Chapter 389: Taking The Golden Nugget Hotel [5]

"Thank God," I breathed, biting down so hard on my lip I tasted blood too. I pulled her into me and held her close while lifting my head toward the two Hybrids again, my whole back screaming and the Beretta already coming up in my shaking hand.

Zakthar stepped out from the private room at last and stopped behind the two creatures.

They were both snarling now, low and ugly, not charging yet, just waiting. Watching me. Waiting for him.

"Shadelings have always been a dangerous species," Zakthar said.

His eyes stayed on me.

"But they become even worse when they are coupled with a host. A host gives them protection, lets them survive inside foreign worlds, lets them adapt to them. That is how they conquered worlds before." His mouth tightened faintly. "Including mine."

"Sydney, you okay?" I asked, glancing down.

Her eyes were blurry, face still red from the choking, but she forced herself upright with a cough and gave the smallest nod.

"Yeah," she rasped. "Somehow."

I rose slowly, ignoring the hot pull in my back. Beside me, Lucy had already brought her rifle up again, sighting past me toward the two Hybrids. Sydney pushed herself onto one knee, then to her feet too, one hand still on her throat, the other already ready to move if needed.

Zakthar looked between the three of us and took one careful step back.

"I am sorry," he said, though he didn’t sound sorry at all. "But I have no intention of being captured again and used. Especially not by other Symbiote Hosts."

"We’re here to get you out of here," Lucy said coldly, never lowering the rifle.

"I don’t wish to be used anymore," he replied. "I can see you attacked this place, so in that case, I am leaving—"

"We have Kunta, fucker," Sydney cut in, glaring at him.

That stopped him.

Zakthar’s eyes widened for real this time, his body pausing in the middle of the step. He turned fully toward us.

Then his expression hardened.

The two Hybrids moved at once.

"At least listen—" I started.

"Are you saying the truth?" Zakthar demanded.

But he asked it at the worst possible time, because the room had already exploded into motion.

Lucy fired first.

The shot cracked through the hall and hit the bigger Hybrid in the raised arm as he came in, but the thing barely reacted. The bullet punched into the thick flesh and that was it. He just kept coming.

The other one was worse.

He was leaner, taller in a stretched kind of way, with arms too long for his body and a speed that made him look wrong even while moving. Not just fast, disturbingly fast, the kind of speed that made your eyes feel late trying to follow it.

I didn’t think and moved.

I clenched my right fist, letting the wind blades gather around my arm in a rising swirl, and rushed straight at them before they could reach Lucy or Sydney again.

Both Hybrids turned toward me.

Good.

I kept running.

The bigger one came from the front, brute force and weight. The lean one angled from my left, long arm already snapping toward my head. If either of those hits landed clean, especially on the skull, I was done.

I waited.

Dangerously close.

Closer.

Every instinct in my body screamed at me to move early, duck early, strike first, but timing mattered more than fear here. If I used it too soon, I would waste it. If I used it too late, my head would get taken off.

So I waited until both attacks were almost on me.

Then I opened my left eye.

The world sharpened with a sick jolt.

My vision on that side changed, my grey pupil turning an eerie dark green, and the burning started immediately, deep and vicious, like someone had pressed a heated blade behind the eye socket. I hated using this power. It drained too much, hurt too much, and if I pushed it badly, I knew it would cost me.

But I didn’t have much choice.

The Dullahan Eyes.

My third unlocked power as Dullahan Host.

Its main ability was control over kinetic energy, catching it, twisting it, redirecting it back toward where it came from.

A small radius bloomed around me, invisible except to my own senses.

The second both attacks entered it, they slowed for a fraction.

And then their own force turned on them.

BOOOOM!!

The backlash hit like invisible artillery.

Both Hybrids were torn away from in front of me and launched backward with brutal force, smashing through the wall behind them in a burst of broken plaster, shattered wood, and flying dust. They shot past a stunned Zakthar and disappeared through the breach with a crash loud enough to shake the room.

My left eye burned so badly I almost staggered.

But I kept it open and locked my stare on Zakthar.

For the first time, he looked truly rattled.

He broke from that stunned moment fast and started backing toward the private room again, clearly intending to run the second he had the space.

I didn’t let him.

I lunged toward the nearest chair, snatched it up with one hand, and hurled it at him as hard as I could. He jerked back just in time and the chair smashed apart against the wall beside him, splinters flying across the polished floor.

He let out a sharp gasp.

I was already on him.

Zakthar spun to flee again, but I reached him before he got two steps. I grabbed the front of his shirt, lifted him bodily, and drove him back into the wall hard enough to make the frame rattle.

"Hagh—!"

The air burst out of him.

I shoved him higher, my hand tightening at his throat while his feet kicked against the floor searching for something to push off.

"Now you obey," I said through clenched teeth, staring straight into his eyes. "And you follow."

He clawed at my wrist, struggling, but he wasn’t strong enough to do anything real to me.

So I tightened my grip more.

"Ryan!"

Sydney’s voice cut across the room.

I paused.

My left eye flickered, dark green stuttering toward gray for a second as I looked at Zakthar’s face.

Too much fear there.

