How Rosetta had managed to pull those licks of speed from the bike Kitten couldn’t guess, but the battle was still swinging as both they and dusk closed in on the scene.  

Strategic triage demanded that Dhalia and Sasha be resupplied with amunition while medical triage required that Zinnie be helped in any way possible.  There wasn’t much for it, Kitten thought bleakly as she came up on her three fellow lionesses.  Certainly she couldn’t help; the risk of catching thiriothropy was too great.  Rosetta moved fluidly into place, hissing slighly at the seeming endless number of holes in that once tawny coat.

Sasha stood on a boulder not so far away, pinging the enemy with her snub-nose Lueger whenever they broke cover.  Dhalia kept darting down tunnels, discharging at targets, and retreating, only to dart down another tunnel.  It wasn’t mop-up; it was the taxing job of routing the enemy from established trenches.

Of course, these observations were secondary.  Opening her over-sized day pack, Kitten pulled a string of chemical irritant grenades and, at gap in the exchange, darted close and presented these and three magazines each of .375 and 40 caliber rounds to Dhalia.  This plan, if such it could be called, had been ill conceived.  Still, at another break, Kitten resupplied Dhalia and stood ready to work her magic at Rosetta’s behest.

The little shake of the head was all she needed to see.  Zinnie was too far gone to understand the words spoken and too wounded to recover without engaging her condition in a deliberate and conscious manner.  Pulling out a small rifle and loading it with bird shot, Kitten took a stance behind another boulder and began distracting the enemy, giving Sasha the chance to alter position and take a few more out.

...

The tunnels were mostly quiet, now.  Some great number of the enemy had been drawn toward the women but, with their communications hub bloodily removed from the equation, there had been no recall and no alerts that their heart was, metaphorically, being ripped out.

Personally, Andes felt more or less neutral about this job.  The wrath that had filled him at losing Chamomile was still there, as was the deep and abiding sorrow -- he’d liked her and been so proud of her each time she stepped further out of her shell -- but professionalism required he stow those emotions for some other time.  What that time was, well, as a male it probably wasn’t ever.  Sweeping the tunnel ahead of him in case it broke the present pattern and held enemy movement, he felt his mind drift to less upsetting thoughts.

As a subservient member of Babaer’s pride, he played a lesser role in many ways.  He’d come late to the party; they all had, really, but the whole of their family was safer for having more dedicated defenders.  As a guy with all too predictable urges, he took his time on the side.  He was always careful not to entertain flings when any of the women in his pride were in heat; in many ways he envied non-polyestrous thiriothropes for the predictability this leant.  Zinnie had started this chain reaction about a week ago and, in another week or so, there would be an almost two month window within which he would be relatively fine to seek outside companionship.  Technically, if Babaer lost interest he was the next largest and strongest male, which meant he would be able to slip in.  The human side of the equation forbade this, however, and the aggression was a mix of the two responses.

In the meantime, Babaer was behaving much more aggressively.  A sweep to the left as he shot out the red emergency lights and hit the side of the tunnel with a specially designed flaring paste.  The stuff would glow like thermite for the next six hours before extinguishing, leaving his warrior’s form handprint for a good long time.

His form was slipping back to near-human, which actually made this part of the job easier.  It would be exhausting to force the transition back to the midpoint again but, in the meantime, guns were a whole heck of a lot easier to fire and he could focus on the input from the little radio subdermally implanted at his ear.  Benji’s voice came through again and, as the tunnel was relatively quiet with only distant sounds of fighting from Levi and the gun-play echoing from a fair distance, he could actually pay attention to the words.

“Holding point near deep corpse vault.  Kelly on defense; announce yourselves on entry.  Something strange down here.”

He’d been repeating that message, with various permutations, for the past thirty minutes.  Andes gripped his wrist, activating his own microphone, and responded.  “Hold position.  Set a one minute ping, decreasing twenty second interval.”

“Copy.”

