Renegade (33 page)

“Sam?” I asked, knowing all too well what was going on.

He pushed me toward Riley and I stumbled, Riley reaching out to steady me. “What the hell, Sam?” he said.

“I’m trying to hold it off.” His voice was like a growl and he shut his eyes, breathing hard. Then his eyes opened and I gasped. They were pure, glittering gold. “Watch Heven,” he demanded through gritted teeth.

“Sam.” I started forward to do something. To help. Riley yanked me back and anchored me at his side. I frowned at him, but he ignored me.

“Is he going to shift?” Kimber asked, her eyes going wide.

I think the answer was fairly obvious.

“Oh, no,” Kimber said and then she shut her eyes and began to chant in a low voice. A great wind seemed to stir through the trees and the bubble that surrounded us swayed a little with the force of it. Riley tightened his arm around me as Kimber raised her hand toward the sky and pulled.

A great howling force rushed through the area, so strong I heard the water lapping at twice the speed it normally moved. The bubble rocked and shook beneath our feet like there was an earthquake and the ground just below our feet was going to crack open and swallow us all whole.

The green fog that hung heavy in the air was blown away, scattering out into the center of the lake and dissolving, raining down into the water, leaving splash marks where it fell. The wind died down and the bubble around us disappeared. I wrenched free from Riley’s grip and stumbled toward Sam, falling against his chest and reaching up to take his face in my hands.

“Get back,” he ground out.

“No.” I pulled his face down so I could stare into his sparking eyes.
Everything’s fine. We aren’t hurt. Look at me. I’m okay.
I repeated the words over and over until the gold in his eyes gave way to their normal whiskey color. The muscles in his body relaxed with only a tremor going through them every few seconds.

He took a shuddering breath and looked back at me, like he was just now seeing me for the first time. “I think I’m good.”

He looked exhausted. Like whatever had just gone on around us had been nothing to the battle raging inside his body.

I nodded, lowering my hands away from his face but linking our hands. I glanced at Riley, who was watching Sam.

Kimber drew all our attention. “What the crap was that stuff?”

We all turned toward the party. Everyone was dancing. Not just the people on the dance floor but on the upper and lower deck. There were even people dancing on the dock. But that wasn’t really the weird thing.

It was the way they were dancing that was so odd.

Lazy, sluggish movements that were slightly embarrassing to watch. They all rubbed against each other, undulating and vibrating like some kind of nightclub full of drunken people. The girls all flung their hair from side to side, swaying their hips, and the guys… the guys all had a serious case of grab hands.

Gross.

As we stood there staring, a fly buzzed around my head and landed on my nose.

“It’s Beelzebub,” I said with certainty. “He’s here.”

“He’s in the DJ,” Sam said, and we all looked over at the booth.

The man was pulling a pair of oversized headphones off his head and he looked up, flashing us all a triumphant smile, and then he turned to run away.

Riley and Sam took off running, past the booth, chasing after Beelzebub, who disappeared into the woods. The guys didn’t hesitate to lunge right into the trees as Kimber and I stood there watching.

I was just about to rush after them when they burst out from the woods, looking over their shoulders and up into the air. What could only be described as a flock flew out from the trees and began to lunge at Sam and Riley.

Their big black bodies and long papery thin wings looked very familiar. Oversized bats is exactly what they looked like as they dove and flew through the night sky. But then I saw their heads. They didn’t have the head of a bat.

They had the head of a wolf.

Large snouts with protruding razor-sharp teeth, black sunken eyes, and ears that stuck up like a Doberman’s. As one lunged at Sam, reaching with the feet that were too spindly for such a fat creature, it howled.

“AaaOooooool.”

“Is that a werewolf or a bat?” Kimber asked, staring in shock.

“I think it’s both.”

“Really?” she whined. “Like things weren’t creepy enough around here already.”

“Beelzebub must be using them as a distraction to get away.”

One of the werebats howled again, lunging at Riley, creating a large scratch in his forearm. Even from across the yard, I saw his blood begin to run.

And then all hell broke loose.

Right there in the middle of the party with the majority of the student body close by, Riley and Sam began to shift.

