The mutants moved with that horrible flowing speed, dropping from the elevated office in a smooth motion that should have been impossible for anything with bones. The first hit the ground and immediately bounded toward Camila's team. The second angled toward Carl's group, that grotesque arm-club still clutched in its claws.

  "Contact!" Carl's voice cut through the warehouse. "Engaging!"

  Gunfire erupted. The sharp crack of Carl's submachine gun firing single shots, the louder crack of rifles and the boom of shotguns from the radio team backing him up. The mutant heading for Carl's position twisted mid-stride, a movement too fluid to be natural, and three shots that should have hit center mass went wide or clipped edges.

  It became apparent almost instantly that the thing was fast and that its hide was tough, not like their vests but strong and leathery, enough to stop the edge of a shotgun blast making a mess of the creature and even SMG rounds to cause damage but not massive trauma.

  "Mierda!" Camila's voice came through the radio even as David saw her team open fire. "Thing moves like water!"

  The inexperience of the gunners was showing as the creatures reached partial cover and dashed closer while a trail of devastation from lead thrown at them followed behind.

  Carl saw the problem even as David focused, gathering his strength, he had to make this count.

  The mutant charging Camila took a shotgun blast to the shoulder. David saw the impact, saw flesh tear, real damage and dark blood sprayed.

  The thing barely slowed. It screamed, a hissing sound, almost birdlike, and kept coming.

  David’s spirits were buzzing with energy as he pushed as much as he could into them. Everything felt raw and oversaturated, almost painful in its intensity.

  "Halt!"

  The word tore from him with crystalline clarity, his will and spirits surging outward. The mutant charging Camila's position kept moving, untroubled by his magic.

  The one charging Carl and yet to take a big hit was his target and it lurched to a stop mid-stride, its momentum carrying it into an awkward stumble.

  Unlike with the zombies, David felt the resistance immediately. The thing was fighting him, writhing in the grip of his spirits, and then Carl hit it. Nice measured shots aimed at center mass.

  David felt the blows as the creature took damage and somehow things shifted. The damage seemed to affect his magic, or maybe where his magic gripped the creature.

  Regardless he felt his grip sliding as though he were holding something that was suddenly slick, the alien writhing under his grip now translated to spasmodic movements from the monster.

  Then intelligence reasserted control and it was moving again.

  How long had that been?

  A second? Two?

  And it was draining him fast, he had put a lot into that spell. With no zombie spirits to harvest and reclaim he realized he would either need to burn his spirit supply or avoid spamming his spell.

  The other fight was progressing fast as well. Camila crossed the distance in a burst of speed, crowbar already swinging. The impact should have caught the mutant in the side of its elongated skull, but it rolled under it and slashed at her. She barely recovered in time, still taking a glancing blow that her vest blocked. The thing shrieked and twisted away from a follow-up strike that would have caved in its face.

  Both of them were moving too fast for anyone to risk shooting into the swirling melee and only the wound on the things shoulder gave Camila a fighting chance. Blood, actual impossibly dark blood, streamed from the wound. The mutant was already moving again, claws extended on its good arm, but it was paying a price every second as the wound pumped.

  David moved, looking to close in, while he lacked the speed that Camila was showing he was more confident of surviving the melee than the others and he needed to tip the scales.

  Camila’s radio team members were closing in and fanning out, looking for a shot. One of the radio team members, a woman David vaguely recognized, aimed her shotgun point-blank into its chest. The mutant reacted, twisting away from the weapon.

  It recognized the threat of the gun, after being hit once.

  Still the advantage shifted and Camila hit it, her swing aimed at the joint where its good arm met its torso. It twisted and dropped low managing to take the blow on the back of its shoulder where its scales were small, dark and dense. Something still crunched.

  Then the balance of the fight shifted again, the mutant was rising and lunging with nightmare speed, seizing an opening, and despite the crunch its functioning arm lashed out.

  Claws raked at Camila and she saved her throat by tucking her chin in and trying to take the strike on her tactical helmet.

  It almost worked but one of the two long slashing claws hooked in raking her face and nose in a spray of blood.

  She screamed and fell back, clutching at the wound.

  The creature followed barreling into her in that unguarded moment and bouncing off her as she fell.