A small whirring sounded in both ears, a little stronger in the right than the left.  At the next fork, Andes headed right.  Forty seconds later, there was another ping, the soft whirring leading him toward where Benji and the new girl were camped as surely as sonar would have done.  He noted a few pick-axes and hardening solutions about as he traveled and shook his head.  The marvels of modern chemistry had revolutionized mass wasting prevention and added an extra measure of safety to mining operations.  If it had been properly applied during excavation here, these tunnels would be as foundationally secure as any standard bunker.

When he rounded a bend a trio of bullets buried themselves in the stone behind where he’d been with a smart rap-tap-tap.  “Ease up.  Friendly fire sucks.”

There was a whispered conversation and then Benji’s voice reached out and tickled his ears.  “We’re good here.  It’s a three way junction, so come out smooth and slow and then get into position quick.”

Andes shrugged and did as bid, even holding his weapon in a neutral position as he rounded the corner again.  There was a gash in his shoulder from where the spray had punched him.  That he hadn’t noticed was a sign of the pumping adrenaline and that it was mostly healed a sign of his overall health.

Around the pair were two very dead bodies, each slowly reverting back to human form.  Andes scooted into position and set a wristwatch to its lap function, mentally squaring off one inch of fur from the receeding line.  He kept his rounded triangular ears pointed down his tunnel as he watched and shook his head at the results a minute later.

“He’s reverting fast.  Can’t be more than a year from the change.”

Benji spoke without shifting away from the downward sloping tunnel.  “They’re reverting at the same rate.  I checked it with Dhalia.  Looks like a fraternity.”

“Fucking idiots.”

A faint rustle drew his attention back toward the new girl.  He froze at what he saw.

The claws had exploded through the skin at the upper knuckle but had yet to push through the tip of her fingers.  Long ribbons of thin skin hung from her arms and undoubtedly decorated her thighs.  Her boots had warped themselves around the changing shape of the feet and her face was human but her neurocranium was not.  The smells were finally coming through above the scents of freshly butchered meat and ruptured innards; she was not okay and a whole lot of bad was due to happen before any of the good could manage a go.  

Benji flicked a hand to catch his attention and said precisely one word.

“Stable.”

“You sure?  She looks--”

“Since we came down here.  She was starting to go before the range.  She’s stable.”

“This is bad.”

“No shit.”  Turning a little more, he touched Kelly lightly on the shoulder.  “Sweetheart, go stand guard closer to the bend so we can talk behind your back.”

She gave a glare and one of her over-sized human eyes ruptured down the center.  She turned quickly and, with efficient, if mincing, movements, she took up the new position.

“Yeah, worse than that, she doesn’t smell like proper lioness.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, remember that cave lion we took a call for?  She doesn’t even smell like him.  We’ll know more when she shifts fully for the first time.  She’s definitely a cat, though.”

“You’re defending her.”

“She’s fucking tough.  I’d want her at my back in a pinch.”

“Too bad a thing like that’s terminal.”

“Babaer might be able to reign her in.  Alpha wolves do it all the bleeding time.”

“We’re not wolves.”

“Nah.”

“Benji,”

“Ya”

“Why are we guarding this tunnel?”
“Take a sniff.”

Andes imagined a pretty young woman in a yellow dress with a smile to match, cleansing his mind of superstitious shadows.  Wouldn’t it be nice to buy her flowers?  To pick her up at eight and enjoy a long evening and a slow dance?  He stepped a few paces down into the deeper shadows and inhaled.

Something primal had come unhinged and was loose down there.  It would not be safe simply to leave it and hope it died or stayed put.  No, that was an evil without modern match.  Stepping back quietly, he tried for a wan smile and knew even that was beyond his reach.  Madness could do that to a soul, suck it dry of anything decent and leave it mewling on the floor.

“Precious, ain’t it?”

Andes glanced at Benji with an expression that was meant to be sardonic but probably lacked the proper palor.  “Yeah.  You seen the like?”
“In a chimera park.  Whatever’s down there is one nasty piece of business.  If there ever was something human to it, that’s long gone now.”

A voice sounded in his ear and Andes startled.  The gals outside were heading in.  Apparently, they’d caught wind of a new or different force.  Nodding that he had the two tunnels covered, he watched Benji creap up to Kelly and let her know that friendlies were incoming.  He couldn’t imagine a manner by which that little lady’s soul might be salvaged when she tipped into the form.  The care his sociopathic brother-in-arms assumed for her, however, let him know that the collateral damage if she met her mortality would be more than a kick to the palm.