Chapter Seventeen

Sam

Attack. Destroy. Kill.
It was a mantra that pounded through my veins, the rhythm to which my heart beat. I saw nothing but the enemy, filthy creatures that wanted to tear into my flesh with their claws and teeth.

I leapt into the air, opening my massive jaws, and bit down, closing over an extended wing, and as I barreled back to the ground, the creature came with me. It tried to get away. It emitted a roar that might have made me cower if my roar wasn’t far more intimidating. I avoided its avid jaws and ripped into it, the taste of copper flooding my mouth. I tore at it again and again until it stopped moving, and I pushed away to do the same to another.

The site of fire momentarily caught my attention, but then I forgot about it as my mind zeroed back in on the only thing that mattered.

Attack. Destroy. Kill.

Something broke into my single-minded precision. A voice.

Sam? We got them all. You and Riley, you have to get into the woods. There are too many people here. It’s dangerous for you.

I blinked. The smell of carnage wafted to my nose and I recoiled. I looked around at about a dozen broken and bloodied bats with wolf heads. I looked over at Riley who motioned his head toward the trees.

I followed but then turned back to seek out Heven. She was heading toward the crowd of students, people who acted like they hadn’t noticed two giant hellhounds had just done battle with flying werebats. They all were still writhing to the music in a way that made me think that fog had put them in some kind of trance.

Just as Heven reached the edge of the crowd, a werebat swooped down from out of nowhere. I leapt forward to attack, but as it lowered above her head, it burst into a ball of flames and she glanced over at Kimber, who then flung the flaming bat out into the lake where it thrashed around before sinking slowly out of sight.

I’m right behind you,
she said as she bent to pick up a dagger that lay on the ground.

I turned, going into the woods where Riley was already in his human form, leaning against a tree. I shifted too and we just looked at each other.

“That was new,” Riley quipped.

“Don’t you ever get tired of killing things?” I asked.

“Not when it’s me or the other guy.”

I guess that’s why I did it too. Because if I didn’t, I’d be the one lying dead. Me or someone I loved. I turned back to see if Heven was coming. I could see her at the edge of the trees, talking to Cole.

“You coming?” Riley said, walking toward the lake.

“Coming where?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, you’re covered in blood.”

I looked down. He was right. I had a flashback of all the times I’d woken up somewhere covered in blood, looking just like this.

Could this be what’s happening?

Riley watched me as I stared down at the stains on my hands. “You’re acting weirder than usual.”

I shook myself and we walked to the lake and dove in. It was freezing, of course, but it didn’t really bother me. It’s not like I was capable of freezing to death, but the frigid water did wash away whatever fog was left in my mind.

When all the blood was gone, I joined Riley back on the shore, shaking my arms and legs to get rid of some of the water.

“You okay?” he asked.

“You care?”

He shrugged.

I debated, then gave him a rundown of how I would shift unexpectedly and then not remember anything afterward.

“Sammy’s gone on a killing spree,” Riley said, smiling.

I guess that’s what I got for trying to have an actual conversation with Riley. But since he was the only other hellhound around this place, I thought he might get it. I shouldered past him, thinking about punching him just once when he spoke.

“I’ve never seen anything like those things before. Have you?”

“Not until the other day when Heven killed one at the farm.”

“They were at the farm?”

“I only saw one.”

“When we were fighting them just now, things kind of went hazy for me.”

“Hazy how?” I stopped walking and turned to face him.

“Like all I could think about was killing them. Nothing else seemed to register.”

“Yeah, that’s how it was for me too.”

“Did you get bitten?”

I shook my head, looking at my arms. “No.”

“Me either,” he said. I could see him trying to make a connection, just like me a million times before.

“Maybe something about those things makes us rabid.”

“Is that even possible?”

“We just got attacked by neon fog, a witch blew it away, and then a pack of half-werewolf, half-bats tried to make us dinner. Yeah, I think it’s possible.”

Yeah, I would say at this point anything was possible. Kimber and Heven appeared carrying a bag of clothes I kept in my truck. “Cole got this,” Heven said, tossing me the bag.