27

I reached down to my belt, grabbed another pepper vial, and flung it at the ogre’s face, but he ducked his head to the side, sending the projectile sailing into the darkness beyond. I’d already used all my smoke bombs. My syringes hadn’t lasted much longer. I’d even lost Daisy. I didn’t have anything else.

Then I remembered the knife.

Of course, Tall and Scary stopped playing fair the moment my vial of toxins went whizzing past his face. As I realized stabbing the guy in his fleshy bits was a worthwhile endeavor, he slammed into me, picked me up, and chucked me into a pile of barrels.

My entire body cried out as I hit the aged oak. If I’d yet to break any bones, it was only through sheer luck and my heavy consumption of milk as a child. Every muscle ached, reminding me that getting beaten to a pulp after nearly dying in a three-story fall wasn’t the healthiest of exercises.

The ogre pulled me from the pile. I tore into him with every ounce of strength I had left, blasting him in the chest with punches, driving knees and kicks into his gut and shins.

I think it surprised him, sort of in the way a boulder is surprised when you try punching it to death, too. He grunted and tossed me again.

I flew like a wet rag, hitting the floor with a slap. I skidded to a stop near the lantern. Somewhere in the distance, I heard footsteps and voices.

The ogre approached me, flexing his fists. “Playtime’s over, pal. Time for me to have some fun.”

I strained my ears, praying for a miracle, ideally one outfitted in riot gear and with an angry 5^th Street Precinct Captain bringing up the rear guard.

My heart deflated when I heard the noxious, oily voice from the meeting, quiet and distant. “Go, my darling. End this.”

The ogre stepped over me. In the background, I heard the same clack-clack-clack, drag from before. The sweat on my arms and face went cold, and goosebumps rippled across my arms.

The ogre heard it, too. “Uh…boss?”

He looked into the smoke, past the pile of old crates at my back, his eyes narrowing. Then they widened. He froze, and like a statue, fell over with a crash.

Fear gripped me in an icy embrace. I trembled as the clack-clack-clack of the claws closed in on me, wanting to run but unable to get my legs to obey. Images of Shay laughing, smiling, lying naked in my arms flashed before me, as did the horrifying images of death from the last two days. Biggie. The room full of gang leaders. Now Tall and Scary. What would the Captain and Rodgers and Quinto do when they found me? Had Shay already suffered the fate that awaited me?

The click of the claws raked trails of fear into my heart. I forced myself to think back, to remember that Bonesaw and his boss had survived whatever lingered behind me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off the ogre’s body.

My eyes.

I lashed out, smashing the lantern Tall and Scary had brought with him. The flame within flickered and dimmed. I slammed on it with my arm, smothering it and plunging my surroundings into darkness. Then I squeezed my eyes shut tight for good measure.

Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps the beast I thought approached was an old wives’ tale and I was about to dying a horrifying death regardless, but why take any chances?

The clack-clack-clack, drag sounded once more, incredibly close, so close that I thought I might be able to reach out and touch the source of its haunting tenor. In the distance, I heard the oily voice. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

I stretched my ears, searching for nearby breath or motion, but I couldn’t sense any, in part because of my body’s betrayal. My heart beat heavy in my chest, blood pounded in my ears, and I couldn’t still my heavy breathing. In addition, rather than making my senses more acute, my self-imposed visual depravation made me hyperaware of my aches and pains. The stabbing sensation in my lower back, the itching in my throat, and the burning in my eyes, to name a few.

I reached out my left hand, wondering if the sounds had been all in my head, a physical manifestation of my fear. Maybe I’d been wrong. Perhaps Biggie and the gang leaders had died through a dark ritual, an obscure bit of black magic. Perhaps I wasn’t being stalked by a cockatrice or basilisk or medusa. If so, I’d have to rethink my strategy, because—

I heard a nearby hissing, a long slow exhale, then cried out as a dozen sharp teeth latched onto the flesh of my hand. I tried to pull back, but the powerful bite held me in place. Whatever manner of beast held me in its jaws yanked, sending me crashing into it.