...

Dhalia ushered Rosetta in ahead of her, followed by Kitten and Sasha.  Zinnie was too close to death to move and, where she was, served as nearly perfect bait.  The few loose hyenas who’d slipped free into the trees might double back, though she doubted this highly.

No, the scents that filled her nose were those of kevlar and oil and fresh packaged cloth, almost like what new tents smelled like.  As the scents grew stronger, what was missing from them became more apparent; these were not Thiriothropes.  Carefully, she lowered herself a little into the tunnel entrance, using it for shelter as her sisters covered distance down there.  She would keep an eye on Zinnie but the lioness was a lost cause.  It would have been mercy to kill her outright, but a wounded animal was a fantastically good distraction to the enemy.

The sounds of fighting underground were subdued, as though there were only a few survivors and these largely sought mercy.  Kitten and Rosetta hadn’t brought any tranquilizers around and Dhalia hoped Sasha was human enough to have the good sense not to acquiesce.

The birds grew quiet for a time, watching all beneath the foliage settle into the normal patterns again.  It was dark but not late, or perhaps the reverse was true.  Dhalia listened intently as the sounds of evening drew to a close and the insects rose up to claim the night air.  

When these stilled, she opened her mouth wide and scented the air.  Men, not a female among them, and much closer than they had been.  That new tent smell.  Faint oil resudue.  The scent left by activated coils within LED’s.  Exhaled breath with matching sticks of gum.

There were other cues beside the silence and the scents, though these were less prominant.  The way a few trees hid shadows that couldn’t quite have been shadows and an erant reflection, almost circular and far too bright before disappearing with a shifted angle.  They were here.  They were here and they were going to try and wipe out her pride, her sisters.  More importantly, however, they were moving close and cautious, as though they sensed or saw her beneath the lip of the artificial cave.  

Growling softly, she felt herself spit stomp before reigning in her distress.  The logical maneuver was to wait until they were a little closer and then surrender.  It would slow them up a fair bit and, if they directed her to place her claws behind her head, she could communicate very clearly to the team of her sacrifice.  Wherever they took her, she would not be held for long.  

An outline broke the ridge and she waited, hunkering down to minimize the chance for a sniper to put her down quick.  It took all her effort ad cost more energy that she wanted to spare to shift herself a bit closer to human.  Her natural form had not yet run its course and resisted, splintering bones insider her and leaving her muscles jumbled.  Some were built such that the process was fluid and almost easy.  For her, however, it was a perversion of joint and sinew made possible only by brutely expressed will.

Shadows in her mind alerted her to the shrinking proximity and she concentrated on stilling the spasms.  Surrendering was far harder on both parties than fighting to the death.  If this was military, and the exact aroma of rubber in the soles of their boots hinted at this, then they would be wearing cameras.  This meant they would have to acknowledge a surrender.  As they would perform all the proper motions and then pat her down, keeping several weapons trained all the while, before using some of their number to place her in a secure location, she would effectively take more out of their ranks and disrupt the entire herd of them for longer than holing up would manage.

Zinnie moaned softly, a deep, base animal sound.  Dhalia smiled, seeing a manner by which she could further slow folks up and buy time for the rest of the pride.  Babaer would have no choice but to grant her wish, then.  It was a secondary concern but one she determined not to lose sight of.  Pinching her throat to make her voice sound high and afraid, she called out to the oncoming foes.

“Wait!  Please stop!  I surrender, just don’t hurt my sister!”

She could hear the pause and smell the hesitation.  A high pitched whine hit the air briefly as a megaphone was turned on and the crackling prelude warned that she’d been heard.

“Come out with your hands up.”

The image of the dancing monsters in Mr. Michael Jackson’s Thriller strummed through her mind and she forced herself not to smile.  No, they would expect fear and worry.  Pulling out a small mirror on the back of a button, she checked to make sure her face was making the right shapes, letting the elastic pull the tiny device back to her bandolier.  No one knew how hard she worked to seem mundane, how utterly unimportant learning such things as a child had seemed.