Too much desperation.

And behind it, something else, panic, yes, but not fake.

I started to ease my grip.

Then movement hit my right side.

Both Hybrids.

Back already.

I gritted my teeth and reacted on instinct, throwing Zakthar out of the way before they could hit us all together.

I threw him harder than I meant to.

He flew sideways, crashed across the room fast, and hit the corner of the bar with his head in a sick, sharp crack before dropping bonelessly to the floor.

Everything in me lurched.

I stared at him.

"No—I..."

My hand reached out without thinking, panic shooting through me at once.

I didn’t kill did I?

I hadn’t meant to throw him that hard.

I started panicking.

"Ryan!!"

Sydney shouted again, louder this time, and I snapped my head back toward the Hybrids.

They were rushing us.

No more time.

I drew my right arm back, feeling the wind blades rise harder around it, whipping tight along my forearm and fist until the air itself screamed around the motion.

Then I punched forward.

BOOOOM!!

The blast tore across the room and hit both Hybrids head-on.

The impact shredded into their skin in dozens of fast cuts, ripping lines through flesh and sending both of them skidding backward across the floor and smashed debris, their bodies carving through overturned furniture.

"Sydney, take him out," I shouted at once. "Lucy, go with her. Help her!"

Sydney stared at me like I had lost my mind.

"You can’t hold off both of them alone, Ryan!"

"That’s why I brought you with me, Sydney!" I snapped back. "It’s dangerous. Just go. Please. I can handle them—"

The lean one hit me before I finished.

BOOOM!

"Ugh—"

Its strike slammed into the center of my chest and sent me skidding backward across the polished floor hard enough to rattle my teeth. I barely kept my footing for two dragging steps before my heel caught broken wood and I crashed into the side of a table, knocking it sideways.

I raised my head fast, shocked.

The smarter one, the lean Hybrid, the one leading the other, had hidden behind the larger one at the exact right moment. My blast had torn mostly into the big bastard while the other used him as cover and slipped through what should have been a killing strike.

The large Hybrid turned away from me and looked straight toward Sydney. Its ruined arm was already shredded and hanging badly from the last attack, but it didn’t matter. It still moved with purpose, its attention fixed on Zakthar sprawled half-conscious near her and Lucy.

"Run!" I shouted, louder now. "RUN!"

"Come on!" Lucy barked, grabbing Sydney by the arm and hauling her with her. "You heard him!"

Sydney ground her teeth hard enough for me to see the strain in her face. She bent, grabbed Zakthar as ordered, and forced him up with Lucy helping shift his weight. Before she turned, she looked back at me once, biting her lip hard, anger and fear both there.

Then she ran.

Lucy stayed with her, one hand on Zakthar, the other keeping her rifle ready as they headed for the exit.

The large Hybrid moved after them immediately.

I moved first.

"Don’t ignore me!" I roared, rushing it.

I drove forward and punched out again, throwing a cutting gust of wind blades straight toward its head. The blast tore through the air fast enough to shred the carpet in front of it, but the creature just raised its thick, half-lacerated arm and took the worst of it there. Flesh opened deeper. Blood sprayed across the clean floor and nearby wall.

It still kept moving.

Damn it.

I didn’t press closer.

Couldn’t.

The lean Hybrid was already on me again.

Its long arm snapped toward my throat so suddenly I had to throw myself back to avoid it. Those filthy nails missed my neck by inches. I felt the air shift against my skin from how close they passed.

I landed badly, boots scraping over debris, and took one step back to reset.

That was all the time I got.

The lean one stayed on me exactly the way a smart fighter would, never letting me build distance, never letting me focus on the other one, always forcing me to answer it first. Its body moved in crooked bursts, too fast one second, still the next, like it understood how to make itself harder to read.

I glanced at my left hand anyway.

The Time Freeze tattoo was still dark.

Maybe eight minutes. Maybe less if I was lucky, but not soon enough.

I had to hold them both with what I had now.

That thought barely finished forming before I saw the large Hybrid angling toward the exit again, trying to leave the room entirely and follow Sydney and Lucy down the corridor.

"HEY!!!"

I lunged after it, but the lean Hybrid cut me off at once, appearing in front of me so fast it felt like it had jumped half the room. One clawed hand came for my face.

I twisted away just in time.

Its nails raked across my cheek instead of my eye. Heat flashed over the side of my face, then wetness. Before I could recover, its other hand drove into my right side with enough force to fold me. I felt fabric rip, skin split, and then the impact threw me sideways.

I crashed over an armchair and took it with me.

Wood cracked underneath my back. One arm of the chair broke clean off. I hit the floor in a snarl of splintered frame, torn upholstery, and my own breath getting punched out of me all over again.

Pain came in layers.

The gash on my back from before. The split in my side. My chest where the first hit landed. My left eye still burning from the Dullahan power. Everything hurt at once and none of it cared whether I had time for it.

I shoved the wrecked chair off me and forced myself up on one knee.

The large Hybrid was already at the doorway.

No!

I couldn’t let it reach Sydney and Lucy or anyone else.

But it was too late.

I watched the large Hybrid moved through the door horrified.