  Just for an instant it was out of the line of fire from all the guns as it coiled on top of the falling woman.

  Then it lunged explosively fast claws hooking down at the joint of neck and shoulder on the woman with the shotgun as it pulled towards her.

  More blood sprayed and she screamed in pain.

  "Mark!" Camila's voice cut through the chaos, tight with pain. "Healer needed!"

  Meanwhile, Carl's measured voice carried across the warehouse.

  "Steady. Aim for joints and head. Wait for it to break cover then fire. Thing's tough but it ain't invincible."

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  His team had the second mutant in a crossfire. It had dropped the arm-club and was moving in erratic patterns, trying to find cover or close the distance. Neither was working and bullets chewed into it.

  But it was still coming.

  Charlie's voice crackled over the radio. "Bro, I can hit it with fire but I might catch Carl's people too!"

  "Negative," Carl replied, his rifle cracking twice more. "We got this. Just keep your line clear in case it breaks through."

  The mutant lunged toward one of Carl's radio team, a young guy with a hunting rifle who'd been too focused on aiming to track its movement. The thing covered fifteen feet in what felt like an eyeblink.

  That was it’s fatal mistake. Too long going in a straight line in the open.

  Carl's movements became impossibly smooth and fast as he triggered his skill. He shot and took it in the knee. The joint exploded in a spray of dark blood and the charge became a tumbling roll. It came up on three limbs, the damaged leg dragging.

  Carl tracked it and fired again, targeting the joint of the load bearing limb to devastating effect and causing it to tumble and lose control. This time its trajectory took it into the leg of a prep table and it slewed away from its target.

  "There we go," Carl muttered. Then louder, "Focus fire on the head! Y'all know where to aim!"

  The mutant tried to dodge but its injuries had stolen that impossible grace. Three shots hit in quick succession. One took it in the shoulder, one in the neck, and Carl's final shot punched through its elongated skull just behind what passed for an eye socket.

  It dropped, twitched once, and went still.

  David wasn’t watching that fight, he was rushing towards the other mutant.

  The injured mutant reacted to the events behind it instantly, even as David rounded the prep tables, sucking in air to end the fight with a spell it moved.

  It went under the prep table and burst out dashing low and in cover through some sort of cooking area with ovens where nobody had line of sight.

  Then it moved up, leaping on top of the cold, silent ovens and over outflanking his radio team who were following him into the dogpile around the initial melee.

  It was most of the way to the office corridor David's team had just emerged from before anyone realized where it was going.

  It was making a break for it.

  "Not happening," David growled.

  He ran, reversing course with his legs pumping, cutting back the way he had come and angling to intercept.

  He had a straight path and the mutant was injured, making the race far closer than he expected given the things speed.

  He was still half a second behind it as it reached the office corridor. That was close enough as the creature had to deal with the door.

  It was barely through and he was onto it.

  "Halt!"

  The command hit like a physical blow. The mutant froze mid-leap, it surge away from the door cut short leaving it suspended in the air for a heartbeat before crashing to the concrete.

  David felt the drain immediately, and moved fast.

  His hand found the pistol at his hip. The one that Carl kept insisting he needed, the same one he’d used to execute an enemy the day before.

  His fingers wrapped around the grip, drew, aimed, he thumbed the safety off.

  The mutant's eyes locked on his. In them he saw something. He wasn’t sure what.

  David pulled the trigger.

  The first shot hit it in the chest. The second in the throat. The third punched through its skull and the alien presence marked by one of his spirits cut off like a severed wire.

  His hold broke. The mutant collapsed, truly dead.

  David stood there, pistol still raised, breathing hard. His magic reserves were down, maybe a little more than half. Without the zombie spirits to harvest and recycle he needed to be careful, using Halt with all his advantages was expensive.

  "David?" Charlies voice, concerned. "You good?"

  He lowered the pistol, safed it, then holstered the weapon. Turned to see him approaching, flames hanging over his hand ready to let fly.

  "Yeah," he managed. "Just. Those things are a lot harder to hold than zombies."

  Carl's team was securing their kill, with Charlie's group moving to establish a perimeter while Mark attended to Camila and her team. Charlie raised his radio.

