“Oh crapitty crap crapola,” Lemon whispered.
The BioMaas operative tossed her dreadlocks over her shoulder.
“We have been hunting her,” she said.
Across the gully, Fix raised his weapon. The woman seemed unfazed, fixing Lemon in her golden stare, bumblebees lazily circling her head.
“You had a bullet in your chest,” Lemon breathed. “You jumped into a car that crashed and exploded. You’re dead. I saw it.”
The woman lowered her chin, peeled aside the throat of her strange suit. Dozens more bumblebees crawled from the honeycombed skin beneath, filling the air with the song of tiny wings.
“Holy crap,” Mikey whimpered.
“Shuddup, Mikey,” Murph whispered.
“We are legion, Lemonfresh,” Hunter said. “We are hydra.”
Lemon blinked, recognizing the words from their first meeting. Putting two and two together and finally realizing…
“You’re not the Hunter I knew.”
The woman shook her head. “We heard her ending song on the winds. But we have many sisters, Lemonfresh. And CityHive has many Hunters.”
Diesel hefted her assault rifle, looking between Lemon and the BioMaas agent. “Would someone be kind enough to tell me what the hell is going on here?”
Looking up into those golden eyes, Lemon wished she knew. This woman was identical to the one she’d met, but whatever rapport she’d established with the operative who abducted her, this new Hunter obviously didn’t share it. And while Lemon knew BioMaas Incorporated wanted her alive, everyone else who’d got in the old Hunter’s way ended up on the wrong end of a genetically engineered deathbee.
“Don’t let her bugs touch you,” she called to Diesel and Fix. “They’ll ghost you with a single sting. You hear me? Do not let them anywhere near you.”
Eyes on the Hunter, Lemon took a step backward, closer to Grimm.
“We need to motor,” she whispered. “Now.”
“Lemonfresh must come with us to CityHive,” Hunter declared.
“Sounds grand,” Lemon called. “But my dance card’s kinda full. Maybe next year when the kids are off to school?”
“She is important.” The woman’s golden eyes flashed. “She is needed.”
“Sounds like the lady’s made up her mind, love,” Grimm growled.
Hunter turned her golden stare on the boy at Lemon’s side. The bees in the skies above began to swirl, their pitch rising as—
BANG.
Lemon heard the rifle report, ducking low. Grimm crouched beside her, the dustnecks flinched. Hunter slung her strange fishbone rifle off her back and searched for the source of the shot. But Diesel was on her feet, staring upward.
“Baby?” she whispered.
Lemon looked up, saw Fix swaying on his feet. He was staring stupidly at the red stain spreading across his hip, the bullet hole below his kevlar vest. His eyelashes fluttered, he staggered, and with a soft sigh, he toppled right off the cliff.
Diesel screamed, held out her hand. A colorless rift tore the sky open just below Fix, a second rift splitting the air a few inches above Diesel’s head. Fix fell through the first, plunged out of the second, dropping into Diesel’s arms. The impact sent the girl sprawling, but it was better than falling ten meters to the ground.
More shots rang out, bullets spanging off the grav-tank hull and the rocks. Grimm shouted a warning, pulled Lemon down into cover. Hunter rolled behind a rocky outcrop as a group of figures fanned out along the ridge opposite. Lemon caught sight of blood-red cassocks, greasepaint Xs.
“Brotherhood!” she roared.
More shots peppered the ground around them, sparks flying as the lead bounced off the tank armor. Diesel’s face was twisted as she dragged Fix behind a broad spur of stone. Lemon’s heart was pounding, breath coming quick. She could see a long smear of red glistening on the stone behind Fix—the boy was badly wounded but still conscious, pressing his hand against the hole to stop the blood. Mikey and Murph had scrambled back into their 4x4, tearing off up the gully.
“Well, well!” came a cry from overhead. “Fancy seein’ you again.”
Lemon recognized the voice. Caught a glimpse of a greasepaint skull, a smoking cigar in a gap-toothed grin, a high-powered rifle with a sniper scope.
“Brother Dubya,” she whispered.
“You wanna throw those weapons out, real slow,” the Brother called. “We got you surrounded. We got the high ground. Remember what happened last time.”
“They will drop their weapons and walk away,” came a shout.
“…Who the hell said that?” Dubya demanded.
Hunter rose from cover just enough that the Horseman could lay eyes on her.
“We remember them,” Hunter called. “They killed our sister. Normally, we would sing them the ending song. But today, we hunt for CityHive. So they will take their oldflesh back to their deadworld, and live to see another sunrise.”
“BioMaas, eh?” Brother Dubya spat from one side of his mouth, then bellowed, “Kill that trashbreed bitch!”
The Brotherhood boys opened up with their rifles. The agent tilted her head and hummed off-key, and at the sound, her bees descended in a furious swarm—some at the Brotherhood boys, some right at the deviates.
Lemon cried warning. Grimm curled his fingers, and she felt the temperature plummet. The closest bees withered and fell, the rest shied away from the rippling air—the boy was channeling the radiation around them, dragging the ambient heat out of their immediate area and pushing it outward in a boiling wave. Hunter raised her fishbone rifle and fired three times. The rounds were luminous green, swaying and dipping through the air as they dropped three Disciples. Lemon heard the sharp ping of grenade pins, saw cylindrical shapes tossed across the gully at the Hunter, bursting into bright balls of flame.
“Deez?” Grimm called. “This party’s getting low-rent!”
“On it!” the girl replied.
Lemon heard a ripping sound, a hollow hiss, and a glowing tear opened in the air above their heads. Diesel fell through it, landing in a crouch on the tank beside them with her fist wrapped in Fix’s collar. In the same breath, the metal beneath them shimmered, and another glowing rift opened up right at their feet.
Lemon’s stomach lurched as she fell, collapsing to her knees a few seconds later on warm stone. Vertigo swelled in her belly, she shied back from the ten-meter drop in front of her face, realizing that she, Grimm, Fix and Diesel were now on the very edge of the stone ridge ten meters above the gully.