My first instinct was to protect my eyes with my free arm, but as I fell, off-balance, into the creature, I think I smacked it in its face with my elbow. It hissed again, refusing to let go of my hand. It must’ve tossed its head, because my arm wrenched violently to the side. I skidded across the floor, feeling the shattered remains of the lantern’s glass globe crunch underneath me. My hand screamed in pain. Then I woofed as a hundred and fifty pounds of beast landed on me.

I gasped, trying to refill my lungs following the body slam. A noxious wave of ferret stink filled my nostrils, hot and moist and putrid. The creature growled again. Its rough tongue scraped against my hand, lapping up the blood that seeped into its mouth. Claws dug into my shoulder, pricking me through the thick leather of my jacket.

I punched with my free hand, and I think I landed a blow to its head.

The creature didn’t even grunt.

I pulled back and slammed another punch into the creature’s skull, then another, but the beast’s thick, scaly hide deflected my blows. I might as well have been punching a bag of wet sand. The creature simply growled again through its clenched teeth.

Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I caught a malevolent, satisfied tone in the growl. My arm pressed forward into my chest. The acrid odor intensified. Hot breath caressed my face, and my eyes began to burn. Not as they had from the pepper bomb. Much more than that. A searing sensation, like my eyes might self-combust. I wanted to pull back, but the floor wouldn’t let me. Then I saw them. Two orbs of light, murky and indistinct but visible all the same through my eyelids.

I turned away as I rained more blows at the creature’s head, knowing my waning strength, the beast’s thick skin, and my compromised position made them as effective as a toddler’s blows, yet still I tried. Thump. Maybe if I hit it in the neck. Whump. The eyes. Thwack. My hand ached. I gasped for air.

What was the definition of insanity again? Trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results? I had to try something new. Anything.

Ignoring the pain in my hand, I kicked up as hard as I could, trying to toss the creature over my head. I maybe lifted it an inch off the ground. It may not have outweighed me, but it had all the leverage, not to mention an inhuman strength.

The murky eye glow intensified. I tried again, kicking with all I was worth. Something dug into my thigh: a sharp, directed prick, not like the pincer grip of the claws.

My knife!

I slipped my hand to my belt, managing to tear the blade from its sheath despite the creature’s bulk atop me. My eyes burned with an impossible fury, feeling as if I’d plunged my face into an inferno.

I drove the blade into the creature’s back. It slipped and skidded off the monster’s skin.

I tried again. This time the blade bit for a fraction of a second before slipping.

The creature growled, pushing its hot, fetid snout into my face, still refusing to let go of my hand. My face boiled, and yet I kept my eyes shut.

One last try. I flipped the blade over and plunged it with all the strength I could muster into the beast’s belly, right at the side where it lay atop me.

The creature’s skin ripped, and I felt the blade drive to the hilt. The creature hissed and roared, letting go of my hand, causing a fresh wave of agony to ripple down my arm.

I took advantage of the moment, pushing off with my free arm and pulling down on the knife with the other. Flesh tore. Hot blood slicked my knife hand. The beast reared. I rolled, and my knife pulled free of the wound.

I stumbled to my feet, my eyes still closed but suddenly free of their supernatural burning, back instead to their more mundane pepper-induced anguish. I didn’t dare open then, and I’d lost all sense of direction as soon as the beast had latched onto me.

Apparently, it could still see, despite the darkness. It could also still move, despite its wound. It slammed into me low. I toppled backwards, stumbling into a taut rope. I burned my mangled hand as I scrambled for purchase before tumbling into a soft pile—the sand-filled canvas bags I’d sent crashing down on their pulleys.

I heard another clack-clack-clack, followed by a drag like before, this time right in front of me. I scrambled back and tucked my legs. A whoosh of air and a snap of jaws nearly ensnared my foot, catching me instead on the pant leg, but I ripped them free.

Grunting, I flipped over backward, rolling over the bags, using the one taut rope to steady myself. The sand bags shook as the creature slammed into them a fraction of a second later, hissing and growling in anger.