“Okay.  I’m coming out.  Please don’t shoot me.”

Her lip raised in a snarl at the sound of her own voice and she schooled herself back to normal.  Calmly, she raised her hands above the edge of the tunnel and showed that these were empty.  She stepped up a little and, despite not requiring the extra support, set her hands flat on the ground as she pulled her body up.  She knelt on her knees directly in front of the slanted ridge and waited, raising her hands slowly.  

The enemy fanned out around her, pointing their assault rifles at her and ordering her to move forward and kiss the dirt.  She complied, moving with exagerated slowness, and forced herself not to visit all forms of hell on these sorry sods as they brought her down hard.  Guns played against her cheek as a knee went to her neck and her hands were wrenched around behind her back.  She distanced herself from her body as her elbow joint, still not fully down-shifted, popped out of socket and snapped a fair number of tendons.  

They must have thought she’d fainted.  That was good in that it was doubtful they’d shoot her and bad in that she was now considered less of a destraction.  Planning her course of action with exquisite care, she moaned and then began carrying on about her arm and how bad it hurt.  All eyes turned their focus back to her.  She heard the team start to be reassigned and let loose a yowling growl that rooted them in their heavy duty boots.

“Zin Zin!  You killed her, didn’t you!”

Zinnie’s voice, weak with encroaching twilight, called out to her.  “Dolly?  Where did you go?”  Ah, so she was human now.  How wonderfully convincing

Then came the rattle.  The teams slowed up and Dhalia pretended not to hear that last rasp, calling to them to help her comrade, watching the medic with his or her hazmat suit, smelling the blood start to turn stale as the lungs ceased oxygenating them, and then listening to the ripping of plastic as one of the clear plastic nose-things was fitted in place and artificial respiration was begun.  It wouldn’t be enough, she knew, but that was not an issue of importance presently.  No, important was buying time for Babaer and the pride to secure their vengeance and bug out.  A separate rescue could be conducted for her later.

And then he’d have no choice but to say yes.

…

Penny could feel her body deteriorating.  She imagined it was akin to how lepers felt, with bits stretching and falling off while the underlying bone grew soft and spongy.  She’d pushed into the edge of her hip and there had been too much give.  Then another weird, alien muscle had grown over the exposed bone and pain had clouded all but her vision.

That, thankfully, would never be blocked again.  She’d made a promise, all those years ago.  It might only have been her pet rabbit but the vow stuck.  It meant something.  When the fire had claimed the study and half of the kitchen, she’d tried to run in and been blasted by the smoke and heat.  She had closed her eyes and stopped trying to save her rabbit.  Later, she found him, still warm and moving and almost fine except for the smoke in his lungs.  He’d died during his overnight stay at the vet, and she’d learned to be hard.

No, the way past this pain was in losing herself to the job.  There could be no fear and no pain; that was a luxury for later.  Right now, Benji was trusting her to keep this passageway safe as first Levi and then Andes stepped into place, followed by a blood covered Sasha, Rosette and an immaculately clean Kitten.  Their names seemed to ring out as she saw their faces, what little was known of them in bullet-points below, filling in descriptors that could not be caught in photograph.

Right.  She had to earn their trust.  Which meant shooting the folks they called badguys.  The males were calling down the hole and acting skittish, so it was up to her and the other gals to keep them all safe while someone who wasn’t self-destructing came up with a plan to get them out of here.

Her legs were collapsing.  The snarl rose in the back of her throat and stayed there as she braced herself against one of the cave walls.  Movement up ahead, and, unless it was Dhalia or Zinnie, it was one of the badguys.  The goodguys.  Whatever.  The ones Babaer didn’t have the least problem executing.

That other mind, like a locust with shark’s teath, began battering against her consciousness again.  She felt it rake across the skin of her upper chest and felt her normal skin part from the inside.  She felt her body heal the wounds nearly instantly and she suddenly knew the price of admission here was a life.

Feeling Sasha move into position beside her, Kelly Loboman stopped fighting.

Next Chapter: The Children of the God of True Necromancy