Pulse

SIXTY- THREE

Bishop swung high, bringing the blade straight down as the first Hydra head shot toward him. The razor-sharp machete cut cleanly through the snout of the Hydra's open maw. But as the injured head reared back, stitching back together, a second was already striking. A third followed seconds later.

Moving backward, Bishop swung the blade as fast as he could, hacking at the barrage of heads. The Hydra kept on healing and striking, but its low tolerance for pain kept an injured head from attacking until it was fully healed. Despite Bishop's efforts, each attack pushed him back and came closer to striking home. It was a losing fight.

As two heads struck at once from the front, Bishop swung horizontally, hoping to cut through both heads, but he failed to see a third head striking from the right. Instead of biting, it rammed his legs. Bishop fell to the side, causing the two striking heads to miss the mark, but the impact was enough to break his leg and jar the blade from his hand. The blade twisted through the air and fell into the grass, hard to see, impossible to reach.

An intense itch ate at Bishop's leg as the bone reset and mended. He could feel the sinews and veins as they stretched out to each other and bonded. He growled in annoyance and fought to stand, but the Hydra was upon him. Pain shot through his legs as jaws clamped tight around both his calves. The Hydra's hooked teeth easily pierced and clung to his flesh and bones. The head yanked him off the ground and tossed him into the air. When he landed, twenty feet away, already healing from the deep puncture wounds, the beast was upon him. This time it took him by the waist and threw him again, playing with him like a cat does a mouse.

Bishop landed hard on his side, breaking his arm. He screamed with rage as he stood again. The Hydra pounded toward him. But rather than run away or wait to be tossed again, Bishop charged with a battle cry. As he ran he took out a small throwing knife and clutched it in the hand of his freshly healed arm. It wouldn't do much damage, but it was something.

Knight pulled himself up using the Tahoe's rear door handle. He leaned against the SUV's side and watched with horror as Bishop was tossed into the air like a rag doll. As Bishop was released by the Hydra, a trail of blood followed his arc through the air, but disappeared before he landed, fully healed. He was being torn apart and put back together again, over and over, and he was taking it all without losing his mind or focus on his enemy. Not yet, anyway.

Bracing himself against the SUV, Knight limped to the back of the vehicle and threw open the rear hatch. He lifted a plastic panel, revealing a keypad, and typed in a code. A lock clicked open. He pulled the panel up and looked at the assortment of weapons, from small arms to claymore mines to heavy-hitting assault rifles, which is what he was after. He took out a spare SOPMOD M4 with attached 40mm grenade launcher, already loaded, and hobbled back around the

SUV.

When he faced the battle once more, a smell carried by the breeze struck him. It was a mix of coppery blood tinged with something foul, like fish that had been left to rot and bloat in the sun. Knight watched as the Hydra, charging at Bishop once more, slipped in the grass. Red liquid splashed around its massive paws. The field was covered in blood, both Bishop's and the Hydra's. The copper smell was Bishop's blood. The rancid smell belonged to the Hydra.

Fighting his gag reflex, Knight took aim, but what he saw next kept his trigger finger from squeezing. Bishop was charging the beast head-on like he was Superman about to stop a runaway train. It was madness.

He watched as three of the heads launched forward, jaws open. They would have torn Bishop to pieces if he hadn't slid down onto the grass like a baseball player stealing second. The momentum carried him forward as the Hydra's charge carried it over him. He slid beneath its belly, jabbed the small knife up, and carved a three-foot incision into the creature's belly. As the blade cut through the thick flesh it made a sound like paper being torn. The knife snagged on a bone and was torn from Bishop's hand. But the damage had been done.

The Hydra toppled onto its side as its entrails spilled out and dragged through the grass behind it, unraveling like an anchor line. Its head swung up and around, biting at the exposed guts as the wound tried to seal. But with too much flesh in the way, the wound remained open, seeping more rank blood into the grass. The Hydra flailed madly, but soon focused on the source of its continuing pain. It quickly bit away chunks of its own organs, snapping through them and discarding the shriveling meat. It stopped when the wound was clear and free to heal over.

Knight took aim at the stationary Hydra, but Bishop stood in his line of fire. "Bishop!" he shouted. "Get down!"

Before the big man could move, one of the Hydra heads, attracted by the sound of Knight's voice, turned and found Bishop. It struck out, catching him by the waist. The head clamped down and twisted like a crocodile, tearing out a large chunk between his rib cage and hip bone. Bishop cried out and fell to the ground. A second head shot toward the prone man as the Hydra righted itself. But the strike never finished. A glowing burst of tracer bullets shot from the sky like a laser beam, striking the head and reducing it to the consistency of pulled pork. The headless neck flailed like a dying snake as the other six turned upward.

Knight followed the Hydra's gaze. A hel icopter circled and unleashed a second round of Gatling-gun fire, striking Hydra's side. With a rattling roar, the Hydra quickly healed and stomped off in pursuit of the helicopter, which stayed just high enough not to be caught, but low enough to entice the beast.

As the chopper spun around the quad, laying down bursts of powerful Gatling rounds, Knight noticed a small black speck in the sky above. Its boomerang shape brought a smile to his face. The cavalry had arrived.