He slid under the long neck stretched out to bite off his head and sliced through the tender fan-shaped trapezius muscles with his knife.
SPLATTER!
Blood sprayed from the severed artery. The beast from primeval times stayed upright for a few seconds before finally toppling over. But Zelaide didn’t have a moment to catch his breath. A second Bijour sprang into action while he was preoccupied with the first. It landed in a crouch in the exact place Zelaide stood before inflicting the deathblow to the first Bijour. It immediately rose to full height and slowly moved its crimson eyes over the room.
Things only got worse as the third Bijour jumped down from the rafters.
“Looks like the odds are against me tonight…”
The third Bijour silently landed a few feet away. Its jaw twitched with anticipation.
Blood streamed from Zelaide’s shoulder. He had avoided the sharp fangs, but not the knifelike claws that shot up underneath them. The gnarly claws had sliced through his thick leather jacket into the flesh below. He could still move his arm, but the wound was deep.
The second Bijour didn’t even look at its fallen packmate, its neck careening toward Zelaide instead. Mutas were incapable of emotion, but it almost looked like it was sneering at its wounded prey. It planned on ripping him to shreds and then slowly feasting on his body.
Sorry, but I ain’t on the menu. I can’t die. Not until I see her again.
Oddly enough, while Zelaide didn’t trust humans, he believed the deal Murakami cut him. The short, round-faced middle-aged man who jabbered about stupid things was unlike any human he’d ever met. When he looked at Zelaide, the eyes hidden behind his round specs glimmered with fascination, not discrimination.
So Zelaide believed he had to defeat the Bijours per Murakami’s orders. Because that was likely the stage Murakami prepared to save him.
Zelaide kept his eyes on the second Bijour and honed his senses to detect the third. Rather than stalking him, the third seemed intent on devouring the goat corpse he had tossed aside before the fight started. Was it that hungry? Or was it just leaving the troublesome prey to its packmate? Either way, it was lucky for Zelaide. Not even a Beast Blood was guaranteed to survive an attack from two Bijours at the same time. But he didn’t have much time. For the gluttonous Bijours, a goat was nothing more than an appetizer.
“Savin’ me for the main dish? In your dreams, pinky!”
One was dead, but the other two were unscathed. He needed to target one and seal its movement.
Zelaide crouched, muscles tensed before exploding into motion to give his jump more height. Flying through the air, he shot several times at the creature’s knees—but the Bijour dodged before the bullets even came close. This was one of the largest species of Bijour, and it was easily several heads taller than Zelaide. In other words, not only was it fast, but it had the physical strength to match.
Crap! I missed! No time for regrets!
He set up his next attack without missing a beat. Flipping over in the air, his feet made contact with the cracked glass ceiling and launched him forward. Even the quickest Bijours were defenseless when they jumped.
The Bijour hopped back. Zelaide shot the wire from the device attached to his wrist and hooked it to the beam behind him, then let it reel him in while leaving his hands free. The wire pulled him up rather than letting him get closer to the floor. He held out his gun and knife to take on the mouth full of fangs charging at him as he rose higher into the air.
The Bijour jumped to tear off his legs, which it was very capable of doing if it caught one of his feet. Zelaide yanked his arm down, dragging him up, and slammed his foot on top of the Muta’s head, avoiding its bite, and fired into the wide open red maw. Two bullets went down the monster’s throat.
However—
The Bijour just staggered a little, and as soon as it landed, it looked up at Zelaide hanging from the beam. How much firepower could these creatures withstand?
That wasn’t enough to do the trick either? Thick-skinned reptile… How in the world did they even capture these alive in the first place?
The bullets should’ve damaged its throat and internal organs. It may have slowly bled out in a protracted battle, but Zelaide couldn’t literally hang around all day waiting for it to weaken. Worst yet, when he looked down from the beam, he saw the third Bijour gulp down the last of the goat and turn its sights on the next prey—him.
I’m not high enough off the ground to be safe.
His height was working against him. If one of the Bijours jumped, they would tear him down from his knees. Releasing the wire from his wrist device and dropping down would only ensure he ended up in the two hungry Muta’s bellies. Showering them with bullets wasn’t an option either. Only one shot left. It didn’t help that he was losing even more blood from his shoulder. The battle would result in his defeat if it prolonged.
Stimulated by the warm blood dripping from above, the uninjured third Bijour exploded into a burst of movement.
Hanging from the beam, Zelaide looked like a piece of raw meat strung up in the butcher’s shop to the Muta. Fangs and claws of death reached for him. Zelaide swung like a pendulum and dropped forward as he released the wire at his wrist. His landing point: on top of the third Bijour’s back. Between the creature’s sudden speed and Zelaide’s unexpected movement, the Bijour was caught unprepared.
He landed on the slender Bijour’s muscular back. The creature’s legs buckled under the sudden weight. As it was losing balance, Zelaide wrapped his legs around its neck and squeezed with all his strength, crushing the reptile’s muscular neck between his thighs. Then, when he was about to be shaken off, he shot the last bullet into the back of its head. It wasn’t just a close-range shot, but he actually had the barrel pressed against its medulla oblongata. There was no way for him to miss.
Taking a bullet to the brain, the Bijour fell dead on the floor, spraying brain matter from the bullet hole. Zelaide threw his arm down at the last second and rolled away before he could be crushed. He saw his gun slide across a floor covered in a sea of blood and brain matter. His moment of triumph was shattered as an even greater threat to his life literally bore down on him.
Zelaide had rolled right under the belly of the second beast that had quickly moved in for the kill.
“Aggh!”
Sandwiched between the Bijour’s legs, it stared down at him with blood-red eyes. Blood dripped from its gaping maw, dirtying Zelaide’s face and hair—blood from the wounds inflicted by the bullet that went down its throat. Bloody saliva dripped in sticky globs.
Serrated fangs snapped at Zelaide’s throat.