Chapter 8 - THE PASSENGER ON THE ROOF
The metal roof of the boxcar groaned under a sudden, heavy weight.
Scrrrtch.
The sound of iron claws dragging across sheet metal.
Hazel froze in Gideon’s arms.
Her breath hitched against his chest.
Gideon did not flinch.
He gently shifted Hazel back onto the bed of straw, his amber eyes tracking the movement across the ceiling slats.
Two hundred pounds.
Maybe two hundred and fifty.
Moving on four limbs with predatory stealth.
"Stay down," Gideon whispered, not making a sound as he reached for the tactical carbine resting on the burlap crate.
He checked the magazine.
Ten rounds left.
No spare clips.
Above their heads, the creature paused directly over the central roof vent.
The scent of wet pine and burnt sulfur filtered down through the slats.
Not a tracking hound.
A werewolf tracker in partial shift.
A Blood-Stalker from the Southern Obsidian Ridge.
Suddenly, a six-inch titanium claw punched through the galvanized sheet metal of the ceiling.
Insulation and rust flakes rained down onto the hay.
The claw ripped sideways, tearing an eighteen-inch opening in the roof with the shriek of shredded steel.
A pair of milky yellow eyes peered down through the breach.
A guttural, rasping voice hissed into the dark boxcar:
"Found the little white bird..."
"And her dead King."
Gideon didn't wait for the creature to clear the opening.
He raised the carbine and fired three rounds straight through the ceiling metal surrounding the hole.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
A howl of agony tore through the train’s diesel roar.
Black, oily blood dripped from the ceiling onto the hay bales.
The creature scrambled across the roof toward the front of the car.
"He's going for the air brake hoses," Hazel gasped, pulling the burlap blanket tighter around her bare shoulders.
"If he severs the pneumatic line, the emergency brakes will lock every wheel!"
"The train will derail on the mountain trestle!"
Gideon handed her his silver revolver.
"Can you shoot?"
Hazel looked at the heavy, ornate firearm.
The grip felt massive in her small, calloused hand.
"My mother taught me to shoot poachers in the valley," she said, her voice turning to cold iron.
"Point at the center of the chest," Gideon instructed.
"Pull the hammer back first."
Gideon vaulted onto the top of a stacked wooden crate.
He reached through the shredded roof opening, hooked his powerful fingers into the jagged metal edges, and hauled himself up into the freezing gale atop the speeding train.
The wind on the roof was brutal.
The train was hurtling along a narrow granite ledge three hundred feet above the roaring Blackwood River.
Snow whipped across the steel walkways in horizontal blinding sheets.
Fifty feet ahead, crouched on the roof of Car Thirteen, was the Blood-Stalker.
The creature was grotesque—a man stretched into the elongated, sinewy nightmare of a half-shifted wolf.
Matted gray fur covered his shoulders.
His jaw was distended, dripping thick saliva that froze instantly in the wind.
In his right claw, he held a heavy trench knife.
In his left, he held a radio beacon blinking with a steady crimson light.
"He called the gunships," Gideon realized.
The Blood-Stalker looked back at Gideon, his fangs bared in a hideous grin.
"Too late, Alpha!" the tracker shrieked over the howling wind.
"Lord Kaelen’s interceptors are five minutes out!"
"The southern pack takes your head to the capital!"
The creature leaped across the six-foot gap between the boxcars, its claws outspread like an eagle’s talons.
Gideon dropped his center of gravity.
He didn't draw a blade.
He waited until the beast was eighteen inches from his face.
Then Gideon sidestepped on the icy steel walkway, catching the creature’s outstretched arm by the wrist.
With a brutal twist of his torso, Gideon used the beast’s own forward momentum against it.
He drove his elbow down into the creature’s shoulder joint.
CRACK.
The humerus bone snapped, protruding through the gray fur in a spray of dark blood.
The Blood-Stalker howled, thrashing violently, its free claws raking across Gideon’s ribs.
The razor-sharp nails tore through Gideon’s tactical vest, opening four bloody furrows across his chest.
Gideon didn't even grunt.
The Aurelian blood flowing in his veins ignited with white-hot fury.
He seized the creature by the throat with both hands.
He lifted the two-hundred-pound monster above his head on the swaying, ninety-mile-per-hour roof.
"Tell Kaelen," Gideon roared into the storm,
"that when I return to the capital, I am bringing his skin as a winter rug!"
Gideon hurled the creature off the side of the train.
The Blood-Stalker plummeted through the freezing mist, disappearing into the jagged rocks of the canyon far below.
Gideon snatched the blinking radio beacon from the walkway before it could tumble off the edge.
He crushed the metal casing beneath his heavy boot heel.
He climbed back down through the roof breach into the hay-filled warmth of Car Fourteen.
Hazel was standing near the crates, the silver revolver raised with both hands, aimed steadily at the hole.
When she saw Gideon’s boots drop down, she lowered the hammer with a trembling thumb.
"Is it dead?" she asked, her voice tight.
"It's at the bottom of the gorge," Gideon said, wiping a mixture of snow and tracker blood from his forehead.
He looked down at his chest.
The four claw marks across his ribs were already smoking with faint silver light.
The skin was knitting together before their eyes, closing the wounds into thin, pale lines.
Hazel stepped forward, her hand reaching out involuntarily to touch the newly formed scars.
Her fingertips brushed his warm skin.
A jolt of pure static electricity shot through them both, making her gasp.
Gideon looked down into her wide, emerald eyes.
The silence in the boxcar was heavy, thick with unspoken truths and an ancient power that neither of them could control.
"How long until the western pass?" she whispered, her hand lingering on his chest.
Gideon’s hand came up, his warm, rough fingers gently cupping her jawline.
"Two hours," he said softly.
"To the fortress of Ironclif."
"My uncle commands five thousand northern heavy infantry there."
"Will he believe you're alive?"
Gideon smiled, a slow, dangerous tilt of his lips.
"He'll believe it when he smells you on my skin, Hazel."
Then, through the wooden floorboards beneath their boots, came the deep, rhythmic thrum of twin rotor blades.
Searchlights sliced through the side slats of the boxcar, painting the hay bales in brilliant, blinding white.
A voice boomed through an aerial loudspeaker above the train:
"BOXCAR FOURTEEN! THIS IS SOUTHERN COMBAT SQUADRON ALPHA!"
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