(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 58; beastly

Quentin turned first, then Imani, the both of them imploding into a bloody shower. She caught the smell instantly, their coppery mist carried by the wind. Not quite the smell of rot, but the perfume of what she imagined death to be. She covered her nose, watching them shake the damp from their coats.

"Shit," Felix cursed, and unable to turn like the others, he looked around for something—anything to use against the beast.

Imani cut the distance in a sprint, it looked as if her feet hardly touched the ground. She bounded into the chest of the beast and caught the creature by the muzzle, blood dripping from the slack of her jowls. The creature snarled. It wrapped it's frightening claws around her and tossed her to the ground, then it was reaching for Quentin. He out-stepped its looming grapple and dashed to its backside. And before it could track him, Imani had it again—this time by the leg. She thrashed, thrashed and tore until the beast picked her off again. So easily, like she was a mosquito, stubborn and starved for blood. But by then, Quentin had the time to sound a howl. Loud and frighteningly beautiful, his voice carried into the distance. The others would hear it. His wolves would come. Matt prayed so, at least.

Quentin leapt for the lichund, teeth popping into the leathery flesh of its throat. The beast curdled out a wretched cry, but with a swing of its arm, it had sent Quentin slamming into the ground, tumbling onto the grass. And with Imani struggling up, the creature had no other opponents. No one but Felix, bouncing a heavy gardening rake in his palms.

"C'mon then, ugly," he taunted.

The beast thudded closer on the pads of its bony hands, lips curled and a frightening mouthful of sharp, wicked teeth gleaming in the red night. It snarled and took to a lopsided run; hand then foot, hand then foot.

Felix swung the rake with shocking force and the metal cracked against the monster's jaw. It staggered there, jaw unhinged. And with its humanly inhuman hand, the beast cracked its bone back into place and bellowed out a scream that sounded much too human.

Felix danced to the side and swung again, smashing the beast in the snout. Again it staggered and again he swung. But this time, the beast caught the rake in its spindly fingers, ripping it away from him with a rageful cry.

Felix stumbled back, weaponless now. "Shit."

The beast swung a large powerful hand into him and Felix was thrown into the side of Matt's wrangler, the metal denting under the impact. He laid there on the ground, groaning, clutching the side that had taken the brunt. The force had been enough to pop open the passenger door, so Matt was broke across the yard, launching himself over Felix and into the front seat. He didn't know where in the Wrangler it was, but Matt knew what he was after—what laid tucked away beneath the back seat, sealed in a leather case.

And sure enough, when Matt dropped from the wrangler, he had her in hand. His dad's Remington shotgun.

The lich no longer had its sights set on Matt. It stalked toward the veranda, where Sadies and the others stood, helplessly locked in its gaze.

"Get inside," Alex said numbly, but he himself couldn't look away. Saide's knees buckled and she caught herself on Alex's shoulder. No one seemed capable of moving—they all stayed frozen, gripping onto one another but too paralyzed by those eyes to lift a foot from the veranda.

It crawled forward to them, its tongue spilled out over rows of crooked teeth, its hungry, beady eyes pining to devour them whole. Matt took aim and fired. A blast hit the beast, tearing into its chest. The monster stumbled back, rolled its head to Matthew and watched him with those gaping eyes as he lowered the weapon from his eye line. He was looking for blood—for wounds, for anything. But the beast gave a shake and the shrapnel, shed from its flesh like loose dust.