  "Both hostiles down. Area secure. Dude, that was intense."

  "Casualties?" David called.

  "Me and one other injured," Camila reported. "I’m fine but hers looks deep, it hooked in on the edge of the vest, penetrated so she’s got some deep punctures. Mark's on it."

  Carl walked over, gun slung, expression thoughtful. "Well, y'all this confirms it. Those things are a lot worse than zombies. I’m a little worried about firepower, that hide is tough. It was almost like shooting someone with a vest. Had to hit the limbs to end it."

  Unspoken was the fact that right now the team couldn’t count on anyone else having that kind of shooting precision.

  "I can only hold one," David said, checking his status. “I’m hitting them as hard as I can and the effect just isn’t enough to lock them down for long. Can't farm them like zombies either. No spirits to reclaim."

  "So we need to be smarter about engaging them," Camila said. It wasn't a question.

  David nodded. "Team up. Disable a limb first. We also really need to be able to mix it with them hand to hand. The only reason this didn’t go really wrong was you being able to dance with that thing when it got close, it probably would have messed up the whole radio team without that delay.”

  “They’re smart, at least enough to retreat or use tactics. I get the feeling they are ambush predators, get close, devastating attack. Not afraid to bug out either." Mark added from where he was treating the woman with the injured shoulder.

  "Yeah, the second one ran as soon as the situation shifted against it," Charlie added, joining them. His usual enthusiasm was muted, his eyes serious. "That was. That was a person once, wasn't it?"

  "Yeah," David said quietly. He looked at the body near his feet. "It was. There was something there at the end, I don’t know what."

  They stood there for a moment in the stale warehouse air, the smell of decay and that distinctive mutant rot mixing with the sharp scent of gunpowder.

  Carl broke the silence. "Right then. Let's finish clearing this building and get what we came for. Sooner we're done, sooner we're back to relative safety."

  "Relative being the key word," Camila muttered, she had to wait for Mark to use butterfly bandages to neaten the gash on her face then cast on her before organizing her team, still they knew what they were here for and started to spread out to sweep of the rest of the warehouse.

  David took one more look at the dead mutant at his feet. Fast, dangerous, intelligent. And according to everything they'd learned, there were a lot more of them out there.

  He pushed the thought aside and called out. “If there’s room we should take one of these back to the Obelisk for the know your enemy quest. Only if there isn’t food to put in that space…”

  One problem at a time. Right now, they needed food for the safe zone.

  He could worry about the larger implications later.

  The range of kit looted from the terminal is impressive. Buses for transporting passengers and staff between terminals. Baggage tugs with their distinctive low profile. Service trucks, loaded with tools and parts. And yes, several fuel tenders, each carrying thousands of gallons of diesel. Working trucks and trailers including portable diesel generators.

  Loads of packaged airline food and raw ingredients, including some foodstuffs that are perishable and of questionable freshness given the warming of the storage units filled a lot of the space they had available. Katie insisted they also take every utensil and fixture not bolted down. She even had them unbolting some things she deemed essential.

  More food came from the concessions, water, medical supplies from first aid stations, blankets and comfort items from airline storage. Weapons from the armory and of course the improvised hearse with their dead.

  There was still a lot left but they had taken a massive haul.

  Personal vehicles and transports were drawn up in the late afternoon sun as a big confused snarl of vehicles and people milled around.

  He was surprised by how few of the personal vehicles had left.

  Charlie appeared at his elbow, practically bouncing with excitement. "Dude, we're going to roll back to the park like a convoy. This is amazing."

  "Don't jinx it," David warned, though he couldn't help smiling. "We still have to get there."

  "Yeah, but come on. We came for our dead and we're leaving with a hundred new people, vehicles, fuel, supplies. This is a huge win."

  It was. David had to acknowledge that. They'd taken another risk and it had paid off beyond expectations. The safe zone would be significantly stronger for this.

  No, they, the raiders, would be significantly stronger for it. The people in the safe zone would get food, maybe the last perishable items they would see for a while, not automatic control over all the things they had found.

  The airport truly was secured, at least for now. Unless someone garrisoned it that wouldn’t last as more, well anything, could wander in and take up residence.

  There was one thing left to do before they got on the road.