Harem Apocalypse: My Seed is the Cure?!

After finishing the other Hybrid, I ran downstairs with everything I had left.

I had to get to Sydney and Lucy.

That large Hybrid had gone after them. I kept telling myself they would be fine, that Sydney was fast enough to avoid it and Lucy knew how to handle herself, but the thought did nothing to slow the panic rising in me.

My lungs hurt. Each breath scraped going in. My back, side, and right arm had all turned into one long ache, and my legs felt unsteady after the fall and everything I had forced them through.

I ran anyway.

The connection between the Dullahan Hosts helped. It was faint and unreliable when we were separated by several floors, but I could still sense them well enough to narrow the search. I did not stop to check rooms. I tore down stairwells, taking steps two and three at a time, following that vague awareness of where the others were.

Then I heard gunfire below.

My hearing caught it through the concrete and open stairwell doors: rifle shots, handguns, repeated bursts from more than one direction.

They were fighting the Hybrid.

"Damn it..."

I pushed harder.

By the time I reached the floor with the wide lobby leading into another aisle of the hotel, the place looked wrecked. Furniture had been smashed apart. One of the walls was broken open. Dust lay over the carpet and glittered in the harsh ceiling lights. The air smelled burnt, like heated metal and scorched fabric.

Then I saw them.

"Are you okay?!" I shouted, running toward them.

"R...Ryan!" Cindy cried out.

Sydney was on one knee beside her, one hand pressed to the side of her own head where blood had run down into her hair. Cindy was kneeling too, bruised and bloodied but conscious. Rachel stood a few feet away, holding her right arm against her body. Her face had gone pale, and red burn marks covered part of her cheek and neck.

"What happened?" I asked, looking between them.

Rachel forced herself upright despite the pain and pointed down the corridor.

"Christopher and Lucy! The Hybrid went after them, Ryan!"

My teeth clenched.

I did not ask anything else.

I turned and ran.

It was my fault.

I should have handled both Hybrids. I should not have let the larger one get away. Now Rachel was hurt, Sydney and Cindy were bleeding, and Christopher and Lucy were being chased through the hotel because I had not been strong enough to finish the fight when I had the chance.

Why was I still this weak?

I pushed down the corridor fast enough that my boots slipped once on broken plaster. Ahead, I caught sight of the Hybrid’s huge back. It was moving through the hallway with its head lowered, charging after Christopher and Lucy.

My right hand curled into a fist.

Wind blades gathered around my arm again.

The power came slower this time. My muscles were already strained, and the skin along my forearm felt numb and raw from forcing too much through it. Pain crawled up toward my shoulder.

I ignored it.

Ahead, Christopher and Lucy forced their way into a room and slammed the door shut behind them.

The Hybrid reached it a second later.

Its fist hit the door.

The wood cracked inward.

I ran harder.

The Hybrid struck again. The door bent deeper, the frame splitting around it.

By the time it smashed through and stepped inside, I was close enough.

I lowered my body, kicked off the floor, and launched myself forward.

I hit it from behind with everything I had.

The impact drove my shoulder into its back and sent both of us through the room before it could even turn. We crashed through the broken window in a storm of glass and shattered frame, falling out from the seventh floor together.

Cold night air tore across my face.

For a second, the hotel wall rushed upward beside us while the ground waited far below. Around seventy feet. Maybe more.

I pressed myself against the Hybrid’s back as we fell, locking my arms around it and forcing its huge body beneath me. My stomach twisted violently at the speed. The wind screamed past my ears. I could feel the creature thrashing, trying to twist and throw me free, but I held on.

I gritted my teeth and braced.

The ground came up.

The Hybrid hit first.

The impact shook through my entire body.

Its massive frame took most of it, smashing into the ground hard enough to leave a crater in the pavement beneath us. The force still bounced through me like a hammer. Pain exploded through my legs, arms, ribs, and back all at once, and I rolled away across broken concrete before I could stop myself.

Blood filled my mouth.

I spat it out and forced myself onto one knee.

My limbs shook badly. For a second, the world tilted and the hotel lights above blurred into streaks.

Then I looked back.

The Hybrid was flattened in the crater, its body broken into the pavement, but its chest still moved.

Slowly and stubbornly.

Still alive.

I pulled the hand axe from my belt and crawled toward it, every motion making something in my body complain. The Hybrid’s white eyes shifted toward me. Its mouth opened, producing a weak, ruined growl.

I raised the axe.

Then I brought it down into its neck.

Blood sprayed across the pavement.

The Hybrid jerked once beneath me.

I struck again, putting all the anger, fear, and exhaustion I had left into the blow until its movements stopped and its head separated from its body.

I stayed there on my knees for a second, axe hanging loosely in my hand, staring at the corpse to make sure it would not rise again.

Then I looked back up at the broken seventh-floor window and forced myself to stand.

I gasped for breath and narrowed my eyes.

Above me, Christopher leaned out through the broken seventh-floor window, his face pulled tight with concern. Seeing him there, alive and moving, let some of the tension ease out of me.

At least he was fine.

"You!"

The shout came from behind me.

I turned over my shoulder.

A man I didn’t recognize stood several yards away near the edge of the hotel grounds. One of Callighan’s men, most likely. He had a handgun aimed straight at me, both hands on it, finger already tightening against the trigger.

The streetlight caught his face as he got a clearer look at me.

Then his expression changed.

His eyes widened.

"Fucking gray eyes," he said, a huge grin spreading across his face. "You gotta be that fucker, Ryan?"

He was about to fire.

I felt my left hand twitch toward the Time Freeze tattoo.

Then a gunshot cracked across the night.

The man’s head snapped sharply to the side.

A dark hole appeared in the center of his forehead. For a fraction of a second, his grin stayed there, stiff and unreal, while his body seemed not to understand what had happened.

Then his knees folded.

He collapsed onto the pavement beside the Hybrid’s body.

Behind him stood Maribel.

Her rifle was still raised, the barrel pointed at the spot where his head had been. She lowered it only after confirming he was down, her eyes moving past the corpse and landing on me.