Webb's a dead guy with no memory of his life, and that's how he likes it. He'd sworn he'd protect After, the city of the dead, from monsters, but the monsters have all been killed off. Now he has only one thing left to do: go through the Gate and fi...
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It was Ryder's turn to swear. "Bounty hunters," he hissed as he flicked the reins hard. "Cross! Ha!"
The horse reared backed and rocketed forward just as the motorcycles sped down the slope after us.
"Bounty hunters?" I yelled over the wind. I thought back to all the wanted posters with Ryder's masked face on them, back in the bazaar.
He flicked his reins again. I felt Cross's breath hasten and her muscles bunch as she powered on, kicking up a streaming cloud of sand in her wake.
A horse didn't need endless handfuls of lux to keep fueled. They also never tired. The only downside, however, was that Cross's speed was no match for a lux-fueled machine.
But that seemed like the least of our concerns at the present moment. Ryder hollered and urged Cross even faster.
...Directly into the tendrils of ink weaving from the sky. The pulse in my ears, threatening to explode my eardrums. I could see my own quickening breath in the freezing air.
"We're heading toward the blood storm?" I yelled as I clapped my hands over my ears. "Are you crazy?"
Ryder only loosed a feral growl back at me through bared teeth.
His excited, crazed expression wasn't the only thing that made me gasp.
Even more black tears streamed from his eyes and left stains down his face. His eyes had gone completely black.
"Look out!" Jake shouted as he grabbed my shirt and pulled me down just as an arrow whistled by.
Tentacles of blood collided into the sand as the full bulk of the storm fell upon us. Cross navigated around the writhing columns with ease.
The engines behind us roared even louder as they pursued us into the storm.
The beasts began to crawl out of the dirt then. Thrashing tentacles surrounded us everywhere I looked. One of the smaller beasts burst into a black mist as a motorcycle burst through it, grinding it into slime underneath lux-reinforced tires.
From somewhere in the heart of the storm, bounty hunters screamed when they were ensnared by tentacles. I could see the manic grins beneath their red-lensed goggles of the other riders while the screams of their comrades gurgled and fell silent.
I grabbed the hilt of my sword.
Rain poured on us as the sky bled out. The air vibrated with that low hum once more. The sand sloshed under Cross's hooves.
A read beam cut through the rain as a bike pulled up alongside us. I swung my sword at him, keeping him at bay. The rider merely laughed at me. Then a tentacle pierced his chest from behind. One of the beasts snatched him off his motorcycle and devoured him whole like some kind of microscopic organism you'd see under a microscope. I locked eyes with its unblinking black eyes. It was thoughtless. Careless. Soulless.
Some of the bounty hunters bailed, uttering taunts at Ryder before giving up the chase. The bolder hunters revved their engines and powered through. Cross snorted. I could feel her panting beneath me.
Ryder never once looked back. He kept his terrifying dark eyes fixed on the storm in font of us. Jake whimpered and hugged me tight from behind.
I yelled and hacked at the reaching tentacles of another beast. When the giant, maimed slug slumped into the sand, another motorcycle took its place.
An archer behind the driver nocked an arrow.
I cried out just as the arrow loosed.
Lux pierced me square in the chest.
I fell into the sand.
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