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sand with a dull thud. Cyrus turned on the next creature, a middle-aged woman in a tattered silk dress with masses of damp stringy hair hanging down in her face like a dingy wedding veil. The zipper down the back of the woman's dress had ripped and rolls of yellowed skin bulged out like dumplings cooked in greasy fat. |
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Even as a wolf, Cyrus had a hard time attacking a woman. He tried to just knock her off her feet, but his paw went right through her back and came out her chestand the woman kept right on walking. |
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He forgot about being Mr. Nice Wolf and removed the woman's head with one quick snip of his jaws. |
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The surviving zombies seemed unaware that their numbers had been cut in half. They were still slogging through the sand with their decaying brains locked on Kyna like a pair of two-legged cruise missiles. Cyrus took a moment to rid his mouth of the taste of rotting flesh and to line up his next target. This one had been young when he died, no more than thirty. And from the way he was dressed, the man could have been a lawyer. Cyrus had no qualms about attacking a lawyer. He extended his claws and as he streaked past, he reached up and clipped the man's head from his shoulders as neatly as snipping a rose from a rosebush. |
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However, just as Cyrus made ready to take out the last creature, a freak gust of wind from the sea brought a new smell to pique his sensitive nose. He stopped short and raised his lupine head to check on Kyna. She was still crouched on the other side of the tree, anxiously staring in his direction. Everything seemed okay, but . . . |
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Later Cyrus would conclude that his instincts had been dulled by his lust to destroy. But right then, he dismissed the smell as a dead seal or sea otter that had washed up on the beach and gave his attention to his last opponentthe walking corpse of an old man with skin so thin that it was almost transparent. As he approached, Cyrus felt a totally atypical |
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