Fireteam Delta, J. Halpin [online e book reading .txt] 📗

As the strange voices around her continued to speak, Asle closed her eyes.

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“Asle, stay with me!”

Asle stirred at a new voice beside her. She tried to open her eyes, but nothing happened.

“Get it off her!”

Another voice . . . it sounded so distant somehow.

Asle realized she couldn’t breathe. Instinctively, she tried to move her arms, but they wouldn’t respond.

And she was just so hungry.

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“Stay with me, Asle!” Summers kneeled over the girl, tearing at the black, semi-solid tendrils wrapped around her body.

It had only been a few seconds since the entire house was woken by the gunshot; he had to hope she was still okay.

Cortez was behind him, checking Orvar’s pulse, the man lying prone in the corner of the room beside Pat and Nowak.

Summers tore at the base of the tendril, sending their former slave’s body sprawling. The woman looked as though she’d disassembled herself, a ladder of the spider-like limbs had fused together to create a long, freakish arm that stretched across the room.

It was limp, but the end had somehow coiled around Asle’s throat.

Summers ripped it apart with hardly any effort at all. Almost immediately, Asle’s eyes shot open, and she started to gasp for breath. Summers only just noticed that her eyes were blood-red, staring straight up at the ceiling.

“Shit.”

He watched in mounting horror as Asle’s body tensed, and spots of black began to appear in her eyes, slowly expanding outward.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

Summers placed a hand on Asle’s head, closing his eyes.

“What the hell?” Cortez stared down at Asle’s eyes.

“It’s like the fog,” Summers explained. “This thing’s in her head. I need to get it out.”

Summers saw Synel move in from the hall, looking more than a little worried at the scene around him.

Orvar was just waking up; he must have only been knocked out, because he looked completely normal. The small trickle of blood that ran down his cheek to his neck supported that.

Summers returned his focus to Asle, trying to concentrate. Looking at her neck, he saw a few cuts from where he’d torn off the black tendril. He put his palm beneath Asle’s chin.

Summers could sense sinuous strands of bright light gathered around her throat. He willed them closer, just as he had when he’d experimented with his own body. Asle tensed again, but after a few seconds, Summers managed to grasp the smallest strand of inky black fibers. He pulled.

What came out was a tumor the size of his finger. He tossed the dark mass to the far side of the room. Asle was still motionless, but he could see that she was breathing. Her eyes still held a tinge of red, but they were open.

“Asle, can you hear me?” Summers leaned over the girl.

He saw one of her hands slowly lift, balling into a fist. It moved slowly toward his face before it made contact.

She was trying to hit him! It was one of the lightest, weakest punches he’d ever felt, but he was sure she wasn’t joking around.

He had to assume she was still a little crazy, just like he’d been. At best, he’d only slowed down whatever reaction the hamr had caused.

Summers took a deep breath, trying to think.

The others were all watching him. Pat was awake now, too, holding his head in pain. Summers glanced back at the long tendril that led to their former slave. However she’d managed to string the spider-like limbs together, it looked like the soldier herself had been torn apart in the process.

Nowak stood beside Pat, one hand on the man’s shoulder to steady him.

“What the hell happened here?”

“This is my fault . . .” Pat started, looking at Asle. “If I’d been—”

A gunshot rang out in the distance.

Followed very quickly by another.

“Guys . . .” Cortez had moved to the window, looking outside. “I don’t think our girl was the only one who made a move . . .”

Summers started toward the window. Outside, he could hear the screams of townspeople, the sounds of fighting.

That was decidedly not good.

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The gunfire intensified, nearly drowning out the sound of men and women screaming.

“That’s got to be the twins,” Nowak announced. They moved as quickly as they could through the alleys of the town. “It’s coming from the direction of the warehouse.”

“Think they can hold out?” Cortez looked at Nowak with worry.

“So long as all they have to deal with is people,” Summers answered. “If we have to go against something like what we saw in the city—the real version of these things—then we’re fucked.”

“I had mounts waiting for us with your things,” Synel yelled from the back. “I suggest we get out of this town quickly.”

An elven man with red eyes shot out from behind one of the buildings, rushing directly toward Summers. Nowak put him down in the next instant with three shots to the chest and one to the head.

Their group didn’t even break stride.

“I’m with her,” Cortez replied. She hopped over the dead man in one fluid motion. “We can’t kill the entire town, and chances are more of them are gonna go like . . .” Cortez looked at Asle a moment before she trailed off.

Synel moved quickly. She had Asle in her arms, short lengths of chain they’d salvaged from what remained of the slave woman wrapped around her hands. The girl was trying to claw at Synel’s face, but the movements were so weak that they were all more worried about the girl hurting herself than her desperate attempts to murder them.

After another minute, they arrived at the warehouse they’d rented. The twins saw them almost immediately, waving. A group of six lay dead a dozen feet away from the front door of