvis du betaler mig, eller hvis du lader mig kneppe grisen, får jeg deres kranier til at eksplodere.”
I had no idea what he was saying or why it wasn’t translating. Donut hissed at him, and he buzzed away.
The two remaining camels were now sitting on the floor of their garage. One put his head into the lap of the other. Imani and Elle were in there talking to them, giving us space.
We were fucked. We couldn’t drive. We couldn’t hire new mercenaries between heats. Imani couldn’t drive.
We couldn’t even use goddamned Jamal because he counted as a hired mercenary, and gremlins couldn’t drive.
Donut was on my shoulder, not sitting but wrapped around my neck, purring loudly.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay. We’ll find a way. We have plans in case this happens. Remember?”
Mongo squawked in concern from inside our garage. I took another breath. I reached up with a shaking hand and stroked Donut.
She was right. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t react like that. Now that I was thinking more clearly, I could see all wasn’t lost yet. We had options, none of them good, but we still had them.
“Donut,” I said, “can you please take the corpses? Finley and Olga at least.” The dromedarians had left the body of their friend outside their garage. “Take that one, too.”
She moved to the street and did as I asked.
Around the corner, I could hear the Tigrans fighting. I was pretty sure they didn’t know I was still nearby and could hear them. All the anger I’d been feeling had now fled and was replaced with determination.
We needed to take a team out, especially now, but we needed to be smart about it. The unicorn was the biggest threat, but for right now, I just needed to make sure one of the teams was gone because I was no longer confident in our chances to not come in last.
I thought again about the description of Penelope the pig. Of the lightning that had just flashed across the sky.
A tear rolled down my cheek.Goddamnit,I thought.Goddamnit.
Therewasa way out of this. Out of it all. But it wouldn’t be easy.
“I’m keeping her in the truck,” Dario was saying. “It’s safer in the truck.”
“Then you come out with me,” Nico, who was the buff one, said. “I don’t like you alone with her in there.”
“We should both stay in the truck,” Dario said. “We shouldn’t have run over those mercenaries. That human was pissed. Look what he did to the door. He did that with his hand. And now the camels are mad, too.”
“Fuck him and fuck them,” Nico said. “We’ll blow them all off the road if we see ’em. Remember the plan. We win this, and we get Penny to the safe place. She’s the important one.”