My heart pounded, my hands were slick with blood, and I could hear concerned shouts in the distance. I needed to kill the beast and get out while I could, but how? The creature’s belly was its weakness, not its back. It would take a blow greater than I could deliver to damage it.

My musings on the nature of physics came back to me in a rush. What comes up must come down. The only question was, on which side of the sand bags?

Oh, well. A fifty-fifty chance was better than none at all. I fumbled for the rope with my wounded hand, found it, then delivered a sweeping slash at it with my knife.

It sliced through with barely a hitch. I heard a whirr of a pulley, and I threw myself backward in desperation.

I managed to crack my head against something in the process, but it was worth it. A bone-crunching crash and an inhuman cry rewarded me in recompense.

I tried to steady my breathing, counting to ten before opening my eyes. In front of me, shrouded in darkness but visible against the smoky background, lay Pipehands’ broken body, twisted at an unnatural angle. Underneath him was a creature unlike any I’d ever seen, an enormous lizard, covered in dark gray scales, with powerful legs and three inch claws. Its eyes lay closed, but it appeared to be breathing shallowly.

I closed the distance in a long stride, pulled up on its head, and drove my knife into the underside of its jaw, averting my eyes as I did so. It whined and gurgled weakly, its life force mostly spent by my slash to its stomach and Pipehands' dying blow.

I stood and looked around, trying to orient myself in the lingering smoke and the darkness. Footsteps approached, and I needed to get out. I had nothing left to fight with, no weapons, no energy, no desire.

I stumbled around the edge of the crates through which the ogre had tossed me, hoping it led to the sewer entrance.

I guessed both right and wrong. The sewer hatch materialized out of the smoke in front of me as I ran, lit by the flickering glow of the lantern in the subbasement, but another form appeared alongside it. A huge one. Six feet eight inches tall and four hundred pounds, with a glistening shaved head, tattoos staining his chocolatey skin, and a menacing grin stretching his face.

“Well, well,” he said, stepping forth. “If it isn’t Jake Daggers. I should’ve known this was all ’cause of you.”

My heart sank and I took a deep breath. “Bonesaw. I was hoping to find you, just not right now.”

The oily voice cried out behind me. “No! NO! You killed her! HOW?”

“Over here, boss,” called Bonesaw.

I glanced at the smoke. It was rapidly dissipating. I could try to run, but I couldn’t hide. Also Bonesaw was quicker than his four hundred pounds would suggest, if memory served me right.

“Nice job at Coldgate,” I said, stalling for time. “You fooled the guards there, if not me. Winds of Change, eh? How’re you liking your new home?”

“I’m loving it,” he said. “Though it’s not as new as you think.”

The befuddlement must’ve been evident on my face, but I didn’t get a chance to ask him about it. I heard footsteps behind me, and saw the glow of a lantern.

“You,” said the oily voice. “You murdered my pet.”

I turned and blinked as I took stock of the man who stood there, a lean, wiry sort with medium length wavy brown hair and the limber, agile stance of a dancer. An aura of menace surrounded him, but the air of indifference I remembered was gone.

“Sebastian Cobb?” I said.

Suddenly, it made sense. The leader of the Wyverns, the gang Steele and I had busted at the start of winter for dragon trafficking. We’d taken down Bonesaw, not to mention a gang-bought electromancer by the name of Left-Eye Lazarus, but Cobb had escaped. I’d always suspected he was more than the gang’s recruiter, and I still suspected him in the murder of my ex-partner’s friend, Randall Barrett.

“You,” I said. “So the Winds of Change...you’re the Wyverns? That’s how you got the basilisk?”

Cobb panted and snarled, like a rabid dog testing the edge of his leash. “Daggers. You think you’ve won? You think I can’t get another basilisk? She served her purpose. You’re too late. All you’ve succeeded in doing is making me angry, and I have plenty of other tricks up my sleeve, believe me.” He looked up at the sounds of distant fighting, and a sudden gust of wind rattled the windows high above in the rafters. “The Wyverns… Please. The Winds of Change have arrived. And they’re blowing.”

He served me up a retort on a silver platter, but before I was able to explain who exactly was doing the blowing, pain blossomed at the base of my skull and my world went dark.