5 Onslaught Read Online Free PDF Page A

all riled up.
    Mira.
    She’s
prone and motionless. Her head is turned to the side, her eyes closed. I look
to see if her torso is rising and falling, but my glimpse is cut short by a
circling griffin. Alive or not, I don’t know, but it’s clear that this argument
will end with Mira being claimed by one side or the other, and I cannot wait
for that to happen.
    I
start to rise.
    “Sol,”
Kainda whispers.
    My
boiling blood blocks out her voice.
    “Sol!”
she says a little more loudly. “Wait!”
    But
her plea for patience fades behind me as I surge up and out of the jungle,
yanking Whipsnap from my belt and alerting the mythological mob to my presence.
As my wind-propelled leap crests at thirty feet and I drop toward a surprised
looking harpie, I see what must have kept Kainda from leaping out of the jungle
alongside me.
    A
thirty-foot tall centaur with an upper torso that has the bulk of a warrior and
the pale gray skin of gatherer, focuses its massive, black eyes on me—
    —and
enters my thoughts.

 
     
    4
     
    It doesn’t
speak, but I can feel its consciousness humming inside my head. Despite the
mental intrusion, I’m committed to my attack. I draw Whipsnap back, aiming to
thrust the bladed end through the breast-bone of the harpie now letting out a
panic-stricken squawk. But as my arm shoves the blade forward, the huge
gatherer-centaur does something to my mind, severing the connection between my
thoughts and my body.
    My
leap becomes a ragdoll tumble. I crash to the ground landing hard in the
trampled grass.
    Then,
something in my mind pushes back.
    Hard.
    The
centaur is repelled, and I regain control of my body as the giant rears back in
pain.
    What was that? I wonder, as I climb to my feet. I was
so taken aback by the appearance and sudden mental intrusion of the Nephilim
centaur that I didn’t have a chance to put up some kind of cerebral fight. The
force that pushed the centaur back wasn’t me, and Ull, my former split
personality with a bad temper, is now fully a part of me. So what repelled the creature?
    A question for another time, I decide as a griffin lunges.
    The
griffin ripples with lion muscles. Its large paws are tipped with eagle talons,
black and needle sharp. Its head is all oversized eagle. Its hooked beak is
open wide, blasting a high-pitched shriek as its ten-foot wings pull it up into
the air above me and then propel it straight down like a two-ton mortar round.
    While
pulling one hand back, readying a strike, I raise the other toward the griffin,
willing the wind to catch its wings. The giant creature should have been
catapulted away.
    But
it continues to dive toward me.
    There
isn’t even a breeze.
    And
I am out of time.
    I
fall back, flat on the grass. A second later, the griffin lands over me, its
lion paws framing me on either side. Its eagle eyes lock onto mine, looking
down at me. Its beak hangs open, as though in surprise. A bead of purple blood
slips down the lower beak, gathering at the end and dangling above my forehead.
    Nephilim
blood can heal a human being, if its severely watered
down. Fresh from the body, even a small amount is enough to kill. Most Nephilim
heal before they can lose too much of it, but this is not a normal demon-child.
The lower beak is filling with the purple fluid.
    The
dangling drop stretches out slowly and then breaks loose. My eyes cross as I
follow the bead of blood’s descent, but I lose sight of it a moment before it
smacks my forehead.
    And
that’s when I feel it.
    Nothing.
    The
fact that these creatures are unable to heal has removed the deadly
side-effects of their inhuman blood. Of course, that also means the griffin
standing above me, with the bladed end of Whipsnap punching all the way through
its neck, is about to collapse.
    Pushing
hard with my feet, I slide out from under the griffin just in time. The ground
shakes as the heavy beast lolls to the side and topples over. Purple blood
oozes into the grass around its head.
    When
the