“Okay,” Envy said. “I’m out.”
Kyle’s eyes bulged. “I paid you, you maggot!”
“Not enough,” Envy said.
The vamp grabbed him, swinging the navigator over its back, and dashed away, leaping over people and dodging beasts. A moment and it vanished into the glass forest.
Kyle’s face turned purple in a fit of sudden rage. He struggled to say something.
Spurned by their parent’s roar, the creatures slunk toward the larger group.
Felipe grabbed my arm. “Help us!”
“Why?” I was done with the civil servant bit. It was no longer my job to save every idiot from the consequences of their own stupidity. They walked into the Glass Menagerie on their own, knowing the risks. Why should I put my life in danger for the people who tried to sic a vamp on me? I owed them nothing. I just had to get the information I needed from Kyle and make sure that Ascanio and I got out of there in one piece.
The beasts circled the larger group. The workers hugged the glass wall. It wouldn’t be long now before one of the creatures got brave enough.
“Please!” Felipe’s eyes were desperate. “My son is down there.”
So what? Everyone was somebody’s husband, wife, somebody’s son, somebody’s Baby Rory…
Aw, shit.
I looked at Felipe’s face and saw Nick there. Their features were nothing alike, but that’s exactly what Nick must’ve looked like when told his wife was dead. Felipe stared at me with wide-open eyes, desperate and terrified, his face sharpened, as if he were about to wince in pain and cry out. Every wrinkle gouged his skin like a scar. All of the rules society imposed on men, all of the obligations to be the brave one, to never panic, to handle themselves with stony dignity, all of them were wiped away, because he was about to lose his son. He was helpless. He begged me for his child’s life and I knew that he would trade places with his boy without a moment’s hesitation.
I couldn’t just stand there and watch him as his son was eaten alive. It was not in me. The person who would walk away from that man wasn’t who I was or wanted to be.
I slipped the scabbard off my arm and handed it to Ascanio. “Arrow!”
He yanked an arrow out and put in my palm. I notched it. “I’ll be shooting fast. Have the next arrow ready.”
I drew the bow.
The bravest beast jumped, aiming for the nearest worker.
The bow string and the arrow sang together in a vicious happy duet. The arrowhead sliced into the creature’s throat. The first beast fell, hissing, trying to swipe at the shaft with its paw. The arrow whined. A blue light sparked at the wound and the beast exploded.
I held my hand out and Ascanio put another arrow into it.
The second beast followed the first. A moment later, the second explosion hurled chunks of flesh and bone into the pack. I didn’t have time to watch. I kept shooting, fast, precise, filling the air with arrows.
The beasts panicked. They dashed to and fro amidst their exploding siblings, biting and clawing at each other. The Mother Beast roared, snapping massive jaws at random, unable to figure out what was killing her babies.
“Run!” I screamed.
The workers dashed toward us, running along the wall. The beasts chased them. The air whistled in a nonstop deadly chorus, as my arrows found targets.
Felipe grabbed a pickaxe out of another man’s hands and ran toward the group. A woman to my left charged in after him, and so did Tony—the guard—and two others.
One of the workers, a small woman, stumbled, fell, and slid down the glass slope. Two beasts fell on her, ripping into the woman with wet, gurgling growls. I sank two arrows into them, but it was too late. The woman screamed, a short guttural cry, cut off in mid-note. Blood drenched the glass. A moment later the arrow detonated and human and beast rained over the glass in a bloody deluge.
The first runner made it to the tent and collapsed behind me. The rest followed. Finally Felipe and the dark-skinned guard made it in, both splattered with gore.
The Mother Beast spun toward us. Finally found the enemy, did you?
“Form a perimeter!” I barked. “Time to fight for your lives! Use whatever you got.”
The workers scrambled to form a line.
The monster ducked her head, and I saw a narrow slit in her carapace, located high between her eyes. Soft pink tissue expanded and contracted, filling the foot-wide slit and then retracting. Hello, target.
The beast swung her head again and bellowed in my direction. The wave of sound hit me like the roar of a tornado. I’d have to take the mother out or none of us would get out alive.
“Can I shift now?” Ascanio asked.
“Yes. Now.”
Ascanio’s skin ruptured. Powerful muscle wound about his skeleton, skin sheathed it, and pale brownish-gray fur sprouted through it. A dark mane grew on his head and dripped down the back of his neck, over his spine. Pale stripes sliced his forelimbs, ending in five-inch claws. His face, like his body, became a meld of human and striped hyena. His eyes flashed with red.
The Mother Beast lifted one colossal front paw and took a step forward. The ground shook.
The bouda opened his mouth and roared back, breaking into bloodcurdling hyena laughter. My hackles rose. There’s my pretty boy.
“Keep her occupied!” I barked. “Make her face this way.”
Ascanio leaped over the workers’ heads and dashed down to the monster. He swatted a smallish beast out of the way. It yelped and the behemoth swung in his direction.
I drew my bow. Not yet.
Ascanio backhanded another creature.
Not yet. I had time.
The behemoth ducked down, snarling.
Not yet…
The huge teeth snapped at Ascanio. He ducked, escaping by a couple of inches.
I let the arrow go. It sliced through the air, propelled as much by the bowstring as by my will, and sliced straight into the unprotected area of her head. Yes! Nailed it!
The arrow whined and exploded. Blood shot out of the behemoth’s nostrils. She shook her head…and charged Ascanio. He leaped up and left, bounced off the glass, and jumped behind her, slicing the behemoth’s leg with his claws on the way.
Damn it. It didn’t even faze her.
Ascanio and my arrows weren’t doing enough damage. Neither would machetes. We could hack at her all day, and we’d do no good.
The behemoth chased Ascanio. The boy jumped back and forth, dashing like some mad rabbit. He couldn’t keep this up forever.
If only we had something, some weapon, something…
The monster swung her tail, right over the heavy jackhammer laying abandoned on the glass. It was still attached to the tank by the hose that pumped enchanted water into it. The hose was way too short to reach the beast.