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Storm threw the van into gear and sped from the massacre. “When Raiden crippled Atlas months ago, he blinded us. Seems like the Nyxians have been on a recruitment drive.”
“Yeah, but why come here?” Zaine asked. “And those nyks were new. Kazi and I saw factories in Poland, set up to create nyks, and there was that one at Eagle Lake where the Nyxians tried to bleed Kazi… These nyks are like those, off their heads with hunger. You think we missed a nyk factory right under our noses?”
Storm didn’t reply, probably because he was thinking the same as Octavius: They’d missed more than one. It didn’t take many rabid nyks to seed chaos, and once they undermined a society, they’d quickly take over, slaughtering and turning the population. This was what the Brotherhood had been fighting to stop, and it was all collapsing under Octavius’s watch.
“I should have done more.” He’d spent years working alongside Raiden, even began to think of him as a friend, because he was so damned desperate for someone to see him, to care. “I should have seen what he was doing!”
“It’s not your fault,” Storm said. “If we’d believed you, you’d have had more time to stop Atlas.”
“We all fucked up,” Zaine added.
And now people were dying by the hundreds, soon to be thousands.
“It’s all right, we can get on top of this,” Storm said, swinging the van down a deserted side street. “But we’re going to have to split up to cover more ground. Try and stay in touch by phone, but if the networks are down, just get the job done, no matter what. Consequences be damned.”
“Kill every nyk, got it,” Zaine drawled.
“We’ll be seen,” Octavius warned. The Brotherhood would be exposed for the first time in modern history.
“Yes, we will.” Storm drifted the van out of the side street and into an intersection. The traffic had stopped, snarled up. Smoke drifted from the crumpled hood of one vehicle, drifting toward the sky, and sparks rained. And people ran screaming from the nyks chasing them down.
“Fucking hell,” Storm said, and the Brotherhood closed in.
Octavius singled out a nyk. These ones were older, more cunning, quicker, but just as mad as the newly turned. Whoever had made them had kept them rabid.
After the first few succumbed to bites, the others fled. Octavius chased a female running headlong down the street. She was slight and fast, but he gained on her. Daylight beat down, but for now, it didn’t matter. They had to stop the chaos.
The fleeing nyk jumped a car and veered left at a quiet intersection, causing traffic to honk and skid. The damp, mildewy smell of the Hudson wet the air. They were close to the river, and getting closer.
The nyk slowed, glanced over her shoulder, and put in a burst of speed. This began to feel as though she was a lure, leading him away from the others. He dropped into a jog, and sure enough, several yards ahead, so did she.
“I wondered how long it would be before you figured it out, Brotherhood.” She laughed, turning.
A trap. He scanned the neglected residential buildings several stories high. The windows were dark, no activity.
“Mikalis’s little groupies are so very predictable.” The nyk spread her arms. “Go on then, hero. I’m waiting.”
These weren’t random attacks. They were organized, to draw them out. The Brotherhood was being hunted, and the others were in danger. Octavius eased his phone from his pocket.No signal.He looked up at the female nyk, at her smirk, and his senses prickled, skin crawling. On either side of the street, shadows moved where nyks emerged. They came from alleyways, from buildings, from homes. This was an ambush.
He rolled his shoulders and cracked the muscles in his neck. Every member of the Brotherhood knew they’d die fighting, and they fought anyway, because they believed in the cause, even if that cause had been a lie. It still mattered. People mattered. They’d been protecting them for millennia. Not for Mikalis, but because they knew it was right. Octavius would die for the Brotherhood, and for the people it protected. He was ready.
The nyks lunged from both sides, surging in a rush. Octavius threw off any pretense of being human, flung his wings wide, and roared. He unleashed the beast inside, shutting away any human emotion, and grabbed the first nyk, sinking his fangs in before it had a chance to lash out. Venom pumped, enough to kill, and Octavius threw him away, launching a spinning kick, throwing the next nyk backward. Another lunged. Octavius swung a fist, shattering the nyk’s jawbone, destroying its ability to bite.
A weight slammed onto his back. He doubled over, flung the nyk overhead, and as it slammed into the ground, he stomped on the nyk’s skull, taking it out of the fight.
More came, he spun and grabbed, bit down, kicked out, punched, used his wings to hold them back, but still they came, again and again, pushing in, teeth flashing. He’d bitten so many that venom burned his mouth and made his fangs ache. Blood painted his hands and dripped from his nails, writhing wounded lay at his feet, dust clouded the air.
Yet, still they came.
A gunshot rang out, then another. Octavius caught a glimpse of Zaine among the fray, but he was soon buried under attacking nyks. Gunfire boomed, and the nyks fell, but more took their place.
Storm’s roar shook the world. He barreled in, tossing nyks like dolls.
Storm and Zaine were here. They just might survive this…
Octavius ducked another swing. Hands gripped him, teeth grazed his neck.Too damn close.He thrust out his wings, knocking a wave of nyks back, and grabbed the fool who had tried to bite him, spun him around and tore into his neck, injecting venom. Pain scorched his right wing. He snarled free of the nyk’s neck, spun and threw the disintegrating nyk at the prick with a damned axe. The envenomed nyk burst into ash, raining over the axe-wielding brute. Octavius flew at the fiend, but a second nyk came down on his back. He sensed the fangs near his neck and twisted, trying to buck his attacker off. The axe flew, and the blade slammed into his left arm, rendering it numb. And he went down, sprawled on asphalt, pinned under a nyk.
His wings were trapped beneath him, broken and bleeding. His arm hung limp—he couldn’t damn well get up. He needed a pause, a second, just a moment to gather his strength. He couldn’t die here.
