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.Its free hand swiped at Jess, claws raking the air, the other still holding the crossbow.Simon now lay on the ground, clutching at his shoulder.Paul, nearest, swung his clawboard at it, only to see the Huntsman swat it away.Switch darted forward with a serrated knife, but it was Owen, slipping behind the Huntsman and clubbing the back of its legs with Paul’s old clawboard which caused it to lose balance.As Switch’s knife flashed again, the Huntsman jerked backwards and fell out over the tracks, into the path of the train.For a second the train’s warning horn sounded low and hollow.Then the Huntsman was gone as the train thundered past.As the train rushed away, the others crowded around Simon.The crossbow bolt protruded from his right shoulder and his shirt was soaked with blood.‘I’m okay, I’m fine,’ he whined, gritting his teeth.‘Help him up,’ Marta said.‘Can you still ride, Simon?’‘I’ll try.’‘We have to leave now.’‘I know.’Marta glanced at the others.Paul’s face was ashen, while Switch was busy picking bits of cloth out of the teeth of his knife.Owen was reliving the strike which led to the Huntsman’s death, while Jess was stone-faced, staring at Simon as though he were already dead.Marta felt cold inside looking at Jess; the girl she’d met earlier was gone, perhaps forever.But then, she reflected, perhaps there was a part of all of them that was gone now.Behind them, across the track, Vincent had regained consciousness and was barking orders into a mobile phone.‘They’re here.Quickly, free the rest of them!’Jess turned away from Simon and picked something up off the platform.Marta saw it was the Huntsman’s crossbow.Jess turned it over in her hands as though she were inspecting a piece of fruit.Then, with a brief shrug, she pulled a metal quarrel out of a pocket on the side, fed it into the crossbow’s mechanism and pressed a button.Marta heard a whirring sound and saw a metal spring drawing back.Jess looked up at the others, face blank.Without a word she turned and walked across to the trackside.Marta followed her.‘Don’t kill him,’ she said, meaning Vincent.‘That makes us no better than them.’‘Do you think I care? I will kill him, but he has to wait his turn.’Marta followed Jess’s gaze down on to the tracks.What was left of the Huntsman lay there, across the rails.One arm was completely gone, and one leg from the knee down lay between the tracks about twenty feet in front of it.The other arm was mangled and half its torso hung open.Blood pumped out on to the tracks from a long chest wound.Marta was terrified to see wires and what looked like metal plating inside, alongside the tissues of a body that had once been human.And yet it was still alive, its head trying to rise, a low groan coming from its throat.‘Good God, what does it take to kill those things?’Jess didn’t answer.Slowly, she lifted the crossbow.‘For my mother and my father, for everyone else.die, you fucking.prick.’She pulled the trigger.The bolt slammed into the Huntsman’s face, just below the blinded eye.There was a popping sound followed by a crackle of electricity and then the monster was finally still.Jess pulled out another bolt.Behind them came the sound of another approaching train.‘This is our ride,’ Switch said.‘I don’t leave until he’s dead,’ Jess replied, waving the crossbow at Vincent, who was cursing and grunting in pain as he tried to pull a nail out of his leg.‘We don’t have time!’ Switch shouted.‘Stay with him and die together if you fucking like, girl, but we have to go now!’ As Switch spoke, four dark shadows poured down the station steps, rushing across the platform towards them.Marta’s jaw dropped; it was like facing Hell itself as the snapping, nightmarish horde came on, some moving like men, others bounding like dogs.‘We’re gonna die unless we’re on that train!’ Paul shouted.Marta looked at Switch.The little man had his nail gun in one hand, but his face was pale, hopeless.Even he knew they had no chance against so many.‘Remember what I told you,’ Paul said to Owen.‘Don’t let me down, brother.’Owen, endlessly cheerful, nodded.‘I’m a Tube Rider now,’ he said, hefting the clawboard Paul had given him.‘Please don’t get hurt,’ Paul said.‘Run, jump, hook,’ Owen recalled.‘You got it, now go! I love you, kid.’Owen grimaced.‘Man, shut up.Christ.’The train rushed in.Marta heard Jess screaming at Simon to ‘Run, one last time just run!’ and then she was running after Paul and Owen herself.In these moments, she reflected, it was everyone for him or herself; if someone fell they were on their own.No one could go back.Two of the Huntsmen had crossed in front of the train.As Marta caught, she saw them stumble as they tried to turn too quickly.In front of her, Paul and Owen were safely caught, Owen whooping his delight as his board hooked on to the metal rail.Just behind her, Switch caught the rail and she leaned forward to see beyond him to where Simon, his face contorted with pain, had just jumped.His board caught the edge then slipped safely inside the rail.He howled in pain as the train jerked his injured shoulder, his eyes squeezing shut, veins protruding from the backs of his hands as he struggled to hold on.Jess, at the back, caught the rail then quickly freed one hand and pulled the crossbow from her belt.As the nearest Huntsman leapt forward, its claws reaching, she aimed and fired.The bolt hit the Huntsman in the shoulder, enough to knock it back into the one coming behind.Marta saw them tumble to the ground as the train carried them into the tunnel.‘Hang on!’ she screamed as the cold wind and the dark enveloped them.She could only hope the others had enough strength left to listen.Chapter Twenty-TwoAftermathVincent could think of no other plan than to play dead as the Huntsmen, freed on his command, rushed into the station.The Tube Riders were out of sight behind the moving train, and a moment later it was gone, taking them with it.Two Huntsmen were on his side of the tracks, two on the other.Vincent thought for a moment he was the next victim, but then, howling like a pack of rabid wolves, the Huntsmen leapt down on to the tracks and bounded away into the tunnel.As silence descended, Vincent climbed to his feet.Three nails had hit him in the thigh.One had fallen loose while the other two were imbedded deep and wouldn’t move.Every time he touched them bolts of pain lanced up his side.Still, moving slowly, he could walk.He found himself marveling at the resourcefulness of the Tube Riders; the skinny, odd-looking one in particular.He hoped to put a bullet in that one personally.A few feet away lay the body of the girl who had captured the blind Huntsman.Vincent hobbled over and looked down.It had mauled her bad enough that she would never need to worry about boyfriends again, he thought darkly, but underneath the blood he could see the slow rise and fall of her chest.A small moan when he nudged her with his foot confirmed that she still lived.I’m the one who got away.He knew what she meant, of course.There was no way a normal human could have survived such a mauling.And if what she claimed was true, Vincent thought, maybe she could be of some use to them.#Leland Clayton was pissed.Climbing from the car outside the abandoned Underground station, it was all he could do not to draw his gun and flick off the safety.Vincent had gone above his authority, ordering the Huntsmen called off in an attempt to ambush the Tube Riders.Clayton, whose idea it had been to stake out the station in case one or more might return, had expected to view their bodies only after the Huntsmen had finished
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