Page 76 of The Mirror of Beasts

“Oh gods, oh gods!” Wyrm cried, scrambling onto unsteady feet. Using the distraction, he fled for the open library door without a backward glance, twisting away from the rattling bodies. At the first snap of bone, I knew, with horrifying certainty, it had been a mistake not to follow him.

That sickening sound, the gurgle of entrails shifting, of cartilage stretching and remaking—that was one I recognized.

From Cabell’s transformations.

“What in all the hells …,” Emrys breathed out.

Spidery limbs and blood exploded out of the man’s chest at my feet, his skin stretching and tearing as his spine pulled apart, spiking through his flesh, through the ragged remains of his tuxedo jacket. His back curled up like an animal stretching after a long sleep, and when he lifted his clawed-off face, it had become a familiar gray mask of death.

He—it—rose on long, sticky-wet legs, bringing its glowing white eyes level with mine. My mind screamed for me to move, but I couldn’t. My feet had turned to stone. The stench of rot billowed around me as the creature’s jaws broke and remade themselves into a snout, as its remaining teeth became silvery knives beneath its bloodless lips.

The heat of its baying screech blew my hair back from my face, splattering me with foaming spittle that burned everywhere it touched.

Terror, as it turned out, was its own kind of thrall. It held me there like a helpless prisoner as the corpses rose as Children of the Night.

They moved as one, circling us with a predator’s delight. They had woken starving—many devoured the discarded flesh or the half-transformed monsters, shredding them before they could fully rise. The hall shifted before my eyes, smearing into that of a dead forest. Smoke became mist.

I couldn’t move.

Time unspooled violently around me. At the edge of my vision, Neve lifted her hands to cast a spell, her lips barely parting before she was knocked back to the floor with a single blow. The sound her skull made as it collided with the wood echoed in my ears as she lay unmoving beneath the monster.

“Neve!” Caitriona launched her spear into the back of the monster. The weapon splintered as it soared through the air, embedding itself like a spray of arrowheads in the writhing body.

If she was shocked, Caitriona took it in her usual stride, leaping forward to rip the largest piece of the spear out of the monster’s convulsing body. The scattered pieces flew toward that largest one, reassembling in her hand in the instant before she threw it into the next creature that tried to claw Neve away from us. Caitriona slid across the distance between them on her knees, covering the sorceress with her body.

It was the last thing I saw before I was falling too.

The hard shove knocked me sideways, robbing the breath from my lungs even before I slammed into the floor and a heavy weight collapsed on top of me. A ragged shout of pain blossomed like a blood-red rose.

Everything came into sharp relief as Emrys tried to stand again, one hand clutching the ragged claw marks slashed across his chest from shoulder to hip, as if he could hold the skin together by force.

Blood spilled out between his fingers as he gasped for breath. He staggered, dropping to a knee. He met my horrified gaze with one of total resignation. The Children skittered toward him from all directions.

“No!” The word tore out of me as I leapt to my feet, flinging broken furniture, discarded weapons, anything I could find. Nothing held them back for more than a second. Nothing would, but fire.

“Cait, please!” I shouted. “Please, you have to!”

She knew what I was asking her—it was the only option left to us.

Her fingers worked furiously, creating a flow of symbols, calling the magic of the Goddess in the way that was uniquely hers. Summoning fire.

But none came.

Her head shot up in disbelief. I watched in growing fear as she tried again, alternating between striking the Children and trying to eke a single flame out of the darkness around her. Her shoulders shook as the movements grew more and more frantic.

Emrys collapsed to the floor, blood flowing out of him in dark rivers. One of the Children bent over him, ripping the collar away from his shirt to get at his exposed neck.

A thunderous roar and flash exploded from behind me, and the creature’s head was blown clean off its body. Oily blood sloshed out from its torso as it collapsed to the floor, thrashing in the throes of death.

Nash emerged from the whirling smoke, a hunting rifle raised to his eye, firing at the creatures again to drive them back. He turned the barrel up toward the chandeliers, firing at their chains until they crashed down around us. The twinkling crystals shattered, slicing through the Children who couldn’t jump away in time.

More rose, screeching with the rage of the newly born. They were drawn to the thunderous sound of the gunfire and bounded away from us, toward him. Their claws tore the freezing air, primed for his own flesh.

“Nash!” I screamed.

His cool expression never wavered. He lifted the gun’s sights again and, this time, kicked one of the large barrels strewn across the floor toward them. The Children vaulted over it, but the bullet was faster, igniting the whiskey inside.

The explosion flashed hot and bright. My ears rang as I tasted the burn of it with my next gulping breath. The Children scattered back toward the window, stopping only to feast on the severed limbs of those caught in the blast.

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